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.

Yes, that was the shop where they let DS2 play an electric cello and we haven't heard the end of it since! Told him he'd better start saving... they are very nice in there, I have to say.

ealing lovely hearing about your trip and the lightbulb moment. I have been working all weekend with high levels of stress and the occasional procrastination on mumsnet. I am so tired that I told DS that his playing in the morning of the Flight of the Bumblebee on the marimba sounded lovely and he smiled and said: that was Albeniz's "Asturias"

Roll on the real summer drummersmum! I know our work and children's music commitments never stop, but hopefully there's a perceived sense of 'breathe and relax'...for a short period at least 😃

Green...I was proud. Also aware her show off factor knows when to come out!

We are still on the very early days as we have occasions when my daughter performs in front of few audiences( only family and/or friends) and I knew that either she missed the notes, she didnt do it right etc. We didnt practise violin since the test date, which was about 10 days then last Saturday my friends asked her to play for them and already I could hear the pieces werent as good as the day before the exam. Hopefully it will slowly get better and more consistent one day.
I looked at the result more closely today as I will speak to her teacher today about if he has any plan for her violin lessons then I could see she has her sight reading mark of 18. It was the best we ever had. Usually we always lost out the distinction due to the sight reading ( and also aural and scales, Aural was still 15 and scales was 16 this time). I think studying theory helped so much with sight reading as we didnt practise on sight reading much (she insisted that she could sight read and our teacher agreed with her)

Had a look at the Yamaha shop website. It feels a bit odd to be able to just "add to basket" a piano costing 10k.

Never, hahaha, I added to my basket £11k for our new piano just couple of months ago

Hate to think what their returns policy is like NeverEver

Green! That's some piano! Don't tell me where you live (as I know you are not 100miles away from me) otherwise you'd get a young girl knocking on your door to come and hang out...

Green - Which piano did you get? And was it brand new?

Yes, it was a brand new U3 upright( with an extra of Silent system). Ealing, banging as much as you like, we need a company here!
I cant never in my widest dream just a year ago thought of spending that much over an instrument!!! Well!!!( we have been living on beans on toasts since)

Ours is a silent piano too. At some point I'm going to upgrade and I'm considering a Yamaha.

Yesterday I played a silent "baby grand" Yamaha and thought it sounded dull and tinny. It was very disappointing

Are there any silent pianos that sound like a real (acoustic) piano? I want a silent one but not if they all sound like the one I played.

notbothered12, i think i'm too late but did you know that your DS would be allowed to whistle the aural section?

This is what my DS does as singing stresses him out. As does talking but that's a whole other problem!

Cote: (To my ears) it sounds as good as the real sound even deeper and better. It doesnt compromise the sound at all and it gives the benefit of having 2 people listening to it while playing it at the same time( which means I could listen to her playing while our baby is in bed). This might be only true to our model

I have just started the ball rolling to have Rara assessed for speech and language difficulties. Her vocabulary, reading and writing are amazing and her articulation is fine, but I'm expecting her to be diagnosed with Selective Mutism at some point. Not relevant to the music thread as such, but I feel that I'm among friends here and can mention it. I think music and performing are good for her!

Cote Do you mean that it sounded awful when you put it on silent mode? I hardly ever use that, but I'm sure our neighbours are thankful not to have to listen to so-called piano-playing at 6am by the demonic DC...

I also think that "baby grands" can be deceptive - my piano tuner thinks that you are better off with a good upright than a mediocre baby grand.

Aww Waffle, I hope you get some answers that you can work with

Waffle just wanted to send good luck wishes for what may be quite a complicated process. Hope Rara gets any support she needs. I am sure you're right about music and performing helping her. She sounds very creative, in fact.

Waffle my view is that it's better to know than to be forever wondering and if you don't know then you can't get the support you need. One of my son's friends can't or won't talk to anyone he doesn't know. I didn't realise this until he was eleven because I was on the approved list of people he would speak to (I've known him since he was five) and my son had never thought to mention it because that was just how X was.

Waffle Good luck!

Oh Waffle, good luck, I would want to find out early too rather than wondering

She is already 8 and has had issues since she was 3. School will investigate a bit, then probably GP.

Wafflenose, hope you get the assessment reasonably quickly as it can take ages, up to an year, depending on area, and hope you will get all the right help. Dd was suspected of selective mutism at some point, but turned out as something different, anyway it is good that people have more information and knowledge about these issues nowadays and kids can be helped, thinking about my own childhood-it was totally different.