May Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

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!

No exams on the horizon for me Fleur! I am only just doing hands together on parts of 2 grade 5 pieces! However, DS2 is due to take grade 4 piano in July and DS1 is waiting for the date of his grade 8 bass guitar, hopefully also July.

DS1 does percussion lessons at the borough music service and the teachers have been excellent, although I've always made sure I met the teachers as well; otherwise it can feel quite remote. You have to make the effort as they won't tell you much otherwise and the child tends to forget! DS1 didn't want to do 2 exams this term so will do grade 6 tuned percussion in the autumn term. Percussion is really good - I pay for 45 minutes and the teacher always goes a bit over!
DS2 has a peri teacher come to his school to do the cello lesson. She's also very good - former head of strings at the music service and a qualified teacher.
The drawback? No aural practice until the last few lessons before an exam!

Fleur ds started having county lessons at school now has private lessons so he can have a much longer individual one, but with the same teacher. It has certainly helped that those who run his wind band and orchestra know his teacher - this has meant he has had many 'promotions' this year as ds's teacher knows them all well and can vouch for his ability- ds can be quite shy and so for a while last year none of the teachers at band knew what he was capable of
But I think you would need to check whether the lessons offered were 1-1 and how long for

DS started with music service lessons and had them for six years, I took them out of school hours after I got sick of writing letters explaining that he wanted to be a music teacher not a food tech teacher and the extra curricular subject was more important for him than the curricular. The lesson itself was fine, the problem was with it being in school time.

Fleur he's ok with english although it would be third in a list of three if he was choosing his favourite subjects. He wants to be a music teacher, I think he'll find that he will be more employable as an english teacher who teaches music privately. I want him to have the choice somewhere further down the road which is why I suggested it as the third A level.

Misti I hope it all goes well for her, it's valuable experience whatever happens.

The borough music school is very attractive, animated and the kids seem to enjoy it there, dd only goes to wind band but I can see there are kids who have their one to one lessons there and are known to the wind band teachers. I am not saying they are favoured over kids like my dd but it does make a difference as they have built a rapport and the teacher knows their capabilities.

My only worry is losing that tight communication with the teacher, currently I can see her after every lesson and she tells me what she needs to work on, she also thinks dd is one of her best pupils, once she's with the borough I think I'll lose that but she'd be more exposed to opportunities.

Good luck with the exams Loose I do hope you get July dates.

Icouldbe is good your DS knows what he wants to do, mine has no clue.

Fleur, both my dc have their lessons with the county music service and the teachers are great. Both have the principal teachers for the oboe and bassoon. DD1 has sax lessons in school and DD2 has music service lessons in guitar in school. Hoping to be able to concentrate more on that at the end of this term and into next as the bassoon has inevitable taken most of her practice time.

Trying to keep everything chilled re. the exam at the end of next month, but inside I am panicking a bit. DD2 isn't the most mature emotionally and sometimes if she thinks things aren't going so well, she just thinks she can't do it. I'm exhausted with being the one to get her to practice and be the emotional prop. No exams for a very long time after this one for her!

Fleur here the music service uses a practice book, the teacher writes down what it is they are supposed to be doing over the week. It was years before we met his teacher, then we found out that we knew her (she'd gone back to her maiden name). There are only a few children that have lessons at music centre, the majority have lessons in school.

My work as PA this week has included applying for an EHIC, sorting out travel insurance, taking instruments to and from repairers and filling in three different forms so DS can go on a wind band concert tour to europe. Even the quiet weeks have something happening.

Thank you for your advice, I think I may give it a go from September. How much do you guys pay and are the lessons tailored to the needs, 30 min, 45 min, 1 hour?

Thank you so much for all the a level answers. It's so close now, i don't think he will be ready to decide in March!
misti great to have you back and good luck with the voice regionals!

He may be able to change his mind later drummers. College said that the deadline for choices was March and that's when they built up the timetable based on everyone's preferences. They were allowed to change subjects at enrollment in August providing that the timetable which was by then written in stone allowed for it.

School should give some guidance about choosing subjects that keep future options open.

Fleur, you were asking about costs of music service lessons. 30 mins lesson is about £25. They can have longer lessons as long as the teacher can timetable it. Because they have lessons through the music centre, DD1 gets a 25% loyalty discount for her 3 bands (one of them she plays sax in and doesn't even have lessons through them) and DD2 gets 50% discount off her two bands as she does their G&T programme. As previously mentioned, there isn't much time to do aural though.

DD2's teacher swapped her lesson to a different day for this term in the lead up to the exam as she felt that there wasn't enough time sandwiched between other lessons. She is having up to an hour, but informally, so we are not being charged extra - although by rights we should be.

drummers I felt the same last year in September, I still don't think DS knew 100% what subjects he wanted but chose them by eliminating the ones that were definitely a no. He can still change in September.

Double thank you, sounds good I've sent an enquiry to the music school with a view of moving her there in September. We'll try at least.

