September Music and Musicians Thread

[Wafflenose]

Hello to all musicians and parents of musicians, both old and new, beginners and advanced! Feel free to share whatever you like, and ask away about anything to do with music, exams, concerts, repertoire, practice, etc.

We are all heading back to school and work this coming Monday. My daughters Goo (10) and Rara (8) will be going into Year 6 and Year 4 respectively. Goo plays the recorder, flute and piano (just took up piano in April) and I have slapped a ban on exams for about a year - she has been doing too many. Rara plays the recorder and cello, and will be doing whole class brass lessons during Year 4. She's taking Grade 3 Recorder this term, and is about two-thirds of the way through the Grade 1 Theory book, doing it in her own sweet time and bloody annoying unique way. Goo's main project will be NCO and county auditions... not that she's busting a gut currently!

We have set up a youtube account for dd, but have kept it private and also disabled the comments.
Anybody can post a comment and I was worried about nasty or inappropriate ones that could hurt my dd feelings, so she doesn't get to see them and has no idea of the name of the account.
So she could search for a song she knows we put on, but wouldn't see any comments or be able to add any clips herself.
Just from the comment pov we aren't handing it over to her until she is 16, when we feel she could cope with detrimental comments, if there were any. If any of that makes sense.

Thanks Prada

Do you know if a 7 year old could manage one?
I forgot to say she's a grade 2 ish kit player atm, so doing well for such a young age.

gillybeanz tuned perc are: timpani xylophone marima vibraphone and glockenspiel. Sorry longer answer tomorrow...

Right, DD practiced the clarinet Sunday, Tuesday and today. Sunday she only played grade 1 piece half as she ran out of breath, last night she played it all once. Tonight she asked to listen to the cd before playing it which the teacher asked her to do so she can hear how it should sound with the piano, and she then played it exactly as on the cd. Same rythm, pace, sound etc.

Now I know she is my DD so I am bound to be impressed but is this normal? Basically third time she plays the piece and she is able already to play it as per exam requirements?

Wow, I think I missed a thread somewhere along the way! The summer holidays got in the way (and DD never even touched her clarinet afaik for the whole 7 weeks).

She had her first lesson of term today, and also got her Grade 1 results - she passed, with a score of 116. We're very proud of her! The teacher is talking about grade 2 either this term or next, but we'll see how we go - DD is in year 5 now, and we are in catchment for 2 superselective girls grammar schools so inevitably there'll be a lot of focus on preparing for the 11+ this year.

Wednesdays are officially the most hectic day of the week, too - DD has an 8.20 start for her school swimming lesson, clarinet lesson (fortunately we can leave her clarinet in the school office before they get on the coach for swimming, I wouldn't like it going to the local leisure centre!), netball club after school and Brownies in the evening. I'm really not sure how we'll fit everything in. But she's willing to give it a try, so...

Rue DD is in year 5 also and preparing for the 11+ in selective schools in our area also. She also didn't touch the clarinet for 6 weeks during the summer hols but did practice the piano now and then.

Your Wednesdays do sound hectic, I have to say I feel fortunate that DD swapped two activities for one. So now we only have piano, clarinet and a sport activity. She has Spanish at school after school as a club once a week but it doesn't affect us as she would have gone to after school club that day anyway.

Rue well done to your DD! If it does get too much with 11+ prep she can always do the syllabus for grade 2 but skip the exam and go onto grade 3.
Drummersmum thanks regarding the jazz piano - and a good point about theory.
Ds1 says school drum lesson much better this week so happy to carry on for now. On the other hand seems to have lost his grade 6 bass book - I told him he's paying for a replacement. Once the bass and theory exams are out of the way we can start thinking about drum teachers and longer lessons. Marching band and tuned percussion went well Monday evening - he is definitely being challenged!
Alternating sight reading and scales in my own practice at the moment but didn't do enough today. Ah well, good intentions for tomorrow!

MrsDV youtube is fine. You can disable comments, and also use the privacy settings to ensure that only someone with a direct link to that particular video can watch it (ie the video will not be visible to the general public from your channel home page).

DD has a channel for her songs, all her stuff is public but we've had no issues. I premoderate commends, but in fact there is no real need. Remember that there is so much stuff on YouTube now that most videos get hardly any views from randoms. DD has a fair few youtube subscribers now, plus a facebook music page with several hundred followers, and she's still doing well to get 500 views on a video.

I forgot to mention last night - if you want some theory resources specific to guitarists, have a look at the justinguitar.com site. Lots of stuff on there to explore including some fairly advanced notions (check out the scales section in particular).

