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.

disorganisedmummy, no problem at all, I just wanted to share few thoughts with you which I did :)

Wafflenose, oh, she is so good! (hope pianist doesn't follow this thread )

I love to watch our kids videos, would post ours but don't want to be recognised

I am the pianist! (useless I know!) I know a fair few people on here in real life, and hope it doesn't matter, as long as I don't say anything private, controversial or rude?

I am chortling at the 'crap pianist' quip!
battery is going, will watch tomorrow!

Loved Goo's playing waffle. And so did her audience

Ha-ha, I should guess Wafflenose! I didn't really concentrate on piano, but though-why Waffle doesn't like it? It seems to be ok

You are very pretty Waffle . No surprise girls are so good looking :)

Loved it, Waffle! I think you're a bit harsh on the pianist and the flautist is wonderful! Fantastic work, Goo!
Drummers - your DS's presents are so cool, bet he is looking forward to his birthday! DS1 loves his laptop but seemed just as impressed with the sparkly candle on his cake so more like 15 going on 5 in this house, I think.
I had no idea Paul Harris was so prolific but have to say I have been very impressed by his sight reading series.

Yay! It let me watch this time! Pics and sound! I'm a huge Rutter fan and make the choir sing carols at least two carols by him every year. Almost as huge a fan as I am of Richard Rodney Bennett. In fact I've managed to convert miss 10 into a fan too. I shall never forget falling in love with music from 'Tender is the night'. Anyway good job, Goo.

Wow great playing waffle and goo! Ive been practising together with dd2 , the plan is shes going to play the solo of 'nord norsk julesalme ' together with my brass ensemble in our lokal christmas concert. We ve moved next weeks practise to Earl in the evening so she can join us and see if her flute can be heard above the rest of us and also if she copes with the whole shebang 😀

That was lovely playing waffle and goo!

waffle That's serious playing for a girl her age. Fabulous! And the pianist seems to know her so well almost like if they had been playing together a lifetime

Myself and dd are very impressed Waffle! Even the cat came to watch, dd wants to be able to play that fast she says.

Can somebody recommend a 3/4 guitar for a 5 year old beginner? Not very expensive but good enough quality. For my nice.

DD had an Ashton one when she first started guitar lessons in Y1 (so 5 years old). That was the make recommended by her guitar teacher and she kept playing that until Y7 when she borrowed a full size one for her Grade 4 exam.

Shortly after the exam she moved onto acoustic guitar and now she's considering an electric one.

She's excellent! I wish I could be so confident about performing, but as an adult learner it's not so easy.

There's a little dark haired girl near the front who has a good sense of rhythm as she plays along with the piano!

Thanks all... I only learnt the pieces to a point, because Goo's teacher agreed to play for the audition. I breathed a sigh of relief and stopped practising!

As for the poster who said I was pretty, well thank you, I don't think anyone's ever said that before! I consider myself to be plump and plain, although I do have nice hair. Goo looks like her dad, and looks set to end up around 5'8" (lucky thing). Rara looks like me, and is rather short.

Not only you look pretty Wafflenose but you look very young too :)
As for "I don't think anyone's ever said that before!" - nobody said that to me before too, but it does not mean I am not pretty

Apparently you are multi talented too - I didn't get your words about pianist yesterday because I didn't realise you play piano! And before you say that you are rubbish at it-you have to listen to our violin teacher piano playing!

Morning all. How is everyone?
So yesterday we trouped off at what seemed like the crack of dawn to London to visit Guildhall.
I'm conscious of boring you all to tears so I won't go into detail unless you ask! The long and short of it is that the two classes ds took part in; Junior String Ensemble and Musical Awareness he coped very well with and thoroughly enjoyed. The tutors were both lovely,friendly and very welcoming. We could have stayed all day and watched the Junior Symphony orchestra but we were all tired and ds was quite overwhelmed with it all. He wouldn't talk about it when we first came out but later on he said that he absolutely loved it and wanted to audition. All in all a very positive experience.

Watch this space!!

disorganised That sounds great! Glad your DS enjoyed the experience. :)

I seem to recall someone's DC here does electric guitar? I'm after an amp and wonder if there are recommendations ...

Never there are a number of amps in this house and in the shed. I will make inquiries! it could take a while as there are some electronics geeks in this house!
Disorganisedmummy I love hearing about your day! It sounds like it was a very welcoming and positive experience and I do hope he does audition! Yesterday, DS2 trotted off to his training string group, where he seems to have had a great time and as an extra treat his cello teacher let him have a go on her rather lovely full-sized cello. You can guess the kind of hints that have been dropped heavily since then! I could evilly just insist on swapping the hire cello yet again, mind you!

Loose DS and DH had a trip out yesterday looking at new instruments, I was happy to find that DS preferred his current one to all of the ones he was trying out so I think that's one manufacturer we can cross off the list.

disorganisedmummy I can well understand that he needed time to process what must have been a full on day for him. I'm glad that it went so well.

Waffle, thank you for the video, that was lovely. She was a pleasure to listen to and from what you were saying I was expecting the accompaniment to be a train wreck - it wasn't.

Disorganised go ahead, this thread is all about the details, I never get bored! It sounds like he enjoyed it and hope his audition goes well.
DS birthday outing today after which I have 13 teenage boys coming to a small terraced house. I have made popcorn and sandwiches and bought a choc cake. But first things first: COVER the marimba and the piano!

I hope he enjoys his party, drummersmum. Good luck with entertaining the 13 teenage boys! When Goo was 9, I had about a dozen girls round, and DH was away. I did party food and they watched a film, I also did tie dyeing, a couple of pinatas and Pass the Parcel with them. Part way through, a couple of the girls started misbehaving and I panicked at being on my own with them for 3 hours, and rang my friend! She came over, and when we ran out of activities, she did some singing with them. She was great!

That's a lot of teenagers, drummersmum but the food sounds ideal! Hope your DS has had a lovely day! In my experience, teenaged boys aren't any trouble - or at least they make sure they behave for their friends' parents!

I love hearing about everyone's experiences. Practice has taken a bit of a back seat to homework this weekend unfortunately but hoping to squeeze in a bit more clarinet after dinner. Dd has looked up the next two notes on the bassoon and started trying to work out a couple more in her practice today.