(Mostly) August Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Here's a new thread for August, but we're starting it a few days early, because you lot have managed to be super chatty this month! I wonder if things will slow down in August due to people going away... maybe or maybe not?

I'm Waffle, a teacher of woodwind - mostly recorders and clarinet, but I have a couple of flutes currently, and teach saxophone, piano and theory when required. I am determined that the music threads should be open to ALL, including complete beginners and adult learners. It's a good place to discuss lessons, practice, concerts, exams and our generally hectic lives!

I have a DH who plays the guitar for pleasure (no lessons) and two girls. Goo is 11 and has her Grade 7 Flute (March 2017) and Grade 6 Recorder (December 2015 and now pretty much stopped ). She has been learning the piano for 15 months, is refusing to perform in any way, shape or form, but will probably take Grade 5 next year. Rara is 9 and has Grade 3 Cello (July 2017), Grade 3 Recorder (December 2016 and also ceased) and is working towards her Grade 3 Clarinet... probably next spring. Goo is off to NCO Under 12s on Sunday, and we need to pop out to get her some shoes and general supplies in a bit.

I have just realised that we will probably have Grade 8 Flute and Grade 3 Clarinet going on in the same session, Spring 2018. Oh dear! If Rara bothers with Grade 4 Cello, we'll probably have that at the same time as Grade 5 Piano, next summer. Double oh dear!

Thanks. I see. DS was supposed to order and stick his hundreds of chemistry notes and he hasn't even done that. I also think they need mental space and rest and.... music of course.

I'm impressed with the revision already! My DS, also doing GCSEs next year hasn't touched anything. He is so protective of his mental space I'm concerned we won't be able to squeeze any work in.

Green, nice to see the incentive scheme is working!

Niggle don't be too impressed - I think he'll do the computer stuff but the rest will be a rush job before he goes back! I think he's looking so much happier with doing music every day for fun!
It's a couple of weeks until our holiday, can't wait!

Amazon brought a new clarinet book today. Much fun was had sight reading pieces. Beats yesterday 's arguing and strops

So all these gorgeous music kids, with fabulous repertoire.... what's your kid's guilty music pleasure? My girl had High School Musical soundtrack on loud most of afternoon, driving me bonkers- then has gone to sleep with a Chopin Nocturne playing on repeat

fleur www.beaumontmusic.co.uk/shop/clarinetcleaningcloth
The selling point was the prettiness, I have to admit but they both seem good. I was keeping them for her birthday but she had chicken pox not long ago over school holidays and was thoroughly miserable so I gave her them!

DS's guilty pleasure would be copying David Garrett's Pirates of the Caribbean learnt from Youtube, and also listening to the recording of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 (full...) played by his youth orchestra EVERY NIGHT. The whole family (though only three people) can sing the tune very well now thanks to his obsession...

Oh and, must count playing piano pieces on the violin. I suppose all multi-instrumentalists do this...

Fleur - I hope your day got better!

Ps green - I quite agree. Obviously I have a lot of black 'high heels'

D plays clarinet pieces on her violin. Esp study in c

Question for people on here who understand the inherent value of doing music — at what age would you start lessons for a musically-interested kid? Would you teach him at home first or start with a teacher, if you play the instrument(s) yourself? Can you ask a teacher to do theory from the beginning? Is starting young good because music is a good thing to be doing (my view) or should they start later as progress will be too slow early on (others views, which seem to be based on the 1 grade exam per year kind of mindset)

DS is too young but is clearly interested and made happy by music. I don't want to be a Tiger Mother but if it makes him happy and makes his life richer, and he's not too immature to get anything out of it, then I see little wrong with starting lessons before school age.

Prada thanks yes it got better, went out with the work team and it was quite fun even though I wasn't in the mood for it.

Dd's guilty pleasures are Disney songs on both clarinet and piano. And since getting Guest Spot she played a bit of Beatles, and Moon River and she seems to want to play more of these. Also she prefers option C in her music when choosing piano pieces, jazzy pieces are her guilty pleasure definitely.

Thanks minimama!

Schwan how young are we talking about? I think a good reader, mature dc can be successfully started on music lessons at 5 and progress isn't extremely slow, but of course not as fast as let's say an 8 yo but does it matter? If it brings enjoyment and the dc enjoys it why measure against the progress of an older kid? I think (and I always say this to my kids even though it is hard in real life) you should always measure yourself against yourself regardless of what's going on around you. With music, as long as a child enjoys the lessons and practises without tears (that's not to say the parent needs to expect the 5yo to practice completely at their own initiative) it is a success and progress will be made.

If I would have played an instrument I would have probably started to introduce my dcs to music at 4/5yo without formal lessons, just teaching them something new once a week and then start them on formal lessons with a teacher at 6.

Dd started at 6 and did theory and practical from the beginning. There are some very nice kiddie theory books by Lina Ng which involve colouring in and matching pairs which 5-6 yo would enjoy doing. Her progress was good I'd say, 18 months to grade 1, under 4 years to grade 5. Of course an older child can progress faster (I believe Waffle was saying Goo is playing grade 5 pieces after a year of piano at the age of 11 after having flute and recorder lessons from an earlier age). But as I said why compare them with others? Dd had 4 years of music enjoyment regardless of her progress and she genuinely cannot see herself without her music lessons, they are now part of who she is.

Schwan

Before school age it's important to build a love of music through play.
Singing, banging a drum, nursery rhyme actions, making your own instruments.
Immediately, without any formal teaching they are learning about time, pitch, rhythm, and realising it's all a game for fun.