{have namechanged as I have no more exams where I have to do the accompanying bit on piano, yipee)

Thank you to Waffle and daughters. dc3 changed school to a much bigger one, and feeling encouraged by Rara and Goo I did enquire about recorder lessons, and yes, the woodwind teacher was quite willing and interested in someone wanting to carry on with recorder! Her older dc are still making fun of her and saying she is ridiculous for playing a little kids instrument.....

Fleurdelise. My dc3 is a year older and and isn't as advanced and certainly doesn't practise as much as your dd. However having played piano her recorder playing seems so much easier. Without formal lessons she would happily play through grade 2 and grade 3 pieces. And somehow that makes us play a lot more of different pieces, which again helps with sight reading.
Once your dd will sit the exam you will also see how easy peasy she will find the aural and sight reading parts.

Fleur - that's great hut yes agree with Driving that it's not unusual on a second instrument; DD got g1 distinction. In two terms, same in g2 a term later. The challenge is to get the technique solid as they whizz ahead - really imp bye time they get to G5 and 6.it is lovely for them to be able to just play and very confidence building; however much too much Disney and musical theatre music avail for clarinet!

Thank you drivingmadness and musicmom! I do realise this is due to her ability to read music already but I did tell her last night I am so impressed at her ability to pick up the clarinet and just play. I feel like she is talking another language completely. The only note she currently found tricky is the lower G as she needs to quickly cover the whole which seems to be bigger than her finger so she really needs to cover it exactly in the right place and press harder so her tip of the finger covers it completely if that makes sense.

Musicmom have you got any books recommendation of Disney and musical theatre around grade 1-2-3? DD would love that!

Try 'What Else Can I Play' for each grade (they are easy for grade - my very special little 9 year old pupil who has taken Grade 3, has now whizzed through the Grade 4 one) and Guest Spot.

Rara's tests came back showing high-ish IQ - not as high as we thought, but 86th centile - and slow processing - 37th centile. That explains a lot. We don't have subtest results or the report yet.

waffle total IQ wont be representative of her ability if one index is below average - many psychs wouldn't even calculate it. We were told DD's total IQ was indicative only due to a large disparity between processing speed (50th percentile) and verbal comprehension (99.9th). I'd put money on Rara having an impressive verbal comprehension score too ;)

Uhh...'slow down' of course!

Fleur, I've had similar with DC's second instruments, still lovely for them to realise they have such transferable skills! Well done to your DD.

Waffle not had a chance to see videos yet but I'm glad you are moving forward with Tara.

Welcome to new people!

Waffle - I'm glad you are on your way with Rara for you.

Fleur, I found some lovely G3 and below books in a general music shop which had Matilda, movie themes, frozen etc a couple of years ago. Try your local instrument shop to see if they have anything.

Currently outside the first music audition of the year. This is the local faith girls school and 17 places available. She passed the music aptitude already so fingers crossed....

We know her score would definitely go up if we took out the speed elements. I belong to a gifted board because of Goo, so someone there will be able to work out Rara's GAI or whatever it's called. I too think verbal will be high - Rara taught herself to read at 3, and read 'Esio Trot' by Roald Dahl independently when she was still 4, and had a reading age double her age until she was 6. So the IQ doesn't quite ring true, but that will be because of the timed bits.

DH feels that he is exactly the same. Both of them think I talk far too fast - Goo doesn't! We are all going to have to be more patient, and give her more time. Senco thinks a lot of her speech issues are tied up with her processing problems too - she takes ages to get used to a new place, person or task, so can't always respond immediately. Her favourite phrase is "in a minute"!

Have never heard of forward processing... will have to wait for breakdown of scores I think.

Forward processing (whatever it is) isn't part of a normal IQ test I don't think.

waffle my DS has relatively slow processing speed - not that he's been tested, but you can tell. He has some speech issues that are processing related - they are all the more noticeable because his sister is so articulate. (Her low process score was probably just an artefact, she was 6 and not very cooperative at the time!).

prada good luck!!!

Music not happening much here at the moment - stupid workload plus DD has got it into her head that she has to keep her grade average above 90%. Students going into Y12 science classes in France typically drop 15-20% so she may have to get used to the idea that if she aims for 90%+ this year she will make herself ill with overwork. 70-80% is fine for most selective post-18 courses and I'm trying to get her to set her sights a bit less high.

Thank you ladies for the repertoire recommendation I will have a look. I'll have to ask the clarinet teacher what the plans are as the deadline to enter her for the exam this term is 30th September I think which doesn't leave us much time.

Waffle good to hear things are moving quick with Rara's assessment.

Prada good luck today I am sure miniprada will do amazingly well!

Waffle lovely videos, thank you for sharing. Wish mine would let me film them.

Rara's trumpet reminds me of my boys setting out.

Grade 7 piano entered for here, for DS2. We are off to Leeds for NYO Inspire on Sunday, also for DS2, which he is looking forward to.