November Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Let's have a new thread for November... I'm not sure if the old one will last long enough. This is a place to talk about music lessons, practice, exams and anything to do with learning instruments/ singing. We have beginners and advanced players of all ages.

I am mum to two girls - Goo (newly 11) - Flute, Recorder and Piano, and Rara (8) - Cello, Recorder, and one month of Clarinet so far. She won't put the clarinet down, so I think we've found The One.

Loose What are you playing? >

Never nothing special, just G4 pieces! The slow one is Polish 'I Know of a Pleasant Meadow' and my teacher is very pleased because it is both modern and tuneful! The fast one is Indian Pony Race. I honestly thought I was playing it fast but it turns out I had underestimated!

Ah, pleased to report some progress with Indian Pony Race. The transitions at speed are going better and some small but significant progress on the two bars I keep knotting my fingers over!! Have to repeat the whole process tomorrow, taking an hour out of the day again but I think it's worth it. Scales plus slow piece first session, then maybe sight reading followed by fast one, focusing on tricky bars!
The caffeine definitely had some effect! The good thing is that all the pieces should be about ready by the end of term with some extra practice at Christmas and then some polishing up at the beginning of next term. I don't honestly expect to get a great mark in March; what I'm working on is having the confidence to just go into the exam and play without nerves.
I think the end effect of all this practice will be to make me grateful for the torture that awaits at grade 5

Fleurdelise,ha, that sound familiar about ds...we are supposed to have a 2 hour limit on screen time. Ds has solved this by putting his schoolbooks on the table whilest playing on his PS4...so, no, he hasn't really played 2 hours yet, he has been doing his homeowrk.....

Drivingmadness I do feel like they think they've invented the world and we are complete idiots who can't figure out when they "trick" us.

Loose besides admiring you for taking lessons I think it is even more amazing you taking exams!

Fleur That's it, isn't it? They think we haven't seen (or actually performed) these tricks before. Very innocent.

I'm so impressed with the grownups taking exams, and also quite glad the kids are not in an exam based system - dd2 is not keen on being told what to do and I expect an exam syllabus would send her over the edge and dd1 thinks 'scales' is a swear word (although she'll happily learn key signatures and chords etc. she just objects to the word 'scales' )

Ooh well done loose! More music festivals later today and tomorrow - piano this time and she is doing an any age g4&5 category and at least 4 of them are doing the Indian pony race so I'll be able to hear it. Miniprada is doing 60's swing. Then she is doing the cruella de vil for the any age jazz piano class tomorrow (where everyone else is doing moody prawn blues or 60's swing so here's hoping the judge will appreciate a different tune!) she has pulled out of the other two classes as she hasn't had time to re rehearse the G5 Bach and Glier as she is concentrating on the G6 pieces that she may or may not do for the exam December..... Or wait until Feb/March (most likely).

On a lighter note, I have just bought her this xmas jumper for the charity xmas jumper day at school. It made me laugh...

Prada you may be a bit tired of Indian Pony Race after hearing it several times although if played fast enough it doesn't last long. Definitely a good plan for your DD to do Cruella instead of the Moody Prawns and stand out from the crowd! I've still got memories of a primary school Christmas concert where just about every pianist seemed to be playing Tarantella. OK, slight exaggeration but you know what I mean!
That jumper made me laugh out loud but unfortunately I was in a cafe waiting for a friend when I saw it!

Goo has just come home with a very swollen, black painful finger which she can't move, thanks to stupid Rugby. She then went on to play Hockey in PE, and Dodgeball after school, because nobody took it seriously. We're currently missing yet another flute lesson, and I'm wondering if I really need to spend another Friday evening in hospital. She may be sporty, but she's also clumsy. Unbelievable.

Oh waffle. I can empathise. Sport and Music don't always play nicely. Hope a good ice bucket helps it and she hasn't killed a nail...

Thanks. It's six weeks to the day since her sprained wrist, sustained doing Dodgeball!

Waffle I have frequently been grateful that DS has never been sporty. On the run up to auditions/residentials I have written letters to school asking for him to be kept out of goal and away from hard ball sports. The kit cupboard must be immaculate given the hours that he's spent cleaning it out.

Accidents happen, you don't have to be clumsy to have one. It presumably isn't very painful or has she been soldiering on?

Today's musical news is that DH had his G2 jazz piano today. The centre had jazz exams all morning, we saw two pianists and four saxophonists while we were there (we were waiting to speak to the last candidate of the morning). Just for once the adults had the children outnumbered, I saw two under 16s and the rest were adults.

NeverEver exactly!

Waffle so sorry to hear Goo had another accident!

Well we had some fun too, ended up in A&E last night with DD who was screaming in pain with her stomach. She was going to the toilet a bit often but then the pain must have been really bad so I decided to google it and realised that the symptoms could show appendicitis. Called 111 and we were asked to go to A&E. All ok, apparently it was a stomach bug.

She is much better today thank god but we are exhausted as we barely slept last night.

Fleur: it must have been stressful for you, hope full rest is on over the weekend, great news that it has gone now.
Waffle: hope Goo's finger heals real soon
Prada: on the shirt and best of luck with the "festival"

Oh no Fleur, I hope she is completely better soon. I had a minor car accident last night - I am fine and the car has had some work done today, but it hasn't been a good week.

Rara has just got the trumpet out for the first time this term. She has whole class lessons and knows around 8 notes. I'm quite impressed, but won't be paying for lessons on that too.

Poor Goo and minifleur

Waffle - ice and arnica. We use arnica cream that you can buy from the supermarket. Brings the bruising out really quickly, but needs to be used fairly soon after the injury. Hope it's better soon.

Fleur - hope minifleur is better soon - and doesn't share it round the family.

Poor Goo! Miniprada once had a broken wrist that no one took seriously at school even though she had told 4 adults that it was seriously hurting.

Well done Alexandra. Sounds great.

Festival went well today. One more class tomorrow (yay!)

Does anyone give music teachers in school Christmas presents? We have always given the violin teacher (at home) something but I'm wondering if I should get a token of thanks for the clarinet teacher too. He's a 50 something male ?

I teach around 80 children, and usually get around half a dozen little gifts, mostly from private pupils, but maybe a couple from school. It's not necessary, but very sweet when people bother. I'd rather have a personal card from the child than anything else, but would probably buy a 50 something male a bottle of wine?

Oh no I hope everyone recovers soon. Ds loves sport too and has recently been playing proper rugby at school I'm quite relieved that they've stoped that for a bit 😀I never know what to get their music teachers for Christmas especially the 30 something male trumpet teacher so will be watching with interest in case anyone has any ideas

Waffle I always think 🍷 is a good gift so will probably stick to that !