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!!

Green I have no mean to say this is a way to go. I think there are pros and cons on this method. Plus, it won't reduces the time of practising scales as ds has a pretty long list to cover even though only one scale... Unfortunately there is no short cut to master something!

Its interesting about scales. My kids teachers occasionally do the odd scale with them but its rare. But they certainly have no problem playing music in different keys, the key signature tells them which flats or sharps they need. Same for me, way back in the dawn of time i learnt my grade 5 scales but i certainly dont remember them even though i have no problem playing in different keys. We're not in the uk though so that may influence things.

We wish there wasnt scales, any pieces are learnt and enjoyed...There must be a (super) good reason for it.

I'm not a musician myself so don't really know how it works. But ds can tell the key of a music by listening, and I guess it's because he links the sound with the scales he practises on the piano. So, I think he learns some musical rules through scales, hence learning scales is quite a big part of deepening his understanding.

Ds's violin teacher seems to use scales as a way of finger exercises, or a way of learning right shape/action, and also bowing control. His pupils may face to serious difficulty if they don't learn piano or something that can fill the gap!

Finished the piano lesson for this week and dd has been told off at the end of the lesson for being too distracted and not paying attention. There you go, she also gets told off.

She does that all the time after she concentrated on certain pieces for too long when it's time to learn something new she finds it irritating, the learning the notes process seem to bore her to death and she just wants to play.

She's got one piece learnt half and the teacher is now going back over it to polish every bar where she "adjusted" it the way she wants in terms of dynamics, and two pieces where she is still learning the notes and she finds it frustrated when her teacher keeps going back on each bar to correct rhythm and fingering.

I need to get some bribe going from next week I think.

I have no opinion on scales or the lack of them. I know dd does them according to the ABRSM syllabus and they definitely help her with her fingering for piano, she naturally chooses the right fingering in her pieces and her teacher is only changing it if she thinks there is a better way due to her small hands.

She also recognises patterns easily and I guess it is because of the scales. But that's not to say a child who doesn't do scales wouldn't recognise patterns.

Hi kutik - yes dd did scales for JD. But I am sure they would understand the approach and adapt by asking dc to choose a scale - can't imagine they haven't come across your teachers approach before as it sounds as though it has some philosophy behind it. Btw dd would say chromatics are the 'easiest' scales 😀 But she is not a lover of scales at all....

Dd has just had a whole lesson on the maligned scales. She'd kill not to do them

Hopefully ds agree with ministring on chromatics!

The next violin lesson is on Tuesday. I hope the teacher wouldn't mind teaching ds the required scales and arpeggios for the audition...

Scales - hate them in this house! DC hate playing them and I hate listening to them being murdered (especially by DD1 who is doing Grade 6 oboe this month!) Keep trying to get through to her that they could be 'marks in the bag', but it's falling on deaf ears! Frustrating!

We choose to ignore marks in the bag in the bag here too and keep on murdering them . Will be glad when the violin exam is behind us.

Dd has also been practising the high notes on her clarinet tonight. This on top of the load of stress I have (excluding the 2 dance and 2 music exams in one half term) has given me a splitting headache.

se22 hang in there it gets better, dd's high notes seem to sound better lately. Either I got used to them and I don't get a head ache anymore or she's better at playing them.

Dd quite likes scales, now for grade 5 she finds them a bit much but she enjoys the jar game so she's still far from hating them.

Ds finds scales ok and is supposed to keep them going all the time but he's had so much material to cover recently they have kind of disappeared from his practice ( he also has a long list of warm ups and technique which he covers every practice) we shall have to pick them up again at Easter which should be fun !!!! I was hopeless at scales when I was younger but I never found it difficult to play pieces in different keys ( on guitar) I just looked at the key signature

Thank you, drummersmum

I have booked 3 irregular sessions with piano teacher(who will be his teacher after Easter) in March.
But I am a bit embarrassed to ask her about his weird habit.
Hopefully, she will sort him out.

Irvineonehone I don't think it's a weird habit with his scales maybe not great for exam prep but very creative !! ( and scales do get very boring) good luck with the exam I'm sure he'll be fine it does all get easier ( as a parent) once you get into it and know what to do for different things like exams or competitions I'm still learning- but getting there

Thank you, Trumpetboysmum !

Methodical Goo doesn't mind scales, 'gets' new ones immediately, is happy to practise them regularly and polish them. Creative Rara is a law unto herself, will only do them sometimes in a certain order, and refuses help, saying she needs to do them 'her way'. This is the child who learned Tone, Tone, Semitone etc. (for constructing the major scales) as Tiny Tomato, Small Tomato, Tall Tomato, SQUASH! And then couldn't remember the order she'd put the tomatoes in, aargh!!

We have Grade 1 Clarinet on March 27th (although she is also getting good at high E, F, G and has made a start on B and C) and Grade 7 Flute on March 29th. Give me strength.

Ds learned his own thing for constructing the scales which involved slapping his leg. I wasn't too sure how this would work in a theory exam. He is as stubborn as they come and would not change to the suggestion of his teacher. The arguments we've had in this house over scales - you wouldn't believe it (or maybe you would)

One way to remember the tone patterns is to just write out c major and work it from there, then a minor is the easiest minor to learn and do the same!

I just memorised the 4 patterns (major harmonic and 2 melodic minors) but dd insists on thinking of it as raising the 7th etc which I find confusing! Each to their own though!

Dd played her clarinet g1 pieces for the last time today, at a festival. Did very well and is thrilled with her haul.

I was hoping I could return you all with a video today as we had a piano class done with our local festival however no photo/recording was allowed. It was a quite jaw dropping performances and we were so nervous. She forgot to introduce herself and just went for the chosen piece(half of others who were the best among us played 2 pieces-they ended up with medals compare to playing only 1 piece). When she finished she did (overdone) courtesy( the first time she did it in her life she must have thought that she was doing bowing however ended up showing till her bellyluckily sge was wearing a tight). I was chocked with laughter and everyone must have tried very hard. She said she was very nervous although enjoyed playing(it was 60s swing--we redid that one because we had the least mark in our g5 exam for it). We had 84 and the first had 88, the second and third were trully amazing.

I enjoyed it very much I must say, the other children were all amazing, had their own style and so confidence, couple of boys must be younger than 9(we did g5). The one who came first played like a professional.

We were told all the good/positive thing(she managed to follow everything and I must say she played better than when she prepared for her g5 exam), then we were told that had we use the pedal it could have been perfect. We practised and did well with am Abend with pedalling however didnt know that 60s swing could sound better with pedalling.

The adjudicator mentioning an importance if playing scales where it could help with the technique later on when she asked a boy if he played scale at all and he said he didnt(he was super and came second).

We have couple other classes next week but with this level of competitiveness, its really a good chance to learn from others. It is an experience to be able to perform to a room of audiences who plays too. We will be prepared better for couple other ones later on this year. This is fun!

Well done minigreen and everyone with their news!

Scales here are an issue. Not enough practice or accuracy. Our violin teacher berates her quite a lot and says 'scales are the key to everything'...

It is miniprada's birthday this week coming and she has already got a couple of presents including the music score to 'La La Land'. I can currently hear 'city of Stars' being played in the music room. She thinks it was an early present. It was actually mummy's way of getting her to do some sight reading before her exam

Ha haha, I thought I was only one, I told her that her aunt really wants to hear her played "Mia &Sebastian's theme" for her as a birthday present so it was learnt(ok ish) within two weeks. It was great for sight reading and motivations.