November Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

New month, new thread! This is a place for musicians and parents of musicians, from complete beginners to experienced and everything in between, to talk about everything to do with music! Previous threads have covered exams, practice, scales, instrument hire and purchase, theory, composition, aural woes, auditions, scholarship preparation and much more.

I started these threads when my 12 year old daughter Goo was 6 and preparing for Grade 1. I never thought we'd still be going, 6 years later! I appreciated all the advice I was given back then, and try to repay that when I can.

Goo plays the flute and piano (she has been learning the piano for 18 months but has yet to perform - ever) and has no exams lined up at the moment. I also have Rara who is 9, and working towards her third Grade 3, on the clarinet. The other two were on the cello and recorder. She's more interested in art and reading, and currently swims five times a week.

I am a teacher of woodwind, and Wednesday is my day from you-know-where... full-on from 6.30 am until 10 pm, and about to get worse!!

Japanese, sorry I have no clue about musical shape in scales but hopefully someone will come in to rescue as usual. I just wanted to say well done to your mini. Great achievement!

In G7 for scales we have to use metronome to play right tempo, (I really have no idea) the fingerings also must correct/playing the scales correctly. Mine could play the scales correctly easily at first however not to the G7 standard and my teacher nagged us about it all the times. Through my ears it sounds ok however my teacher could always pointed out something wrong with her tempo, fingerings. After (loads of ) practice, we did ok with scales compare to everything else in the exam(still no singing). Of course, we wont know it until we receive the result(or the details comment via post). Your DD did extremely well with a distinction though, many well done to her and to mini 2nd.

2nd: sometimes having a completely non musical parents like us is a blessing to them as I have no idea if she plays a wrong note. I could only shout when she plays through the pieces too much during the practice or too fast with the violin. There are often few words which funily enough my 3 yrs old also shouted the other day “slow down!”, “not the whole piece!”— and many times I was shouted back( then tell me how do I play), ofcourse I dont know how. Very often I do see parents waiting at the exam room look super cool/posh.

I told my teacher yeaterday that we will perform the pieces to audiences, go away play something for fun then go back to retake the exam, which might be May next year.

Musical shape = slight crescendo on way up, and the reverse coming down. She must have had a little bit - perfect scales without this usually receives 18/21.

drummers it dragged for the first month for me and now we are into the madness of preChristmas (I work for a busy church, it's our most manic season, combined with her most musically/dance manic seasons). Life's flying by in a way I am only just managing!

waffle these are the details I need to learn about how to support her in maintaining her results standard during the switch of boards!

Question- I suspect it's not possible but can any of the software, Sibelius or Musescore ideally, work in reverse to extract a score from a PDF so I could edit it? I've been asked if I can take a score and reduce it to three parts for ease of reading for the singers. I can do it in photoshop page by page but wondered if I can make it happen easier in software (there's quite a lot of pages!). I haven't managed yet in musescore.

Thank you so much waffle!

I will work on that with my DS who will be sitting Grade 1 in the spring.

Can't believe I got to grade 8 on two instruments (many moons ago) & never knew about musical shaping of scales (although that might explain my slightly rubbish scales marks over the years!)

We have had some cross teachers and parents on here in the past, annoyed that perfect scales only scored 18/21. Without the crescendo, that's what they're supposed to get. I don't have the marking criteria to hand, but I think it's in there.

I am now awaiting results for three Grade 1 Clarinets, who started lessons in February, April and June. I need to upload a bunch of music medals today, and have 7 Initial and Grade 2 Recorders on Monday.

Japanese fabulous result for Mini! I'm off to practise the crescendo on my scales now!
I think it happens naturally sometimes hence that great mark for scales - probably mini does it a fair bit without realising.

When I say practising scales 'now' that slightly ignored the fact I'm on a district line train at the moment. I'm practising them in my head...
Meanwhile, we are going to need a new bass teacher. The current one is a guitarist and says DS1 needs a bass specialist now. I feel like we've reached some kind of milestone but it's sad to change teachers!

Japanese, that is a really solid result, congratulations!

Waffle, you are right (again!). I just looked up the marking criteria for scales and for 19-21 marks it says "musically shaped". I had no idea what this meant, and DD's teacher didn't mention anything.

We will practice all the scales for g5 with that in mind. Not long to go now, exam next Tuesday. The three octave scales are a bit tricky with all the shifting needed. Her teacher asked if she could practice with the piano at home to get the pitches just right, but of course, I haven't had the piano tuned for years and it might make things worse .

Loose, apparently 'mental practice' is very effective!

Green, has your DD done the exam now? If so, well done to her! By the way, is playing through the whole piece bad? I'm envious your DD does that because mine doesn't... Apparently it's too tiring.... He's certainly started behaving like a teenager... Still enthusiastic (suppose it's his natural nature) but moody and lazy!!!!

minimusician musescore.com/groups/discussion-group/discuss/146724 I don't use Musescore so I don't know if any of it makes any sense.

