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!

Fleur what pieces is your dd doing for g1 clarinet? Dd is playing the Welsh one iykwim can't remember the others. Still struggles sometimes with her low f and low e

se22mother also the Welsh one that translates All through the night. That is the only one that she did currently.

Not sure if all three pieces can be achieved by exam dates, I would imagine that for grade 1 and seeing that she can play them so quick there should be enough time till exams start at the beginning of November? What is your thought on this Waffle*?

Hello! Haven't RTFT yet, but will do!

DS has just started year 4 and will be doing Grade 1 Clarinet in December. How much and how often should he be practising, do you think? He knows the pieces, but (to my untrained ear) doesn't play them anything near the accuracy of the YouTube videos I've found yet. His teacher is confident though.

Fleur I'd encourage your dd to steer away from this one, known to me as torture on e. she needs to stretch to play the low es. Sometimes good. Sometimes squeaky

MrsWombat welcome! DD is asked by her clarinet teacher to practice at least 5 times a week. We tend to do 6 unless something comes up.

Thank you se22mother, we are currently experiencing a new way of teaching where the teacher chooses the pieces. DD's piano teacher is letting her chose generally unless there is a stretch they can't get around or she is pushing her to do a different style.

DD doesn't mind either way, she didn't mind the teacher choosing All through the night.

Yes Fleur, just do it. I have had children with your dd's musical experience start in September and pass in December, some with distinction. And an adult who started in January, entered the following week, and passed with merit after 8 weeks. My little girl who started in Feb is going to wait though - she has another music exam going on this term, is struggling with arpeggios and needs to grow a bit more.

gillybeanz and prada tuned percussion
Unfortunately most of the tuition has to take place in the local music service, or saturday junior till they are secondary age and they can go to a school with the instruments. Like I already mentioned in a previous post about secondary schools, not all schools have a marimba for example and some timpani are sad to see! With DS we just had to wait till he started year 7. Fortunately no time wasted as after only one year of tuition he was playing grade 7 pieces on xylophone and marimba. The reason for this is he had behind him six years of piano and drumkit. The piano helps so much, a marimba is just an oversized keyboard!
The most common tuned percussion instrument to have at home is a xylophone, Loose also has one in her posh shed . The price varies not only with quality but with size (octaves). If the child is going to continue there's no point in buying a 3.5 octaves because soon he will be playing pieces which expand 4.5 octaves. A xylophone is more affordable and a good place to start.
We have a 4.3 octaves rosewood marimba. It's a very good make (Bergerault) We were very lucky to find it for 2,000 (a shop had a surplus and wanted to get rid of them) and to get the help to finance it. Rosewood is better than padouk wood by the way.
The whole mallet issue is also an expense (different soft and hard mallets for timpani, mallets for xylophone, the marimba also requires sometimes softer mallets or harder and you need two pairs of each to play with four at the same time.... etc). And then of course untuned is all about sticks and brushes and the sticks get destroyed so quickly because of rim shots!
Timpani is for obvious reasons at school, I don't know anyone with timpani at home. Maybe a professional timpanist with a big house. DS would love a vibraphone but it's just not an option right now.
All in all is an easier life to play the flute! But I love DS' percussion now, and it's so varied - means having to practice on many different things though, so lots of time.
Any other questions from your friends, here I am.

Masses of time Fleur. If she doesn't do it this term she should skip it and move on.

Thank you Waffle and Raspberry I'll check with the teacher what is the plan as she didn't mention exam payment, she probably wanted to see how she gets on this week, bottom line is that indeed I don't want her to play the same pieces till March and I would prefer to keep March for potential piano exam as she generally does them in that session.

Wafflenose, have you been there when Rara was tested? How exactly processing speed is checked? I feel I may need to do smth like that for my dd... Also do you know the name of the IQ test by any chance? Agreed with Mistigri - if she has spiky results, the total figure is meaningless...

By the way, dd started recorder at school! Well, sort of started.... she missed her first lesson. I felt a bit left out with everyone discussing flutes clarinets and recorders, and now I am not

Thanks so much Drummersmum

She has been on here in the past, but is quite busy atm so I posted for her and told her I had.
Will tell her of the response and thank you very much.
It's a dd as well, so obviously great to encourage the girls.
I know at aged 7 though she has plenty of time, I love the idea of marimba, but not sure friend could buy one if they are really expensive.

