June Music Thread

[Fleurdelise]

Hello all and welcome to the June thread! Waffle did me the honours of asking me to initiate this thread as she has no access to Internet while on holiday.

This thread was first initiated by Waffle when Goo was 6 and now she's 11. It is a thread for all the musicians, big and small, to share their love (and frustrations ) during the long path of learning an instrument. I first joined when dd was 7 and in the process of preparing for grade 1 piano for moral support. If you read the ending of the May thread you'll realise I am still a nervous reck here we are now, two years later, Dd is 9 and preparing for grade 5 piano and grade 3 clarinet, the exams are in exactly 13 days. I also have DS 15 who is in the middle of his GCSEs at the moment, he has no musical interest.

As I couldn't leave Waffle without an introduction, below is a quote from the May thread. The only correction is that I believe Rara has now turned 9.

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!

Another table tennis fan here. We have one in our garden. Very popular among DS's friends. They just pop in for a quick play before dinner or between homework.

Thank you Alexandra yes, she does play them way too fast and she doesn't plan her breath, just plays till she's red in the face then takes big breath. I'll sort the speed up and the breath tomorrow, I'll ask her to do it at the top of the scale.

And yes to practice time, sounds great for your dd gaining so much time. Dd does around an hour and a half currently due to exams(30 min on clarinet and an hour on piano) but if she practises more efficiently I can see her finishing quicker.

That's a proper amount of practice! Two weekends before her exam DD did about 4 hours over the course of a weekend but only because she was away the following weekend. Otherwise she probably averages a couple of hours a week. Tbh it's a miracle she passed.

One of the girls in her group failed and DD had the cheek to remark that "perhaps she just hadn't practised enough"!!!! Tbh at this level I think an element of underlying musical ability comes into it: DD said that both the other girls in her group got poor marks for the contemporary piece, because they made a lot of rhythm errors on the rhythmically complex sections. DD is lucky that rhythm is totally natural for her, because it's not easily learnt. There are some otherwise quite skilled adult guitarists in my guitar class whose sense of rhythm is terrible.

Kutik going to get a table when we move (if we have any money left lol)

Well all this practice puts DS2 to shame, I can tell you! I think we've had one cello session this half term and he has played piano but not practised exactly! He should pick up a bit of momentum now, though.
I get him to practise tricky bars about 5 times before letting him play the piece through. I'd say his practice sessions when he does them are about 30 mins per instrument.
Misti is totally right about rhythm - if that's secure then it's a huge advantage even if there are mistakes elsewhere.
Drummers your comment about music that makes money is true but I'm sure your DS will succeed whatever the genre! Sadly, I have not yet grown out of Indy!

Thanks for the new thread! I have just caught up on the end of the May thread. I am chuckling away at the roll up piano comments - my dad recently bought a second hand one in the charity shop for about £3. Not too surprisingly, it doesn't work properly and he's asked for a new one for his 70th. Several of the family have been chuckling at the suggestion- perhaps we should hold back on the giggles!

Three weeks until g2 piano for my Miss 7. She's started her first bits of g4 clarinet work this week and is very excited

fleur my girl has been told to breathe at the top of her 2 octave scales. Trinity give the recommended speeds in the Woodwind syllabus xx

Dd would probably get by with less practice but her control freak mother is insisting now she plays all her scales every session, spend time on her pieces properly and do sight reading exercises. Dd is one of those kids that can have s meltdown in the exam and it would all fall to pieces so she needs to be prepared distinction level really to ensure if it all goes wrong she would pass.

I assumed her teacher did ask her to take a breath at the top of her two octave scales but dd is on another planet so she generally decides she's right therefore she'll take a breath only when she goes blue in the face, somewhere in the middle on the scales going down. I wouldn't be amazed if one day she passes out in a middle of an exam as she insists to try and do it all without breathing.

We have the same issues with some pieces, she'd take a breath in random places rather than planning them even though I can see her teacher's marking on the music. We fixed that though for this exam.

loose I haven't grown out of indy either. I never will Fortunately I did grow out of my new romantic face

drummers yes, there are some things best left in the past!

Breathing - the house rule is that if I noticed it then it must have been in the wrong place. I have sat through many lessons where breathing has come up - plan where to do it (you might want to breathe earlier than you need to so as to avoid breaking a phrase later) and if you can't get through the phrase save air by playing quieter or faster if you can get away with it. Growing helps no end, the hulking teen has a larger lung capacity than the small child but obviously that doesn't work as a short term solution.

