September Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Hello, and welcome to a new thread for September. This is a lovely, calm and supportive corner of Mumsnet where we can talk about everything to do with music lessons, exams, practice, auditions, and whatever else you like. Contributors of ALL standards and ages welcome. There are lots of experienced music parents on here, but we also have a steady stream of beginners, and the collective knowledge on here is impressive.

I'm Waffle, teacher of woodwind - mainly clarinet and recorder these days. My DH plays the guitar for fun. We have two DDs - sensitive, highly strung and accident-prone Goo (11) who plays the flute and piano, and starts secondary school next week, and laid back, funny Rara (9) who plays the cello and clarinet, and is also a reading machine.

There's not too much going on for us musically this term, apart from auditioning for NCO in October. My main priority will be getting Goo settled in a much bigger school, with a longer day, and she's getting there under her own steam, eek! Luckily for us, we don't have any music exams or secondary school entrance stuff going on, but I know that lots of you do. I am anticipating Grade 8 Flute and Grade 3 Clarinet next term, and Grade 5 Piano in the summer term. I've no idea if Rara will do any more cello exams after the drama of the last one! At the moment, she says she's sticking to the odd numbers. Nutcase.

I found a smart black shirt for DS which he needs for jd ensembles and it was so difficult! He's between teen and adult and everywhere the teens were too small and the adult smalls were too big. I was about to give up - I dread shopping malls - when I walked into a men's clothing chain and found a very smart tailored xs. Only one left. Phew. #thethingswehavetodo

Hello

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question but does anyone have a view between the London Saturday schools? DD has Grade 8 on cello and piano and also sings a bit. She didn't like JRAM (probably influenced by the fact someone she really dislikes goes there and does the same instruments as her so likely to be put together a bit) - how do the others compare - RCM/Trinity/Guildhall/CYM - anyone have any information they can share?

I think you really just need to go and have a look all probably have different atmospheres also I guess it would depend if you were looking for a particular teacher ?

Thanks - she loves the cello department at Guildhall but also loves the architecture and location of Trinity - hmmm.

She wants to go to a Conservatoire when she leaves school so I guess the better the JD the better the chance of that.

We've now officially finished the secondary school selection process (unless she's called back for an audition but after the feedback I am not sure).

Dd said the MAT went well and then she started to give me details and all I could think was "oh no, oh no, oh no!!!"

Anyway time to relax (after I return from a work trip, I am setting off tonight).

Well done to your DD Fleurdelise

Very well done to her! Was the test today for the school she can go to anyway? Sorry, I have lost track somewhere along the line.

We are gradually finding our new normal. Another 'first' for Miss Worrypants Goo today was catching the bus home. She takes her school bag and lunch on the bike usually, but on Tuesdays she needs PE kit, flute and (from next week) cooking ingredients too! I dropped off near the school, but couldn't pick her up afterwards (collecting Rara and taking her to cello) so I showed her where the bus stop is, gave her some money, and she had to come home on the public bus. Success!

Goo joined the Junior Choir yesterday and loved it. She tried Orchestra today and loved it more... but disappointingly she appeared to be the best one there, in a school of 1200?! I really hope that's not the case - I want her to work towards that and have something to aspire to. They put her on Flute 2 with a couple of Year 8/9 girls. The three Flute 1s were Year 10 and 11, none of them knew various trill fingerings and Goo ended up showing them. I wasn't expecting that. Until the summer, a girl with the same flute teacher went to the school. She passed Grade 8 with distinction in Year 10, but has sadly left now, for sixth form college. Anyway, Goo said the music was easy, liked it. and is going back!

I joined a steel band yesterday! I got hopelessly lost in places (I wasn't given a special easy part or anything, even though I've never played before) but had fun and managed to play some of the right notes!

Fleur I would have thought that the work trip has a high chance of being more relaxing than your domestic life of late. It's been one thing after another, what with GCSEs running into entry tests. Pack your bag and put your feet up in a hotel room somewhere.

Fleur sounds horribly stressful. Hopefully you will get a bit of time to chill out on your business trip. I find work travel quite relaxing - no cooking and no teenagers!

We have had an incredibly easy start to term. No mad teachers this year as far as I can tell (we had the useless literature teacher in Y11 and the psychotic biology teacher last year). DD has decided to take music as an option as well as Latin which means she now has 38.5 hours of lessons a week. I always find it odd that in a country so wedded to the 35 hour working week, no one bats an eyelid at bonkers timetables for teenagers. It's a good thing that DD seems happy with her subjects/ teachers this year.

Guitar classes have started and piano starts Friday. Not sure what DD will be working on/ towards in piano - she did a couple of three part inventions as summer homework (found them easy which surprised me) but the Chopin etude she chose was declared too hard/ too repetitive. No exams this year but it is possible she will do the competition that got abandoned last year due to a school trip.

Fleur I'm sure it will be fine. Waffle I'm glad Goo is enjoying music at school. DS's school is very musical and even though he's only in year 8 he's still one of the better players- though not the best trumpet player which is good for him ! They are performing West Side Story soon with a pupil orchestra- that will be very challenging and will mean LOTS of rehearsals in the coming weeks.

"Tiger", my children are younger, but I would leave it a while and let your DD settle in. Maybe also she is missing what she left behind, but it is easier to talk about what she doesn't like. Probably important to talk to the Head of Music, and if your DD has a music scholarship, it is in their interest, surely, to engage.

Well done to miniFleur! She is a star! And well done to Goo too. She is also a star!!

londonmummy, interesting your DD doesn't like going to RAM. We visited three JDs in London and somehow DS didn't like RAM and decided not to apply (he liked other two). He has a good friend there, and his friend really wanted DS to come. But DS said 'no'. It's obvious RAM is a great place to study music, so I think it's purely personal preference.

