May/ June Music and Musicians Thread

[Wafflenose]

Welcome, everyone. I can't believe we need a new thread already, but I'm delighted that they now seem so popular!

I'm Waffle, I'm a music teacher and I have two daughters - Goo (10) who plays the recorder, flute, piccolo (a bit) and started the piano a month ago, and Rara (8) who isn't as musically inclined but plays the cello and recorder. She is plodding (very) slowly towards Grade 3 on both.

We're going on holiday this weekend, so will have to have a good read when I get back. For now, I'll wind the thread up and let it do its stuff.

Oh very well done to Goo! I am not entirely surprised by the result (though wow! To full marks) but I think waffle deserves a break from exams!

Thanks waffle, will email the teacher to chase.

Congrats to Goo by the way! (Very rude of me not to say so earlier.) :)

Well done Goo!

Well done Goo! I am impressed!

Misti I hope your DD enjoys her new piano and well done for her concert.

Good luck onlymusic for tomorrow!

Then it has been voted, I'll keep my username as it is.

Congrats to goo!

And happy piano-ing Misti. :)

wafflenose: as the expert in music teaching and recorders....could I ask for more advice please....
dd2 is moving to a different/bigger school (part of secondary school, even though she is starting year 6), and have been asked to fill in some forms/request for lessons.
She is about to sit grade 1 descant recorder next week, but has never had formal lessons. I thought maybe she could start some real lessons, I know they have a woodwind teacher. From older siblings I have been told no one else has recorder lessons. Would the woodwind teacher be OK?
Also, I have only just gotten her a treble recorder but because of the descant exam not played much on it. Would /should she have lessons in "recorder", and then get to learn both?

I would ask the woodwind teacher, but as a teacher who actually planned/ studied to teach clarinet and saxophone (yes, really!) I would have no qualms about this. I think Grade 1 is a bit soon to start learning treble - I did this as an experiment with all of Goo's peers and the year above after their Silver Music Medal (Grade 1 ish) and most struggled. All serious recorder players need to play both eventually. You have to play treble from Grade 6 upwards, although with Trinity you can mix them at any stage - Goo started treble when she was around Grade 4, but didn't play it until her Grade 6, so it was a steep learning curve. I now start them off while they are working towards Grade 3, and this seems to work well. My youngest, Rara is planning to play both in her Grade 3 exam next term. Having said that, a Year 6 child could easily get the book (Treble Recorder from the Beginning) and teach themselves more than half of it over the summer holidays. I had a couple of kids do that last year, because they were feeling motivated.

Thank you, didn't realise you would wait that long. Was more thinking of "would it be difficult to have half a lesson in one and half a lesson in the other......"
Not sure what grade she is in descant. She can easily play grade 2 from the Timepieces book, but mostly we play from an old book I used many years ago. and having played piano for 3 years helps obviously
Maybe I should get the treble book and see how that goes over the summer holidays. And once she has started school, we can check out what is available and how she is settling in..
ah, just looked on Amazon. what's this book like?
Recorder Duets from the Beginning: Descant and Treble Student's Book: Descant and Treble Pupil's Book. Also from John Pitts.
She likes playing duets on the descant. Maybe I could get both....??

If she's really Grade 2+ (which it sounds like she is) then just do it. At her age and level, it sounds like she could cover the whole book over the summer. You wouldn't necessarily do half a lesson on each - you'd just learn a selection of pieces, sometimes with a bias more to one than the other. I have to do it all the time! And even if a generalist teacher couldn't cope with treble fingering, your DD will know it by then and the teacher can look at rhythm, dynamics, ensemble skills with the piano and so on.

Just ordered both books....(still wondering what happened to my old treble book, did it fall behind the piano here or did it never leave my parents' house.....)

Congratulations Goo - my bet was on a distinction!

Misti an outdoor performance and a piano - a good music week

Well done to everyone else, and all those to come - ours seems a long way off (but DD did get into JD - am a sad music mom posting it for the third time in a week as no one has noticed yet.....)

Oh Musicmom1 what did I miss? Congratulations to your DD! She's so talented
Serious congrats now. Is that at Northern? I can't keep track of this thread.

Thank you for the wishes everyone, we are done now, what a relief! I am exhausted.... It is wait and see game now.... And what a historic day today too :)
Going to look at theory seriously now.

Musicmom1, you sure you posted your news??? I read everything...
BIG congratulation to your dd and well done to the parents for supporting her! It is a beginning of a new and very exciting life for her!

Musicmom...sorry for missing your daughter's excellent news!

And only music...enjoy the weekend after this stressful week

Congratulations, Musicmom! I think I might have missed a bit, when the thread was moving unfeasibly fast.

exampanic, sorry I missed the bit about the duet book! I think it will be rather easy for her (I use it mostly with Year 3 at work) but maybe she can play the treble bits and you can do the descant bits? A lot of it doubles up on pieces with the other John Pitts books.

oh, maybe try and cancel the other one.

Thank you😀Very fast moving thread

NCO auditions booking has opened today for those interested - a number of us on here have dc who have been/are in the NCO if you want any info from a parent/DC perspective 🎶🎶🎶

Congratulations Musicmom thread moves too fast for me!

Well done music mom!

Musicmom, Mistigri, Waffle: how wonderful!

Only, sorry I missed out yesterday, how did it go to?

Greenleave, oh, I don't know, I deliberately left the building as was worried too much :) The accompanist said that she sounded nice, the teacher said that one piece was a bit slow and there were few slips. I am glad it is all over now and I can relax till November :)

Yes, this term exam is the best because the break is the longest. Fingers crossed for the result!

We havent had any plan for exam yet, I havent planned anything. We will wait till we have the result to think about it