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.

With the clarinet we are adding bits to it slowly to delay getting a new one! We had a new ligature last Christmas and in a year or so we will look for a new mouthpiece.

This Christmas I was hoping to buy a bassoon stand and maybe a new sling but the stands are an enormous price! I have got her a Little Miss Clarinet t shirt though.

Gosh, we are hoping the 211 lasts Goo to beyond Grade 8, hopefully without the original mouthpiece. She's working on her Grade 7, and nothing has been said about upgrading - I'm hoping not to, until the work she's having done on her teeth is finished...

We also got her a piccolo for £150, and it's fine!

Thanks for all the well wishes on the previous page. I wasn't hurt in the accident, and nobody else was involved. Just an annoying expense, really. Three of us are unwell now - I am probably OK to struggle into work tomorrow though.

Gah, and I meant with the original mouthpiece!!

I've been away from everything in here!

Waffle and Fleur I do hope you can go back to something resembling normality soon.

Loose and Alex you're both very brave and a role model for me except I can't find the time to dedicate myself to myself but I WILL, someday, sometime, over the rainbow. Loose congrats on Grade6 done also!!

paulWeller I think Rockschool include a jazz piece after certain grade. I agree with gillybeanz that all the learning your DD is doing now will be useful for all genres, but it's great she's showing interest in jazz so young. Why don't you ask the teacher for a jazz standard he/she can work with your DD, and also maybe start teaching her some specific jazz rudiments? Also, a friend of mine who's an international renownded musician on another instrument was a prodigious jazz dummer when he was 10 years old. I remember him telling me that he had never had a formal lesson in his life, instead he had spent hours in his basement playing drums to jazz records, listening what the drummer was doing, imitating him, playing along, etc. I think there's so much our children can do outside books and teachers. If I have learnt something over the years is that DS will do something if he wants to do it, I don't need to be offering him support for everything like I thought I needed to do. Of course he's older now, but the same did apply when he was younger. There was no point in me buying a book on composition or hiring a composing teacher, if he wanted to compose he would already be doing it at the piano, on his own. So I would encourage your daughter to just have a go, download some classic jazz standards, listen and watch Steve Gadd and Buddy Rich, and play along her Ipod or wathever. That will do so much for her musicianship. There are piano and bass tracks alone without drums that she could drum to...

Waffle

You know me, I don't really know much
I think dh has bought it second hand off a colleague, it sounds right though.
He's the type who buys good instruments and is always swapping and changing different parts or whole instruments.
He just tends to wait until something comes up and is quite knowledgable so does well buying and selling on ebay and the woodwind exchanges.

They are both at the RNCM today for the saxophone day, there are stands there and I can guarantee he'll come home with something.

Waffle Hope you recover from the car accident soon. All car-related mishaps are alarming ...

Loose will pm you.

Agree withDrummers on the Jazz drums - if I remember correctly, DS1 and his last teacher used to listen to jazz pieces and analyse them, then play bits, so there was never a book as such. Just looking at G5 rockschool book as it's lying in front of me and it doesn't seem to have a specific jazz piece but the books do have different styles.
Never have replied!

Will do, I'm not a jazz fan but she's already sought out Buddy Rich on YouTube.

Great PaulWeller your DD seems to be really into her percussion, yay.

Thanks Loose.
I know - drummers mum-I live in a house of constant noise, normally some type of percussion instrument. Not sure how but the neighbours don't even hear it!
Lucky!

I'm attempting to teach myself piano- I can just about play a grade 1 piece. Clearly the children do not get it from me. 😀😀

Ah, Buddy Rich is a favourite here, too. MiniPaul has good taste! Good luck with the piano - you may find it's quite addictive. 'Indian Pony Race' going well here - I've almost ironed out all the 'help! Where now?'moments!! Still having to go very slowly on the 'Pleasant Meadow' but it is the whole piece hands together now.
Have let DS2 off practice today as he has a streaming cold and frankly I don't want him sneezing all over the piano!

