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Extra-curricular activities

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May Music Thread

784 replies

Wafflenose · 01/05/2017 15:59

Hello, and welcome to the May thread. It's a public holiday in the UK, but my school is open and I had to work today, which is why I've only just got round to it! This is a place for parents of musicians of ALL levels, and adult learners, to chat about lessons, practice, scales, concerts, exams, and whatever else they'd like to! We have lots of regulars, some occasional posters, and sometimes people who just pop in to ask a question. It's a friendly place.

I have two daughters. Goo is 11 and in her last term at primary school. She's working towards her Grade 8 Flute (some time next year) and playing from the Grade 4 Piano book (currently refusing to take any exams, and putting off the first proper performance!). Rara is 8, may or may not be doing Grade 3 Cello this term, and is approaching Grade 2 Clarinet.

Both of them played the recorder for years, starting as preschoolers. They reached Grades 7 and 3 respectively, but sadly neither has really played since the music festival a few months ago. They are obsessed with their Flute and Clarinet, and really enjoy Piano and Cello. There won't be many opportunities to play the recorder at the secondary school they will attend, so much as I love it, it's probably a good time to quietly drop it. Recorder has given them both lots of opportunities, confidence, reading skills... and festival prizes!

Goo does NCO and South West Music School. Rara isn't that level at all when it comes to music, but is gifted with her hands. Instead of practising the cello and doing her school spellings today, she completed a lovely sewing kit without bothering to look at the instructions, and also made a lovely crafty construction from card and coloured paper. Both girls are keen on drawing and playing computer games. Rara swims and Goo plays sodding netball and dodgeball, which have both been responsible for multiple injuries over the past few months!

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Doubleup · 15/05/2017 18:43

I almost think that it is too fast Fleur, but have to trust in the teacher's judgement. She does have an amazing track record with young bassoonists.

Trumpetboysmum · 15/05/2017 19:38

Double that's amazing progress but I know what you mean about almost being too fast. Brave doing grade 5 theory too we still have to tackle that ( will be next school year now) then at least it's done and ds has a choice of boards for grade 8 , though I suspect ds might go for trinity anyway.
So it looks like I've been over ruled ( not at all surprised) and ds is still going ahead with the exam . Lots of stuff to work on though for the transposition but as long as ds feels happy with his decision that's fine ( I may feel differently tomorrow if his practice isn't going to plan and he gets stressed we shall see). Going back to the teacher being brave with what he gets ds to do, ds has new pieces to learn too as well as the ones for the exam Shock oh well I'm not really surprised about that either

ealingwestmum · 15/05/2017 19:55

I am so impressed with the progress your young people make. At our rate we will be seeing No.3 syllabus change on violin grade 8 before actually sorting it! And our excuse is that secondary school life just keeps getting in the way Shock

ealingwestmum · 15/05/2017 19:56

Argh; sitting not sorting!

Kutik73 · 15/05/2017 19:56

Your excuse can also be her fantastic commitment in swimming. Grin

ealingwestmum · 15/05/2017 20:00

Bless you Kutik Flowers

Kutik73 · 15/05/2017 20:06

Flowers to you too

AlexandraLeaving · 15/05/2017 20:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Doubleup · 15/05/2017 20:24

Trumpet has your son done Trinity exams before? Grade 4 was ABRSM and Trinity is new to us. DD1's exams have all been ABRSM, so I don't know any different. Actually, come to think of it, DD2 did Initial and Grade 1 guitar with Trinity, but it's a bit different for the higher grade.

raspberryrippleicecream · 15/05/2017 20:24

Fleur good luck to your DS, and to all those with academic exams.

DD starts her AS exams on Wednesday. This is my fifth consecutive exam season!

Trumpetboysmum · 15/05/2017 20:35

Flowers to you raspberry and everyone else going through exams with theirs dcs

Kutik73 · 15/05/2017 20:46

Trumpet DS's piano teacher is the same as yours. She never really just focused on exam pieces during those run-up periods. DS always had a few pieces to learn along side of his exam stuff all way through. That's why we probably didn't feel like we were working towards an exam at the time. Part of reason for her to throw DS with lots of new pieces was to help his sight-reading, as she told me later on. DS never used those sight-reading practice books actually. But I think he ended up doing something similar by managing his weekly homework given by the piano teacher.

Fleurdelise · 15/05/2017 20:53

Raspberry how do you keep sane? I am literally going from a state of "at least it will be over" to "omg this is the ACTUAL exam, no more chances to f...k up!!!". I am going from feeling sorry for him to feeling like I'd like to shake him up and shout "OMG YOU NEED TO REVISE MORE!!! ALL NIGHT! EVERY NIGHT! AND DAY!" Grin

Obviously this is going on inside me, on the outside I send him nice texts from work telling him he shouldn't stress, it will be fine, try and relax, and I bake him cakes and make him pancakes for breakfast. 😳

What's worrying though is that I am taking it out on dd, for some reason the instinct and the need of being helpful is kicking in, obviously DS doesn't want me involved, therefore I have spent last night and tonight being extra "helpful" with dd's music practice. I am ashamed to say I made her cry tonight by telling her one of her pieces is not progressing and now I feel bad. I did apologise but I still feel bad. I don't know what got into me I think I'll go out for a walk tomorrow.