We've had a crisis this week which wouldn't have been a crisis at all if DS had found the problem earlier in the week by actually doing some practise. He has been a very worried young man because yes, it was all his fault and yes, it could have easily been avoided and yes, he was going to be greatly inconvenienced by it. He got lucky and everything is fine now but I hope that this is one of those life lessons that he will remember for years to come. I'll certainly remember it, I lost a night's sleep worrying about what to do for the best.

Hiya, don't think I made it onto the last thread at all..

Musical DS is 16, in mid GCSEs. He's meandering towards G8 on clarinet (first) and then alto sax over the next couple of years...he doesn't do all of the grades (Trinity jazz) but he and his music teacher have decided that getting the Grade 8s before he leaves school would be a sensible marker for access to music groups etc later in life.

He's a jazz player mostly, though he is planning to audition for the county orchestra next term too.

Just bought him a new second hand clarinet, which he LOVES and spends much of the time he could be revising on!

Also have dancing DD (14), who has taken up singing lessons as part of the 'dancers must be able to sing' toolbox, to add to vocational level exams in ballet, tap, modern theatre. Working up to her first song and dance solo by infinitesimally slow degrees!

Welcome cantkeep!
We've had revision meltdown today with tears. I have called the state of emergency in the house, stress level 10. Therefore I have forbidden revision tonight and instead we're going to see Wonderwoman

Hello can'tkeep
Enjoy wonder woman drummers that sound like my sort of revision crisis plan

Ooh, that sounds like a perfect antidote to revision overload resulting in melt down. Must be something in the thunder air right now...

So pleased crisis was eventually averted icould, sounded stressful whatever the life lesson outcome!

Ealing I feel under stress despite telling myself that this is not my problem, I am seriously considering drummers option of a cinema visit if I can't pull myself around.

Icouldbe thank you for the breathing advice and sorry to hear you had the stress coming your way, glad to hear everything was fine in the end.

drummers you need my DS. He'd never had a meltdown as the revision is so little there's nothing to have a meltdown about. Half joking, he tells me he revised a lot, in fact I came home today to two dcs grassing on each other, dd told me he's done no revision and he told me she's done no music practice.

Going to the piano lesson soon and I am so tired.

Enjoy the film, drummers. Distinct lack of revision going on here. DS will need to get down to it soon (though the French brevet is nearly impossible to fail and he will have passed before he takes the final exams).

Concert season is upon us - guitar tomorrow, piano a week tomorrow, and a solo show on the 21st. Very little practice has been done for any of these!!

Thank you I am looking forward. He has been revising 9 hours a day. He tends to overdo it. But I'm happy to have intervened.
icould and a visit to the cinema. The lessons our dc learn are usually at the expense of our stress...

misti enjoy the concerts!

fleur I loved the grassing on each other note. Filial love at its best.

We had a good piano lesson, her teacher is very relaxed and said she's fine, there are of course things to be improved and still time to do it but she isn't worried at all, her scales are strong (but a few arpeggios shakey) pieces good but a few improvements here and there, nothing major. Even the problem piece sounds ok.

Today's story: I did mention before that our teacher has her own piano mentor, just because she believes you're never done learning so she sees her once every couple of weeks or a month and she's giving her input on her playing (our teacher's playing). Anyway I found out today that dd's teacher's mentor is teaching one of last year's bbc young musician finalists who I was impressed with listening to him last year. Dd's teacher keeps saying that she wants dd to meet her mentor because she's extremely interested to hear her play (dd's teacher sometimes talks to her mentor about dd apparently). So we'll probably arrange a meeting before dd is going to participate in the local festival which I was previously saying this BBC young musician won. It was kind of a launch pad for him. I am quite excited

We're enjoying preparation for 2 ARSMs, this is the new diploma from Abrsm. DS is on his gap year and doing a singing one and a flute one.
30 mins of music, no scales, aural, sightreading. No programme notes, no viva, no quick study. Just performance

Noteven that sounds a lovely thing to prepare for ds has said that he wants to do that ( when he gets there) I've told him that next year I would like him to prepare only for things that don't really involve my input ( no sightreading/ transposition work or aural) here's hoping

Fleur that sounds fascinating - your piano teacher clearly knows her stuff if she sees the benefit of having a mentor! It will be really interesting for you and dd to meet them. The festival must be pretty impressive, too.
Drummers Good for you for your intervention! And I hope you both enjoyed the film - sounds like a fun choice! Can't say DS1 was ever in danger of needing me to call time on his revision. If only, in some ways. I'm not convinced his total revision time in Y10 has amounted to 9 hours!
Feedback from boot camp - he loved it, enjoyed recording a track and found the live gig quite an eye-opener as it's so different to just practising!