We do lots of glockenspiel- and piano-bashing (I play either side of him) and I play the violin to him for about 5 min a day. Difficult singing or playing with music at the moment as he desperately wants to eat the music. We sing and dance to the Putamayo Kids jazz cd (wish there were more like this - really good performances), and have Bach cantatas or whatever going in the background most of the day.

Can anyone recommend any music related apps or dvds that might hold his attention, or good jazz performances of nursery rhymes?

Or any good sets of nursery rhymes generally - preferably with music, as i don't know the tunes to most of them? What I'd love would be a DVD/app/whatever of well-played/sung nursery rhymes with the music showing on the screen, something that we could sing along to but also show him the music and the people playing/singing.

i'd also love a DVD of someone doing Kodaly exercises. I remember being taught little bits of Kodaly back in kindy (it used to be part of teacher training where i grew up!), and loving it. It looks a bit intimidating to learn it all though. I am too close to dyspraxia to really cope with even solfege type hand movements.

Re lessons I was thinking about 4yo provided the kid is mature enough (3yo at a pinch but that's really unlikely). Little boys are probably a bit young & inclined to want to run around/ goof off/ make a spaceship out of the violin case, for any sort of formal teaching before that.

From our experience, I think at 3 or 4, I'd be looking at fun music classes- singing, percussion, listening to music, introduction to instruments- rather than a formal instrument tuition. If you're very keen for that age, perhaps suzuki method would be more suited. I know my DDs piano teacher only took her at 5 because she was a precocious reader & was very fluent by then plus proved she had a concentration span above expected for her age. She's been playing for 2 years and is working on G3. Progress was initially fairly slow to build strength in her little 5yr old fingers. 15months in, aged nearly 6.5, she got a clarinet and just over a year later passed G3 and is now working on G5 stuff. The very careful foundation that had been put in place with piano paid huge dividends. For us, the fact she started at 5 means music has been part of her life for a very large part of her conscious memory. Practice is just part of life's daily cycle.
I would also recommend exposure to all the musical performances you can. The CBSO, LSO and RPO all do regular family concerts. The Proms always have a family prom. Such as the Royal College have workshops for little ones (we don't live anywhere near London but visit a lot). Our 2 local music services both run fun workshops for preschoolers. All adding to their enjoyment of live music.

DS and DD were both exposed to loads of singing from the start really - I'm an early years teacher so there was always a song for everything ( and if there wasnt a song I'd make one up !!) but ds who is now whizzing ahead musically speaking only started lessons age 8 but then picked up reading music really quickly. I don't think there is a right age to start but early exposure to lots of songs rhymes and listening to music is a good start ( and beneficial to lots of other areas of development too)

I sang a lot while DS was too young to appreciate how bad I was. We'd make songs up in the car, fit new words to music and spend car journeys messing about rhyming. It's only with hindsight that I see now how good he was with hearing a couple of bars once and being able to sing it back weeks later. He might not remember the words but he'd nail the tune. He would sing in the bath every night. That stopped after he started school where singing (for boys) was not cool at all.

there was always a song for everything ( and if there wasnt a song I'd make one up !!)

I sang my way through the first years of parenting. I was a SAHM with four children close in age, and it kept me upbeat and entertained them. If there wasn't a song to fit the occasion, I improvised one. The (now teenaged) children still sing some of them, including "We're a little bit early... but it's better than being late" (to the tune of 'The bear went over the mountain')

Identical experience to ICouldBe including the refusal to sing at school! I used to sing all the time to them, which might also account for the aversion!
There were a lot of Early Learning Centre toy instruments that they played on and a small acoustic guitar that I think they both tried around age 4 but basically just liked strumming. I think getting little ones dancing is helpful, too - front room disco after work to wear them out! 'Jungle Book' is good!

DH and I both love and appreciate music, not crazily but just ordinarily, so go to opera and stuff and enjoy the entertainment aspect. Classical music is almost always in the background at home simply because classical music is my choice of the background music when I paint (I'm a painter). DH plays guitar badly and would play and sing Beatles' Beautiful Boy' to baby DS, and I also used to sing DS at bedtime (again badly) but I am not a singer so certainly didn't sing much other than bedtime.

Music was appreciated but it was certainly not playing huge part of our life before DS developed passion in music. DS's exposure to music in his early life was def very much ordinary, I think.

He took up piano when he started primary school, and two terms or so later he joined school violin club. I was told he was a late starter for both instruments million times.

My MIL and FIL started having dd two days a week when she was 9 months old and FIL is a musician therefore he'd spend hours a day either singing to her or playing his instruments, by the age of two FIL and dd would sing all the songs from Disney cartoons and musicals together, that's when he started nagging me to make sure dd has piano lessons (he kept saying at 4 but she started at 6). She would sing in tune and they used to play this game where he'll just sing the first few notes of a song and dd would guess what it is and sing it back herself. It was hilarious to watch their arguments with FIL (jokingly) saying "my song, stop join in" and dd would make a point of joining in as soon as possible.

She still sings to herself all the time, having a bath, playing, on the back seat of the car, she constantly sings.

3-4 is early for formal lessons in my opinion but then my dcs were Duracell at that age and wouldn't have sat down to listen to instructions at that age (saying that dd did start school 2 weeks after her 4th birthday and the teachers never complained of her not being able to follow instructions).

So sad to hear boys think singing is uncool. DS was only one boy in his year in the school choir but managed to 'recruit' one of his friends. But he finally stopped last term. His friend left also. But it was not the main reason for DS to stop as he is a bit of 'going-my-way' type, so didn't mind being only one big boy there (he likes girls anyway - he says girls are prettier than boys). But it was because the teaching was so bad. It was so uninspiring and the teacher managed to make it so so boring. Very sad.