July Music and Musicians Thread

[Wafflenose]

Welcome to wet July (well it's wet here) and a new thread. This is the place where we can talk about all things musical, like music lessons, exams, practice and new instruments. I am a music teacher (woodwind) and have two daughters. Goo is 10 and her first instrument is recorder, although on paper, flute has now caught up. She plays flute in NCO Under 11s, has just received the difficult bits she's meant to work on, so is finally cracking on with sorting out her piccolo. She started piano lessons at Easter and is going fast, currently playing Grade 3 pieces, and working through the Grade 2 sight reading and Dozen a Day books. Rara is 8 and far less keen - we are still currently trying to figure out what she really enjoys so that we can encourage her. But for now, she's learning the recorder and cello, and is between Grade 2 and 3 on both.

Goo did her flute exam on June 23rd, and now won't have any until at least March, or next June if I can push for that. Rara will probably do Grade 3 Recorder at Christmas. I have had a quiet exam term for my pupils - 7 altogether. 4 are already safely through (3 merits and a distinction), we are awaiting results for a Grade 6 Theory, and I have a couple of clarinettists still to go on Monday.

Only that piece is lovely and is one of those quite deceptive ones - fairly easy to access but loads and loads to work on to perfect. I used Danse Macabre for DD1 to give her a similar level of challenge because it suits her personality and has loads of show offy bits. I do dip into the Suzuki resources but would grade book 6 as being around grade 7ish so harder than it looks. Good job it is not your DD in the clip cos I would be sitting resisting the urge to tell her to watch the collapseable 3rd finger.

DD1 has a piano piece she is practising ad infinitum at the moment to build her fluency. She is relishing the challenge but I am at the stage of insisting she shut the piano room door and the teacher suggested she could use the music room at lunchtime to give me a break.

Waffle I have that exact same conversation with DD2 every other day . I think we are winning on the Grade 5 theory. The m.educationquizzes website is breaking up the boredom. Also I may have to patent my scales cheat sheet which I have not seen in a book anywhere. I got DD2 to draw a keyboard and then map all the major sharps and flats. Then I got her to draw the corresponding minor keyboard directly below. Then I got her to add the harmonic and melodic accidentals. Now when she is doing intervals and chords etc she doesn't get overwhelmed by everything at once and she is starting to think it is easy.

2 of them with 3 instruments each means that there is never going to be more than 15 minutes per instrument in our house, but it does happen most days which I agree is the key.

DS did 45 min everyday, alternating instruments every other day when he was younger. Ironically, people say they're too young for long practices, but it's in primary school when they actually have the time! Grab it now!!
Right now his ideal practice is 1 1/2 hours at piano, 1 hour at marimba and 1hour on drums. He's been doing this everyday during the holidays when we weren't abroad but it's not sustainable during term time. It would if he attended a music school, of course... The big change for me is that while I had to remind him of practice when he was little (never argue luckily), he is now fully independent. He won't allow me to stop his practice short with things like "lunch", delays meeting friends till he's done with what he wants to practice and won't travel in the summer without his practice pad and sticks.
Xhantheticus the only encouragement I ever gave was that the more he practiced, the better he would get and the more he would enjoy it. It really is like this. Once they get to play serious pieces, the excitement is enormous. I also said when he was little that learning and practicing an instrument in our house was not a choice. It was like learning to read and write and swim,. Luckily he always accepted this!
only I agree with you. I've always been in awe with people that progress with little practice... Though whenever you see a distinction or good playing gr7 or 8, I always doubt the "little practice" bit.
green I think your teacher recommendation is a lot for her age, but I also know where he's coming from and I think it's great to have an ambitious teacher.

I'm new to this tread.
My Dds do Suzuki violin. Dd2(12) just finish book 4 and we are thinking of trying Grade 4 ASRBM, as well as continuing with book 5 Suzuki.
Checking out the pieces online, at least some seem similar standard to book 4 Suzuki?

