(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!

In practice, Under 10s strings (most of the ones we know anyway, and certainly most of South Westerlies) are Grades 3-5 plus the odd prodigy, so it often says things like 3-8.

Violin people, on the subject of chin placement and shoulder rests: what is a good starting point for a little child? Can you recommend good chinrests or shoulder rests for teeny tiny violins, or does it mostly not matter?

I started violin rather late (age 10) but also very small, with small hands, weak arms and a long neck, and I found it impossible to hold the violin for years, because the chinrests had a huge edge that stuck up under your jaw, and the shoulder rests were slippery plastic balloon things fixed with elastic bands that slipped. It was all fairly miserable for 3 years until I was lucky enough to be allocated a teacher who identified that I couldn't hold the violin properly and gave me a wolf shoulder rest and told me to play chin-off. Chin-off was good practice for baroque, which is now my principal instrument. So now I have no idea what you're meant to do with your chin, on a modern violin.

Schwanengesang most young Suzuki violinists begin using a half a bath sponge, held on with elastic bands, rather than shoulder rests.

My girls (13 & 15) have long necks. They prefer Everest shoulder rests. Easy to adjust and brilliant for staying on the violin (as opposed to regularly falling off violin, like many other brands do...). I think both used sponge shoulder rests until they were about 8 of 9.

When DS2 started as a small 5yo on his tiny 1/8th violin, I cut the rough bit off a kitchen sponge and attached it to his violin with a rubber band. We had a succession of ever bigger sponges, until he moved onto a conventional shoulder rest (kun then playonair). He has quite a flat chin rest. I don't know which brand.

I play without a shoulder rest but with quite a raised chin rest.

Ooh fleur - that schedule looks like us last year! Good luck!

Waffle - I think it's easier if we keep everything on one thread? I think miniprada will audition for NCO but not decided yet. She is just starting her violin G8 pieces and G7 piano pieces on top of starting secondary school in a couple of weeks so we'll see.

Good luck to anyone's DC waiting GCSE - miniprada's sister is waiting 😱

Thanks people. We have a few years yet to find the correct bath sponge

So exciting - our Kodaly books arrived today! Started singing/playing the nursery songs, all in d major, and DS sang a d a few times, quite insistently. I think it was a fluke though as he usually babbles between a and f... but I'll keep it as first evidence that he's a musical genius

Should be clear that I used the soft bit of the sponge, not the scratchy bit. Although, come to think of it, using the scratchy bit might have resolved the gripping too hard with the chin and shoulder problem quite effectively

Waffle I read the NCO thread anyway!

Feel for you Fleur. We had AS last week and it's our fifth consecutive year of GCSE and/or AS/2. My autumn is is uni applications and associated drama.

Welcome everyone new!
ealing oh so sorry, I thought everyone had seen them already...
herts it's very difficult at times to keep up with this thread and everyone. There are few percussion news except DS spent a big chunk of his pocket money recently on new mallets and a cymbal bag, and enjoyed a jazz residential drumming for a week...

It's hard for him at the moment because my parents are staying with us 10 days and while he practices marimba or piano - both instruments are in the living room - they just sit in the sofa listening and they clap every time he takes a pause! Even after a scale! They haven't learnt my technique of becoming a ghost, so he can "almost" forget you're in the room and he can focus and not feel big brother is watching. So it's very off putting for him. I know its out of love and enthusiasm, but hopefully they will relax in a few days. They are keen to go places but all DS wants is to stay at home and practice as we've been travelling. They sleep in the attic where he plays drums and yesterday he monopolized their room for three hours But they understood. It's going to be an interesting 10 days... For my part, with so many people, planning meals, etc I doubt I will be mumsnetting much...

Fleur very best for tomorrow! I'm sure your DS will have done great. We're just waiting for early Spanish. Will your DS be going into the school?

drummersmum thanks - mallets will suck up pocket money in a hurry! We seem to be spending more and more as of course the basic ones will not do :) The joys of percussion instruments taking over the house. Used to have marimba in my office which was fun during holidays. Hopefully your parents will get bored soon (in nicest possible way of course :))

PS hope prep for YDOY is going well. It seems not longer until entries open.

