March Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Here you are - a new thread for March! I can't believe we are now up to 700+ posts each month. Thank you all.

I am Waffle, Mum to two girls. I have Goo (11), short for Kajagoogoo, which is 'short' for Kaj, which means... well, that would be telling! Her younger sister is Rara (8) - Rara is what she used to call herself when she was learning to speak. Goo plays the flute, recorder and piano. Rara plays the cello, recorder and clarinet. We have Grade 7 Flute and Grade 1 Clarinet booked for the end of this month. I think we might have Grade 3 Cello and Grade 4 Piano coming up next term. Goo is off to secondary in a few months, and I really don't know if she will ever manage to fit in her last couple of recorder exams. I'm all for saving money though.

I will try my best to read everything and follow this month. Last month's thread moved so fast!!

Trout yes, DS10 started GCSE this year and has a mock exam tomorrow! He says grade 5 theory has been useful but says they ask the questions in a different way. It definitely takes up a reasonable amount of time but I think that's for performance and probably composition. He really enjoys it and he's coping with the art GCSE at the same time so I don't think it can be too bad!
The performance requirements have changed a bit this year. In the past, playing a grade 5 piece well would have got you top marks but there doesn't seem to be a ceiling now. DS1 seems to think it varies according to instrument so it's worth checking.

Waffle and Helen Funnily enough, as part of one of my jobs I've taken groups of school kids round Royal Holloway on several occasions and I know music is highly valued there. Also, it's a beautiful college and campus - the chapel is particularly lovely.

Aah Loose Dd didn't seem to think the grade 5 theory WAS that useful (although she has a tendency to be a whinger so she would say that) . She had a listening test last week and a theory paper another day.. she said it went reasonably well.
I've had mixed feelings about her doing it so early (and so fast!) but I figured if she was going to have to sit a gcse in year 9, it made sense to choose the one she spent most of her spare time doing anyway iykwim.
Mmm- ask me again in August !
Greenleave .. I think the requirement varies from school to school. At dd's school they need to be grade 5 level in practical and theory

Conversely, the GCSE is designed so that it is possible to get a C grade without having had vocal or instrumental lessons. You would be expected to learn a song or something simple on e.g. the keyboard for the performance though.

Really Waffle?
Seems a bit much / cheeky to ask for grade 5s level as requirement to take it at dd's school then doesn't it? ( although in this case I guess they've only got a year to get them up to speed)
Shame though if pupils are missing out on the opportunity .

Yes, really!! I reckon that schools asking for various grade levels are just doing so to get themselves good grades. Grade 5 Theory and Practical are both Level 2 qualifications (GCSE in terms of difficulty level, although not in breadth), so essentially they are saying that you should only apply if you already have broadly equivalent qualifications! Most schools don't specify this at all.

Thats a shame isn't it ... (that not all kids will get opportunity). Glad is not the same for other schools.
Last year ( in a rare moment of non-whinging!) Dd said that learning music had helped her in every single subject at school. She started saying just Maths and languages and then added more subjects and then said " all subjects actually"

We are debating GCSE music at present. DS2 has to choose between Computer Science and Music. He would like to do Computer Science at uni he says.

He can definitely do A level Music without GCSE at school, we've checked.

It's definitely not necessary to have grade 5 theory to do gcse - or they wouldn't have many takers at DS1's school! The music teacher asks for it for A level entry but I'm not sure they insist on GCSE.

Just looked at dd's school option stuff. It's grade 5 Level practical... doesn't mention theory actually. And ( thinking about it) I'm pretty sure that level means you may never have taken any grades ....it would be difficult to enforce wouldn't it?
Maybe it's more of a ' we would prefer you to have ' sort of thing after all.
Raspberry sounds like a good plan re computer science and A level music if he still wants to take it
Dd says she wants to do A level music. She will be going to another schools 6th form or a 6th form college in a few years time... we'll have to have a good look around

DS did GCSE music last year which means that everything I know about it is outdated now. He thought that G5 theory was useful for the composition.

