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.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but I need some advice about piano teaching. Our daughter took grade 1 about 15 months ago (distinction). We're really not that bothered about exams and told the teacher we didn't want to do them, but were happy to do the occasional one. Teacher said fine, she will skip grade 2 anyway. 10 weeks ago, Dd said she is keen to have a go at some exam pieces and scales but not take the exam so I asked teacher if we could. She said ok and gave her grade 2 pieces, which, after 2 weeks, teacher said were at exam standard but seeing as scales were not yet ready, we would not take her trial exam until end of Sept. Dd is frustrated at slow progress - pieces all seem so easy for her (she is grade 4/ 5 in second instrument and can see how this teacher's choice in pieces helps her to progress).

I feel the teacher wants to tick every box possible and therefore slows down dd. When I told her we wanted to learn the scales but not take the trial exam in Sept, as I felt it held dd back, she disagreed. I know there is value in doing exams, but dd does not want to, we aren't bothered and the cons of exams outweighs the pros. Am I crazy? Wondering if it is time to move on from this teacher and not sure how to go about it...

Appreciate the lovely support Green and Alexandra. All good now in the ealing household!

spaghetti you could look for another teacher if you don't feel you can work with this one. Or get your daughter some fun books to have a go at over the summer, while carrying on work with the scales, and keeping the other stuff ticking over. Then when the not-exam is done, maybe she can show the teacher something she has had a go at for fun (I am delighted when my pupils show me things they have worked out, although I appreciate that this one might or might not be), which might give her an idea of the next steps for your daughter.

Thanks Wafflenose, I guess I feel like the teacher has a formula that she wants to follow, and doesn't really look to understand that particular child. Our younger child, same teacher, has learnt the grade 2 pieces aswell, but we have to keep that secret otherwise would be told off for 'jumping ahead'. Just out of interest, what do you do with children who have an excellent ear? Ds can read music well but after a few attempts at a piece, he plays by heart - every week he is told this is wrong and he must 'LOOK AT THE MUSIC'. Would you agree?

No, as long as their sight reading is sound, that's fine! My 10 year old always uses the music for recorder/ flute, although is starting to play any old stuff by ear when the mood takes her. She started the piano at Easter (now playing Grade 3 level pieces - non-syllabus, due to her previous musical experience) and will read the notes for the first few days until the piece is learnt, then not bother! I would probably give notice tbh.

More excellent results! Well done everyone :)

spaghetti based on my experience with DD, I do think that playing from memory too much is detrimental to sight reading, and it means that pieces get forgotten more easily too.

DD only ever uses her piano sheet music in the initial stages of learning a piece. After that it's all from memory/ by ear. The result is that her sight reading is terrible and also that, if she wants to play a piece she learnt a while ago and has partly forgotten - she can't, because she can't play and read music simultaneously on the piano.

She is a good sight reader on her wind instruments, and very good on guitar (though using tab not classical notation). The issue with the piano is that sight-reading technique is fundamentally quite different to instruments which can only play one note at once, there is much more information to process, and you have to rely much more on interval recognition.

So, I'm making DD do 10-15 mins daily sight-reading this holidays - she's already improved a lot, but she is a long way behind where she should be.

Thanks, yes, I can see both sides of the arguement. Ds is only year 2 age (7), so it's early days and I feel his lessons are a bit negative as he is always told to look at the music. It slightly crushes his love of music! He is grade 3 violin and he sight reading is fine (better at violin).

Well done miniealing!

Mistigris, i have exactly the same issue....

Spaghetti - we have the same issue re sightreading; DD will play by ear/memory as much as she can and her sightreading was seriously behind other things. It also meant she might miss technical markings in her scores by mot looking at them for long enough. I now ensure she is sightreading regularly and things have improved a lot. Interestingly she is much stronger sightreader on her wind instrument and does t play from memory nearly as much.

A few years back my DD was asked to step in at the last minute and play a piano duet in a festival with another child whose partner had moved away.

Bit of a story but they won their class (the only time that the other child had actually played through without stopping). She couldn't read the music and had memorised it. So, as they had won they got called back to play in the gala and sadly it all went to pieces as the poor girl made a mistake and was unable to restart as she didn't know where she was. My DD tried to get her to restart as it was only a short piece and a sympathetic audience but she was so upset that she ran off stage crying.