Any tips, or anything I should know in advance??

She only wants to do a grade to help her get into higher level orchestra.

Btw, practice in our house is 20-30 mins 5 times per week. Giving girls choice of when to take their two days off has significantly reduced arguments about practice!

Check her sight reading is the right level as Suzuki has less emphasis on this than abrsm. Also a quick double check on her scales work as these are easy marks once you crack them and costly if you haven't.

There are lots of good abrsm resources for aural and I would recommend working through some of them to get used to this section if your dd is completely unfamiliar with abrsm. I think the pieces ought to be the easy bit if she is on Suzuki book 5.

This is just my personal opinion as I am a parent / teacher rather than a professional music teacher.

Ah, that YouTube clip brought back memories! I am SO tempted to video DD's fingers howabout so she can hear from another expert about finger-board bad habits!

Back at school here too (oh yes), it was long overdue for all of us. Still, a respectable amount of practice done over the holidays. Nothing more than an hour on both instruments most days when around. She had heard a boy play a very showy piano piece at the last school summer concert and took on the challenge of mastering (in private). Remains competitive even when there's no exams at stake...not sure if this is a good or a bad thing! Lots of 2nd movements on the violin also.

Welcome MomofTwoGirls2. Cannot offer any advice re violin pieces but your 2 days' off rule sounds very sensible. We're beyond that here as I cannot control what practice DD does at school mid week other than take her word for it, but we have dropped a few in-school activities in lieu of hopefully, more orchestral and ensemble involvement.

Thanks howabout. Sight reading will needs lots of work, unfortunately. But this also needs to improve significantly for the orchestra she wants to try out for next year. So that's a focus area for this year anyway.

Thanks for the tip on practice material for aural as she has zero experience of this, hopefully the Suzuki emphasis on listening will help her master this.
And I think lots of practice on scales... I'm hoping the work on scales will also help her sight reading.

We used Paul Harris "Improve your sight reading!" books. I thought they were very good.

And not dull, because you make progress.

My experience with DD is that sightreading can be improved really noticeably with just 5 mins work a day. A lot of it is about technique and "tricks", not note-reading, so it's very amenable to practice (for eg piano sightreading can be improved immediately once they learn to focus not on the notes but the intervals).

On the suggestion of someone on this forum, I bought the ABRSM grade 1-2 piano music collections for her, and she just played through those - they are roughly equivalent to grade 3-5 sightreading material.

I would also recommend the Paul Harris books!

Would agree on the Paul Harris books. Intonation is great for Suzuki pupils but not sight reading. If I recall at least in books 2 and early 3 there is not much emphasis on shifting. Abrsm does a lot more shifting training from grade 3 onwards. If she does get into orchestra make sure your dd understands to look down at the page more than up at the conductor (to follow like jn a Suzuki group) we no longer do Suzuki but this was a big mind set change for dd installs. Good luck

I actually just bought the Paul Harris grade 3 and grade 4 improve your sight reading books last week. Great to see so many recommend those!

Book 4 Suzuki has plenty of shifting, but her reading of positions is very weak. She did 3 30 mins lessons over the summer on sight reading, which was a big help. DD2 has dyslexic tendencies around spelling and tables, and finding similar problems with mastering sight reading. But with good support in school her reading level is now excellent, so we are hoping she will improve sight reading with regular practice, like she did with Englush reading.
She is in a junior strings orchestra, but probably reads music only at a grade 2/3 level. So fingers crossed!!

