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.

Green, Which country u r from ?just curious to know.

Hi monkey, my eldest was in CYM from 8 - 13 years old, and was about Gde 3 only when he started so I expect your DD would more than fit in. It's a wonderful, inclusive place with masses going on but no compulsion to take on extras if you don't want. My DS started with just Saturday mornings and ended up taking options for the entire day the last couple of years - an extra instrument, composition, jazz, extra choirs and so on ... he'd have done more if it fitted into the day.

I found it slightly disorganised when we went to look and pretty informal, and it wasn't until we went to our first annual concert and saw the sheer range of ensembles and the standards of them that I realised he'd lucked out getting in! The kids are really nice and the staff are just lovely - encourage high standards but without the pressure you can find in the JD's. We felt it was great value for money and he'd still be there if he hadn't headed off to board.

Grade 7 piano done for DS2. He's not terribly pleased with it, and is especially upset about the aural! Which normally for him is a strength.

Anyway done now, came home to some trombone music for a gig on Saturday night that he needs to practice before a rehearsal on Thursday so not much time to worry about it.

Fingers crossed raspberry!

Mom17: I am not Chinese, coming from a much smaller however populated country, and everyone backhome now is going opposite, they are leaning to the "Westerner style" which(they thought) that they must let the children play and explore and being creative. Still not many people do classical instruments and music is much less regarded. My parents and my in law try (very hard) to be supportive but deep down I know they think it's for fun and not serious. Only academic achievement is considered as serious

Well done Raspberry! I'm sure that's in the bag. I believe it's the same syllabus DS did last year. What did your DS choose? DS chose the Mozart K.283 for A, Carousel for C and Mendelssohn's Gondellied for B.
Good luck with Saturday concert!

Well done to your DS Raspberry, I am sure he did well.

Thanks everyone.

Drummers snap on Carousel. For A he did Handel Sonatina in D minor and for B By a Meadow Brook.

New pieces, hooray! Although By a Meadow Brook might be used for the Festival next term.

Well done to him Raspberry! And I am sure the new pieces will be very welcome!

I'm sure the G7 will be fine Raspberry, if he's just mentioning the aural then the pieces must have been sound. We tend to dwell on the small things that go wrong and not the huge amount that goes right.

Hi everyone. Haven't been on for a while as have had so much going on. Everyone's children sound like they are all doing brilliantly. Too many of you to single out!!
We've just heard from Guildhall and they want ds to come up this coming Saturday for a pre audition advice session. Having a slight panic as his audition pieces aren't quite ready. He hasn't got to the end of each piece and they're not polished enough so not quite sure what to do. Does anyone have any advice?
Ds had a recital at school and played Vocalise by Rachmaninov which he knows pretty well but the recital was sprung on him somewhat so wasn't quite in the right mindset. If I post a video,could you give me some honest opinions please? Though go easy as he is autistic and was not expecting to do it. His bowing seemed to be quite stiff and jerky today and in the key change he went a bit out of tune.----

Ok I actually have no idea how to post a video. Anyone?

Youtube, disorganised. I don't know how to do it any other way!

New braces (phase 2 - she had blocks and a palate expander for 9 months).

Happy smile there Waffle.

disorganised - make a YouTube channel and put it there. You can choose to have video only available to people who have the specific link, if you don't want to make it public.

I know people worry about youtube but I have a channel for DD's songs/ videos most of which are public and in 4 years we've never had an issue. I usually set comments to require pre-approval but that is the only specific precaution I take.

Lovely smile Waffle! I hope it won't affect her playing.

disorganised YouTube is the easiest way. No idea on advice but good luck with the audition!

How long does Abrsm take to issue results these days? I have an impatient girl asking daily. Of course I know it is too early but I can't for the life of me remember how long it was till we got the grade 3 piano result.

Fleur, look on their website. There is a guide to exam dates and results as they issue them on a rolling basis

For exams weekending 26th November it hopes to issue results between 30th November and 6th December

Disorganised - for many pre-auditions they have always said they arent looking for final products, but want to see how a child works with them, and responds. They quite often then like to hear the same pieces at the 'real' audition, to see progress and also how the child has taken on what was discussed earlier. So well worth checking with them whether they are looking for a performance, or a trial lesson approach?

Thank you raspberry so it could be any day really, wow quite quick then.

DH got his ABRSM result today (G2 jazz piano).

When did he take it Icouldbe?

Waffle gorgeous smile from your beautiful dd.
Stringchild thanks a lot for the heads up,that's really good to know what they are looking for.

How did he get on Icould be?

Jazz piano - he took it on the 18th November so it's been a quick turnaround this time. He got 142 so he was happy with that.