New Year Music and Musicians Thread

[Wafflenose]

Morning all, and Happy New Year. I decided it was time for a new music thread too. I really enjoy hearing about what everyone (and their DCs) are up to each term, and it's great to hear from new posters too.

I have two DDs. Goo (10) - the child previously known as MiniWaffle. She's not very mini any more... she's 4'10" and catching up with me. Anyway, she plays the recorder, flute, piccolo and a bit of piano when it occurs to her. She is doing Grade 5 Theory and possibly Grade 5 Flute (if the new teacher deems her ready) this term. Next recorder exam will be Grade 7, but possibly not for about 18 months! Am hoping the new flute teacher will also do a bit of piano with her... we'll see.

And Rara (7) - previously known as BabyWaffle - plays the recorder and cello. I was thinking of putting her in for Grade 1 Theory, but she's not keen, so we'll wait. She is in the blissfully calm position of no exams this term - yay!

We all have the local music festival next month. I think Goo is doing 11 Classes, and Rara about 7 (plus possibly helping with some percussion parts). I have 27 groups, pairs and individuals entered, so am going to be busy for the next month or so.

Congratulations Fleur
Making the ABRSM "improve your sightreading" books part of the practise routine for my 2 is definitely working, even though they hate them. It does come with time and getting more secure about key signatures and timing though.

The Paul Harris books are great for sight reading - I really like them. Needless to say, DS2 does not share my opinion. He will not be impressed that this thread has reminded me to chase him to do some!
I won't be taking grade 4 for some time - aiming for December but we'll see. I think Minifleur and MiniGreen are going to get to grade 5 before I do! 😀

Nice one minifleur.

Well done for all the results - and not least Goo's result! In wifi free zone this week do sorry not to post more; still waiting G5 clarinet result. Enjoy the sunshine everyone!

Yes the Paul Harris books are the ones we'll start working with, her teacher was of the principle that you can practice sight reading with new pieces but DD memorieses really quick, from the first time which makes her sight reading poor. Therefore she decided it is time to allocate more time by actually practising from a sight reading book.

loose she won't take grade 5 for a long time based on the list of new repertoire her teacher has in mind. She'll skip the actual exam but just to give her time to play other stuff so I expect it will still take a couple of years before getting to grade 5 standard. Definitely doing some festivals instead to get her used to perform in front of other people. She is only 8 and quite shy so the nerves get in the way a lot of times.

With regards to the secondary school places we'll give it a go for a music place also, but we won't make it a priority as such. At least I don't think we will yet.

Thank you for the good thoughts!

Well done Fleur!

Oh all the best children dislike sight-reading . I sometimes tell my DD (12) she's the better pianist which inevitably causes a cross, noisy protest because I'm "miles better at sight-reading!" i.e. the part that vexes her the most. Nevertheless, she's got more of that built-in 'musicality' stuff and much better technique.

Anyway, DD took her G6 practical last week and after a run of merits she got her very first distinction which of course was extremely pleasing. Then even more pleasing. Plus a bit more pleasing. Grades are such difficult occasions here though. There's never any doubt in my mind that DD is at/above the relevant grade but she's a more introverted, self-critical type who winds herself up extremely tightly, so my delight is really because she held together enough to demonstrate to them what I already knew. This time when she was guided back from the examination room I caught a kindly "..you can relax now and breathe" and it was quite easy to imagine that DD had held her breath for the 20-odd minutes because she looked so taught and flushed. Momentary guilt-trips etc.

The other aspect is this age and (near) teenage um.. volatility. DD goes to a state secondary which tries a bit with music, but this is relatively solitary classical piano, she’s unusually accomplished for her age at that school and there’s very little there for her in a musical sense. On the positive side she managed to escape a primary school ‘friend’ who had spent years slyly dismissing all of her achievements (something recently described as one form of bullying by the ‘Behaviour Tsar’) and now has some lovely, sincere friends who are very encouraging about both this and other areas, but there’s always the risk of “I quit!” and I’m forever tripping over adults who did quit at some point during their teens. Piano was only supposed to be good for DD’s soul and I didn’t care much for grade collecting, but I was outvoted and now that we’re here I’d like her to get the technical foundation finished i.e. that G8. I think this shinier than usual result has happened at just the right time to help keep her motivated.

Congratulations to your DD fleur and of course well done to all the theory passers!

Re sight-reading. Being good at sight-reading on piano takes a lot of practice - it's inherently more difficult than reading a single line of music. I think very musical kids who make rapid progress in terms of the difficulty of the pieces they can play quite often find that sight-reading skills lag behind simply because it's a hard skill that takes a long time to become automatic.