Sorry for the whining, I am a bit a lot of a control freak and I feel like I am out of control completely.

Kutik73 · 15/05/2017 20:54

But anyway the last exam he did was a year ago and we have no future plan for next Ines. Not sure if he will ever go back to the game... After all the madness of the auditions, we are having rather peaceful time this term. No exam, no audition, nothing!

Fleurdelise · 15/05/2017 20:59

On the exam front dd generally does extra pieces/studies up to about 2 months before the exam. She stopped having any extra work on top of the pieces around beginning of April if I remember right. She does use the sight reading books but that's because dd is a memoriser, she is great at it, she only needs to play a piece a couple of times and she's memorised it. While this is great from a performance point of view realistically it means she needs additional dedicated sight reading exercises otherwise she's rubbish at it.

In fact she's finished the grade 5 "improve your sight reading" and she's now doing it again. Plus the grade 5 specimen sight reading book. She is really good but for the life of me I can't get her to stop correcting herself and keep going. If she's made a mistake she'll correct it therefore the rhythm suffers. Suggestions?

Kutik73 · 15/05/2017 21:08

Ines? What is Ines??? I meant 'ones' - 'next ones...

Anyway, I just read Fleur's post. Oh, Fleur, I'm sure you are not alone. Even the calmest person I know, and I'm from the country with full of Buddhists, have the moment like you with DD.

I don't know what to say, but please don't feel too bad. I'm sure DD understood and may actually be happy that her mom apologised. My mum didn't apologised at all! I think if she had apologised, even only once, I would have felt so much better.

Greenleave · 15/05/2017 22:06

Oh Fleur, I feel for you. You can rest assured that you are millions time better than me, tonight I got home and was told that my daughter didnt get her costume for a school performance right(what costume?) then I found out she didnt wash her face in the morning because there isnt a face cloth(I threw a torn one last night and forgot to put one back). Then when we finished the bed time stories with the baby and she already had her Ortho-K glasses on we realised we havent had the school homework done then we had to do it. Just be able to climb to bed now. The fact that you care and be there and help him as much as you could then you have already done better than me. And similar to me you are non-musical and you sit in your daughter every lessons and help her with her practice then you again score better. I must say I organised everything during the day when I am at work so I have to do minimum when I am at home, including lessons, swimming etc. You are a great mom. And tears and tantrums blah blah blah, you havent seen me roar, sometimes it doesnt have anything to do with my kids.

Alex: hahaha, great news indeed! I so support 1 exam less(more savings for lessons and instrument). I was picking up my daughter yesterday and was just hoping to bump into either you or the Boy.

Trumpet, Double: these are very impressive progress in a short time, such an aspiration for me to learn.

ealingwestmum · 15/05/2017 22:27

Thank you Alex. You are right, the maturity required to play some pieces only comes as mine gets older. She's also playing parallel repertoire with having 2 teachers (highly conventional but agreed with both...another story), that is probably spreading her efforts too thinly. But, she wants to do the showy, non syllabus piece justice to her home teacher before she gets too sick to teach due to her failing health. Let's hope we can get Scene de Ballet over the line to concert standard for a change! It is a rather lovely piece.

Oh and well done also on the exam deferral, if if it's just a short reprieve to jumping grades Grin

Fleur Flowers, to you and all you other non music exam parents undergoing GCSEs, ASs' and A levels etc...hang in there.

ealingwestmum · 15/05/2017 22:29

your children going through them (obviously) though I wouldn't be saying that if I were referring to music exams for stars like loose

LooseAtTheSeams · 15/05/2017 22:44

Fleur you are just human like the rest of us and these are stressful times. Dd will be fine. You are doing all the right things with DS and he'll appreciate it in the end. Not sure my DS1 and I will still be talking to each other by the time he does his GCSEs!
Good luck all the dcs with exams and roll on summer holidays!

LooseAtTheSeams · 15/05/2017 22:49

ealing just saw that! Not sure my dcs think I know anything about anything! 😀

ealingwestmum · 15/05/2017 22:50

Smile. But we know better.

raspberryrippleicecream · 16/05/2017 00:50

Fleur, I just keep smiling, keep calm (on the outside) and it does eventually finish! Last year I had GCSE DD and A level DS1 so this year seems a bit calmer. Oh and of course Mumsnet, we had/have a couple of brilliant support threads going.

I got an apology and a thank you from DD in July for putting up with her!

The control part comes out in lists, I organise everything I can!

foundoutyet · 16/05/2017 07:13

well, dc1 has his first GCSE exam today. I have promised to drop him off at lunch time, as it's in the afternoon. He is quite calm about it.But forgot to remind dc2 about music practice, and dc3 just didn't have the time for it....

Fleurdelise · 16/05/2017 07:48

Thanks guys! Feeling better today, woke up at stupid o'clock and made the kids pancakes. I did join the GCSEs support thread but decided not to constantly post and read as I was freaking out even more. Smile

On the sight reading subject, any suggestion of how to encourage dd to stop corrections and keep going even if she made a mistake? So say she needs to play and e flat and she played natural, the moment she realised she missed the flat she'll correct it which of course affects the rhythm.