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.

Trumpet, I didn't watch the documentary, but I know Alma Deutscher.

She can compose/improvise like that partly because of her innate ability but also hugely because of her way of learning music. Her father deliberately avoided the traditional English method of exams and mechanical learning, Instead her musical education focuses on composition and improvisation, common teaching method in eighteenth century Italy (if you are curious, read his book Music in the Galant Style). The father searched for a teacher who could teach Alma in the method and found one in Switzerland so she receives weekly lessons via Skype. It's all about understanding harmony. She also learns piano and violin from teachers at the Menuhin.

I think it's good to share with your DS some clips of her improvising (especially interesting when she does so in the lesson with Tobias Cramm). I watched some with DS before (Youtube) and he got so inspired by her method.

That's really interesting kutik I will look that book up . Good luck today Goo and everyone else going back to school. New journey to school and work for us all here so hoping it works out fine .

Good luck today everyone! The boys have a later start today while school settles the y7s in.
Green I like your style! Lesson was good in the end - I managed to do quite well on the F sharp major scale but F sharp minor needs some work. We had fun (?!) trying to play really fast!
For piano scales MiniGreen might have some fun with Scales Bootcamp by Philip Johnston. I think you can do the scales in any order you want but there are lots of challenges built around each scale. The idea is if you can do those you'll never forget!
I am going to use it this week for minor scales with sharps! I'm hoping it will inspire DS2 when his lessons start again.

Off to work soon, so more later. But for now...

waffle what a nice photo - she's become a young woman!
loose many congrats on your first lesson back
trumpet i will watch Alma's doc! Thanks.
green I just pushed myself too much with stuff and forgot I'm not made of steel

Lovely photo Waffle - and so grown up now!

Lovely photo waffle

Waffle, a lovely photo! I have another year before I'll be taking one like that.

I watched the Alma Deutscher documentary last night with my jaw on the floor. Wow!

Ahhh looking so grown up Goo!

TheGirl needs a music bag for school this year as they all start recorder from y3. She has a kids personalised one from her music lessons so I thought she could relegate that one to school and buy her a really nice one for starting CATs, something to last her. Any recommendations?

waffle that's a lovely photo, she looks so smart and grown up.
What a lovely smile

Goo looks so grown up, what a pretty girl!

Drummers: time to time I reread "Eat that Frog" to remind myself not overloading with bits that isnt as important and could be harmful. .

Loose: will look up for scales Bootcamp tonight, thank you!

I will catch up with Alma Deutscher documentary tonight.

Read August end bits and wanted to say massive congrats to all the great news especial Fleur and Drummer son's gcse news! Laughing at Prada's oven incident and hope Kutik stitches are gone now. Many other wonderful news and updates from everyone too.

green I've never heard of "Eat That Frog". I will check it out

There's something new on the channel.

raspberry I just heard your DS. Absolutely amazing. So lovely. So now there are two new things.

I hadn't visited the channel for a while. Thank you for drawing my attention to it, drummers.

earling, DS watched it together and absolutely loved it! He is having his first piano lesson this Thursday and he is going to ask the teacher if he can play it. He said 'all my friends would love this!!'. It seems the motivation for him (to look cool in front of his peers ).

raspberry, oh my, raspberry... What's a beautiful voice he has! I was drinking tea but totally froze for the 2 mins 28 secs with the tea in my hand.

drummers, I can confirm my renewal of the membership of minidrummers fan club (anyone wants to follow me?). He is so so cool.... Can't believe DS is going to the same college as this cool boy. I can't wait to see him in person very soon (will do so in distance as I don't want to embarrass the teenager).

kutik you make me laugh

Lovely videos drummers and raspberry thank you for sharing them!

Lovely videos

Hello everyone, you certainly don't stand still! I miss a few weeks and I have to run to catch up.

DD is 9 and G4 violin and G2ish piano.

The Last Supper has been held for the children who all go back tomorrow (fish and chips from shop and strawberries and cream). We are 15 miles away from all three schools and they were our choice so no school transport and I dread the 3 hours of travel I need to do a day. Still, my fault!

Trumpet, very interested to see what your DS makes of AYM as I am thinking of this for DD at some stage. I know she is only 9 but the London JDs are so far away. We have G5 in Dec and G5 theory in Nov (almost there - only composition to do!). If your DS is 12, I guess she is too young still, so will wait, but it would be nice to hear what your DS thought of it.

I am losing track of all the posts so please bear with me till I get my life into a routine again. It should be done by next Tuesday.

Nothing new to report except a lot of music exam testing (just to calm my nerves as I am sure there isn't any improvement to be done now) we the last five tests have been a minimum of 46 and a maximum of 55. Considering there are more tests where she got over 46 (which was the "call for audition" mark in previous years) and that there is a lego set to be had if she concentrates and stops being a dreamer for 50 min, I am becoming hopeful she may get through.

NCO - One piece is learnt note perfect and she can play it in rhythm, the other only half way, I am hoping that when she starts lessons not this Saturday but next one her teacher will be happy to support polishing them.

Fleur, DS tried the material today and he got nearly full mark. I don't know the pass mark for the school but thought that would be good enough, so relieved no more test needed. But having seen the gap of your DD's scores, I understand the result varies time to time, which means just getting a good mark one time doesn't mean he will do well in the actual test. It's multiple choice so it must have some factors of 'luck' too. I'll let DS try again another time. Hopefully he won't go down too much.

Another thing I'm wondering is how many sets you do for one go. It took no more than 20 mins by just following the recording. But your DD does it for 50 mins? You mean you stop the recording between? Or do you do more than one set? Sorry so many questions...

Niggle he absolutely loved the first course . It's very different to the jds with an emphasis on creativity and composition ( I think ) which ds enjoys. You can go from age 8 and it seems that most of the apprentices are younger aged 9 to about 14 I think which is less of a time commitment. They are expected to be quite grown up in that they stay away during the course , but are supervised . If you are considering it they have taster days in the spring usually. I'll let you know if anything gets planned. Last year I emailed them to find out.

By the way, going back to the talk of Alma Deutscher, I remember one interview in which she was answering to the question of her strength and weakness. She said her strength was melody and weakness was rhythm. I'm sure her level of 'weakness' is still 'goodness-me' level for most of us, but thought it's nice to hear even someone like her can still acknowledge such things in her.

Kutik well done to your DS, do another one in a couple of weeks time, we had a similar experience, good marks first hearing and that gave us a sense of safety for a while, next one done after the holiday was really bad and that's when I panicked. Luckly that was a one off, she was distracted and wanted to go out and play with her friends so I am putting it down to dd being such a dreamer.

We don't pause the test either but the exam states it takes 45/50 min because it has an explanation and an example question at the beginning of each category.

Fleur, thank you for the kind explanation. DS is also a daydreamer. He easily slips into his own world even during conversation and he is so good at appearing as if he is listening as his eyes are set on the person who is talking but his mind is elsewhere. I sometimes clap my hands to get his attention back (yes, he is that bad). So I will do another one, but perhaps after the open day as he doesn't need to go through the test if we decide not to apply.

I am so hoping we like the school as we don't have many good choices, but two schools with great reputation were erased from our list after visiting so we never know how we feel about the school until we actually see it.

However, if we like it, then we will encounter another problem - we have very little chance to get in. Music test is only hope for DS but it's also very competitive and we don't live close enough to feel secured even if he gets a good mark. Headache continues....