Spring/ Summer Music and Musicians Thread

[Wafflenose]

My children go back to school tomorrow, and it's my birthday this week, so it must be properly spring in the UK now, and time for a new thread! Please jump right in by telling us about your DCs' learning (or your own), or by asking any music/ music exam related questions you like. We have lots of experienced music parents and teachers on here, as well as lots of new ones.

I am a music teacher, and mum to Goo (10) and Rara (7). Goo started the recorder and flute when she was tiny (age 3 and 6 respectively), has recently added piccolo, but not very well yet, and is starting piano lessons in a couple of weeks. She has no exams this term, but will probably do Grade 6 Flute in the Autumn and Grade 8 Recorder next Spring. She plays in her school orchestra and recorder groups, South West Music School and NCO, and has her first concert with County Wind Band tonight, after a trial course. She hasn't auditioned to become a member yet, and might not for a few years yet, due to age and time factors.

Rara isn't so musically inclined - she prefers to read and draw, and is also very physically active. However, she is due to take her Grade 2 Cello exam this term, and Grade 3 Recorder in the Autumn - she's currently getting to grips with the treble and loving it!

I think that is normal progress if she is now in Year 4 (or very fast if she's in Year 3, I can't remember) - I know a number of string players who started around the same time as her, and some are now doing Grade 1, with a couple working towards Grade 2. So I wouldn't worry about that side of things - just let her do the next exam when she's ready. What does concern me is the teacher feeling he can't correct her technique - so yes, I would be looking for a specialist teacher at this point, and probably not concentrating on which exam to do for now.

We are all bobbling along OK. Goo started piano yesterday, and is (surprisingly) super keen. The teacher has started her at some point between Initial and Grade 1 level, which is stopping her from getting too frustrated, so that's good. I will hear tonight if Rara's teacher is planning to enter her for Grade 2 Cello this term.

Having read your thread properly, I think I have worked out that she's had 5 terms of lessons, is that right? It sounds like the teacher is worrying about 'progress' (grades!) unnecessarily - she is way ahead of the children at the (expensive private) school I work at who started in the 2014/15 academic year!

Green I have no experience with violin (except that Dd's piano teacher is also a violin teacher and she tells me stuff sometimes) but I would say the view in terms of skipping grades needs to be adjusted. From what you said it sounds to me that the teacher said he'll skip grade 2 and do grade 3 by a certain moment in time and now he wants to do grade 2 exam because of slow progress and position. What I would say is that grade 2 exam would not change her posture or her progress.

What I mean by that is that even when skipping grades the syllabus for that grade needs to be covered otherwise it would leave a gap in knowledge.

So when DD skipped from grade 1 to 3 piano the only thing she skipped was the actual exam preparation, the actual pieces and the exam itself. But she still covered grade 2 scales, grade 2 level pieces (from old syllabus and one from the current syllabus) technical exercises and studies at grade 2 level. Once these were covered she moved onto grade 3 requirements.

So while I understand her teacher feels like there is a big jump between grade 1 and 3 and some work is required I still don't see the benefit of actually sitting the grade 2 exam unless he feels there will be a very long gap between exams and wants to keep your DD motivated by having a goal to achieve.

DD is now skipping grade 4 piano for example (at least that is the plan but the teacher may change her mind) but she did say she has no clue of when DD will be ready for grade 5, maybe next year or in a couple of years. She is doing grade 4 scales and her teacher has a rather long list of repertoire and studies she needs to play before actually looking at exam prep.

Nice to hear Goo is keen on piano, I am sure she will progress well,

Yes, the 2 terms at school didnt progress well at all( almost none was learnt). She has only started properly from March 2015 so its a year ago( she is now in year 3). I am also much worried that he felt so frustrated and not being able to correct her(fix the position, get the technique understood) so much that he offered to come on weekends for free( we pay £50/hour). I know he has been so kind and would like her to progress and we are so much appreciated for it, at the same time, she is a very bright girl, she has hardly ever had an issue with not understand her teacher, tutor. She didnt complain about not understood him either however I could feel her frustration recently compare to grade 1 last year.

waffle good to hear Goo is enjoying her piano playing. You have got very musical kids.

We are also quietly progressing, DD is working on about 5 different areas weekly, fur Elise is her main(ish) piece and it will probably be work in progress for a few good weeks, then burgmuller, Czerny, bartok, scales and the all times hated sight reading exercises daily. Her practice now increased to about 45 min to an hour solid but she doesn't complain, in fact she doesn't realise when the time passes which is good.

