(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!

waffle those shoes are amazing!

We have chosen NCO pieces, though one of them we have put to one side for now so she's not bored of it by the audition. She starts with her new teacher 3 weeks before the audition so her current teacher wanted it well planned and ready for then too.

Have an amazing week those doing NCO this week. I think I am going to take my girl to the U13s concert, inspire her a bit!

What a lovely pair of shoes Waffle!

3 kids dropped off at residential, me and dh have had a childfree lunch and are debating what to do with the next three days ......

Dd1 is the tall and willowy type whereas dd2 is all muscle. Both weigh about the same but different heights

Fab shoes waffle

Waffle those shoes are amazing - love them! I'm not surprised Goo has been coveting them.
DS1 has practised drums and bass today, I've done some useful piano practice and so far DS2 has done nothing! I will chivvy him tomorrow, don't quite have the energy today! I think he's trying to avoid scales!

Our instrument list:

1 piano
1 alto sax
1 oboe
1 bassoon (hired from music centre)
1 very sad violin
1 acoustic guitar
2 classical guitars
1 ukulele
1 electric guitar
1 bass guitar
2 recorders

I thought it was a long list until I saw some others - especially your's Alex!

Double and especially Alex, that is crazy!!!! What do you do with them all!?! I think I need to at least organise for a spare bow and the current one rehaired. I feel ashame of myself

Fab shoes - I want 'em.

Instrument collections. Do cases count? We currently have three double bass bags. Really looking forward to selling the beginner's bass and bag and returning borrowed bass to school. Fortunately schools go back in mid August here in Scotland.

If anyone else here plays double bass - I know there's at least one excellent bass guitarist..... best thing DS ever got was a set of wheels a bit like a skateboard, which strap on to the double bass case. Very easy to wheel it about.

Happy NCO-ing everyone.

Oh i forgot the instrument list....
3 violins, 1 flute, 1 drum kit, 1 electric piano, 1 cornet, 1 flugelhorn, assorted recorders all plastic and 3 plastic fifes.....

I forgot about our trumpet, chanter, harmonica and 15-20 tin whistles. Oops.

Glad you all like the shoes! They came from America (end of line sale) and were bought with my 40th birthday money. I'd been saving it for something I really wanted... music shoes and a floppy hat!

I broke my toe on the flugel, two months on and it still hurts. It's one of the few things not in a gig bag and I walked into that nice hard case in bare feet.

Hello, can I have a bit of advice please?
My ds has been practicing grade 2 piano pieces at the moment. My ds passed grade 1 in spring.
I asked him to play one of the grade 1 song today, and he couldn't play! He totally forgot how to play, and it was horrible. He can play by sight reading, but no fluency or any dynamics.
Is this right? Does he need to work on grade 1 a bit longer than going straight to grade 2?
Ds's teacher went into maternity leave mid July, so we don't have a clue what we should be doing really at the moment.

Irvine - totally normal. My DD who has passed G7 violin couldn't remember one of her G5 pieces which she played beautifully less than a year ago!

Ps Irvine - I'd make sure his scales and arpeggios are tip top as well as continue to do the pieces

Irvine, normal for us. Particularly piano. DD's grade 2 pieces are almost ready and we daren't stop playing them until she sits the exam. We tried the grade one pieces for a warm up the other day, and she managed one okay. The other two were just not there.

I can list most of our instruments but I actually don't know how many guitars we have! I know there are 2 bass guitars, a drum kit, electric piano, 2 keyboards, 2 flutes, 1 tin whistle, 1 melodeon, 1 mandolin, a recorder and a cello!

Oh, thank you. Glad to hear it's normal.
Yes, I'll make sure he practise scales and arpeggios daily.
Thank you again!

Waffle at first I thought you had painted the shoes yourself

This is our list which I have compiled for the first time in my life:
1 piano
1 drumkit with 5x cymbals and cowbell
1 marimba
1 xylophone
1 full size cello
1 MIDI electric keyboard
1 guitar
1 cajon
1 orchestral tambourine
1 triangle
2 recorders
1 siku panpipe
1 rainstick
1 frog guiro
1 tbilat (Moroccan bongos)
1 middle eastern metal drum
1 fife
1 castanets
1 ratchet
1 pellet drum
1 ocarina
1 harmonica
1 slide whistle
I think there's more stuff hidden somewhere...

I broke my toe on the flugel
That's the kind of thing you only read in this thread

Normal here to irvine. If dd doesn't practice a piece a month is having trouble remembering it, you can dig it back out pretty quick though (depending on the level of difficulty a week or two from our experience up to grade 3/4).

We're now keeping one piece from grade 5 in her repertoire in case she doesn't have anything ready for a September audition and she has to play it once a week. She started making mistakes (randomly stopping in the middle of it) but all I care now is she remembers the notes, we'll start polishing it again end of August.

At the early grades is annoying though because (if you haven't got music experience like myself) you think that once they learn grade 1 they can read (fluently first sight) any piece they see which isn't true. You expect it to be the same like learning to read books, once fluent on level 9 (randomly talking about ORT levels ) you can read all of them at the same speed fluently.

Anyway where I wanted to get to is that I found it frustrating at grade 1 level that once she forgot her grade 1 pieces and whatever she was playing wasn't yet finished she couldn't play anything. So I could say dd plays the piano but if I would have asked her to play me something there were just little bits here and there.

This changed massively in the last year. While she still forgets her exam pieces almost instantly and now for example there isn't a piece she has ready to play (except the exam piece we're keeping alive) she can pick a book up to about grade 4 and sight reading. Which I find great. She picks up Disney songs (like tonight) or film music and just plays it. So it does get better.

Alex I am actually shocked with your collection. You actually have a bass clarinet?! I so want one!

And then drummers shows up with her list. That's it, I'm robbing a bank tonight so I can go instrument shopping tomorrow.

I have to google half of Drummers list!
You are all so bloody RICH!!!(not in terms of materialised rich, more in term of I am jealous, we dont know these instruments and what sound do they make!!)

Irvine: the piece I love most in her playing so far was Am Abend, Hofman: she achieved the distinct voices required and her legato from pedalling was nice and effortless(nearly perfect mark for her G5 exam). It was end of Nov, then we didnt play it at all for couple of months, in March we went to Ealing festival and she played it again there with only a week or so practice, I didnt know how she practised(meaning there could be none). We went as the whole family. I dressed nicely, had my usual bright lipstick, and hope for a relaxing, effortlessly performance where we could just enjoy ourself(I remember I missed seeing Alex playing in Barnes on the day). She said she didnt need the book as she knew it by heart. Our piano teacher also came. Then it was the worst ever performance, she tumbled twice, didnt stop however it was awful. My face wasnt red, it was pale. Our teacher tried to comfort me later when I apologised that I am sorry we didnt practise neither prepared, he said "she learnt from this experience too". Anyway, trying to say, even for the most comfortable and "easy" piece, we surely still need to go through it properly to play it nicely( could be very very quick and technically much better when we learnt it the first time though). Another example was she played over the rainbow piece in G3 and the other day she just played it from memory for fun and it still sounds beautiful.

Our list

2 pbones
3 trombones (1 is music service and 1 is DS1's girlfriends, which has been here for 3 weeks)
1 tuba
2 clarinets (borrowed)
1 alto sax
1 bari sax (school owned)
1 flute
1 trumpet
1 cello
1 ukelele
1 classical guitar
Assorted cheap recorders
1 tin whistle
1 mouth organ
2 pianos (1 digital)