(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!

I couldbeknitting

You can't beat a musical instrument as a birthday gift

You can if it's a drum and on that NOTE I'm off

I will sort out a video for you, se22.

Happy birthday boy! Enjoy the birthday present!

Green - don't beat yourself up! It'll work out fine in the end 😘

gilly good one

gilly badoom-tish! :-D

Inspired by this thread I have gone slightly rogue with the birthday IOUs this week, ordering not just a bunch of ABRSM stuff but also the wonderful Doflein violin books and Kodaly's nursery songs and one of his two-part choral method books. Obviously will be a while before Cygnetengesang (DS) is singing these but DH and I can sing and play them.

Thanks for the suggestions upthread about music schools, outreach etc. Unfortunately not in the UK but we do have a Saturday music school here, a youth orchestra with holiday academies, a children's and a youth choir, all of which regularly send kids to the national youth orchestra or choir. I guess one of the advantages of being somewhere tiny is the easy access to national-level stuff. We did have a cathedral kids' choir too, but sadly it has folded due to lack of money & volunteers to run it.

ealing, Czardas is a hard piece to play properly! Perfection may not have been the aim of the teacher, perhaps. It sounds like your DD achieved her given task very well. I too prefer pieces that'll be within DS's capacity (technically) for auditions, but happy for him to be adventurous and fearless for studies for reasons.

Happy Birthday to yesterday's the Boy.

catshave, what's an experience you had! Amazing!

drummers, thank you for sharing such a story. It all explains why he is so brilliant. The powerful mixture of the natural potentials and nurturing environments!

Green, we all want the best for our children, so feeling we could have done better is very natural. I do have the moment time to time too. I make coffee (or pour wine if you prefer) and let myself deep into my own world. May even let me sob a bit if I feel like it. But the most important thing (well, to me) is to keep trying to be better, a better person (mum in this case) as long as my life continues. We can all make a change from the moment when we notice something is not right or we could do better. You are wonderful.

Thanks all, I am here, in mumsnet so I must be doing something right !

Thanks waffle

Oh dear, I hope someone can help me think straight...

DS and I popped in a couple of violin shops last week, just as a research, then ended up taking two violins home... DS's teacher suggested to start looking around in the first place, but she didn't mean to upgrade to full size now. DS can sort of manage full size, but the teacher prefers him sticking to his 3/4 for now as she is planning to go through technique focused lessons once her lesson starts in October. She says it's easier with 3/4, otherwise DS has to deal with technical demands as well as stretching his hand/fingers. I agree.

So today, I have to call the shops to tell them I'm returning them. However, DS is begging me to keep the one he fell in love with.

Pros of buying now would be no hustle/stress for the search of 'the one' any more and it's there ready to be picked when he finally moves on to full size, and also the payment is slightly lower as 3/4 will be traded.

Cons would be he may change his taste and may not choose the same one if we wait, it's too tempting to play 4/4 rather than 3/4 if you have both (the teacher's opinion), we have to go through the hustle of selling 3/4 independently as we won't trade with 4/4, and we may not be able to find as good deal as we are offered now for trading with 4/4. We also have to pay double insurance to cover 3/4 and 4/4, and understandingly 4/4's is broody expensive (ouch).

Pros and cons of NOT buying now would be basically opposite of all above.

My reason tells me I should return for now and re-start all again when needed, but my slight fear is that DS may not be able to find what he loves this much within our budget (both of them are very stretching end of our budget).

Ah! Dilemma!!!

Oh dear, Kutik! I think I would have to take it back, hard as it is.

se22 I will try to do it this morning.

I have just bought Rara two books - Vamoosh 3 for Cello (her teacher asked me to get it) and the Grade 2 Theory book, ha ha. She worked through the younger sticker books (can't remember the name, but it's four books to get to Grade 1) a few years ago, did some Grade 1 papers, then we had a big gap. Last year we tried to do the official Grade 1 book properly, and I gave up... she made it SO hard! Goo wasn't easy to teach - she moaned constantly - but she got things first time and remembered them. Rara has to turn everything into a complicated story, instead of taking it at face value. Anyway, we need to crack on now. Even if she can do one book and set of past papers each YEAR we should reach Grade 5 when she's 12/13. I really hope it doesn't take that long, for my sanity.

Green you are definitely getting it right! Don't worry about missing anything by the way. Mine don't really remember much of nursery despite all the stress I had over their happiness! MiniGreen is likely to sail through selective tests - just look at how well she did on grade 5 theory, it was amazing.
I do love the sound of drummerboy's toddler years - he clearly still has the same amazing focus and it will take him very far indeed.
It's interesting to see how different siblings are as well. In theory both of mine should be similar as they like the same things but their personalities are really different, just as Goo and Rara are so different. Their choices of instruments reflects this. DS2 has no interest in percussion and I couldn't persuade DS1 to try piano. On the other hand they both like guitars!