Fleur: She did learnt all grade 2 scales and played well 2 grade2 pieces and only started grade 3 pieces and scales 6 weeks ago. I have never had him feeling frustrated with her for the last 2 years and a half, he is a very patient and good teacher. The only thing I am thinking of is he might be better with piano rather than violin.
(by the way, after telling her that mini Fleur was learning "fur Elise" then last night I heard 2 pages of fur Elise(mostly sight reading only) from her. So surprise, she might got the motivation to lean it herself from learning that miniFleur is learning it too.

Green does she want to do grade 2? DD is not very keen on exams, she is ok taking them but she'd rather have them less often. If she achieved two pieces and scales already at that level and she is keen I would let her take it next term in June.

The reason Dd's teacher skipped grade 2 was because she believed she was higher than grade 1 when she did the grade 1 exam so grade 2 preparation would have been holding her back.

Now she decided to skip grade 4 as she doesn't want to "waste" the actual prep time on it, so playing pieces at that level and higher, scales, sight reading but not actually sitting the exam. She did say she may change her mind though if she sees DD loosing motivation without an immediate future goal.

Well done to minigreen on sight reading fur Elise.

Green, is she playing violin for that whole hour is it split rate between piano/violin? It's a long time for that age otherwise, I would recommend longer lesson times for the higher grades unless she has great concentration!

It's a tricky balance - progress vs getting technique basics right. I would definitely say (now, with hindsight) focus on technique correction, as this will help her fly later. But, this can be counter-argued if the violin is not her first love and that a decent level of competency is the objective to gain access to orchestras/ensembles and general musicianship. It really depends on what your daughter wants out of her violin learning, and maybe there may be some inadvertent pressure to rush her slightly, as vibrato was also on topic recently? 127 is a very decent mark for G1, some schools like my DD's wouldn't teach in-school until start of Y3.

I cannot comment on the quality of your teacher, but the fact that he is prepared to give extra support is encouraging...though at £50 per hour, you are also paying top dollar, even at London rates so make the most of it!

Green as you know I teach my own DC violin and viola but I am not a professional and mine are older so am reluctant to comment on specifics. However one of the best tips I can give for passively improving technique without causing frustration all round is to go to some high quality concerts. Ideally you need to be close enough to the stage to see posture, left hand position and bowing and the better quality you are watching the better. We are very fortunate to be able to go to Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Scottish Symphony Orchestra performances regularly. They do short children's concerts in the middle of the day at weekends and there is usually an opportunity to catch informal performances in the foyer beforehand and talk to the musicians afterwards. (I kid on I am taking the DC and get to listen to some fab live performances just for myself)

I couldn't agree more, howabout - we're lucky to have some great children's concerts near us as well, and it's been really useful for DD to see how she needs to hold the cello. (They also tend to put on tea and cake afterwards which is an added bonus...)

Totally agree with Howabout - DD still loves going to concerts and is hugely inspired.

Still waiting for our mid March result......assumption is the whole four days of sessions has gone into serious moderation; not sure how they can moderate that much without videotapes etc....?

Fleur: she has never said she hates tests/exams. We jumped to grade 3 because g1 was so effortless(only a merit but nearl max marks on all 3 pieces, screwed on scales and sight reading). The grade 2 pieces were learnt so fast too. I knew it is a jump and expect efforts, frustration etc however never thought it was from our teacher.
Ealing: my main aim is being able to join orchestra and to be noticed(meaning playing well at a good level in secondary, so she could eventually play quality music) so playing variety of pieces is equally as important as technique(however ofcourse she needs to get the technique right too).
How: so true, we started doing it since last November, I will need to look into it more, there are so much going on in London at all level too. We always got the nearest seats, one time was in the front row and I could see how much she is into it, its mesmerising. Last few concerts we went we waited outside the stage to be able to meet the main solo and both of the time we were asked who is my daughter having her violin lesson with. They both had lessons from some popular teacher(to be honest I have no idea who they are). But my impression was they were succesful because they had right teachers.

If its a huge difference at g3 having an excellent teacher for violin then I should look around. We found our current teacher on google search so he wasnt recommended by anyone. He is although a ver kind, nice teacher and very patient toward my daughter that I have nothing to complain.

She has 1.5 hours each week with him and in the past it was mostly on piano. She needed very little time for her violin and she still progressed well. Last lesson he spent nearly 2 hours with her on violin only and today I received an email asking if we are free this weekend and he would like to offer a lesson for free as the last lesson didnt go well and she couldnt get the technique right.
She practises 30 mins each day and its ok to do 45 mins if it needs much more than that for grade 3 and above then I am not too sure to compensate on other things she should do too. Awhgg!!!