There is this but it seems it only works if the pdf was created by a notation software: www.myriad-online.com/en/products/pdftomusic.htm

Sibelius comes with a PhotoScore Lite I think? It seems to do the trick but you have to polish and correct errors depending on original pdf.

I doubt any of the above is 100% accurate.

Yes, we did it earlier this week. No run through is allowed under my teacher’s rule, only once a day(this one just couldnt wait to finish a piece which means sight reading level=low quality play=disaster, she could shape C1 and play the whole piece after 1 lesson). The other day I asked her for a full piece record and she looked at me as if “mom, no!”, so I backed off. So no recording to share...yet. I have learnt to follow her wish since last time we crashed. Our new violin teacher is a concert pianist and she tours the whole December...there will be no lesson. She was sick last week and we only have had 4 lessons with her so far. I now even thinking of JD which I would never have to worry about teacher coverage and she might be more motivated with like minded friends. And if yours is lazy...Kutik, I will give you mine to compare :). I dont really count her work in quantity/hours as all I need is the quality. 25-30 mins very focused a day for either piano or violin then she should make some progress. This rarely happens and only happens when I sit/stand next to her and we need to start on 11+ prep. For now, we are having 2 weeks break with piano which means no music lesson the next 2 weeks and I only have to carry on with my (various) Xmas drinks, this suits me just fine now.

Loose: love to hear your update, and play scales mentally in your head :)

Niggle: best of luck for next week exam, then she is our hero(G4, theory, G5 within only few months)

We've cut Goo a lot of slack this term (understandably) but she is meant to do 10-15 minutes' piano before leaving the house. Sometimes she isn't organised enough, and the other day it was ONE minute! She's meant to practise the flute every day, but last week she did two lots of 20 minutes, after screaming at us. When she's in a routine, she's better, so I intend to be firm with her in January.

Everyone in Year 7 has to do some sort of solo performance to their class this half term. If they don't play, they can sing, or improvise I think, or learn something simple on the keyboard. Goo played Hypnosis yesterday, and reports that her peers were surprised, to say the least. The class feeds back 'What went well' and she had loads of nice comments. For 'Even better if...' they just told her to keep up the good work! She has been invited to play as a soloist at the big Christmas extravaganza in two weeks, and has said she will think about it!! A couple of months ago, she would have said no way!

Hey Green, you might be being a little hasty about a resit for piano! That was g7 piano, so mini green is no slouch, as she is only 11? Our piano is about g2/3 level, as there hasn't been much time, and while it seems very easy to get out of the habit of something, is is definitely harder to get back into the habit! After violin exam will be trying to get that back on track.

Are you thinking of g7 violin next year? If so, I have kind of thought about it for Dec next year and skip grade 6. The complexity of the scales seems similar.

A big to Goo (and Waffle)!!

DS is an active boy but at the same time quite lazy, Green. His hobby is 'doing nothing', so he claims. He is very serious about his hobby.

Niggle, I think miniGreen is 10 (the same age as DS but a year younger in the school year)!

But yes I agree with Niggle, it's quite a quick jump to think of retake even before seeing the result, Green. Suppose she could do Grade 8 when she is ready instead of retaking the same grade soon again?

Ah, and same as DD, year 5.

Waffle that's so lovely for Goo! I love those sessions where a year group gets to show what they can do and it sounds as though she's getting a lot of love from her peers!
The practice sounds grimly familiar although Goo clearly thrives on her routine. I can basically get half the week on piano from DS2 and half on cello but theory homework is going to be a rush job tonight, which was not supposed to be the case!

Sounds like senior school is really suiting Goo waffle, hope her confidence continues to grow.

green fingers crossed. Like others have said, too early to talk about retakes. Even if it didn't go well, probably better wait longer and move onto g8. Once you have your g8 nobody ever cares what you got at g7 or whether you even took it. And if there are issues of motivation then what can be worst than having to retake an exam, same pieces all over again, that kills anyone.
Waffle that's so nice for goo. Hope her solo recital goes splendid.

We got a letter home tonight asking them to rank their languages in order of preference. They have been studying four this term, and will carry on with o

Eek! Posted too soon!

One or two. Goo has to do two, and would prefer German and French. She didn't mind Spanish, and disliked Mandarin.

German and French would be a perfect combination for any classical musician! I suppose!

I had another discussion with DH over DS's secondary school today. I rather like to drop private options now but DH is not having any of my words. DS thinks he is going to the secondary school but doesn't mind doing the exams as an experience (and also to satisfy his father). How many DCs take the exams as an experience? What's the point really? Sigh...