Prada: thanks for your advice, you are absolutely right, especially there could be anything which might happen at the last minute. Having both piano and violin exam at that hight level along with 11+ will be too hard, most of us can only do 1 of these at once. I'd listen to the piano teacher too. Academic result is the most important then the audition for violin. Thinking of Easter with you too, then it will be a huge break. I sat down with my daughter for some maths last night, I was so tired yesterday not too why(aging?) and I lost my patience. She said, but mom, you havent been helping me with maths at all, thats why it slows down. I have this weekend to research and plan for this year, each maths item we could break down, practise and reading books as supplement. Might use the opportunity to stop in a big book shop where we will lurking some music books too. Then nearly bed time she asked me to hear some piano, then it was Nuvole Bianche(we went to his concert few weeks back and bought one of his book), the whole piece. We havent touched the piano while away so it must be the couple of weeks before our get away time sometimes during the day, her play time that she played for her own. Then I had a good night sleep last night just thinking her enjoy it so much and practising without me sitting next to her, that was all I was looking for. (A short happy moment! )

What's the difference between abrsm and Paul hArris books?

Sorry, dont know anything about Suzuki or anyone learning it. I have heard many good things about it, about no scales, sight reading etc so in couple of years I might try with my second. Taking note of all your advices here for the future.
How: glad to hear theory is going well, I remember sometimes around grade 2 my teacher asked my daughter to draw a similar thing, later on while she was studying for the theory she did use it for her counting. She said it helps, we still have the drawing sticking in the kitchen cupboard now. Regarding to the collapsing 3rd finger you mentioned, one of the result I am looking for a new violin teacher is I am worried her fingerings and positions are not correct and it would be harder to correct it later. As I said piano/violin teacher is better at piano and hasnt had any violin student apart from my daughter. He hasnt been playing violin also. I will need to work harder to hunt for one soon

exampanic The Paul Harris books teach you the techniques to sight reading and I guess the different grade ones just get you to the level you need for each grade. I like them because they seem to be quite realistic - it's how I sight read - and they also seem to give the children a sense of progress.

Another thing one of the teachers did was to cover the score one bar ahead to make you read ahead.

We have the ABRSM sight reading app and tbh all it did was make my DD lose what little confidence she had. A collection of "real" music at the right standard was the best way ahead for her, but if you want something more structured then an actual sightreading book sounds like the way to go. It probably depends on the individual and the instrument. DD is a good sight reader on sax and guitar, but was terrible at piano because piano sightreading makes different demands. She's still not great but she has improved a lot and that was in only about 10 days of working at it.

exampanic Paul Harris books support ABRSM syllabus - we are using them too
Greenleave thank you for your kind words but dd is just learning that piece, not playing it like that so... This is another video, the speed is much slower (though I think the actual speed should be faster) but the boy playing it is a rising violin star (he is a teenager now)

On a different matter - I have a huge admiration for you and your dd - we are in slightly similar position with activities and I have younger dc but I don't work and I struggle to manage everything. I still cannot make my mind about grammar schools, we don't have any locally, we would need to move if she gets the place.... But perhaps I have to start thinking about it....Re Suzuki - I recently read Unfinished journey by Menuhin (must read for every violin parent :)) - he said that Suzuki was designed as an amateur system. I personally think it is probably good for little ones, but from 4-5yo they are perfectly capable to learn the traditional system and if you want to follow exam route you will inevitably do extra work... It is not bad but make a serious research if you decide to opt for it. howabout - oh... fingers....this is what we are struggling with... having council teacher before and having professional musician teacher now...the difference is huge, I didn't realise left hand is SO important- I was totally convinced that if you can manage you bow and do all the movements this is basically it. Can you imagine my shock upon discovery that it is not the case? Everything we do is working with the positioning of left fingers - not producing actual notes, but keeping them into the right "rest" position so that they can be ready to move when required (cannot properly explain but you know what I mean :)) se22mother welcome to the thread and it is nice to have someone with different experience. drummersmum I am glad that you dc also need to spend time practicing - I started to feel a bit strange with dd not be able to do her practice in 15 mins :) Even ds who is 5 cannot do it in less than 30 mins, well, he can if he is not behaving silly but does it ever happen? NO!