No worries Drummers. I must get in sooner next time we get the heads up

Goo has just had her first piano lesson in a month. She didn't even look at the piano for three weeks, because she was away with the NCO, with us at a festival, and then with my mum for a few days. Anyway, she's managed to put in a solid week's worth and her teacher seemed pleased. She has just been set one of the alternative Grade 5 pieces - 'Der Reiter'/ The Horseman by Kabalevsky, in five flats! It's in a lovely book which the teacher has lent us, called 'Toll in Moll', which I need to buy. It has loads of pieces in, including Fur Elise, and is apparently Grade 5-7. We've also been asked to buy the Grade 5 book, so I said yes of course, but would it be possible to put off the exam until June 2018? The teacher said that's fine, phew! Goo has still only been learning for 4 terms, her black note minor scales are very dodgy, and I think it's just a bit fast. She has a new school to get to grips with soon, and I think Grade 8 Flute is pencilled in for March. I think that after the flute and piano exams, she will never have to do another music exam if she doesn't want to... that should be enough for most universities, should she choose to go down that route. Which I don't think she will.

We're on holiday so just posting to say good luck toFleur's DS for tomorrow! And drummerboy for Spanish and everyone else waiting for results!
No instruments on holiday for possibly fhe first time in years but we're staying in a cottage attached to a working light house with a working fog horn to make up for it!

Good luck drummers! I remember the Spanish wait last year for miniprada. I'll still as proud as punch about that!

lack of patience, ability to drill and skipping over technique

It's my DS!

HI Waffle and all - been v work busy but have now started the obligatory annual thread; the benefit of doing so is there are lots of parents who only join in that thread, plus i found it really usefully when we were first thinking of doing the auditions, that i could find lots of info on the annual threads. No reason people can't post nco stuff on both of course :)

String, I didn't know there was an annual NCO thread. Didn't find your one when I searched; could you link it?

Very quiet house at the moment as DD2 is at U11s. Quite strange. Looking forward to the concert at the end of the week, then it's 10 days until school starts, 10 days after that until grammar entry test and then various school entrance exams/auditions and NCO audition. Busy couple of terms....

Thank you all for thinking of me and DS for tomorrow. He's very stressed thinking he's failed all of them. I am less so, more stressed about the fact that he is heading off to Reading festival straight after picking up the results. Going into school 9 am sharp as he wants to hear asap.

Waffle good to hear Goo is back on track with piano sounds amazing how fast she's progressed. She is clearly very determined and has a afinity for music. (You know how much I hate the word talent but if it does exist than Goo has it).

Back on track today piano great practice, had to start it slow so rather than getting dd to practice all her 5 pieces assigned before her holiday we've dug out one of her grade 5 pieces and another one that she loves just to get them back to where they were 3 -4 weeks ago and amazingly tonight Summertime sounded better than before. These two should be ready by the potential audition (secondary school) to choose just one and perform it.

NCO - she loves the practice of the two pieces, when they are close to ready in rhythm we'll video them and send them through to you Waffle to critique if that's ok.

Yes, that's fine Fleur. It would be lovely if someone could do the same for Goo - any other flute parents around? However, she won't have made final choices until the end of September (she has five Grade 8 pieces on the go, so will possibly select from those?) and won't let me film her at ALL right now! I am feeling a bit twitchy because everyone else seems to know what they're playing, but this is normal for us. Once, she was between teachers and had train wreck preparation, culminating in changing piece 40 hours before the audition, to one she hadn't looked at in over a year! She does like to wing it.

Waffle hank you! Good to know about Goo's NCO pieces, I actually thought everybody is ready and dd is just starting.

I am hoping she'll have the pieces ready - ish as in note and rhythm correct before she starts with the new teacher so I can tell her about NCO and then she'll (hopefully) help her polish them. She'll have about a month.

Dd started to obviously prefer clarinet to piano, she wants more exams on clarinet, none on piano, she thinks she's better at clarinet than piano, she's determined she'll get to grade 5 clarinet before grade 6 piano to show me she's better at it.

Hopefully her piano teacher won't get wind of it as she'd feel bad I think seeing she thinks dd is one of her best students.

They all go through phases! Rara is going through a phase of doing no practice, being rude, answering back, and having a go at me about everything (not even music related) so there's no way I can try to teach her anything at the moment.

Uhh just managed to work myself up into almost a panic attack, just read the GCSEs support thread to wish everybody good luck, found out that there are allegedly leaked Edexcel maths grade boundaries, found them and now spending the time trying to figure out how much DS would have got based on his feedback after exams. My heart is racing!

Sorry to offload here....

Stop worrying and go to bed!

I'll grab a book