July Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

I was celebrating the end of a VERY busy week with a glass of and realised it's now just past midnight, and therefore July! Have a new thread!

The music threads are for ALL musicians, young and old, beginners and advanced, and every style of music!

I have two DDs, Goo (11) who is currently stropping and eye-rolling her way through her last few weeks at primary school, and Rara (9) who is funny and creative. Goo is working towards Grade 8 Flute, and has been playing the piano for just over a year. She is refusing to take any exams or perform on it though. Rara has her Grade 3 Cello exam coming up soon, and is just moving beyond Grade 2 Clarinet now. Both played the recorder from age 3/4 and got to a really good level, but other than helping out with my school groups, they don't really play any more - they are particularly obsessed with the flute and clarinet.

I am a teacher of woodwind - currently about 80 recorder pupils (many group taught) in two schools, plus two private flute pupils and six private clarinet pupils.

kutik that's good parenting! I'm the bad mum!

Phew! The tearful flautist passed (65/100).
Her lowest mark by far, but at least it's a pass.

You are very kind Kutik, if you have heard someone else play that Handel piece you will see what I meant. Our exam is this Saturday, we will still go for it as she has been learning these pieces on and off since the last 7 months or so and she needs to move on. I thought of stopping the lesson after attending one of the lesson. I then asked my husband to attend another one and he agrees. We do music for fun with no particular aim and we didnt think the teacher approach was right.(our own opinion). I have arranged something at work so I could bring her to a teacher now and we are going to our 1st one today(we already went to her for few lessons last year however with childcare for our toddler, work arrangement it didnt work out).

The second I knew it sounded like a pass great news. And a pass is a pass so now she can move on !!

Loose, best of luck to mini"ds2"Loose today!

The second, totally agree with Trumpet, yay for a pass and being able to move on/up!

thesecond yay a big congrats to your DD!
Was it Trinity? How come you already know?

Yes, it was with Trinity. Her teacher texted me the result and also has her mark sheet. She only did the exam 48 hours ago, so I'm impressed with the admin speed.

DS2's exam next Tuesday is with ABRSM. He learns through school, so won't get the result until September.

thesecond we entered him ourselves. I wonder how your teacher does it to find out. Otherwise they said two weeks by post!

The Trinity examiner leaves the results as s/he leaves the test centre so you can get them on the same day as the exam. (I have just caught up but typing is a pain as I'm on my phone)

Result just in for my Grade 1 Flute pupil (from June 30th). I thought she would score 115-120... she got 118! She dropped six marks in the scales, which are usually perfect, so she could have got a merit. Oh well, you never quite know how they're going to react in there.

Dodgy Grade 7 Flute and a wobbly Rara tomorrow. Oh dear me.

drummers, sadly I am the bad guy in our household as DH has zero parenting skills, though he is a great playmate...

Green, sorry to hear that you had to change the teacher again. But I am very impressed that you have found a happy arrangement at lightning speed. Now miniGreen can just focus on enjoying her musical journey again!

TheSecond

Well done MiniTheSecond!

Good luck for tomorrow Rara and Waffle's pupil!

Green sorry to hear about the teacher but well done on returning to the teacher I remember you really liked previously. Good luck with minigreen's music journey.

Great result Second! Good luck Rara for tomorrow and MiniGreen on Saturday. And hope the lesson goes well!
Thanks for the good wishes - DS2 seems quite happy with how it went. Definitely fluffed one scale but the others were ok so he's quite relieved. He was rewarded with cake in the cafe next to the exam centre and is now happily playing on the computer. I, on the other hand, feel drained!!

Well done miniLoose!

I've spoken to our piano teacher last night about the clarinet teacher situation and she said that it sounds perfect so we should move. I have just signed the forms so I will give notice to our teacher on Saturday. Never done this so I am quite stressed about it.

Sounds good loose!
There were hundreds at the exam centre. It didn't look like i could just hang out a few hours and get the result...

Rara's teacher was thrilled with her tonight. I have covered all the scales, sight reading and musical knowledge for the past few weeks, so they played right through the three pieces together. She could do with more dynamics, but her notes, rhythm and tuning are mostly accurate; Daisy Bell and the jazzy piece are lively and enthusiastic, and her classical piece sounds suitably posh. She won't play so well under pressure, but is secure enough to pass. As for my Grade 7 pupil (late teens)... who knows?!

Gah, it's a grade 7 clarinet, not flute!

Well done to TheSecond's DD and Mini Loose.

Good luck for the exams tomorrow Waffle!

Good luck tomorrow Rara!!!!

Thanks, all! I have had more than enough of this week already. It's been stressful in the extreme. As soon as these two exams are done tomorrow, I'm off out for the day with my sister and cousin. Bring it on!

Good luck rara and your pupil, waffle. Well done your wee pupil too x

Well done tearful flautist and alexandra's boy x

I feel horribly silly as people probably forgot me already :)))) but we got our first exam result and my baby got 131 for Grade 1 violin. 10 marks less than his sister's grade 1 and just .... nevertheless....

Talking about my favorite subject, music teachers, ds's piano teacher is so wow! third month into her lessons (I paid 10 lessons upfront, and it is still going) - we already covered 3 or 4 scales- both hands, a lot of aural, and she is going to start theory with him-how is that??! I also discovered that she had quite a good musical career and how she is playing.... just wow! This is what I call a talent-when you play a tiny silly piece and make your audience living every note of this...

On a different note - we had a concert at school (wanted to share a video but dd's performance was so flat and boring - I was really disappointed with it, for the first time it made me think that what if I overestimate her abilities?). Anyway, something else upset me. All performances apart from my dd's were from school lessons. There was a big choir and violins, and cellos, and guitars. I noticed one girl coming from foster family singing in the school choir. This is really good, right? Very inspirational. However, another girl, same age as my dd and who started violin exactly the same time as my ds6 (he was still 4, technically, and she was 7+ at the time) is not anywhere close even to prep test, whilst he passed grade 1 already. Parents are well off, good careers, live in an expensive area of the town and drive an expensive car. Same with few other kids. This particular girl decided that she had enough and decided to quit violin lessons. Which does not surprise me as she is a very bright girl and she is probably bored to death to play introduction pieces for almost two years.
What is it? Parent's ignorance in music education? Laziness of parents or children? Luck of interest? They enroll their dc to school lessons and are happy to tick the box-music lessons are done?
Any ideas why people do that? At the end of the day they don't really achieve anything by those lessons and kids quit them with the feeling of unfulfillment and disappointment, don't they?
This is state school btw