Loose I am reading one of the books DS got for his birthday: "Play It Again" and I keep thinking of your posts and your progress, so similar!
www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Again-Amateur-Against-Impossible/dp/0099554747

Quick update, what did I say?
We now have another Selmer Mark vi sat in the music room.
There were 197 saxes in the mass sax choir this morning and dd and her school friend were the youngest.
She tried a baritone and sopranino and tried to get round her dad when he arrived. Needless to say she is back at school now with a few free reeds and no more saxes.
They asked for volunteers to go on stage during the masterclass, she was there like a shot apparently, she didn't get picked to take a solo though.
Dh said there were some of his colleagues there, lots of professors, players and of course Jess She had no fear and was mingling on her own without dh, talking to them all as if she was their peer. I'm afraid she gets her communication skills from me, she's fearless

Bbc 4 8pm doc on Sheku bbcym winner about to start

Loose that's probably a good idea... some kid coughed all over me at work last week and said, "Oh, I think I've got a chest infection!" If there's one going, I'll get it. Aargh!

Rara is having to be made to practise the cello at the moment. She finds it much harder work than the other two, but when she bothers, it sounds nice most of the time. She's just started on the Grade 3 scales, and has several nice pieces on the go - they're all about a page long. I've found a little clarinet Christmas carols book for Rara and her friend to try. All the carols are printed in the low register, followed by an octave higher, which they can have a go at next year.

drummers I've read Play it again and it's what made me try to play chamber music. :)

Hi Waffle, hope you have recovered from the accident.

What is the name of the clarinet carol book please? Dd may enjoying practicing it too.

It's incredibly old fashioned, and doesn't contain many well-known ones: 'The Clarinettist's Book of Carols', arr. Lawton, published 1959! I can probably help you find a better one, but this house is a dumping ground for everyone's old sheet music, recorders and trumpets. (I'm not even joking!) So I don't recall where it actually came from.

se22 I've got a clarinet Christmas Carols book for grades 0-3 I'll take a picture of it tomorrow (I am in bed) and post it for you.

Thank you all for the good thoughts, DD is better and ready to start a new week tomorrow. I am a bit down but I have outed myself here a lot so I won't go into details.

Hi all I came here after drummersmum referred me to this. My previous thread is www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2782269-Pros-and-cons-of-sending-a-child-to-a-music-specialist-school I have a 10 yr old daughter very keen to go to one of 5 music boarding schools. It will have to be one of the 2 London ones because of the distance. Well she just likes the idea of boarding schools - like Hogwarts etc. I don't think she is mature enough to work out what the impact of doing so might be. Also she usually does not like to be "pushed" by her teacher and is rather messy and disorganised, etc. I just feel she would not like the regimented life at boarding school but I'm afraid she'll hold it against me if I didn't let her go and at least audition. If she fails the audition then that's me sorted then. I hate to sound mean but I really doubt she will like it, but as she is headstrong, I don't think she will forgive me unless I let her have a go. I would like to hear your experiences of your children at this sort of school, especially if your child has been homeschooled. I am feeling really tired now but will respond later in the day. At the risk of repeating myself, I hope my initial post in the other section will suffice. No trolling please... I am simply not up to the effort of responding... I am seeking gentle support and guidance from anyone who truly wants to do so for me. Thank you in advance.

Thanks Fleur!

Well a week without music festivals . She did really well in both piano classes. Next year I am definitely entering her into the older kids classes as she fares better with the trickier pieces. An amusing moment when we realised that the hand wringing about whether or not to take G6 piano in December at the violin teacher's special visit was unnecessary as the festival judge congratulated on on playing a difficult piece 'not yet even in the examination arena' - she is working on the 2017/18 syllabus and so can't anyway We had a good giggle with the piano teacher yesterday who hadn't realised either!!

Sorry to hear of your car woes Waffle. Bad luck. Hope Goo has a speedy recovery.

Was thinking of you all re: flutes. One child at miniprada's orchestra had left her brand new Yamaha flute (with solid silver mouthpiece) on the train. It has not been handed in after two weeks - poor child was beside herself. I only hope that it is lost in the tfl lost property system rather than found its way to cash converters or eBay.

This is the carols book for clarinet that DD is having fun with. They are easy and good sight reading practice because she knows the tunes and has no trouble reading them.

Good to hear the festival went well for miniprada!