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.

Watched goo - sneaky mum Did she know she was being filmed. Love that last look towards camera. Her piano playing is as always advancing impressively.
Saw mini too enjoying the acoustics of RAH. Nice playing as well!
Thanks both for sharing.

No, she didn't know until she looked round! She told me off. I offered to delete it, but she said no, it was fine.

H Charis - we got written refs from everyone so we could use them multiple times - when there was a form that had to be used, we would go to the person who really had the best idea of commitment and potential; so that may be school or may be the teacher - you would know best. But what we def did was collect the refs etc ourselves so they def went off. For the form, the head of music gave it us in a sealed envelope, and we made sure it went with the others. We also did a music cv (most people did so was just copying them!) which we sent even if not asked for

This is really useful info. Thank you both.

Have seen Goo also, she is very good I'm impressed with her piano progress.

Good luck with the Inspire audition Raspberry and ealing.

Back to piano lessons today, Dd is starting grade 6 scales and aiming to do grade 5 theory in March, her teacher said it isn't much she wouldn't know. We're buying the Eric Taylor grade 4 and 5 books so we quickly work through them and then accelerate straight to past papers.

Fleur: this was what I was told by our teacher after the last lesson. Scales are really our enemy.

First thing - the Scales. The fingering in the left hand is absolutely awful, and it looks like is happily it without realising, even though we pointed it out every single time!!! Please, correct it!!! She is constantly skipping her 2nd finger in LH and in general it's just wrong patterns she learnt. It only happened because of mindless practice. All the fingerings are in the book, please ask her to sit down and re-learn her LH. It applies to all the scales. RH is sometimes wrong too, so check it, but the biggest problem is with the left.

How did I miss Minivideo, will go back to the channel tonight.

I said no to an opportunity at work today because the responsibility means I might not even get home by 7pm each night. I like my job and we still have a large mortgage to pay so working is inevitable for me however I do need time with the girls too. Small thing like this Weds when I dropped my second to the new nursery and I had to do the name tag and I realised that was the first time I did it as there was always some one else who did it when they dropped and picked up.

Ooh! More videos, will take a look!
DS2 has had a nice piano lesson, just starting Cool from the G5 book as it seems the one most like his preferred style. He's also got theory homework! No rush to take theory exam as we're a long way off grade 6 even if he takes G5 cello in December!
Then he came home and played guitar for a bit.

Green I know what you mean, you do need to prioritise family over work sometimes and that is what I am kind of doing now, I got to a level where if I progress more I'll end up sleeping at work so I am not aiming for that role just yet.

Dd luckily learnt the scales for grade 5 pretty well so now for grade 6 she just needs to extend them to 4 octaves. The staccato ones though will pose problems though as dd's wrist is not mobile.

She also started a grade 6 piece today without her knowing is grade 6 (we have the alternative book) her teacher said she's doing amazingly well and would like her to do grade 6 before finishing primary school.

Loose dd loved Cool even if she didn't play it for her grade 5. I did as well. She won't finish it to performance standard though as her teacher assigned a lot of new pieces as she wants to move on (Kuhlau Sonatina, Bach invention, Bartok grade 6 piece, duet piece).

A question for the recorder players: how much dribble is too much? Having not played the recorder for approx 35 years until the last few weeks, I am only now getting up to playing for 20–30 minutes (when DS is happy about it, which is most days). By the end of a session playing either descant or tenor, descant will be clogged with saliva and making funny noises, or tenor will be damp enough that I can feel the humidity inside with fingers on holes. Am I doing something wrong, am I weird (I swear I don't go round dribbling normally...) or is this just what recorder playing is like? I have only just started trying to tongue notes rather than breathe like a singer—is that maybe the problem?

After 20-30 minutes, I'd expect some dampness, but it's usually condensation. Are you sure it's not that?

It may well be, and the recent variability in weather might well explain why I haven't noticed it til recently.

Kutik73, many thanks for your reply - I will chat to the organiser first thing tomorrow and if the copy isn't acceptable, I will withdraw DS from that class. I'd rather lose the fee than have him feel humiliated and / or disqualified.