When he did it the performance assessment maxed out at G5 so you were better off with a perfect G5 piece than a G7 piece done slightly less well. That is still the case with AQA, there is no differentiation above G5 standard. I suspect that is why schools are asking for performance at that level - it means that the student will score well on the performance element. Our school asked for G3 playing standard but didn't actually enforce that.

The exam specifications are all on line, you can search and see the breakdown between performance/composition/appraising and see how each of those is assessed.

Another Royal Holloway alumnus here. During the time dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Drummers even more as just mentioned Mr Weckl to DS1 and clearly did the right thing! Can't say I totally understood what I was told but there was much enthusiasm! And anecdote. Clearly the man is a legend.

DS2 finished off our Festival week in style! He got a second place in boys over 12 vocal class, which was nice. Then we got a phonecall in the evening to come to the Gala concert, and he'd won a bursary for most inspiring performance. Happy but shattered DS2!

We had an early start next day to get to Widnes for NYO Inspire, which was a brilliant day.

Great news raspberry

Thank you.

Hope you get there Alexandra.

Yes, I'm now paying attention to the run up to the end of term, which seems more like Christmas in terms of commitments than Easter.

What lovely news Raspberry, that's one of those moments to treasure.

I'm hoping that it will all return to being sensible after Easter, before then there's a workshop, weekend residential, a couple of concerts and probably something else that I've already forgotten.

Well done to the raspberry son.

My 3 sons and possibly one of their sisters (I am afraid I have forgotten) did GCSE music. It was a nice extra one to go along with the more standard academic subjects and as they already played a third of the work in a sense was already done. One of the twins also did AS music last year but thta was the one he dropped for upper sixth - a very difficult choice as he had pretty good marks which probably guaranteed him an A at A level. (the whole A level system is changing so those with younger children though need to ignore this as A levels will all be about upper sixth exams only and already is for some of my twins' subjects - a very complex transitional year).

Congratulations raspberry what a fantastic achievement!

Fantastic work, miniraspberry!

Hi, nice to "meet" you all. My little miss is 7 and is taking g3 clarinet and 2 piano next term. We found out yesterday that she's been awarded a Fledgling Bursary by Future Talent so she's super excited. She's just had a crazy few days with MFY performances with her two bands, orchestra day at the RCM and then another band concert so the email was the icing on the cake for her!

Raspberry that´s wonderful news, he must be elated
Alexandra thank you I know we're all struggling and I wish you a good festival!
loose I once met a roadie who had set up Weckl's drum kit before a gig. He was setting things up for five hours till everything was just perfect for the man. He told me he was a bloody nightmare

moo clearly another dedicated child there. Congratulation on the award! DS did the orchestra day at RCM when he was in primary and really enjoyed it. Can I ask you when I visited the Future Talent website I didn't see the Fledgling bursary at all, only the Worlsey and Robinson bursaries. How does it work?

Oh very well done MiniRaspberry!!!

Welcome, Moo!

Alex, hope you can make it!xx

We are nearsighted with glasses team now, her eye sight has got so much worse than 7 months ago so she will need glasses. After 2 weeks then she could move to Ortho-K. I dropped few tears yesterday at our check up as I have been trying in hope for her myopia to slow down. I had someone gave me a long cuddle and said "mommy, I like glasses, I look very cool and dont worry about the cost, you can take my piggy bank". I did feel much better after (Ortho-K is expensive, we went with iGO and had £50 off, eye test is on nhs and it still cost us £410 upfront plus £59 each month until she doesnt need it any more-hopefully after the lazer treatment. There is a hope with Ortho-K that it could stop or slow down the myopia progression in children).

Oh she's so sweet green. Don't worry about it too much. Laser can correct anything she wishes to correct in the future. Everything is costly except test and normal glasses which NHS covers for children.
BTW I find glasses very cute.

I can just imagine MiniGreen looking very cool and intellectual in her glasses!