se22mother forgot to mention, for aural part of the exam we always use this app
www.auralbook.com/gb/ad/abrsm/en/pc.php
Some people here found it a bit ... confusing as at certain parts of the test it is very difficult to get top marks (only because it is an app and not a human being :)) but I found it very useful. This is the only thing we use for aural. We used it for grade 4 as well, I bought the whole block of questions which was about £20 (or £25, I don't remember)
Re Suzuki method and aural - I think it still depends on individual child and not the method, friend's dc got low marks for aural (also Suzuki method) in spite of playing well etc.... I would say where exams are concerned it is better to avoid any assumptions :)

Mistigri: my daughter is more confident now with sight reading, she said she could sight read anything(it might be because of studying for theory exam)
Only: I will very likely have to work another 25 yrs or so, my job was the result I stayed in this country the first 5 yrs. i have a MASSIVE envy(try to keep it silent) for family with mom staying at home because we dont have so many things you are having(you might thought its unimportant: family dinner during the week, little play time together during the week, daily silly small chat etc). We live in an area in London where there is only 1 grammar school however lots of excellent indie where normally children go to prep school to be able to have top spot. We didnt know that(and might not be able to afford it along with a nanny and a huge mortgage). So we are pushed in this situation. My daughter asked for learning violin because nearly the whole class was doing it at school(most have dropped soon after, only couple still playing now). And I am no good at English so I could only help her with maths. She loves learning though(could be very difficult with our second child). She appears to do well however compare to my native friends similar age children who are living in London she is nothing to compare. Most my friends although are not working or working partime and I have been using it as an excuse.

We are back with lessons from next week. Thinking of piano exam for this term(someone has asked for it almost daily now, just not too sure if there is an equivalent level of commitment or its gonna be me playing bad cop)

For aural, we always used the ABRSM aural book with the cd, both the practice one and the actual exam one (now we're doing Trinity). They're good. We've never used apps. But we're lucky DH is musical and able to do it with DS in depth. They have many conversations about tonality, keys, cadenzas, period, and whatnot. Even when we're having breakfast listening to Radio3. The bit of aural he does with his teachers would definitely not be enough for an exam! I suspect DH was secretly proud that DS got full marks on his gr7 piano aural, something that had never ever happened before... with his voice breaking... maybe the examiner took pity

only he spends quite a lot of time playing for pleasure, or trying new stuff before actually getting on with the practice, scales, etc. Yesterday he practiced 90 min piano and 60min of that was jazz, improv and fun. So yes, we're in a similar situation. But it's not time wasted, it's all music.

drummersmum yes, I see what you mean, I also let her do some fun staff during the practicing. Saying that we had two lessons per week at summer, and when it was too hot we had a nil practice - and it looked like wasted money....

Greenleave, oh, the grass on the other side... isn't it? I am actually not working not because I don't want to but I also was pushed in the situation :)
Never mind, we all try to do the best of our circumstances....

Hello all! Now that the new academic year is starting I am back and I am all yours!

For us the summer was total laid back, we've been away for two weeks and then we came back and basically the kids did what they wanted. DD practiced the piano whenever she remembered if she did, with the teacher's approval who agreed she needs to relax for a bit, the clarinet wasn't touched at all as the teacher has been away for the summer and without lessons she couldn't be bothered.

I thought both kids deserve a break before the important year ahead: GCSEs for DS and 11+ next Sept for DD. We are DIY though, won't hire a tutor.

This week we are getting back on track, piano practice was a whole hour last night and she actually came away from the piano stating she loves the pieces she is playing now. I guess she missed being committed to her practice. We'll go back to clarinet practice sometimes next week.

Piano will be still the main instrument as she is heading towards grade 5 and clarinet seems to happily tick along with 15 min practice at the moment.

We've reassessed the sporty activities they do also so DS is picking up football (again) to relax through GCSEs, and DD gave up dancing and ice skating (thank god as it was freezing for me) in favour of trampolining.

So this is new in the Fleur household, good luck to all of the DCs in the new academic year in all their activities.

I will start a new thread; Fleur your post was a great reminder... maybe you'd like to copy and paste into the new one?