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!!

Good luck to those with exams and performances this week.

DD was touched that the head of music asked about her exam, was very positive and would like to present her certificate in music assembly. Her primary school did its best to ignore her music achievements even though she was taught at school. The interest and support from her secondary is a welcome change!

Lovely. I have been up since 5 with a vomiting Rara. Luckily it's her dad's day off, so I can do my busy day at work and run Goo around, but I'm tired already and have a migraine waiting to happen.

Waffle. And good luck to Goo.

Alexandra that sounds amazing concert. DCs Primary had a tradition of playing Thank you for the Music at the end of the summer concert, very appropriate as music was very special at that school.

I sobbed cried all the way through it at the very last concert when DS2 left!

Thank you for the kind words! I'm not quite sure what to do but whatever happens I have booked next term's lessons!
Waffle oh no! Hope you and Rara feel better very soon!
Alex that concert sounds fab! Lovely experience all round.
In other news, DS2 went to school wearing DS1's trousers, causing DS1 to run around in his dressing gown wailing, 'But I Know I Left Them On The Bathroom Floor!' this act of theft may be more effective than all my nagging about the state of the bathroom!

Loose Don't do another exam but don't give up!

And at the trousers situation.

Loose the trousers story made me laugh out loud. Hilarious! I wish dd could wear DS's trousers to teach him a lesson. His bedroom and the adjacent bathroom are a tip.

Yes, don't do exams but don't give up, you are my inspiration to pick it up one day

Waffle sorry to hear about Rara. I guess the only positive on it is that it didn't happen the night before the exam? Get well soon

Hope Rara is feeling better!

Oh Alex, it must have been an amazing night, hope you had waterproof mascara! :) !

Loose, hahahaha, I wish my toddler will do the same one day. My situation has getting slightly better that I only have to pick up random nickers, shocks on the staircase as she must have dropped them during her trip to the washing machine. I had a crazy weekend the one before last so I didnt have a chance to check their wardrobe and last weekend I was nearly fainted with piles of clothes flowing out from her wardrobe when I openned it. I told myself, at least they are clean.

Green I am impressed - not sure mine know how the washing machine works yet! That's my plan for Easter!

BYMT or CYM or Other suggestions?

Hello everyone, reading your threads made me feel so ill prepared and disorganised. I am not musical and feel that my lack of knowledge in this area has been holding my son back.

He is 10 and working on grade 5 piano. Last year, I felt that piano was a wrong choice of instrument as it is such a solitary journey and so he picked up violin to enable him to join in his school's orchestra. He had just done his Grade 1 exam this month.

I just found out that there are all sorts of Saturday music schools - NCO (which isn't suitable for pianist), BYMT (Bromley youth music trust), CYM (Centre for Young Musicians) etc.

I will like to keep my son's enthusiasm for music alive and feel that he needs something more challenging outside his weekly 1-1 piano and violin lesson. Can anyone recommend me a music school that will work for him as a pianist?

Also, how does it work with music school I.e. should my son continue his private 1-1 lessons outside, will he get expose and a chance to experience with other instruments, is it mainly ensemble practice?

I am in Sidcup, Kent.

Any suggestions or experience with music school will be much appreciated.

Xmania My DC go to a Saturday music school and they play orchestral instruments and are invited to play in all the groups they can fit in. They really enjoy this. But for piano - one of mine do that at the music school too but they don't do any group work for the piano. That's really a shame. In fact, perhaps I'll bring this up next term. (Not sure why I haven't thought of it before! But speaking as a piano player ALL ensembles involving the piano seem to require the pianist to work at least twice as hard ... But there must be something.) The music school would only let you have piano lessons after you get to a certain level in your orchestral instrument, probably for this very reason.

I have no experience of cym but from what I've heard it's good. We take part in our local music service activities ( music school and now bands and orchestra) and they have been great. Ds has made lots of like minded friends and when he was still at primary school it gave ds the chance to play in ensembles
Ds's high school easter concert last night it was fab and made me realise how lucky ds is to go to a school where music ( and the arts) is so valued. Ds sang ( in a boy's group of 6 year 7's) as well as playing trumpet. It was lovely and he can now never argue with me again that he can't do the singing part of the aural
Hope the exam went well today waffle and that Rara feels better soon

We know many children who attend, and enjoy Bymt. Although their class timings don't work for us by all accounts they are excellent

Loose - that made me laugh. Reminds me of the time I was at a funeral on a Saturday morning 8am in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, pulled out my black tights at the hotel to find my DH had put miniprada's in my drawer at home by mistake. Those were the ones I had brought with me. She was 18mths at the time. That was not good.

Waffle - I hope Rara gets better soon and that the exam went well. T-2 here....