Is anybody else as masochistic as me? I googled "failed grade 5 piano" and now I am reading threads on forums about people that failed. I must be a bit crazy 😜

Fleur! MiniFleur will be fine, I'm sure of it. for you this evening, I think!
Meant to add about the borough music service - they run lots of ensembles. They charge £90 per child per term so it's not cheap but there is a sibling discount and once you've paid you can join as many or as few ensembles as are suitable. Some are by invitation so the teacher would recommend a child to the organizer, or is the organizer.

Fleur I'm sure she will be fine! I bet you underestimate her (and that she underestimates herself).

DD's piano exam went fine. Different set up to the UK as all the cycle 2 (grade 8 ish) and cycle 3 (diploma) students played in front of each other and a jury of visiting teachers. They get feedback and results immediately after. So she was told to turn up for 2.30, ended up starting at 3.15 and finishing at 5! Bit intimidating and the wait didn't help but she was lucky enough to go first in her group. Ended up with 17/20 and a "mention très bien" (the equivalent of a good merit or a borderline distinction) - which after only two years of piano isn't too shabby. It is fair to say that she was delighted.

Next up, our guitar school show on Saturday where she has been roped in to sing for some of the groups, and a recital on the 10th for which she is accompanying a violinist. She hasn't practiced the piece yet but it only looks to be around grade 3 so she will be OK I hope ...

Great news Misti

Fantastic news Misti - your dd is amazing! I'm sure it will all go well on Saturday, too.
DS1 is enjoying his rock band boot camp although it now appears he's in two bands as there's a shortage of bassists! The gig on Friday should be interesting...

Great news Misti! Well done!

Don't know what made me google that but I quickly shut the pages down as it doesn't help. Obviously I am losing it, I'm sure she'll be fine.

Google must wonder what's with all the roll up piano searches. I bet all the retailers are stocking up following our searches.

loose bassists are always in demand. DD usually plays bass when she does music boot camps, because there are always plenty of guitarists, and she prefers bass to electric guitar.

Think she was quite lucky today. The other pianists taking the same exam struggled with the compulsory piece which was technically not that difficult but quite complex rhythmically and musically (Christian Manen Op 126: V if anyone wants to put their ears through a bit of gratuitous musical torture. It's on Spotify). DD isn't that great a pianist from a technical point of view but she is rhythmically very secure and I think that made a big difference.

Thank god it's over, anyway.

misti
fleur stop it. Right now. There's no way your DD is going to fail!!!!!!!!!

Sounds good Misti!

DD2 did an hour of practice this morning, went to a friend's house for 4 hours or so, then did another 30 mins when she got back. We've been baking blondies and then she still has to do some theory practice. Tomorrow she has a mock theory test with her teacher followed by critique and then a bassoon lesson. Might let her off further practice tomorrow.... Poor girl was complaining of sore lips, although I think she means the muscles rather than chapped lips.

Thank you ladies. I do think she'll be fine but she is pushing me to the limits. We've sorted out some phrasing in the second part of the problem piece and the first part is now a mess as she doesn't understand the words "slow down!!"

Another day tomorrow. We didn't have the chance of playing two of the clarinet pieces either as it was too late. She just played one and I had to stop her as I am not sure my neighbours agree with it.

Fleur, that phrase gets lost in translation here too!

Practice here can be a bit later than ideal - DD1 has only started her oboe practice now (9.30pm), but we are detached with neighbours on one side who seem to be at home rarely and an empty house on the other side.

We are lucky to have no young families on either side. Since one neighbour dug up his drive with a pneumatic hammer for AN ENTIRE SUNDAY I no longer worry too much about disturbing anyone.

I suggested the damper pedal for the contemporary piece (that I didn't like to start with and never want to hear again) but DD says she can't play it unless she can bash out the loud bits full force.

Fleur DD starts to get serious about practice only when embarrassment is on the horizon!!! Good luck!

Forgot to thank you all about the music service feedback, I like it and I think we'll look into it from September. Dd doesn't want to do I am in two minds but I do feel it would give her an advantage to be taught on the music school premises.

We are in a semi and my "attached" neighbours have a 7 yo practising piano sometimes at 9,30pm but I do feel piano is different than clarinet.

I don't think we'll ever do exams in the same session (same day!!!) as it brings so much stress, you can't give up one instrument practice in favour of the exam one, or ease off at all, after an hour and 15 min on the piano she had to start clarinet practice even if she only did the scales and one piece. It feels like a total mess! I am in moaning mood!

Misti dd said tonight that she doesn't care about the exams results. So I asked if she's happy with a fail. She suddenly put more effort into it. I guess she meant she didn't care about merit/distinction but it suddenly dawned on her it could be a fail and that she's not happy with. Even though unless she has a total meltdown I don't believe she'd fail and after the way she played me Summertime and slow Air tonight I am even starting to think she may pull it off if she sorts out this last piece. Aural is fine, scales fine, sight reading hit and miss depending if she remembers to count and not correct errors.