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!!

DS right now:
term time: 12 hrs week practice + 4hrs/week ensembles + 3-4 hrs/week lessons.
holidays: 21 hours/week practice + occasional lesson outside school

My son plays quite a bit of the trumpet. I think in the early days when children are 7 - 10 as long as they play for about 10 miiutes a day on all instruments that is good and ideally with a parent sitting by or near (and much better then one long chunk once a week). If the practice can be at the same time every day it is a lot easier for everyone too as it becomes a habit. I used to do my piano practice before school at 7.15am every day at that age (thankfully we were in a detached house so no neighbours could hear).

drummers, I think your DS is 14, and mine is 9. OK, only 5 years to go till my DS becomes (hopefully) more organised like yours. I can see the light!

Enormous, thank you for sharing your views/experiences. Lots of wisdom in there. Really appreciated.

kutik he's 15

My DD practice time is 40+30minutes, violin and piano. Every week about 5-6days. She still 8, next month will be 9. It looks not too much, but why I have thought she has been very tired and want to reduce piano time. But she would like keep piano and violin both as 1st instrument.

Congratulations LIZS and so pleased your DD's piano result turned out so well in the end coco!

Ok 6 yeas to go. I can do it... I can do it...

DD1 does 40+ mins of brass daily. That's what the JD expect for her standard (just passed G5 jazz with a high merit - in spite of being sure the exam had been a disaster). She also has school orchestra, teaches for an hour a week and has JD for four hours per week (only two of those involve playing brass). On top of that, she does sport three mornings a week before school, twice a week after school and has two dance lessons a week. And goes to Guides. She likes to be busy!

Congratulations on all the great results. We were too shameless to pull out at the last minutes so you have all of my admiration.

More than a year a go we complained that we were super bored, even bored of playing. Now we can complain that we dont have time to do everything needed. Violin is in stagger the last 6 months with us struggling finding a suitable teacher so very little practice. We have 2 Orchestra: 2.5hr/week. Piano was 45mins solidly 5 days a week 1.5 months before the g5 test last term and I could see the difference in her playing. Last night both my husband and myself got home early(ish) 6.45pm, with the incident happened, we had a quick dinner then she just played randomly all pieces that she knows for...nearly 1.5hour. I didnt care about my neighbor anymore by then as we dont play with sound after 6pm. She then read a book in our language with us before bed. I was a happy person again after. Usually we do loads on Sunday morning and more on Tuesday evening but that is mostly it.

Interesting read for those challenged with their children's too many/too few practice hours.

qz.com/915646/how-to-make-your-kid-good-at-anything-according-to-anders-ericsson-an-expert-on-peak-performance-and-originator-of-the-10000-hour-rule/

I think you're right that you can practice piano and violin for longer than say a brass instrument. Ds does about an hour a day trumpet ( his decision he said that felt right) plus about 30 minutes piano ( but he does this before school) he also plays in various school and county bands and so in total weekly time adds up to about 14 or 15 hours more if he has a weekend music course. But I think this has to come from them it's fine in my book to choose to do one thing or to want to do lots and try things out as long as they don't exhaust themselves. ds dropped cubs and doesn't play for after school sports teams ( but does do lunchtime sports clubs). I have also tried to make it really clear to him that he can change his mind about what he wants to spend his time doing at any point( as long as it's not just sitting in his room playing computer games) - he also manages to fit plenty of this in too !!

Ealingwestmum one of our teacherisms is that there is no point practising what you can do, you should be practising what you can't do which in the language of the article would translate to personal improvement by targeting areas of expertise. It is hard to spend time on the thing that you find difficult and you do badly, it doesn't have the feel good factor that you get from the bars that you can play.

I did write down all of the child's weekly playing commitments together with the things he does monthly and I had a separate column for travel time. After I'd checked it I binned it because there are some things that are better off remaining unknown especially when exams are on the horizon. I'd rather be able to say that I'm not really sure exactly how much time is taken up with music. The thing I am certain of is that if he spent an hour less on music it would mean an hour more spent on gaming rather than on homework.

Well done on exam support success, LIZS and Coco!
DS2 played piano in a year 7 recital at school today, I suspect he's counting that as practice! He'll be really thrilled when I tell him to do theory homework...

I absolutely get everything you've posted Icould.

Focusing on what needs improving vs what they enjoy/do well is such a difficult mindset to change. But striking a balance to not kill any passion for an activity is working for us. This does slow down progress in some eyes, but progress is all relative to one's own schedule and goals. We have so few fights about music in our house now, and I've long stopped saying there aren't 5 extra hours in a day. Thank goodness there isn't.

Haha Loose, we do count school 30mins Orchestra as practice and weekend 2h Orchestra as Grand practice. Similar to on the day there was lesson then it was a practice.

I need QUALITY, really, we are still at the beginning level, I need her to aim for improvement and that doesnt happen without me staying in the same room shouting: SLOW DOWN!

Grade 6 oboe. She doesn't practice except under duress and is nowhere near as dedicated as everyone else's dc!

Green i spend a lot of time saying slow down as well! Doesn't seem to make a lot of difference!
Yes, 2 hours of rehearsal on Saturday mornings count as cello practice, I know that much!

Yay! Liz and Coco!

Practice here is min 1 hr per day before school for both instruments (30mins each roughly). Piano lesson - either 90mins or 120mins X1 per week violin lessons 1 X 60min plus 30min in school. Orchestra senior - 2hrs pw and junior 1.5hr pw. So roughly 14hrs pw. Then she has more musical theatre at school. Dancing is 7hrs pw on two days and Spanish 1hr pw. That's enough activity or I go slowly mad...!

Good point about brass. You can't over play. My son in January was put in so many parts of a school concert by the end he could hardly play by the end. The lip goes. He should have objected really but only a school concert so not important. ..and as I type I can hear son 1 (20s) who had a music scholarship in his day and has not played the piano for a few years playing and he did yesterday - he's between a job and his travelling this week and the next few so I suppose even if they give up it is always there, like riding a bike or driving. So if your response so music I think if you've been exposed to good music when you're younger - a huge gift to the children they will never lose.

Yes ds complained about his lip last week they've got him doing far too much on Friday night at his county stuff ( he plays in both the band and orchestra) and as he has a good high register he always gets given those parts !! As he's only 12 he's still very much working on his technique and remembering not to press on too hard when playing high which unfortunately for me means more time than I would like in the practice room with him to make sure he's doing what his teacher says - and being shouted at when I dare to suggest he might need to tweak things a bit

Homework for ds is fine some weeks and awful in others but he's managed ( he can get up to 15 bits a week) we just try and get it all done by the end of the weekend so he starts each week fresh also once they go to bed later it's easier. He's currently at youth club and will do his homework when he gets in

If we are lucky then we have 30mins homework ...a week. No home work during holiday, seriously I have no idea how they learn things from school.