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.

Ooh Ben, 10/10 for being entrepreneurial but you really need to understand mumsnet even a tiny bit before sending unsolicited adverts... on this thread all of the kids have existing music teachers. Some are parents and music teachers There is a 'tutors' thread elsewhere you might want to try. I think ads are allowed there. Maybe report your own post and get it moved.....

Hi Ben! You are very welcome to join our discussion, but please read the thread first. These music threads have been running for six years. We have a steady stream of relative beginners asking for practice and exam advice, but many people on here have children in County and national groups, or trying for music scholarships, so generally well catered for. If someone is looking for a new teacher, they tend to start a new thread.

Kutik good luck with the interview today! And the audition
I see your dilemma with DH. The jokey interview is funny but obviously not what he was meant to do. On the other hand, it's possibly good for calming nerves!
Green yes, I thought I was relatively good at sight reading but realise I'm really going to have to work on it. I think DS2 is reasonably ok on grade 5 cello but I think he's going to have to start the Paul Harris book for piano now rather than later. He doesn't like it though, unfortunately! On the other hand 'Cool' is coming along very nicely!

By the way grade 5 piano sight reading is really hard - how do children manage this??!

Practice! Lots and lots of it!

I was always good at sight reading, mainly due to lack of practice between lessons which meant that I was sight reading much of what I played in my weekly lessons ;) It really does get easier the more you do it - I started playing piano again this summer and I quite often sight read new pieces to see if I fancy working on them. My sight reading was already quite good to start with (way better than my actual playing!) but it has improved significantly in the last couple of months.

I start piano lessons on Friday, wish me luck ... my teacher asked me to prepare a couple of pieces, I have a Bach prelude (only half done because the fingering is driving me mad) and a movement from one of the Viennese sonatinas which I am quite proud of.

DD OTOH is doing very little, she just doesn't have time. She has Wed afternoon off so I need to go and check if she has time for piano in between homework tasks.

Oh good luck, Misti! I'm sure it will all go well on Friday.
I know sight reading is practice really - my current predicament is mainly due to the lack of it!

The interview's done! DS said he enjoyed it. He then started telling me the similarity between musical performance and school interviews and concluded that the reason why he liked both were partly because he really enjoyed the attention showered on him.

I don't know how all went really, as DS is a kind of boy who tells me he did well whatever however he did. But it was not a horrible nerve wrecking experience and the fact he enjoyed so much made it as a positive experience whatever the outcome!

Loose, thank you for the good wishes. DS was happy all way through so your good vibes must have reached to him! I hope your DS is feeling much better today? [flower]

Kutik; Fleur; well done to your minis for their recent interviews, tests. And very best of luck to loose; Misti for your courage to continue/pick up lessons again overcoming the grown up nerves. Huge admiration.

And apologies for the radio silence. I do read all when I can. Truth is I don't feel I have a huge amount to contribute anymore. DD does play her instruments (but I don't know how much as it's not much at home), she does her homework (but I don't know when) and spends SO many hours doing her sport that includes missing lots of school for meets like this weekend Fri pm to late Sun night with her club that I barely see her these days. We have a music scholars concert too coming up and for the first time I am dreading that she's actually prepared for it. Wish I had a crystal ball that following her passion with the hours it consumes is the right thing to do and it won't come back to bite us, as I keep thinking if I hear nothing back from school, then she's in control of it all. Turned 14 today...suddenly she seems like a young adult. And says just trust me a lot...

Huge bold fail. Again!

So glad to hear he enjoyed himself Kutik. Hope he's having a little treat after all that!
DS1 is a bit better, thanks, and I think the antibiotics are starting to work, although he is still looking sorry for himself!
DS2 on the other hand is full of himself and looking forward to tonight's guitar lesson...

Ealing happy birthday to your amazingly busy DD!

Ealing: happy 14 today mini Ealing!!!

And String, Prada, Drummers and Ealing stories about your mini music scholar made me really thinking too.

And great news to hear positive story from Kutik's son interview.

And Misti: well done for starting lessons again!

Happy birthday miniealing!!

So pleased for minikutik & minifleur. Thinking of all you others with big things ahead!

Happy birthday to your lovely DD, earling! It's so amazing to see how your DD handles her busy life seemingly so effortlessly (swan in a lake?). Just so inspiring. So please don't think you don't have much to contribute. Many people like me is so looking forward to read your posts. So please keep stay with us!!!

Loose, it's the first rehearsal day of the youth orchestra my DS is in today - that's the best treat for him!

The treat has been cancelled. DS got sick as soon as the rehearsal started so had to bring him back home. Now in bed, sleeping. Hope he'll be fine tomorrow.

A music audition is on Friday, and a science aptitude test is on Monday...

Too busy to write but happy birthday miniealing!!! And happy for all the good news all around. Your kids rock.

Another recorder question: can anyone recommend a young-child friendly book for a 5 year old starting to read music and starting on a sopranino recorder? So a beginner treble book really.

We have the Gifford ones for descant/tenor, which we like - Kodaly tunes & nursery rhymes, little pieces like Tallis' canon & bits of Bach, rhythm and sightreading games, and nearly every piece is playable with a second part or as a round.

But this is a present for another child, not DS, so (as parent sitting there transposing stuff seems unnecessarily hard work) we need something similar to Gifford for recorders in f!

Should say that most recorder practice will be done chez grandparents, who can read music, sing, get rhythms right, but are not likely to make it much fun or to get out a treble and play along. Mum is v musical but v frazzled with 2 other kids & job.

Schwan most treble tutors assume prior knowledge of the descant, so I write my own music for complete beginners, then move them on to Treble Recorder From the Beginning after a few weeks (would be a few months, if aged 5, as it goes very fast). I can send my special pages on, if needed. The child will be in a great position to learn the treble easily. However, I start 5 year olds on the descant (even very teeny ones, plus the three 4 four year olds I've taught) so wondered if there was a special reason for using the sop? It might have suited Goo better to start on that, in retrospect, but she was 3.

Update on Singet Dem Herrn:

I found a pdf of the sheet music and tried to sing along to a recording, but it turns out that I can't read music at that speed. I was getting all disheartened until I realised they have it on cyberbass where you can slow it down. I can mostly sing it now, and will attempt to practise it at full speed tomorrow, so hopefully won't embarrass myself too much on Saturday.

Thanks for the good wishes for DD's b'day folks.

swan in a lake?

haha Kutik; you are funny. More like sinking iceberg these days

Happy birthday miniealing!

Well the concert was amazing... standard was exceptional (unsurprising given that you had to be G6 on your first study to even be considered as a music scholar but then some) - fantastic to see girls playing French horn, double bass, harp - not just violin /flute/piano and the vocalists were outstanding. It would appear that the school encourages them to attend the JD next door so we'll wait and see...One young lady has an amazing future as a soprano such a wonderful talent!

Miniprada played well although for some unknown reason brought out the music with her and then didn't use it so we were obscured from view. Still, never mind! In other news they were all encouraged to audition for a film part today and she is through to the next round. So lovely to see her blossom and I feel like the child she is at home is the one at school. At her prep school the naysayers squashed her enthusiasm for this kind of thing.

Best of luck to everyone doing 11+ entry, keep calm and carry on!

Strong - I forgot to add, good luck to ministring at her concert too!

earling, I have a strong feeling of your DD fighting against global warming and keep surprising us again and again (and again).

Prada, your DD's school sounds fab. So nice to hear such happy news.

That concert sounds great Prada. Main news here is that after a whole 4 piano lessons dd1 has been asked to perform in a concert. She'll be playing largo from the New world symphony apparently 🤥😁at least the concert is not until november...