October Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Hello, I just fell asleep in front of a very long film that DH wanted to watch, and woke up in October! I couldn't resist starting the new thread before going to sleep properly.

The monthly music threads are welcome to ALL, and we really like hearing from new contributors and beginner musicians. We have all levels on here. It's a good place to discuss instruments, lessons, practice, exams, auditions and anything else that you want to.

I am a teacher of recorder, clarinet, saxophone and flute, and have two daughters. Goo is 11 and plays the flute and piano. She is planning to do exams on both next year, but none just now because she's just started at the secondary school 2 miles down the road, which has a great reputation for music and sport, and is extremely academic. They study four languages in Year 7 - Goo has just finished her unit on German (by the end of three weeks, they could write three substantial paragraphs - I couldn't believe it!) and is now embarking on Mandarin.
She's thrown herself into choir, orchestra, steel band, flute group and the gym. Rara is 9 and has been playing the cello since the age of 5, and clarinet for a year. She enjoys both, but is happiest when she's reading or cutting up paper/ making things out of paper! Rara has plenty of free time because she attends the village school five minutes away, and hardly gets any homework.

Goo attends South West Music School, which is the nearest thing we have to a JD in the south west. Rara is just about to join! Not too much on musically this term (and not a lot of practice taking place, quite honestly) apart from auditioning for the NCO. Goo has been in it for the past three years, and is hoping for Under 12s. After a wobble about even auditioning, she seems quietly confident now.

Does double stopping help settle the new strings?

I'm not sure if my current violin strings are not bedded in yet, too old need replacing, or just too brash a string type for my already rather brash instrument. Violin teacher friend told me E strings need replacing every 3 months - I only play about every 3 months as mostly on viola! Perhaps I need to give up on nice strings and go back to bombproof Dominants.

Lots of really sawing at the strings helps them settle, and if you double stop you're doing two at once You're trying to stretch it out to the length it's going to stay at basically.

How long does it need to settle usually? The shop assistant who changed the strings knew the audition was coming, and she said 24 hours would be fine. But they certainly hadn't settled yet next day (DS had an audition for secondary school). The NCO audition was 5 days after the change. I didn't check the tune as DS usually does it. Today, DS had a lesson and his teacher had to do a lot of work to tune it properly. Then suddenly I realised what I have done!! I feel like I am always ruining DS's effort...

I had one go the day before a festival once, I took the day off school and played a lot and it was okay. 24 hours is not ideal though some string types settle faster than others. They settle quicker the more you play - my problem is I don't play much, particularly violin.

As long as he turned before he played it'll likely have been fine in the actual auditions though.

Congrats to Kutik73 DS on the Science aptitude place!

Just on the off-chance, sorry to jump in. I play myself and enjoy reading about all your musical DC. Does anyone want the grade 4 piano books? I have everything, very good condition, would only want a token amount from fellow MNers. DM if interested.

Thank you Niggle and *catkind& for the advice. I must noted all!

DS's previous teacher didn't seem to mind at all when we changed all the strings at once. In fact, when E string was visibly worn out and needed to change, he suggested that we may as well change all. However, the new teacher was sort of shocked when she learnt that we changed three strings at once. She said changing strings can be quite traumatic for violin so just change one by one next time. I'm curious what other do or be advised...

Thank you, TheSecond. I was worried DS would end up at a sinking horrible school or somewhere where he wouldn't fit at all (too macho, poor music provision, and so on). This school is not our first choice, but sought-after in our area and a reasonably good fit for him. So it's a good back-up. I can erase the worst scenario and sleep well now...

Haven't heard of string changing being traumatic for the violin I must say. DD has an antique violin and bow rented from teacher. It is a 3/4, worth about £1000 in total. It made sense for us as we can buy something nice when she needs a full size. A month ago I noticed the strings were a bit worn and bought a full set of Obligatos. DD's teacher fitted all same day. Took about 2 weeks tweeking twice a week for tuning. Although it is fine playing before that as just need a quick tune.

I think I was told to organise string changing at least 2 weeks before an exam/audition just to ensure that there are no unexpected problems like a bad string, or it breaks etc.

Kutik congratulations on the school place! What a relief to have one firmed up.
I’m sure the strings were fine on the day but I do know that when we changed the strings on DS2’s cello, they went out of tune all the time for about 2 weeks. We changed them because it was a second hand one and the old strings were breaking or about to go.
DS1 enjoyed his jazz gig last night and got paid more than he was expecting, plus food! He’s got another one next week where he plays along with a jazz group and as backing in a rap group.

Trauma or not may well depend a lot on the violin itself. I play baroque so change strings more frequently than modern players, but I would never change all at once. This is partly because gut strings go out of tune so much more than metal-wound ones, so it's a complete pain for a few days after changing a string while it stretches; but partly also because in the adjustment period the tension on the violin is changing all the time and you want to minimize that by having 3 stable strings that more or less stay in tune. My violin is about 230 years old with associated wear & tear, and clams up quite badly if even slightly tuned sharp (so it was never a good violin at 440 — but a lovely instrument at 415) so lots of tension changes can completely change the tone (there's more room to change because the tension is so much lower on a baroque setup). This will be an issue with many instruments, particularly when they have cracks that open and close according to tension (most old ones do).

The other thing with a modern instrument is that it's at such high tension that if you slacken off all 4 strings at once you can have the soundpost fall out (depending on the shape of the belly). Even if it slips slightly the tone can change a huge amount.

Thus the advice to change strings one at a time with the other strings still at about 1/3 tension when you are actually doing the change.

