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!

thank you all - yes dd got lucky, but of course is no indication of the likely result, just a good experience on the way

anyone doing any of the proms participation events? dd is doing the Chineke orchestra day

Today we went to a state school open day. Two lovely Y7 boys who showed us around happened to be the music scholars, and one of them was a good sportsman also. So boys instantly connected and DS had a good time chatting with them during the school tour. To be honest I was not particularly fond of this school, but I felt OK actually. I still don't feel this is it. But I don't feel 'No Way neither'. Probably I'll put it on the lower end of the list. Good start!

We have two schools to visit next week!

Fleurdelise, different circumstances, but...dc3 carried on with 2 teachers. Then you can always cancel 1 after a term or so.
Ha ha, dc1 finished his exams yesterday. He has a job interview tomorrow, and think he is going to get really rich this summer.....

I would have loved for DS to do ncs but while he considered it initially he then chatted with his friends and they all decided not to. No more AS levels which fills me up with worry as I know DS will coast for two years again, my only hope is maturing and as he wants to go to Uni hopefully he'll find some motivation.

foundout I don't think I can afford it to be fair. I want to put dd into theory classes also from September as I would like her to take the exam in March next year but I don't want to take away from her piano lesson time. I could at a stretch but adding up how much we spend on music it is ridiculous really. I think we'll give it a try with the music service and if it doesn't work we'll change again in a year's time, I think if I keep a good eye on it ensuring all areas are covered then it should work. Glad to hear yours is done with the exams too. Yes DS thinks he'll get rich too, hahaha.

stringchild we are doing the two family orchestra in a day workshops at the RAH. She enjoyed it at imperial college last year, she's beside herself excited that this year its on stage at the Albert Hall, bless her!

Fleur, foundout: I always think mine should work in library, super market, coffee shop, charity shop during school holiday, even not to earn money. At minimum I hope to send her back to my home country in the very poor and help needed area where she can do volunteer jobs. For now small things like watering the front yard tomatoes and flowers, back yard bean dens seems overloaded. (Although I do have to secretly rewater them again once she is in bed otherwise they are all dead with this weather).

String: best of luck with the result! We did couple of family events taking part last year in Imperial colleague and loved it. Unfortunately we have a tight summer this year as my parents are here and we are using as much time going out/travelling as possible.

Hi, I really need some advice please?

Ds has been learning grade2 exam songs since May.
Last couple of weeks, teacher suggested to practice along with CD.
He is struggling. Big time.I don't think he is capable to play exactly same as the CD yet, some part he slows down due to lack of technique, etc.

Last exam we did almost DIY, and he didn't use CD to practice. We listened to it, watched few you tube videos. I don't think his performance was perfect in the sense of how it should be, but he did well.
If he plays in his own pace, maybe slightly slower than suggested tempo, he can play well. But not secure enough to try to play as fast as he needs to yet, imo. He makes mistake and crumble.

What should we do? I do trust the teacher, but it's painful watching him trying to play like CD again and again and get frustrated.
Does it get better? Is this what a lot of musicians do? Does he need to play like perfect example?
It's quite a while until the actual exam(I assume it will be in NOV/DEC?), do children get to the stage to be able to play like example CD in a month or 2? (He is not practicing all the songs, he is only doing 3 songs he chose.)

I don't think that's a great suggestion TBH, unless there were some need to be able to perform with a backing track, e.g. busking. CDs always go too fast for kids who are learning the pieces, they are played by professionals (so no, he is not expected to sound anything like that, or go as fast) and the child gets used to having to follow the accompaniment, rather than the accompanist following them. My suggestion is to completely ditch the CD, listen to loads of recordings (which you do) and in the AUTUMN term maybe consider playing the CD with Speed Shifter (free download) which will enable him to choose the speed. I think it's crazy to be trying to do it so early on!

DS earns his pocket money from allotment jobs! But yesterday it's ended up with a water gun battle due to the unbearable heat....

We have CDs of the piano parts for most of DS's repertoires but have never used them. DS usually practises for the timing by counting, and have a couple of rehearsals with the accompanist on the day of performance, or sometime without rehearsal for simple pieces. Not sure if this is the right way. But certainly DS doesn't have much experience to play along with accompaniments (mostly only when he is performing)...

Thank you Waffle. I thought it was bit much. The teacher is having a baby in July, so she can go into maternity leave any minute now, thus trying to make him ready as possible before I assume, but I am not even sure he should take exam in Autumn. He lost all his confidence, he says he never going to pass, which is too early to say imo.
Feel bit bad for his teacher, but I do trust music folks on MN, so I will follow your advice.

