April Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

We've managed to fill up the March thread, so I give you April's, around 10 hours early. Don't use it all up at once!

The music threads are for learners of ALL ages and stages, including beginners and adult learners.

My kids Goo (11) and Rara (8) break up from school today, thank goodness. Rara is off sick at the moment, in any case, but they both need a break. They did their music exams this week. Goo got a distinction for her Grade 7 Flute, and we are awaiting the results of Rara's Grade 1 Clarinet, plus a couple of my pupils. They will probably come on my birthday - the ABRSM ones often do.

Next term, we have a big community concert at the local high school - all the feeder schools take part. Goo could do Grade 7 Recorder and/ or Grade 4 Piano, but I don't think she wants to. Rara is doing Grade 3 Cello. My Year 6 Recorders have been asked to play in the local Festival gala concert, and I'm sure there will be primary school leavers' performances too.

It could be because we needed more time for everything really, 3 months for everything wasnt enough, especially for us with scales. We learnt the lesson.

What is special visit? Tempting to ask Prada couple of times in the past although never thought we would ever need it as there isnt a goal. However it might make sense to have a chosen date with violin so we could have booked things in advance with accompaniment and it will be less expensive.

Special visits are arranged by a school or teacher with enough pupils to be examined, and the dates can be chosen by the Centre.

Trinity also set their general centre dates in advance, so you can see on their website which week it would be in your chosen centre.

Drummers yes it's a realy different approach. I'm a bit concerned as so far ds has only learnt the pieces he's playing them well but has never looked at orchestral extracts before or had to add dynamics in scales so it's a lot to learn. I'm hoping ds and his teacher have made the right decision .

Yes, my children's schools arrange the examinations to be at the school (a special visit) and then the date can fit around things like other things on at school and school general exam timetables. If you have enough pupils taking AB exams it works well and when we've had them saved me having to drive the children to some other centre, finding it, parking etc. My son on verge of A levels seems to be spending a lot of today helping others with music - as his twin said this is the downside of taking on these prefect roles I suppose... anyway it will be fine. He is being recorded playing the trumpet for some music tech A level boys this morning and then is staying late tonight his band is another boy's A level music ensemble so that's to be recorded. Then he's not going to lessons on Friday as he's helping supervise lots of local prep schools coming into their (senior) school for a music day. He seems very happy about it all so that's not a problem. I like it. He's the youngest of 5 so unlike the others not had younger children to help or look after so it gives him a chance of helping with much smaller children at school.

We had one drummer (passed grade 8) but he does not play much now. The kit is only out on special occasions or when his brother's band practices here. It fills almost a whole huge cupboard space upstairs.

Our borough music centre books 2 days twice a year for music exams otherwise the teachers arrange dates themselves.
DS1 seems to be playing other tuned percussion pieces than his grade 6 ones so I checked with him that he isn't meant to do the exam this term. He said he just wants to get his grade 8 bass this term and not think about any other exams just now! I think he's still recovering from his year 10 school exams!

got our abrsm results within 2 weeks, done in March.

Making an emergency visit to a violin shop to have the strings changed for DS's violin. I'm also on my duty to pop in the bakery near the violin shop. My DS loves their JUMBO sized gingerbread man!

DS's strings were really worn out so needed to be change asap and today was only day I could visit the violin shop in the next 2weeks. This is the second time I'm doing this. I remember last time we were told that it could be unstable for a while. This evening, DS has his first rehearsal at a youth orchestra. Do you think he will have a problem with the bland new strings?

New strings will be stretching for a while; some string / instrument combinations settle more quickly than others. He will need to retune a few times during this evening's rehearsal - if he's fine with tuning then he'll be ok, if it is something he still finds difficult it might be worth you or him (depending on age!) alerting someone who helps at the orchestra that he may need a hand retuning new strings? Especially if he needs to move the pegs. Merely saying "his violin's just had all new strings on today" will alert anyone to the problem!

Hope he enjoys the orchestra!

Kutik DS2's new violin strings settled down really quickly. They didn't go out wildly at all...

Grass and Never, thank you for the comments. I just got home and re-tuned using the digital tuner (my ear is not reliable). They seem to have coped OK with the long journey from the violin shop. Hopefully they won't be too wobbly. I will remind DS to keep his eyes (ears?) on them this evening and re-tune them as needed (he can tune by himself). The lovely lady kindly did a quick cosmetic job on the old chips (paint & varnish). I am so hoping DS won't make a new chip tonight!

We switched to Trinity for G8 because of the pieces, he liked them better.

Y9 DD moved to Trinity for piano a couple of grades back because they were (definitely) more enjoyable pieces. If I'd known about the rapid turnaround for results I might have leant on her to move earlier regardless of the pieces.

That said she's a big fish in the little local pond and regularly gets a few other music kids, proxys for competitive parents (and possibly sharing some of the genes) wittering on about ABRSM being much more difficult and how they would be one or two grades higher if they were doing Trinity blah-blah-blah.

That's total rubbish about trinity being easier some of the pieces for trumpet cross over and both carry equal ucas points at higher grades and are equally acceptable for uni entry etc - I only know this as I've checked because I've had similar comments Pique !! In some ways trinity are much better for brass, and were also more highly thought of for classical guitar which was my instrument as a child

Feeling slightly relived this afternoon as we've found out that ds's trumpet teacher can continue to teach him next year - so maybe we can put off grade 7 if the exercises aren't ready I'm in no rush for ds to sit it we shall see

Trumpet, I'm also feeling relieved this afternoon. Different reason though..... DD1 managed to leave her sax on the public bus this morning - again! The local bus company are great and called me back this afternoon to say it was back in their office. I'm thinking of investing in a set of security handcuffs! Needless to say that DD1 is also very relieved......

On the subject of Trinity v ABRSM, DD2 is switching to Trinity for G7 bassoon as she hates the singing element of ABRSM aural. Two of the pieces are on the syllabus for both boards. Certainly not easier.

we like the Trinity syllabus a lot - has many of same pieces as ABSRM at same grade, but also lots of other really good 'stuff'; however our teacher won't do the supporting tests for Trinity so that made a switch difficult (as a completely musically ignorant parent!)

String, dd's teacher advised using Hoffnote as practice for the supporting tests.

Great I will look this up too Double

What are the Trinity supporting tests?

No singing in later grades cadences discussing key features of pieces changes and modulation ( I think this is off the top of my head !) ask me in a couple of months I will then be an expert as I always seem to have to help ds with this - he promises to cooperate this time and not get cross we shall see

I've just ordered a book and CDC to help me help him !!

Double great news about the sax I dread the day when ds leaves his trumpet on the bus as he also gets a public bus to and from school

Thank you Trumpet! Let me know when you know for sure, dd would probably love the non singing part

Trumpet, the last time she did it, when I went to collect it they were telling me about a trombone that was left on a bus that still wasn't collected/asked about 6 months later. I think they said that they eventually opened the case and after some searching, found a sticker from the music centre and returned it there. I dread her leaving the oboe, but that is small enough to fit on her lap.

Fleur definitely no singing in the Trinity exams right up to Grade 8. DD refused to do ABRSM exams after sax Grade 4 because of the singing.

Not sure if I told the tale last month of DD leaving her Bari sax on the school bus last month. She actually went to the school office and sorted it out, and nearly didn't tell me.

The following week a colleague asked in work if my DD had her sax back alright. She had happened to be collecting her DD from school (1,800 pupils) that morning and had guessed that the girl with my DDs name sorting out a lost instrument must be my DD. Confirmed to my DC I will always find out!