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.

Anybody fancy some Jazz, have just found this and thought it quite good for a summer's day, we have lovely weather here.

howabout was the double sax band called Moon Hooch by any chance? If so, will search out the episode on iplayer.

NewLife perfect piece for this afternoon - thanks for posting!

Alexandra

It has been lovely here since about saturday, it's very unusual for us to be so lucky in Lancs/Greater Manchester. We are known for horrible grey drizzly weather, folk were caught on the hop.
An assistant in Boots told me they'd sold all their hair removal products, tmi and not musically related at all

:o NewLife

We've got your weather I think (London/Surrey) - it's been freezing cold and grey all day. And I spent 3 hours in a playground, too good job the cafe had nice coffee!

So sorry Rue

We all have glorious tans and have been in the garden all week, the downside is that dd has done no revision hardly at all and she has tests next week.
She has managed lots of practice though as she has our local music competition on Saturday and concerts when she goes back to school.

Maybe this for those with not so good weather

Suspended yes it was Moon Hooch and it is on youtube

Weather is terrible here. It's like April in Wales not June in the South of France! Still, we should be grateful that we've been spared the flooding that people further north have suffered.

DD has been practising assiduously since the weekend and her teacher is delighted with her progress (and so am I). She can play the Chopin all the way through now with at worst only one or two minor slips. The fast bit has suddenly started sounding very fluent and, to my ears, downright impressive. She now has 10 days to stress-proof it!

Ooh it's gorgeous here in the northwest >
Spent yesterday walking/ picnicking in hills. So so green ( lol-that'll be all that rain!)

Great news Mistigiri and very happy for her and for Chopin who is listening from somewhere.

Ah, and thanks for links but weather´s been horrid in London NewLife4me. So we had lunch listening to Scriabin's "Mysterium".

Thanks drummersmum, amazing how quickly it came together in the end. There's still one bar which she can't play at tempo, but it's close enough to just sound like rubato lol!

She needs a second piece but she has been told that she can't play the obligatory, set piece for her class (she is officially in the fourth year class, ie roughly equivalent to UK grade 4), because it would be unfair for the other students at the same level. So she might have to dust off the very pretty Mussorgsky piece she learnt at the beginning of the year - this seemed quite hard at the time, due to a lot of movement in the left hand, but now it looks rather easy!

I can't believe our luck this week - we're on holiday in South Wales for half term and the weather has been gorgeous! (Needless to say I hadn't really packed for a heat wave!) The only downside is that DS2 has hardly played his keyboard so has a lot of catching up to do when he gets home! However, the boys amused us one evening with Moody Prawn Blues as a duet for piano and bass guitar!

Hi all! The weather has sent me into a depressive mood for the entire break, but I have to say I feel really rested. While it's been frustrating that we couldn't go out much I have spent a lot of time reading, having afternoon naps and watching DD being bored. So I'll be ready for another 7 weeks of hard work before our summer holiday.

Music related we had the usual lessons, DD progressing well, I counted the books she is using in one practice session and including sight reading and scales we have 8 different books on a roll daily. Still no moaning though which is good.

Did a couple of maths sessions also this week and clarinet lesson tomorrow.

Weather lovely up here! We've not done much as I have revising teens. DS2 has been out a bit though. He had enjoyed the rest but ready to get back to it tomorrow.

Busy 7 weeks coming up with concerts a small festival

We're at the clarinet lesson as we speak and DD is indeed flying through, got to stage 3 in today's lesson.

Apparently tomorrow is summer here so can't wait to take the bikes out and go on a long ride.

Good luck to all those taking exams this session, Dd's piano teacher has 30 and she looked quite stressed.

So many children in this thread have few instruments-how do they manage to keep up?? Do your dc have one dominating instrument and the rest are just for fun or do they manage to keep high standard for all of them? From what I see with my dd - if she dedicates all her time to the one instrument she is making really good progress but then there are two... and it almost feels that the quality of her playing reduced two times and it is neither nor ... It is very tempting to drop one at times....

only I think it's definitely the case that you can only prioritise one instrument at a time, especially at secondary school when there is less time available. But you can still play other instruments, participate in groups and orchestras etc. Also, if a second or third instrument has similarities to a first instrument, then progress can be rather quick even without much practice - this is especially true for older students with a good standard on their first instrument. DD got to a good grade 4 standard on alto sax in 9 months of rather intermittent practice, and she's a comfortable G7 on piano after only 2 years.

DD has focused on piano this year, but she continues to play guitar for pleasure pretty much every day - I wouldn't say that she's progressed that much technically this year, but she doesn't really need to (she can play anything she wants to). She also plays bass guitar, but she doesn't work at it at all, because of the obvious synergies with guitar, though she's going to take some lessons next year.

**

Although my dd has first, second, third etc instruments she tries to manage the same amount of practice per week on each, through a sliding scale.
So Alto Sax, then last 15 mins of practice time on clari.
Piano - on it's own
Singing - on it's own
Soprano Sax - on it's own
Violin - if she can ever be bothered to play for fun.

Nobody apart from me has practised anything over half term ...

Mine is practising now and will do another 90 mins at school tonight.
The reason is because she's a freak, I know it's not normal.
I think most people manage a happy medium.

I do know tht multi instrumentalists tend to think of the one they are practising at that time as their favourite/ most important.

Both my DC have 3 instruments each. I'm not quite sure what I or they think about them ...

I think they probably think the one that they are playing the "easiest" thing on as their favourite. "Easiest" meaning the piece that they are best at, either because it's easy or because they've already practised a lot ...

It's probably best not to think too much about it.