Only: 3rd instruments, hat off!
Waffle: Does Rara still love reading and read now? Will they have a following discussion where you could raise the question?
Drummers: vast knowledge, I am fascinated reading your post and googling like mad all these instrument you mentioned, I only know the marimba because of your pic some time ago, its truly a massive beast

From us, we are so hopeless, without exam I cant get her to practise, I managed to get her practise the piece from the Orchestra rehearsal for 15 mins the other day. Thats all.
Piano on the other hand we are again struggling with aural(this always makes me thinking we are truly dumb in music). Someone couldnt sing back one note right on the lesson earlier this week. Our teacher said we might have to choose play the piece back. I will have to research on what is required for grade 5 aural, seems like much more than what we did for other lower grades

I don't know what tests were done, so will have to get back to you when I hear more. Hopefully we'll have full results in a week.

Yes, Rara reads (and plays with Lego) ALL the time. Her favourites are the Warrior Cat books. She read all the Harry Potter books between late 5 and late 7, because Goo was reading them. She got a lot out of them, but will get far more if she reads them again at 10.

Greenleave it is only year 4 lessons, not that she wanted to do a recorder, in fact she wanted to opt out but school didn't let her. Re. aural - yes, she can play piece back, this is what dd did for grade 4 aural. And sorry for repeating myself again and again-dd used this app, and you can either sing or play back with this app
www.auralbook.com/gb/ad/abrsm/en/pc.php

Wafflenose would be interesting to know when you get a report... What you say about her reading etc it does sound as verbally gifted, is she good at writing stories too? There is an article about verbally gifted children, does it ring a bell with Rara?

Wafflenose We have Warrior Cats-obsessed children here too.

Ah, I remember Warrior cats!
Nothing to add to drummers excellent post except to say that for complete beginners it was possible to hire a portable percussion kit from our local music service, which was a small glockenspiel, a practice drum pad and some sticks! That won't be any use after grade 1, though, and someone else had hired the xylophone so I bought one! It's an Adams, rosewood blocks, and not cheap (but less than a marimba!)
I am thinking of getting DS1 a snare drum in case he wants to perform his snare drum pieces for GCSE (probably not) but we are completely dependent on music service for use of timpani!

DD did All through the night for her Grade 1 (first instrument) and it was probably the easiest piece of the three she chose. We deliberately picked pieces without a low E or F in as she also struggled with these at the time.

Currently debating putting off til next term Grade 3. We have one and a half pieces ok, with room for polishing, and the third not attempted yet.

Plus at least three scales not great yet, we are now struggling with high notes rather than low ones, they are painful at times!

I have given in on the bassoon lessons, so we will wait and see if she has been awarded a place on those.

Can anyone share their tips on playing long pieces please? dd is preparing quite a long piece for the concert - about 4 mins. When practicing she is playing it in bits of course. But I am worried that when on stage she may feel overwhelmed and make silly mistakes-4 mins is quite long for someone who has concentration issues! How I am to prepare her for that? Shall I make her to play the whole piece every time she practices? Say after playing separate bits just play the whole lot once or twice?

Yes only DH always told DS to play the whole piece once he's ready in one go and NOT TO STOP even if he made a mistake or skipped a bit or got lost. Every practice.

only we do the same: first play the piece through and then focus on the smaller bits where it still needs work. That is mainly because I discovered that, when DD plays only certain bits for a longer period of time she ends up pausing at those points in the piece so we then need additional work to tie it back together.

Thanks drummersmum and LooseAtTheSeams- very helpful re: tuned percussion.
Will see how music service lessons go with tuned percussion. Xylophone looks good though, she already has a drum kit.
No idea why she picked drums, my other dd is a violinist!
But it's all good!

Thank you drummers mum re: percussion. Have passed your tips into my friend.

Audition was ok but sight reading she said she knew she was playing the wrong notes (natural not sharp) but 'couldn't seem to stop herself' anyway, she said "sorry I don't know why I played the wrong notes, I should've played sharps" the audition judge asked her if she knew the key which she did and the auditioner seemed impressed she knew it (thank you G5 theory). Violin piece went well, piano not so much (she got distracted and forgot where she was )

Time will tell....

Hello Paulweller11 ! Nice to see a girl amongst the percussionists!

Hi Drummersmum, yep she loves the drums. I've got a xylophone for her, so that should be fun. It's only 3.5 octaves but will do for a bit.
Her sister (violinist) also likes it 😀
Just trying to find someone to teach her. I've signed her up with local music service, but they only do 15min group lessons? As she's new?
Thinking I may contact Chetham's or RNCM, see if they have a pupil, or teacher that can teach her for individual lessons.
Anyone know any body in Manchester, or nearish (we are in Bury)?

Paulweller11 Great, good luck with the xylophone. this teacher is in Bury, young and affordable:
www.musicteachers.co.uk/teacher/59cdbd237fec94dde475