December Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

A new thread for December! Musicians and parents of musicians of ALL ages and standards are very welcome! I do try to keep up with the threads, but am struggling to remember who plays what sometimes. Might it be helpful to have a different thread where we could list them all (for people that want to?)

I am Waffle, teacher of woodwind, and mum to Goo (11) - flute, recorder and piano, and Rara (8) cello, recorder and clarinet. Rara has her Grade 3 Recorder exam on Monday, and I have quite a few other pupils entered, but no other exams for us this term. Goo has had a crap time recently, with a wrist injury, mangled fingers and now new braces, so I've pretty much written off any musical progress this term. We have the music festival at the end of January, so maybe she'll be all healed and ready to move forwards in time for that!

No Fleur no news.

But a bit sidelined by him coming home with a sore throat and a voice an octave lower. He's meant to singing the treble solo in Once in Royal David's City at the school carol service tonight, and the rest of the week is concerts including singing every night. Ahhh.

Oh no hope it recovers enough that's the problem with doing so much stuff at this time of year

Saturday music school is out sadly...already have stuff on :-( thanks anyway though!

Congratulations to those who have passed G5, commiserations to those still playing the waiting game.

raspberry 'tis the season to be sneezing (fal lal lal la la), I hope he gets over the sore throat soon.

Raspberry oh no, I hope he gets over it soon!

We're practising hard, DD's piano teacher texted me today to say she's going to push her a lot as she can see she can do it so she's is really picky on the detail of her playing. I am also waiting to hear from the local junior woodwind band, hopefully she can join in January.

Problem is...academics extra work is lacking behind, we haven't done anything for the last couple of weeks.

hope the cold disappears raspberry.

Practice here has been variable, there's so much other stuff going on that its hard to manage the time. DS is doing pretty well though plugged into his headphones and drumming along to his sisters choices on youtube (unfortunately they aren't keen on his favorite AC/DC so there are sometimes ructions but he's pretty compliant and happy at the moment so generally is happy to go along with them).

DD1 has had three nights in a theatre performance (as a violin playing elf...) and now need to buckle down and polish her piece for saturdays concert, but she tells me her lesson was good so I'm not stressing too much.

DD2 had a concert on sunday and was a little star, however my suggestion yesterday that she actually practiced what her teacher had asked her to was not well received. Stubbornness and tiredness are not a good combination!

On the lesson front it turns out we are not as sorted as I thought, the girls are OK for another semester and I was told that DS would switch to the local drum teacher, except I have now been told that even though he has been drumming for 18 months he is too young to learn drums locally and must wait another 2 years....... the mind boggles a little. He has however been offered piano lessons should he wish to try that.....

Mending fences are you based in the uk and do your children have county lessons ? All sounds a bit of a nightmare and hope you get it sorted. Where we live the music hub and county provision is excellent , though it's not particularly flexible when it comes to supporting talented/ driven young musicians so I feel your frustrations

Mending - a violin playing elf sounds a brilliant! luck Elf!

congrats to all the theory results - can't believe people are still having to wait; hope they all come through today :)

In all haste....just got an email mentioning a sale on the ABRSM website.

mending how frustrating. How old is your DS again?
raspberry how's that voice going? Hope it's up an octave!
It's been crazy here with five performances of the school musical (band and cast were awesome) and a performance of DS composition yesterday which was very well received and his mum loves loves loves it .
Finally I have a son who's coming home at the normal hour and having supper with us today. [sigh] It feels nice. He seemed taller this morning...

I went to a lunchtime concert today which included DD playing clarinet. Was lovely. I don't often get the chance to get to the lunchtime ones but managed to get my work out of the way and just got there in time. There were just four of them, each played beautifully.

We are upgrading her instrument after Christmas, not the best time of year financially but apparently it has to be done, gulp.

This is a lovely thread - i'm so glad I joined in. It makes me feel nostalgic for the days of waiting for my kids' exam results - but not getting them to practise!!

I did G7 piano and have always wished I'd gone back and done G8 but I don't think I'd have the application to do it now

Grade 5 piano results with barely a merit here however its expected as we failed scales and aural. These two are our weakness to improve in the next exam

Well done miniGreen!!!

Thanks Petra, the 3 pieces were played well. The only thing we didnt have to practise was sight reading, she sightreads well now after had her grade 5 theory done. We might do above grade 5 theory for the same reason. She really enjoy learning theory too.

We are all planning to do grade 6 theory once we've (hopefully) done G5 next term! Maybe miniGreen could join us!

Yes, that would be nice.

I am still thinking what to do with her violin. I might have to accept that if we aim high then we have to put works on. Might ask J if she wants us back. My boss gonna hate me rushing through the door on the day.

Well done minigreen!! That was a quick result!

We had an answer from the local junior wind band and DD can join as of January. Yaaaayyy! However like you Green I'll have to run dot on 5pm from work to be able to make it. Hopefully work won't get too annoyed.

Truffle what are you upgrading to? How old is your DD and what level is her playing? I am asking as I know we'll have to do it one day but hopefully not for another couple of years at least. DD only passed grade 1 and might skip to 3 next year (however seeing that she's stalling with the high notes maybe not) and we've been told upgrading her current instrument should be after grade 5.

drummers performing his own composition! Wow! Well done! Impressed!

Sorry for the repeated postings, I am on my phone, as always so scrolling, reading, replying.

Well done, MiniGreen!

We are going to need a new cello in the next couple of months (Rara is starting to get a bit big for hers), and an acoustic piano at some unspecified time in the future, oh dear!!

Fleur: nice on the local junior wind band news, she will love it. We love our Sunday Orchestra(especially the break biscuits treats).
Reattached here the results. We should have started earlier with scales, will try it better in the next exam

Thinking of going against all our teachers advice and get her a new violin too. It might motivate(me) better with the new violin.