I am interested to hear how many people get it done by a shop. I always did my own as a child, the (school - hire Stentor) instruments were never serviced. It all might have been so much less painful to listen to if someone had checked the soundpost after string changes!

No beautiful antiques here sadly. The advice I was given was change a whole set at once, but violin E an extra time in between. That seems to be what professional player/teachers I know do. (But they do it a lot more often than me!) As a student I just used to change them individually if they broke, but these days either because I play less or modern strings are better, they don't break.

It's interesting what you say about loosening the other strings with your antique violin schwanen - I've had conflicting advice on that, and thinking about it the teacher who said slightly loosen the others had an Amati, the ones who said keep the other strings completely taut had more modern instruments.

I've never had it done by a shop. My dad used to change them before I could. I do sometimes ask one of the pros at orchestra to check my bridge alignment after I have changed them. It sometimes gets pulled a bit by string changing and I don't entirely trust my judgement on it. Or DD's teacher for her mini violin. Amazing the difference in sound from just a little tweak to the bridge position.

Jazz gigs sounds awesome Loose! Have fun and get paid, sounds like a winner. Well done your DS.

Well done to loose and kutiks children! Fab results.

Kutik, I'm sure you know, but the order in which you list your choices (when you get to that point) has an enormous impact on the school you are offered, particularly if you are out of catchment (OOC). I know a lot of parents in our area were weighing up the likelihood of being offered a place at their theoretical first choice school (grammar) by placing the most over subscribed school first if their child's 11+ score was on the cusp of being offered a place vs the fact that music/science/sport places at the 'back up' ( but also over-subscribed) schools would not be offered if they were not placed first either. The schools don't know where you have placed them but the council will. It is a balancing act...

We've only done primary so far but I thought the admissions code said that there could not be any bias on what order you put the schools? (Despite one headteacher trying to persuade us otherwise in order to get us to put their school first! Shocking misinformation.) We don't have any grammars near though, maybe they have some way of circumventing the rules...

The issue is what happens when the school offers go back to the LEA. In London, they will look at the offers you got and award you whichever one came highest on your preference list. The schools don’t know the preference but they will want to be as high up the list as possible for a strong candidate!

There are threads every year attempting to debunk that perception for state school allocations. If you genuinely believe schools are able to circumvent the admissions code and prioritise first choice applicants (why would they be bothered?!) this should be reported.

We are going to put 4 schools on the application form, all of which DS has to go through selective process. He has no chance to gain a place otherwise due to the distance. We were going to put 5-6 schools on the form in case he failed all the selective process. But now he has one offer secured, we don't need the back-ups of the back-ups.

I'm not sure whether we will know all the results before the closing date of the submission. So we are going to put them in order of our preference nevertheless the outcome. IF DS failed all the top 3 of his choice, he will be at least placed in the one he has got an offer even though it's listed at the 4th. Am I correct?

The school DS got an offer from doesn't tell us his score. It just said he was one of the highest scoring 21 students. It doesn't matter though as all we need to know is if he secured a place or not. But having heard from others who went through selective process, the results would be informed more clearly.

Yes that's how it works kutik. We knew all selective results before CAF so it was an easy choice as he had assured places. Put first your first option. Sounds simple but people get in such a muddle!
miniloose is already making a living ladies and gents

Sorry the grammar was not 100 per cent assured as they don't tell you but we knew it was his first choice if indies did not work out, so we put it first and the music state place second. He got in the grammar but chose indy.

Kutik when my eldest when through the secondary selection 3 years ago, we do not know any results, just whether he passed or not. Then put the schools in preference order.

How do I find if a school has a music selection? Do they put it on their website?
My youngest (turning seven on Friday :( my baby) has just moved to 1/4 size violin from 1/8. It seems to take time for him to adjust (still plays with the 1/8 bow) and he keeps playing close to the bridge. But the sound is much stronger and nicer :).

Hello all, I'm new here. My daughter is 6.5 and this year we discovered that music is her "thing"!

She has been singing in a choir since January and playing the piano and violin since the summer and her teachers are very pleased with her technique and progress in both. She definitely has an ear for music. She was an early reader and blasted through some theory books when she was 3.5 which she transferred to her little play keyboard (bless!).

It all seems to be coming together now and she can read basic music pretty fluently without help and play anything she learns on one instrument on all the others she has (voice, melodica, piano, violin and guitar). The best thing is that she is so enthusiastic for it all.

Is anyone familiar with the Musicland theory and violin theory books?

drummers not quite - or I wouldn't need to pay for his lessons!
Crow Road'your little DD sounds very talented indeed! Great to hear she's having so much fun!
DH put new strings on the guitar DS2 plays as a reward for starting grade 2 and because the existing ones were frankly embarrassingly grubby! These were very expensive strings, apparently, and cost all of £13. I now understand why he turned pale when he saw the price of nice cello strings!

Kutik, just double check the admissions criteria for all of his offers. For one of miniprada's music places (audition, 20 places available but more than 20 offered, she was still in their 'third tier' categories after those within the catchment and the correct faith. Although she was the correct faith she did not practice in the parish closest to the school therefore fell down a rank. The music place effectively moved her from 'no hope' to a 'glimmer of hope' for an over-subscribed school which I did not understand at the time.Does that make sense? My point is, even with a selective place seemingly in the bag, it's worth double checking all of the criteria for that school's policy before putting your ranking down. Grammars in this area were easier as you had your child's score and then a red,amber, green zone of scores which basically you could slot your child's score into to see if a place with that score was likely or not. It is always worth a call to the admissions team before completing the CAF to ensure your understanding of how preferences are allocated matches yours.