My DD is a terrible sight-reader on piano. She can read a single line of music just fine (she was the best in her theory class at note reading last year and she's a good sight reader on sax and guitar) but reading two staves fluently, while playing the notes at the same time, is quite beyond her! She can make a pretty good stab at playing Chopin nocturnes but I'm not sure she'd pass grade 3 sight reading (actually I'm sure she would fail it lol).

I don't think she will ever sight read well now - when she learns a new piece she memorises it immediately so she never needs to refer to the sheet music. And much of her "leisure" playing is by ear.

Thank you prada!

PiqueABoo your Dd sounds just like mine, an introvert, she doesn't like the idea of performing much, and yes, I even recognise the worry of DD holding her breath for the whole exam duration.

Well done to your DD for her exam result, grade 6 must be a great satisfying achievement!

As expected, I had to spend quite a few minutes to explain why a merit is ok, why a pass is good, why it doesn't matter really what you get as the 10 min in the exam do not really reflect her ability 100% and while I do get the satisfaction of a distinction, even just preparing and taking the exam is an achievement by itself. As I was expecting this I was prepared with treats to celebrate and a new book for DD as a pressie. She was happy in the end.

Thank you Mistigri!

Same with DD mistigri, she only reads the notes once and then never refers to the music sheet again, her memory is impressive.

Hopefully the practice books will improve her sight reading, I am not giving up on it just yet

Your DD has time fleur, mine is a stubborn teenager who isn't interested in or motivated to sight read. I've occasionally tried to encourage her to practice but it always ends in melt down!

I am a very good sight reader on piano mainly because I did piano lessons for about 10 years as a child and for much of that time I hardly practised, so every lesson was basically 30 mins of sight reading ...

[Drat: tuaght->taut]

My daughter is having exactly the same issue with sight reading. She has a photographic memory( which was only highlighted a year ago). It was her strong point in the past where helps her to learn and progress in learning very well( Eg. very good at mental maths, learnt the time tables in 2 months after I sticked the table in the wall, she just memorises it after some glances, knew it by heart by end of year 1) and also helps her to learn the pieces really fast and scores well( Eg. started learning G3 beg Dec, had 2 weeks Xmas off, 3 weeks mid term holidays and took G3 piano test mid March with only around 2 months), the same story to violin. However I found it more of a long term issue rather than her strong point as she is "lazy". She failed her sight reading every single music grades she did( even she had gone through the joining the dots, ABRSM sight reading books), this has brought her down to a string of Merit only while her pieces marks were good. Academically, I found it will be an issue also as she scores 100% on any maths tests however failed to explain the result and "lazy" to think above getting the results(which will be an issue once she starts secondary when maths requires deeper thinking, physics and science are intuitive). Reading and writing is the same story. Arggg!! Most embarrass of all we went to meet her teacher a month ago and read her note on her maths book when her teacher asked her to explain why she got the results "the answers just popped out of my head"!!! I am on the other hand glad that I found out now so I know her weakness and know I need to find a way to help her. Well, it might be in a very long run.

Her teacher suggested to slow her down however I think it comes with practise, might be learning alot of new pieces(however not to the point of perfecting it) and as Loose once suggested if we repractise then start in different places of the pieces

Regarding to practices, we have been having a super relaxing break( lazy), only wandering around and "get wasted"( I am still at work, she is with childcare and they have been going out for coffee, playground, cycling, swimming). Before I was hoping this long Easter break could be productive then it hasnt been proving that way. Well, thats ok then because I feel being lazy myself, we will go out this weekend both days, museums, theatre, eating out, swimming--after all, we need this break!

Oh well, its hard, and when its hard, its exciting, if its too easy then it wont be that fun( trying to remind myself to lift my motivation up)

I think that to get good at sight-reading, it helps to learn a high volume of easier pieces but that's not compatible with getting through grade exams rapidly. In contrast, as a child, I took only three piano exams in nearly 10 years!

DD played a high volume of pieces on recorder, sax and guitar and she's very good at sight reading on those instruments. She has played a small volume of hard pieces on piano and her piano sight-reading is rubbish ...

I'm not sure whether starting in the middle of pieces helps much. DD plays longer pieces now, four or five pages, that have to be broken down into sections to be worked on, and she can do this from memory without a problem (she's clearly using auditory cues not visual ones).

Greenleave : LOL ...but just wondering actually photographic memory should help her in sight reading, may be it is just that she is not trying. Good memory is actually a boon unless they become lazy.

Green the comment on your Dd's maths book reminds me of one I have seen in my Dd's one at parents evening: teacher writing "are you sure?" (Probably to trigger explanation of the result as a response, as the result was correct) and she replied "yes I am"

Mistigri I know what you mean, DD can start a piece at any point now from memory. The way forward suggested by her teacher is assigning lesson time to sight reading exercises and easier pieces aside from also moving forward with harder pieces in order to progress technically. Hopefully it will work.