If your DD's instrument is cello, it may be worth visiting Guildhall. The head of String is a cellist, and they seem to have a good string department. Sorry I don't know anything about Trinity other than its stunning building/location.

As Trumpet said, I think best thing you can do is to visit all the places in your mind. DS set his heart on one place pretty much from the very beginning of our research, yet I made sure to look other alternatives. In the end he decided to go to his first choice, but it was good to have options. The other option was unexpectedly nice and we ended up handing our acceptance form on the last day of the deadline as couldn't make our mind up till the very end!

Goo's school is doing a big production next summer. She is gutted that she's not allowed to be in the band, because she's too young. They have put a blanket ban on Year 7s taking part (all the parts etc were allocated last term) and I know they wouldn't make an exception for her.

Rara is getting used to her new clarinet set-up, and is 85% there with her new 'hard work' piece. Video to follow. There are mistakes. She was tired, but had just played it divinely, so I switched on the camera. Of course, the errors then crept in!

fleur well done mini, I bet it was better than you're worrying. Safe trip home!
waffle well done to all of you- Goo for all the big braves this week, rara for sticking with it on the new clarinet and you for the new band, how slightly random but fabulous! It will do Goos struggling self confidence good to be the best, I think. She's got lots of opportunities to be stretched and worked hard, perhaps school orchestra can be a chance to nurture others & feel at ease and good? My girl is the youngest in her school orchestra but is the highest standard and their music teacher says she can always count on when to help when others are stuck with their parts etc.

Start of term isn't going brilliantly here, DD is being picked on a bit so a little miserable. She's often a bit more miserable the first week back as none of the clubs start til this week and that makes a big difference for her. She's also a bit unimpressed as they have to start class recorder lessons tomorrow. She's about g2 standard on that so isn't looking forward to lessons with a class of total beginners to recorder and reading music.

kutik thanks for that - the cello teachers at the Guildhall are the big draw for her - the head of strings there taught her teacher and she has done various masterclasses etc with some of them. Having said that I think she is more of a keyboard player and I don't know anything about the keyboard dept at Guildhall except that the organ teachers are affiliated to the RCO and so ought to be really good.

I feel your pain, Mini. Goo did a year of class recorder in Year 2... she had Grade 4, and her class teacher was teaching a very basic note wrong until I pointed it out. She practically lost the will to live!

I would suggest that your DD teaches herself a bit of treble quickly (similar to clarinet) and works out some harmony parts as the others spend a term grappling with B, A, G.

waffle sadly DD's class recorder experience beats that I think - her teacher didn't order recorders in time so she photocopied a picture of one and the children had to practise putting their fingers in the right place on the paper for several weeks!!!

Hapsburg

Rara video is now up. There are various slips, but at least it's a proper clarinet video this time, rather than her mouthpiece-free brand of nonsense.

Waffle there are 8 schools in the area that require exam entry, one academic exam and a music exam and depending on results we then list 4 choices. Dd indeed has a sibling place at one of the 8 schools but the music provisions are better at another two schools so if she gets the required mark she would have a chance at any of these two, if not she'll go to DS's school.

Sounds like Goo is doing great at secondary, she'll be well known not only for her bright mind but also for how advanced she is in her music development.

Icouldbe I am indeed in a hotel room now relaxing in complete silence. I wish the drive here wouldn't have been so stressful with the weather outside and driving on motorways and A roads without any street lighting. But got here alive.

Thank you all for your nice words, I think we came out of the MAT thinking that ultimately it is their loss if dd doesn't get to the audition stage. I know it sounds smug but dd really puts music on a very high priority in her life and if these are not the kids they want in their schools, which would join orchestras and represent the school with good quality playing and dedication than I don't really understand what they are trying to select. Dd will continue her music journey no matter what school she gets into, in fact she'll probably be in a similar position to Goo if she gets into DS's school ( too advanced for the school standards) which may actually benefit her from a confidence point of view. The other two schools do have high levels orchestras from what I can gather.

Minimama sorry to hear mini is having a bit of a tough time. Hopefully it will pass soon.

Back to normal life and music lessons as of Friday, I think we'll put it all out of our mind and move on, regardless of what's to come.

Very sensible, Fleur. I'm sure she will be fine, and end up at the right school for her, whatever the outcome. It would be madness not to take her on a music place, but it seems like a crazy selection method!

I love Rara's video, she plays beautifully! Lovely articulation and may I say, she is so cute!

Aww, thanks! The rhythm and nasty middle Bs are a work in progress.

Yep crazy selection method, I hate being mean but I know another girl who took this test, she sings completely out of tune (pop songs) however she could have been more focused and go through to audition stage while Dd sounds like she was a bit on another planet and may not get to the next stage. So 4 years of hard work and dedication vs singing pop tunes in front of the mirror. Again I hate saying something negative about another child, I am sure with the right teacher she'll learn how to sing but if she gets in on music there's no obligation to do anything Music related at the school so what is the school selecting?

Anyway silly system, I am not saying Dd did badly, just that she doesn't like surprises and the whole test was a surprise. We expected synthetic music as apparently they didn't want to favour a certain instrument and in fact it was piano. Which Dd should have found easier but the whole format was different to what she expected which I think may have taken her by surprise and she would have made mistakes due to this.

I'll know by the 22nd anyway so we can get on with our life properly.

I am in a hotel close(er) to you by the way Waffle! Shame I have a busy day tomorrow and I am sure so do you otherwise I would have asked if you're free for a quick coffee