Dd's accompanist for clarinet exams is also her piano teacher. They have about 4 -5 accompianment lessons before her exam . In that time they kind of work it out speed wise and she usually records the teachers part and Dd practices to that when at home.
She finds the cds too fast too but v good for listening to in early stages and sometimes fun to have the challenge of keeping up with ! . She also listens to recordings & sometimes attempts to play along to exam pieces on YouTube .
I'm non-musical so I find cds / recordings really useful to hear flow of music so I can hear how far away / close she is as exam approaches.
Good luck to your son!

We've never had a cd to play to except when it's a backing track that's been created for DS to play with at a concert and then of course he's chosen the speed. I understood that the idea is that you spend most of your practise hours playing the piece slowly, getting it right and then getting it up to speed once you've built the muscle memory. "Slow it down" is one of my more frequent shouts from the kitchen.

Fleur, re theory lessons, I got my dc to do a 2 day theory course which goes from 0 to Grade 5 in 2 days. Worked very well for DD1 who got 88 after not doing very many papers. Still to see with DD2 as she did the course last Sept and then due to NCO auditions and the loss of her grandfather, she only did the exam last week. Very good course, and people travel from quite a distance to attend. Called Soundscool. Will try to find a link.

www.soundscool.org/

Yes .. I agree with I could . Dd is always told to learn slow chunks that she pieces together and then the speed comes later. Sometimes somethings wrong and she goes over the same same chunk slower and slower until she's got it.. then she can speed it up again

Irvine is that for piano if I remember right? Dd's teacher doesn't want dd to listen to any recordings of a piece until it is properly learnt and Dd has put her mark on it if that makes sense. While pieces have the dynamics that need respecting and interpreting, ideally each pupil will sound slightly differently as they would put their own interpretation to it. It is like reading the same book but noticing different details in the text if that makes sense, so dd's teacher wants dd to find those little details herself and make it her own. I think this is what learning to play music should be about, to be honest, learning to interpret music without copying a recording to the letter.

Dd only listens to the recordings once she learnt it to see if there is any small detail she could add to it.

And yes for grade 2 there is a huge improvement in a couple of months, to be fair it should take 2/3 months to learn the pieces till the exam at that level. I personally wouldn't want dd to learn the same pieces for more than 6 months now at grade 5, up to grade 3 I think 3 months should be plenty to prepare for an exam.

Double thank you, I'll have a look.

DS2 and I got into a rather heated discussion about playing contrary motion scales slower to ensure accuracy. DS2 didn't slow - down with inevitable slips.
Green your comment about rewateriing after Mini's efforts made me smile. I was watering a neighbour's garden and asked DS1 to do the tomatoes etc in ours. Came back to find DH watering the garden, 'improving' on his efforts!
DS1 earns his spare cash babysitting. This is perfect for him as it involves lounging on the sofa, eating snacks and watching TV.

Fleur re your son and uni motivation. DS1 went to a couple of uni open days at the beginning of Y12, he knew what subject he wanted to do, and it really enthused him to start with a bang. It was his choice, DD was definitely not ready to look at that stage.

I thought Irvine was talking about practising to play alone with accompaniment so I assumed it was not for piano - sorry if I misunderstood.

DS's piano teacher is very much like miniFleur's. She doesn't want DS to learn a piece by ear but by reading the music. Once DS put his mark on it, the teacher encourages him to listen to the piece played by others, not to imitate their way of playing, but to see how others interpret it.

Raspberry DS has no clue what he wants to do so Uni open days will have to be next year.

On the cd conversation also, the speed can be adjusted also, it doesn't have to be spot on the cd speed, if you pick up a random piece from the piano syllabus and go on YouTube you'll see lots of versions of it differing in speed and interpretation, that's why it is good to learn it without listening to anything until you are confident you've done your best. Or there are cases when you just can't get the rhythm right, Dd had this with slow Air in the first part, I got her to listen to it as it sounded odd even when counting it properly and slowing it down.

Fleurdelise, Thank you for your advice. Yes it's for piano.
It's difficult to ignore what teacher says, but I have to say to ds not to worry so much about playing along with CD. Trying to play like CD is boring and impossible!

We use the CD to choose pieces for exam. Thereafter it's abandoned. At the dynamics stage he uses YouTube and Spotify for inspiration and further learning but only the versions of the likes of Barenboim, Horowitz, Algerich, etc etc.

That's what we did for last exam, drummers . He listened to it , and chose pieces, and I don't even know where it was after that. We 've watched you tube videos, but didn't think CD was very inspirational.

My monkey let me record her (work in progress) Minuet this morning so that's on the channel she might let me add some piano too shortly

We've added her G2 piano pieces too x