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.

Thanks for all the good luck messages today he said it went well and so we shall see what he gets. As long as he passes I'll be pleased !!

Can anybody recommend some piano jazz method books from the dcs doing jazz piano also?

Sorry lots of questions today? Am I right to believe the new Abrsm clarinet syllabus is issued this month and there are changes to scales and stuff? Does anybody (looking at Waffle) know more?

Fleur not method books but lots of fun - look out for the jazz piano series by Martha Miers.

Fleur I think that she will need different, jazz piano lessons to do it properly, and she'll have to go from the beginning because of the different scales and learning how to improvise. Being able to read music, though, I'm sure she'd progress quickly. Years ago, I bought the Grade 2 Jazz Piano exam book, but didn't quite know what I was doing. If she just likes jazzy pieces, try the Jazzin' About series by Pam Wedgwood (who I have met!) - there are loads of books.

Woodwind scales are changing - I've heard murmurings of scales in thirds (pretty useful, but difficult) and dominant 7ths resolving on to the tonic, which Rara is already having to do for Trinity cello. Makes sense. We won't know for certain until the books come out.

In the higher grades, there are fewer scales to learn for Trinity - they cover ALL of them in Grades 6, 7 and 8 combined, and in ABRSM they're all in Grade 8. I don't think it makes a huge difference, ultimately. I counted the scales for ABRSM and Trinity Grade 3 Cello, and there are the same amount for each... 15 (and each one has to be played with different bowing patterns).

Thanks for the advise all, dd's teacher said she's has a bit of jazz experience from music college and she's happy to get dd started until she can recommend another teacher. No exams or anything, just having fun.

I've seen the books on pre-order for the new woodwind syllabus, I may just order it out of curiosity, I wanted to order the "improve your sight reading" and "improve your scales" but then remembered her teacher told us there are some changes.

Hi Fleur - there is a good explanation. Of the changes in The absrm magazine on line. Sight reading will be labelled in the way other instruments have it, and I think less an different scales. Repertoire will be much broader. Scales an saight reading change from January and pieces as usual. Seems to be trying to even up with other instruments and generally seems to be likely to ease things a bit (apparently - who knows)!

Well done Trumpet!

Glad he sounds happy enough Trumpets. Fingers crossed for the results.

Thanks for the new thread Waffle. Well done to miniDouble, miniTrumpet and all the others with great achievements.

DS (two digits finally!) plays violin and piano. Against his athletic daddy's will, DS developed a love of music and is very much enjoying every bit of the challenge and excitement of his musical journey. I have lost the track of where he is as he doesn't do exams. However he seems to be progressing happily so all is good.

He has two orchestral concerts and at least two solo and group concerts plus recording (not for commercial!) this month. After musically very quite May and June, July is going to be so uplifting (and the summer is just there too!).

Thanks string I had a good read on the Abrsm website, indeed very detailed even though it doesn't state the exact scales.

I wonder if revised Paul Harris books are ready to launch based on the new requirements as well or are we stuck with just Abrsm material? I like his sight reading books.

Oh yes, Paul Harris will hop on to the bandwagon very soon, I'm sure of it!

I have a 9 yrs old who plays violin and piano. She is having her g5 violin exam in couple of weeks and we are not ready as we usually are. This time may be because we have been learning (half heartedly) the pieces for too long and she is bored of them. Our teacher wasnt happy with her progress. We are switching again, its soooo frustrating(mainly because we couldnt bring her to anywhere during the week as both of us work long hours and full time and this has restricted our choice in choosing teacher).

Still I shared with you all her worst piece, Allegro by Handel because she just played it this morning.

Thanks for reminding me, just changed it now!

Her sister is having a cold and I am away next week with few things to sort out tonight so I wont be able to make it, gutted! Hope they all have a lovely time in the concert tonight. Hope you will enjoy it too Alex.

Hello all, sorry for lack of posts, my iPad hates long mumsnet threads :(

I'm an occasional poster with one, older musical child. DD just turned 16 and plays piano, guitar, bass and restarts sax in September. Will be interesting combining this will her final year at school (she is going into "terminale" in her French high school and takes her baccalauréat next June)!

No exams planned at the moment, although the aim of restarting sax is to complete her "second cycle" studies (roughly from grades 5 to 8) in one year, having done the first cycle in a year a couple of years back. We shall see ;) In piano she is working on some harder repertoire now including a Chopin étude and some Bach for holiday homework. She will continue her jazz guitar class although her (and my) beloved teacher of the last two years is moving to Switzerland :(

I also play guitar, rather badly, and am hoping to restart piano lessons if my application to the local conservatoire is accepted. I should know later this month.

I'm trying to upload a video of DD playing Debussy to the YouTube account. It's not her best performance but is OK apart from one minor omission (which I will leave the experts to spot!).

Last lesson before this week's festival all done now. She's ready to dump the piano piece, her clarinet piece is a new G5 piece and she's loving that one but there's definite room for further polishing! Once festival is done we are into three concerts in a week. She can't wait, apart from it means end of term for all the bands etc!

Misti: what a wonderful play! "Mini" Misti is so much taller than in a clip sometime a go

Are all the clips on the thread, I haven't seen them yet and would love to if they are done by pm.
Hoping to finally pin her down to do some recordings over the hols.

I have dd aged 13, Saxes Piano and Voice, with the odd bit of Clari and Flute.

Have had the news that Voice will now be offered as a first study from Y10. Dd said the head approached her but haven't heard it from the horses mouth yet.
I know she'll want to change but not sure what would happen to the saxes, so will have to see.

She's coming home tomorrow night after last concert and I can't wait. Give us a few days though and we'll be at each others throats.

gilly the clips are on the YouTube channel that Fleur created, do you have the details?

Green it must be an optical illusion! She stopped growing 3 or 4 years ago lol (long before she started playing piano and I started posting on here)

I can recommend Hannon Boogie Woogie Piano, it's great to start with and is progressive.
It only covers this one style, but definitely a challenge and the kids enjoy playing the pieces.

Oh thanks, Fleur can you send me the details if you don't mind, that is.

She's going into Y9 isn't she Gilly? So you'll have a bit of time to think?

DS2 has had a cold that's affected his voice, so a day off Choir today. He did go in for Evensong to page turn before his organ lesson.

Piano teacher said yesterday the plan is for Grade 8 piano next summer. Lots of time to play other things and come back at it from 'above'. He is doing Grade 6 theory next term because ......why not?

Gilly: please do share her play, she will be a pro for us to look up.

Misti: maybe different position, I remember her playing with her guitar and beautiful singing sometime ago( was it one of her own composed piece) she looks like an early teen by then.

Sent Gilly.

Loved seeing minigreen and minimisti playing! Beautiful playing

Had a good practice time tonight after a few days off and dd is showing even more motivation, she didn't have a piano or clarinet lesson this week so she said tonight she wants to progress further than previously asked to cover by her teacher, so rather than the first page as an example she wants to start on the second page and get it done by next week.

You only realise how your dc progresses when you suddenly remember looking at the grade 5 pieces back in December and thinking it will a lot of time to learn and now seeing that she's learnt a grade 5 piece she wanted to learn hands separate in a week and will probably take her another week to put it together.