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.

raspberry ab fab!!

Musicmom we have a local adult ukulele group and steel band - do either of those appeal? Or maybe go for a brass instrument, as you can play those in a band, and they don't seem to be on your DD's radar... (yet!)

I remember a few Christmas ago more ukuleles were sold than IPads (or was it IPods...?) Anyway, I thought it was nice.

Green anyone in real life would know me, too many children with distinctive instruments.

However, it's always worth remembering it us a public forum. New life and I realised we have a mutual acquaintance through posting in the thread

Thanks for all the nice postings!

DS1 and 2 are both helping with schools Primary Music Week this week, a week away from lessons for DS2!

I have a ukulele but not a lot of time to play it. I might dust it off tonight though!

Goo has just had her last piano lesson of the term, although we'll arrange a couple for over the summer. Teacher has said she is now grade 3, although I think that's stretching things a little bit (scales/ sight reading). Teacher is also happy to not do any exams for at least a year, so Goo is happy too!

Thanks - brass it is!

Ooh, have you decided which instrument?

I want to learn to play the violin...

Green I'm so sorry some of your acquaintances have worked out who you are in RL from the content of this thread. Please don't stop posting, particularly if you get support here that these acquaintances don't provide. We understand your English just fine! Fingers crossed for MiniGreen's violin result.

Musicmom amazing news re your DD! Apologies for not commenting earlier - it's a struggle to keep up with this thread and I tend to get things muddled even when I do comment!

Congrats also to Goo for her fine distinction and Raspberry's DS2 for placing so highly in his young musician competition!

Fingers crossed for Only's and TheSecond's DCs as well.

Finally (in the hope that this time I haven't missed anyone….) well done to Misti's DD for her performance in front of so many people. Nerves of steel, clearly. .

We are one out of three concerts done before the end of term. DS played his trumpet and sang (took me completely by surprise) alongside his classmates in a rock concert last week. So much fun! Not that Louis Armstrong would have reason to fear, you understand, but I was quite proud of his performance. . Trinity exam finally gets here next week, followed immediately by classical concert that night, and then my DDs -screech- play violin / sing and dance their way through the last performance on Saturday week.

I want to second everything Suspended just said. I am also hopelessly behind with the thread what with balancing all the school show performances, exams etc with the fact that I am a sport and politics junkie.

I would never discourage anyone from taking up the fiddle. There is always safety in numbers. Highly recommend Fiddlerman.com for anyone who wants a friendly adult community and self-teaching environment.

NeverEver....will you do it? Strings just look so difficult to me, I am cowardly about them.....

I don't know! Not in the near future - already have hands full - I want to try chamber music first. But I dream of playing in a quartet. Any Beethoven string quartet would do.

It would be so exciting to take up a brass instrument, MusicMom! Let us know what you choose. Trumpet looks a lot of fun but I think my family and neighbours might object if I tried it...
Got to my piano lesson on Monday to find my piano teacher very dejected about the Brexit vote. A big issue for her and many other teachers at the music school is the cost of applying for citizenship, plus she's worried about the rules on earnings thresholds. Three of my four piano teachers have been EU nationals. The other one was Australian. They have all been excellent.

Loose
tell your lovely piano teacher that those who are already residents here should not be affected. Imagine the effect of deportation on all the British orchestras! Who will play for Farage when he feels like some good old Wagner?
www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/association-of-british-orchestras-warns-of-challenges-ahead-following-brexit/

Loose :( :(

drummersmum thanks, I will tell her that. I think the uncertainty has worried her more than anything else. I do hope particular rules will be brought in for professionals (and students) in the arts. Musicians give so much more than they ever receive. And you are so right about the leading orchestras!

I'd be pretty identifiable by RL friends and anyone on my FB, though I do use an alias on social media, and an email address that is totally separate from my professional accounts. In fact I've been so careful that I now have RL friends who think my FB name is my real one , slightly awkward lol.