Oh no Kutik I don't like that sort of dilemma!
Waffle I think DS2 has to tackle theory properly soon! He did the grade one book rather grudgingly ("not fun") but it got put on hold while he did G4 piano exam. The teacher was suggesting tackling by topic rather than whole book at a time, so do a topic from G2 to G5 then on to something else. But she may change this now the exam has changed a bit. Either way, I know DS2 is going to whinge about it!

Thanks waffle, dd is using the Maureen cox - theory is fun Grade 2 as well the official Abrsm grade 2 book. She finds it light, whilst reinforcing the official syllabus. She has got 1/3 of the way through the book I think this summer. She struggles to retain facts though

Ah, Green. We have more in common than you think. Our lives, too, were turned upside down by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. As a result of the financial freefall and fear in the markets, a contract with a major bank was withdrawn at the last minute, 2 days after Lehmans. It was signed but they backed out. DD was one, we had to leave London and move to a small village, and have been in the courts ever since. Our lives just changed direction over night. The chances and opportunities for our DCs withered. I wish I could do more for them. Our summer hols involve trips to the swimming pool and one or two trips to the cinema. The youngest two are touchingly excited by these "outings". Until they go back to school and find out where everyone else has been! I hold on to what I can do right now. And on the whole children don't miss what they haven't experienced.

We are getting close to a resolution in our case hopefully, but it has been ten long years.

Kutik, I agree with Waffle, I'm afraid, about the violin. If you remove the financial aspect and just look at the musical issue, it sounds like it isn't time.

I just did my first bolding!

niggle that sounds so stressful. But believe me when I say that growing up in a small village is a happier childhood in my view.
We had out mortgage in s foreign currency and our debt doubled so that we lost all the capital we had in the house and it was starting from zero. I cried many nights then did that thing in which you tell yourself things and money are not people and only those I love are worth crying for.
kutik it's an impossible dilemma. Keep it away where he can't use it? (Grandparents house?). OTOH I'm sure when the time comes he will be able to fall in love with another violin.

Ahh niggle - sorry to hear of your struggle. My friend joined Lehman in the Middle East on the Friday before the collapse on the Monday. They didn't honour her (very fancy) hotel bill, she'd sold all of her stuff, rented out her flat and because her boyfriend of many years wouldn't get married to satisfy the laws in that country, she chucked him too. It was a pretty crap weekend for her!

I'd say (without sounding crass which is not my intention at all) that my DD is very fortunate to experience lots of fabulous trips/events/restaurants etc but do you know what? If you ask her what she'd love to do on any free day, she'll say 'the park' or 'the beach'. Kids want to spend time with parents who are present in the moment - not eating in a fancy restaurant in a far-flung location with mum and dad furiously replying to emails.

It sounds like you are doing a great job. I do hope your court battle ends soon.

Sorry, I mixed up the information! The price WON'T go down IF we buy now as we CAN'T trade as we still need to keep 3/4! So if we return now and go back to the shop when DS needs 4/4, then we can trade it with his 3/4 and no extra payment for the insurance, so unless DS chooses something more expensive it's easier for our bank account.

Niggle, the musical issues you meant is the possibility of DS's taste changing? DS will keep using his 3/4 until the time comes, so buying one doesn't mean he will start playing 4/4. Although, as the teacher said, having one would tempt him to play it more than his smaller one....

But yes, the voice of my reason is getting louder now. I must return them....

when the time comes he will be able to fall in love with another violin.

I really do hope so. And I must say it's more likely. DS claimed he found 'the one' at the violin shop 1, then next day, he claimed he met the equivalent at the violin shop 2. After spending a few days with them, he made his mind up and claimed his forever love for the one from the violin shop 1. So yes, he is very much like a 10 years old.

I hope he won't be like that when it comes to choose a girlfriend...

Drummer, I can see that on a good day. At local parks, when the whole scene looks like a commercial for what life should be like. And I think back to Battersea Park, and keeping young DS away from furtive teenagers with their "drug" dogs, which at the time were the weapon of choice after a clamp down on knife crime.

It was very hard for a lot of people wasn't it. But we are still here. I think DD (7) was a L Bros baby. Desperately wanted something to look forward to!

Green, there is a whole bunch of us.

Kutik, I think you said that the teacher wants to go through technical things and would prefer to do this on the 3/4. It might be easier to do this on the 3/4, totally focusing on the techniques, rather than also dealing with finger stretching and adjusting to get the right tone.

Although, here I am opining that you should do as your teacher suggests - while I have just had a squabble with ours only this week because we don't agree..

Kutik, I remember your DS will go to RCM. Does he still learn violin with current teacher? Or your DS had learned with RCM teacher?