My DD was left on stage on her own in a strange town so she folded the music, got up, bowed and walked off.

The experience rattled DD quite a bit, she was 9 at the time and she kept worrying that she was memorising pieces and that the same thing might happen to her. It took a while before she was happy that memorising is fine so long as you can pick things up in a suitable way. In fact, memorising is a side effect of practising a piece.

DD can always start in the middle of a piece she's memorised, so that's not a problem for her. But if she forgets part of a piece, it's an issue - it makes it much harder than it should be to resurrect old pieces. She has a ridiculously good memory for music, she memorises the first time she reads/ practises a new section, and then rarely goes back to the sheet music except for dynamic markings.

Can anyone suggest a good collection of easy classical music suitable for sightreading practice? Real pieces, rather than specific sight-reading exercises, but accessible to someone with grade 3-5 sight-reading skills.

Mistigri - have you used the various Keyboard Anthology books? There are different series and the books are graded.

Truffle that's a great suggestion, very reasonably priced too.

Do you know if suggested fingering is given?

Just had a look at one I have grabbed from the shelves. Fingering suggestions are shown, at least in this one (Third Series).

I expect they all have this - can you zoom in on a sample page to check?

Thanks Truffle!

Thanks so much Truffle: just bought mine now

Misti Goo is working through a book of Czerny/ Gillock fun pieces, called 'Hello, Mr Gillock! Carl Czerny!' - it has all sorts of styles and is great fun. It's Grade 2-5, so the right instructional level for Goo, but your DD might like it for sight reading.

May I join in? DS received his results for grade 1 guitar last week and got 99/100. He is very pleased of course and so are we for him. Now, if he could show the same level of commitment to the piano at grade 5.
I just sat me grade 7 piano yesterday and to be fair, I kept making the odd slip here and there, I'd be happy with a pass. I got distinction for my last exam.
Dd also
Sat her first piano exam at grade 1 and was very nervous. Hoping for positive results.

Ealing just caught up with news. Like others said, it's a good mark, she knew she hadn't been her best on the day and most of all it's just an exam! Sometimes exams are a reflection of the child's playing but in many cases sadly are not. Many elements in play of course, nerves, how they feel, etc but in my experience a huge one is the examiner - attitude, tone, chemistry with the student. So up and forward Miniealing!

RE sight-reading, DS always starts learning with the music. In fact, there are so may markings on the page I don't even know how he couldn't. But then he knows it by heart and never plays on stage from the music. His sight-reading was very weak but has improved a lot lately. I think it has to do with getting to difficult pieces like a Mozart sonata which frankly I don't know anyone one can play by ear considering what both hands have to do. So what I mean is that as pieces get more difficult you need to rely more on the written music to start learning it. Naturally, the sight reading will improve as a consequence. Another bit of advice is to give them sight reading for music they know how it sounds. It sounds counterproductive but it's actually really good along the sight reading books. For example, we gave DS a book of Beatles songs to sight-read! He loved the challenge and it broke many ice walls because he was connecting the written notes with the notes in his head! And frankly, some sight-reading exercises are meaningless and uninspiring as stand-alone music...

Drummer, we went to a Mozart concert and the pianist(her name is Victoria something, cant remember her surname) played all the evening Mozart sonatas by heart, she didnt have a music book infront if her. Whether she made a mistake, I have no idea(my daughter usually is at terrible sight reading in all previous exams except the most recent violin one, her problem is she has a photographic memory and she is lazy)

Greenleave - just to say that isn't the same one as I was thinking of but I'm sure it will be a useful book. The ones I mentioned are called Keyboard Anthology Series X Book Y and are published by ABRSM.

I think the more different pieces they have a go at the better their SR gets.

My DC reckon that the SR exam tests are compiled from the Grade 5 theory composition exercises.

greenleave thanks of course, I meant you need the written Mozart when you start learning it. Afterwards you don't, it's embedded in the pianists head and hands because of the hours practicing it and perfecting it. It's unavoidable. DS plays always by heart when in public.

DC1 is quite good at sight-reading. He memorises his piano pieces but not the cello ones, for some unfathomable reason. DC2 remembers everything and can sightread when he puts his mind to it - he generally plays the right notes if I said "Oi look what you are playing".

I can't remember anything but am reasonable at sight-reading.