Xmania get in touch with Bexley Music Hub (which is based at Bird College in Sidcup) and ask if they have any ensembles a pianist would be able to join. Another idea would be to join the folk music, rock or jazz bands run by Lewisham Music Service - they offer a different challenge from lessons, especially as there's lots of input on improvising and playing by ear.

Rara is still throwing up, and has yet to keep any water down today. She's asleep on the sofa.

Goo's exam didn't really go to plan. The first movement of her Handel was lovely, and the first page of the second movement was fine. Suddenly on the last page, her sound just disappeared. As in, her fingers were doing what they were supposed to, but hardly any sound was coming out!! She finished, spoke up to say something wasn't working, cleaned the flute out, teacher had a go and Goo tried it again. I have known this kind of thing happen once before, just before a competition, so am guessing just nerves. Her Bozza Aria was beautiful, then apparently the teacher asked if she could have a go at the last page of the Handel again (!?!) Stamitz was OK, Scales good, Sight Reading was in 9/8 but Goo said it didn't sound like it was. I asked if there were lots of tied notes, and there were. Aural was reasonable but she couldn't spot the third of the three changes. So quite a mixed bag!

Poor Goo but it sounds like she handled the sound not coming out well I'm sure it will be fine
Hope Rara recovers soon this happened to dd once she couldn't keep anything down and was starting to dehydrate 111 suggested very small sips of water every 10 minutes it stops the stomach spasming apparently, it worked so maybe worth a try it's awful being so sick for that long. Wishing her a speedy recovery ( and that the rest of you escape it!!)

Good on Goo for speaking up and dealing with the situation. It's interesting to hear that you feel it was probably nerves. After DD's assessment of her G5 jazz exam a couple of weeks ago, I imagined she might get a pass but nothing more as she reported feeling so nervous that she was shaking, got flustered with the sight reading (which she got full marks on when given the G4 sight-reading for a G3 exam). When she received the mark sheet, no comment was made about her nerves or about the restarts of some of her scales (which she knew perfectly). And she got 127.

irvineoneohone my advice for a first exam is to be prepared. Have a look at the exam board's web page and make sure that you both know what will happen at the exam centre and the structure of the exam itself. Does your DS want to do the scales before or after the pieces - it's not a massive decision but you don't want the question to unsettle him if he's not expecting it.

Xmania Pianists don't have the same opportunities to get out and play with others. Our music service has nothing for pianists but plenty for violinists. Ours is all ensemble work because for many players this is the only opportunity they get to play with others.

Prada my husband unpacked his case somewhere in the US to find that the handful of briefs he'd grabbed from his drawer were mostly sized age 2-3. It took me a while to move on from the pre-child days of sorting the clean clothes into piles of "mine" and "not mine".

*Waffle" our restorative is usually flat room temperature lemonade. Here's hoping that the vomiting stops soon and that no-one else steps up for the bucket.

We had the worst audition ever today. DS has been unwell since Monday. He recovered a bit yesterday so went to school as usual (he didn't go to school on Monday). He looked OK earlier today, but quickly fell sick on way to the audition venue and ended up lying on the floor in the warm-up room... Yet he managed to play through once with the piano accompanist in the warm-up room and the accompanist said lovely things about his playing (surprisingly mature sounds and so on). However I could hear his playing in the audition room and I'm afraid it didn't sound as good as the successful audition he had a few weeks earlier. It's his first choice so we are gutted obviously. However, DS is such an optimist by nature so he will bounce back whatever the outcome. These things happen I'm afraid!

Icouldbe, that's a great advice, didn't even think about it, so thank you!

I have a question, please.
When he made a mistake while he is playing pieces, can he stop and start again?
Piano teacher said he has to pretend nothing happened and carry on, but this seems to be a massive problem for him.
When he is practicing, we try to follow what teacher said, but he keep stopping as soon as he made a slight mistake.
Do I need to drill into him not to stop?

Kutik - often the accompanist at such things has quite a key input to the panel deliberations (don't know about this one specifically) and relay how a child has responded, adjusted etc, So don't underestimate the value of a good warm up experience :)

hope all sickly children area feeling better :)

So dd did the local music festival on Saturday (where were you green?) and played terribly! Bow all over the place And lost sync with the accompaniment!

She was very calm about the fact that she was 4 grades below the top people in her group...personally I'm not sure what the point of allowing people of such disparate abilities to compete against each other. I think her group covered g2-g8!!!

But just got our theory results - merit for her and distinction for me!!!! Yay!!!

How good do you need to be to get a merit?
I've checked ABRSM site, but it still is not very clear.
Does it need to be at really good standard? But how good?
(I am grateful if my ds passes, so it's just a curious question.)