Am a bit out of touch, excuse lack of participation due to (a) arguing the toss over brexit implications and (b) having to revise all my work forecasts due to the aforementioned b word.

Anyway the new piano is a hit, has been played a lot and sounds lovely. I've moved the digital piano into the front room and have started playing myself.

So, music teachers and pianists out there - how should an adult approach starting piano again? Bear in mind I'm old (51) not a 30 something with a young, flexible brain and fingers. I have noticed that while I can still sightread comfortably (albeit slowly) up to around grade 6 level, it is harder for me to "wire" even much easier pieces - in the sense of getting to the point where my fingers play it automatically rather than having to read the music.

Would you bother with a teacher at this point?

Misti - It's good to hear that everyone is enjoying the new piano Isn't it SO much nicer to play than the digital keyboard?

Re going back to playing piano as an adult - I did this several years ago (40s) and did not bother with a teacher until this year when I got to a certain level and decided to take it further. I would recommend picking up the notes for music that you really like to listen to and advancing in that book page by page at your rhythm. Every time you sit down to play, start playing from the first song you learn, so you have a long repertoire that you are comfortable playing in 6 months or so .

You will be surprised by how muscle memory & eye-hand coordination of your childhood kicks in. It's brilliant - pure pleasure

I didn't get a teacher when I (re)started playing either, until the point when I couldn't make the music sound like how I wanted it to sound. Then I found a teacher. Now I can get some of the music to sound how I want it to sound. It makes me so happy.

Misti I started to learn to play piano properly in my 40s having grown up watching my Dad. I then taught the DDs but got them a teacher for grade 5. If I had time and made myself practice my DD1 is capable of teaching me and takes great pleasure in getting her own back.

I get really frustrated because the DDs do find it much easier to pick up and retain new things but other than incentivising my practice I am not sure a teacher would help.

On the whole anonymity thing I have come to the conclusion that the more private you are the more people are inclined to make up their own things and "those that mind don't matter while those that matter don't mind". I do try not to be any more obnoxious online than I am in RL however .

I'm mainly careful because I have a public facing job. IMO social media and professional life shouldn't mix at all unless you are using social media for professional purposes - which I don't. I have a strict "no colleagues" rule on FB and Twitter (and they would never find me anyway).

Thanks for the thoughts about lessons. I might get DD to ask her teacher if she can recommend a private teacher locally.

I'm FB friends with most of my colleagues. But they don't go on MN. They think we swear too much.

All, thank you for your kind word and your kind messages. I am still thinking, I dont want to create another Greenleave, its me and myself and my stories and I dont see a point why I have to change it for any reason.
I am annoyed with the lie ( about she hadnt recognised me before and unkind that secretly watching and in real life pretended that she didnt know about all this happening with my daughter's music work, the friendship is ended- I never take these decisions easy and I value my friends however at the sametime I feel like I have to distant from certain "not so much of a friend".
So everything mentioned here is 100% correct in real life, even so much more as I am not so much of a person on FB and only using it to update my children's miles stones mainly for distant friends and family back in my home country. I am very aware of the silent competition among us(friends coming from the same home country living in UK)in terms of who's doing better than anyone else with some people and I hate it and dont want to be part of it. I still want them to be my friends so manytimes I choose to ignore them, not comment on their posts and/or not share any "sensitive info which might trigger jealousy, comparison".

So I am still thinking as I know they will be now watching me on here enjoying my posts, knowing what is happening and ...know me in real life.

So what has been happening to us: my teacher told us that we need to work on aural/musicianship, so the last lesson and the summer lesson will be on the aural/musianship in general. We have a concert night this week. We also come back to piano usual lesson and now working on etudes, I was told this week is on number 1,2 and 5,6 on a book. Will have a look tonight at what book. We dont have any plan for next term for piano. Violin is now on a break until we have the result, hopefully might be in 1 week time as we took the test last week.