Mistigri: so it needs time isnt it, and lots of playing new pieces(not repeating it). Its quite hard for a very impatient mom like me, I have to learn it first.

Fleur: she has no shame, she is in real life is very naive, boyish( very active and always smile and most her friends are boys)

"it's a hard skill that takes a long time to become automatic."

Mmm.. I keep telling DD that the essence of sight-reading is recognising all the stuff she alreadys knows how to do without thinking too much. I'm certain that the largest part of her sight-reading improvements over the last year or two are because she's been increasingly finding bits of favourite pop music etc. to tackle. Experience is experience and that makes more of it happen.

"grade 6 must be a great satisfying achievement! "

Well DD looked pleased/satisfied for a little while, but I always struggle to know how deeply because she's such a modest child who doesn't reveal that much. She prefers to quietly blend in with her peers rather than stand out, so rarely makes much noise about achievements. She won't have told anyone at school unless they specifically asked and I bet her reply will have been "Oh I passed". If anyone went on to ask about the nature of that pass then she'll have confessed, but then spent a while explaining how it was simply luck of the day, luck with the sight-reading pieces, aural questions, the examiner etc.

School in terms of the staff e.g. the form-tutor who had to read and sign-off DD's absence to attend the exam, won't have asked how it went. I do wish those daily authority figures would show just a tiny bit of interest because I'm someone else who sorely misses what DD would have got from my mum, but it's yet another state school that can recognise anything unless it's a high academic achievement or one in an extra-curricular activity like this with a strong association with 'middle-class''.

"even just preparing and taking the exam is an achievement by itself."

Definitely. I've never been very religious about 'process praise' but in this scenario I pile everything into that. My praise/reward stuff always happens right after the exam before the result, although this time around she did get an additional little treat (she wanted yet another dystopian novel) for that result.

Does anyone know anything about Electric Guitar grades? DS has been learning the guitar for about 5 years; started with classical and when he was having lessons had got up to about Trinity Grade 4 standard (he was doing pieces and scales just never did any exams). In the past year he has got really into the electric guitar and practises a lot. He is having lessons now where they are mainly working on improvisations I think - I get shown what he's been doing a bit and get to hear lots of guitar playing in general .

Now that DD has done her flute exam I think he's a bit more interested in doing an exam - I know we should ask his guitar teacher but was wondering if anyone here had had experience of electric guitar grades? Have found RGT and Trinity Rock

DS is a very different sort of musician from me - much more instinctive whereas I am the sort to cling to the notated music

Ds has sightreading as his superpower; he's always done well in that section of the exam and he scored 20/20 in his last exam. His teacher practises it in the lesson by playing duets - DS hasn't seen the music before but there's no possibility of stopping or hesitating because teacher will keep on playing. I think the reason that DS is good at it is down to the volume of new music he sees. He plays in two bands, different music keeps on appearing on the stands and it has to be played NOW rather than being prepared for the following week.

It is easier with just the one stave though.

I also think orchestra/bands good for sight reading, although I appreciate this doesnt help with piano!

Congratulations on all those with results.

I knew Goo would get her Distinction Waffle.

Piqueaboo your DD sounds exactly like my 15 year old DD who has just passed Grade 8 sax with Merit. I was just so proud of her for conquering her nerves. For the first time she acknowledged that yes, she could have played better on the day , she plays better than that, but she did the exam and got through without a meltdown! And for those who say exams don't matter, she really, really wanted her Grade 8.

Piqueaboo/raspberry: many congrats, your daughter, story is very motivating, I am learning to praise on effort too.

Icould: playing piano could be quite lonely at first when it's not one of an orchestra instruments!! We received the grade 4 book yesterday and I realised how harder sight reading is compare to G3, there isn't an escape

Miranda I have a Theory student who has been doing his electric guitar exams with Trinity. I don't know much about them, but will ask him if you like. It might be nice for your son to get a qualification for doing something he enjoys.

Speaking of sight reading... now that the Theory and Flute exams are out of the way, I set Goo off on lots of nice new recorder pieces this week. She hadn't really played since the festival in February (except in my Year 5 group at her school... the others are Grades 1 to 2+) so she was a bit rusty. But after 3x45 minute practices, she has two of the Grade 7 pieces practically nailed, and a few other things well on the way. I really want to give her a break from exams next term, and also concentrate on Rara. So I think we're going to miss out Grade 7, and she can do her Grade 8 when she gets there. If she's ready, next spring would work well, as she can play some of her pieces in the festival too. I never thought (until today) that we might be looking at Grade 8 while she's still at primary school! When she's done that, I think she is hoping that her flute will catch up and eventually overtake, because she loves it so much.