First clarinet lesson done and dd was very stressed going in, before the lesson she actually said "I'd rather do my 11+ again than be here".

She actually came out fully enthusiastic, she said she loves her new teacher, she liked what she did a lot, and the teacher agreed to help her with NCO audition. She came out with two new pieces, one from the Music through time grades 4&5 and one James Rae study, I wonder if her plan is to chose the pieces with dd herself, we'll still continue with the old one for a while and see how she is by the audition time.

schwan condensation - I see you are playing early in morning so recorders are cold (especially with temp dropping recently) and you are blowing warm air into them. If you wipe them out after a few mins of playing you will probably find not so much more builds up as by then the recorder will have warmed up a bit. Alternatively, stick to top joint of recorder in your pocket, under your arm etc while you make a cup of tea, then it will be a bit warm when you start to play. DD's sometimes sit on a hot water bottle before concerts if the venue is very cold!

dd sits so close to the piano when playing the recorder I am worried she drools on the piano keys...

Fleur It sounds like the clarinet lesson went really well - totally normal to feel stressed before meeting a new teacher!
I do like 'Cool' and may choose to do it myself!
DS2 had a good string orchestra rehearsal this morning but is very full of cold, poor child. DS1 had a stomach bug in the week, though rallied valiantly, so we're back to school with a vengeance!

DD has done some maths, then she read some music theory from this book, apparently it is really good (the book) less boring than the pink one, anybody used it? Now she's doing some music theory homework that her piano teacher assigned.

I had a pupil who'd done that book by herself, with help from her parents. She failed Grade 5 twice and then came to me for some lessons to help her pass first time. It might be fine, but don't take the title at face value!

Loose hope DS2 feels better soon.

Waffle I'm hoping to give her a some grounding and go through most of the stuff she needs to know but I've ordered the Eric Taylor's grade 4 and 5 theory plus the pink book, her piano teacher wants her to still go trough the grade 4&5 books quickly and then as we approach March (probably Jan/Feb) start doing past papers to identify any gaps.

She definitely wants the exam in March and I agree. She wants to have the grade 6 pieces chosen by Feb so she can do it in the summer term.

So there you go, no exams planned initially and suddenly we have two to work towards and that's without any clarinet plans, but I do have a feeling there will be something happening there also. Which means that we'll potentially have two exams same session again but they won't be the same day anymore.

Fleur, I bought the Take Five book last year... But I bought it more for me so that I could be of any help when DS needed some support (so DS didn't use it). I had zero theory knowledge, so it was quite interesting at first (to get to know things), but then I was stuck somewhere in the middle, and..., the exam date came before I managed to understand fully and be useful for DS... Suppose it's because of my unfortunate brain as it has good reviews and people seem to understand perfectly...

I obviously meant THIRD time... having a bit of a weird day!

Hoping she'll be fine by March, her teacher says most of the knowledge is there but she just needs to realise it is.

We had a great first practice, she hasn't complained about the piano having so much to do suddenly, she's done it even if I stopped the scales half way but as she's out of routine I was worried she'll have a strop.

Clarinet practice also done.

We were going to get all the practive done today, but loads of homework going on, and lots of emotional drama. I have one so perfectionistic that she won't perform and won't put her hand up at all at the new school in case she is wrong. She is convinced everyone else is better than her. Lots of angst there. And just like that, within ten days of going back, the other one appears to be school phobic. I think everything else is going to have to take a back seat until I can get the pair of them sorted out a bit.

Goo had elastic bands and power chains added to her braces on Thursday. They will close her gaps in a matter of days, but she can hardly play the flute in any case.

Thanks Fleur! He seemed to be much better last night, leaving him to sleep it off this morning!
Poor Goo with the braces and homework. I suspect the teachers at school will have some strategies for encouraging her to put her hand up in class. I had the same issue but for a different reason with DS2 at the beginning of year 7 - he thought he was doing the right thing by being quiet and getting on with his work. He was most put out when the teachers told him he needed to contribute more in class.