My DS did his grade 2 violin and passed with flying colours but he was already learning the 3rd position by then. He's now doing grade 3 pieces and I said that we are not going to be too bothered about exams. I think grade 3 is a big jump because of having to learn the 3rd position, and it takes a while to get that.

(DS does about 10 minutes practice about 3/4 days a week only. )

Neverever: how long has he been learning g3 and how long in total has he been learning violin, how is is he(sorry too many question otherwise its very hard for me to weight), yes and third position is another thing she hasnt got it right

green, she sounds hugely committed, which is half the battle. Progress is full of many walls, and some lessons don't go quite right with frustrations from both sides. The number of melt downs we've had over the years, always followed by the teacher in question saying 'maybe I was too hard, pushed too much' etc. But...the next few lessons, it comes together...honestly, until the next hurdle...

Good luck with the weekend's lesson if you take him up on it - 2 hours is a long time to spend on one instrument in one go to overcome technique so completely understandable she may have got burnt out. For G3, 30 mins is plenty time for daily practice, you just want to ensure she is drilling the problem areas in short bursts otherwise frustration may put her off her violin altogether. She's good, and doing just fine, and will hopefully be motivated by others' suggestions of exposure to more performances too.

green He's 9. Gr 2 last Christmas but started to learn shifting maybe about last summer. His old teacher was really pushy with him and got him on stuff that was quite hard but he could cope. There's been a change of teacher and he started Gr 3 pieces just before the break. He started about 4 years ago.

I just showed her his email after putting the little one to bed and I told her we might need to stop the lesson with him because he couldnt get you do it as he wanted and she will have to go back to the school lesson. Then she said she will try again this Saturday, she doesnt want to go back because it doesnt go anywhere.

Here is what he wrote:

"wasn't working properly, wasn't fully focusing. I had to repeat the same things again and again, gave her many examples by playing the violin to show what I meant, but she wouldn't change and played in the same way. I noticed that she paid very little attention when I was explaining and giving examples. wasn't working properly, wasn't fully focusing. I had to repeat the same things again and again, gave her many examples by playing the violin to show what I meant, but she wouldn't change and played in the same way. I noticed that she paid very little attention when I was explaining and giving examples.

I'm so dissatisfied with yesterday, that I want to see her as much as I can this week to prevent her practising in the wrong way by herself at home. Don't worry, I'm not going to charge for the extra lessons"

Neverever: what pieces he is doing now, my daughter is doing "Pastime with good company", "over the rainbow" and "america". Over the rainbow is done however the vibrato hasnt come. America is terribly out of tune and Pastime has only just started. Our teacher comes to us and its a 1-2-1 lesson. To be honest 15mins is very short. Playing a piece is around 2-3 mins however there is always some rest, turning around so if its only 15mins then she might only have 1 piece played 3 times without any scales and arpeggios

America. Just started Theme and variation.

His old teacher spent a fair bit of effort at the correct hold and posture. But DS is receptive even though he never quite looked like he was paying attention ...

Green
I'm sure your teacher knows not to endlessly repeat something to a kid if it's not making sense to them. I'm sure he knows to change what he's saying or doing?

Green - does your DD enjoy the lessons? It is possible that the teaching style just doesn't suit her. It does seem like rapid progress to date so it maybe a longer period of consolidation is needed for technique - when this has happens with dd teachers have focused on studies scales and non grade pieces for a period. I wonder if that is an idea? I think a number of us said before that vibrato is a work in progress for quite some time, and to be expect it that much (or even at all) at grade 3 is perhaps not necessary.

Sorry just some thoughts - but extra free lessons sounds a little unusual unless the tax her is trying to find a way to make it work between you all and investing time to see if that is possible?

Teacher not 'tax her'!

Musicmom: yes, we havent been practising vibrato that much as we know its very hard and she could get away with it now so I dont think he meant vibrato alone. I felt his frustration as for the last 2.5 yrs he has never offered an extra lesson. Recently he stays slightly later than 1.5hr however before it was very strict 1.5hour. Violin is our second instrument and I dont have any particular goal for her in short time so if she needs to work on scales etc then its fine by me. From his email it doesnt seem like she was and that concerns me most. I never attend her lesson unless it was bank holiday or my day off(which is rare). She however really likes him even tonight was close to tears when I said if she cant focus then we might stop the violin lesson

DS not doing vibrato yet.