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!!

Pradaqueen the reason we know about vibrato being a class of special effects and not continuous, is that there are tons of tutor books from the C18th. The best one would be Geminiani's The Art of Playing the violin, which is easily available in facsimile and easy to read. If Miniprada is at the level of doing YMotY then she will be wanting to get the phrasing authentic; Geminiani will be useful there. Can anyone lend her a baroque bow? It is SO much easier to get the required lightness of touch and "banana shaped" phrasing of long notes with a baroque rather than a Tourte bow.

As for whom to listen to, Rachel Podger, Sigiswald Kuijken, Fabio Biondi, Andrew Manze, more or less covers it. Try the New Dutch Academy doing Corelli for the style.

Playing baroque music staccato completely goes against the contemporary advice that instrumental phrases should be like singing.

Wishing your mothers a speedy recover Prada and Icould!

DD1 revealed that her Grade 6 sax exam is at the end of this month. Hmm - she has to up her practice. Not nearly enough of it at the moment, particularly with scales and aural.

Schwanengesang, I certainly was not recommending staccato I just remember (early 1990s) being made to do it. It’s no wonder I ended up refusing to play Baroque Music.

Oh no prada hope your mum recovers soon
Well done on the theory mininiggle and mini raspberry. What a shame that the music opportunities reduced at your ds's school raspberry. I don't know how ds would cope if he couldn't do something musical most days ( he's very lucky currently but with state schools especially you just never know if they will have the budgets to continue with lots of extra curricular stuff) mind you he might have more time to practice if he did a bit less playing I'm not really sure how everything is going to fit in this month or how he's going to find the time to look at all the different pieces of music he's playing with different groups . He of course is convinced it will be fine

Schwanengesang, I am interested in your comment on a baroque bow. DS loves baroque pieces. I might consider getting him a baroque bow in future if it helps him achieve the technique required. Is it OK to use on any violin (I mean, his current violin)? Or it has to be or better to be a baroque violin?

I just watched Goo and miniDouble's wonderful performance. I can't believe such young age can produce such quality of music.

Trumpet, your DS's school always sounds heaven to me. I would be ecstatic if DS's secondary school would be like that.

DS had an amazing opportunity to play with a leading violinist at a well-known orchestra today. He sat next to DS and they played together. DS was very talkative on way home, so busy telling me how wonderful he was. Later DS told DH about it, which he didn't get a reaction he expected. So DS said 'daddy, imagine David Beckham came to play football with you, it was like that!'. DH got it and got excited for DS (finally).

CPE Bach's True Art of playing the keyboard, and F Couperin's L'Art de Toucher Le Clavecin are also really informative of general style and ornamentation (30+ kinds of trills and vibrato, each with a particular use!)

Kutik a baroque bow on a modern violin will definitely get him a long way. Baroque violins are hard to master as the chin off technique is really difficult (every time you shift you feel like you will drop the violin) and gut strings feel different and go out of tune a lot. Intonation at a=415 is very subtly different from 440 too. So all in all I would say he would have more fun with modern violin and baroque bow and reading the treatises/ listening to the people I mentioned upthread, then if he still loves it at uni / conservatoire level he can switch. Conservatoires often have good baroque instruments that they will lend to interested students.

Oh forgot to mention Reinhardt Goebel is (was) another good violinist. Musica Antiqua Koln recording of Veracini overtures, and the Art of Fugue, particularly.

So informative, thank you for sharing, Schwanengesang.

Re, intonation, you mean baroque violin plays 415? How about modern violin? I heard somewhere that is 442, and orchestra/piano is 440, though I also heard it can differ from orchestra to orchestra. If we use a tuner for individual practice, what it will be? 442 or 440??

Goo's flute piece was beautiful Waffle. Such control.

I loved your DD's too!

Kutik not sure re what your tuner would be set to.. if you use a tuning fork it will have 440 or 442 written on it. Digital tuners can obviously be set to anything. Standard modern pitch is 440 and standard baroque pitch is 415. Both may vary according to conductors' preference. Classical era standard is 435 . Renaissance is now typically 415 but varied very widely.

One other good book is The Early Violin And Viola:A Practical Guide (can't remember author but silver grey cover and distorted pic of Veracini on the front).

Raspberry how awful and sad . How have the students all coped ?
Sounds like the new head has the right idea though the head at ds's school is similar. I can't imagine many secondary schools these days where a cast of 60 plus the band are allowed a week and a half off timetable to rehearse ( this happens before the show every year) not sure that the other teachers are best pleased but I think ds has just had the best week of school ever and I'm expecting that the show will be amazing . He said last night went well though the trumpet part is ridiculously difficult and very very high !!

*Prada^ I'm sorry, I made your post all about me. I was trying to show that there is light at the end of the tunnel and instead it came out rather like snap. It is so hard when we pick up something else to add to the endless things we pack into the day and having recently been there myself I really feel for you but I had something of an expression-fail.

Other people to listen to in general to understand baroque style are Pieter Wispelwey, Gustav Leonhardt, Andreas Staier. And Herreweghe's recordings of Bach cantatas and motets; Paul McCreesh's St Matthew Passion; Concerto Italiano's Brandenburg concertos; anything by Christophe Rousset; and lots of singers, eg Gerard Lesne, Emma Kirkby, and Magdalena Kozena's first CD of Bach arias.

Dipping in and out of thinking how I learnt baroque and galant style while dealing with a sick baby, so please excuse the unfocused nature of my posts. DS is in the horrible coughs til he vomits stage of a cold, not a nice way to spend your first birthday...

Thank you everyone for the Vivaldi advice and good wishes. To be clear, it is the school YmotY!! But the standard there is so high it might as well be the real thing. At music evening a y11 child played her own concerto...

Icouldbe - please don't worry! Thank you.

I agree the new teacher is the new teacher so we are working on that basis.

Raspberry - sorry about your news.

Happy Thursday everyone. I have a tooth abcess but no time to be ill...

Prada - painkillers and make an appointment with your dentist! You have to make the time sometimes (although I am dreadful at taking my own advice!

How do I find Waffle and Doubleup's videos on YouTube?
Not much to report here. DS has a local music competition coming up but has hit a bit of a slump after the NCO audition and is busy doing lots of school music...not so much practice.

Interesting to read your DD' s school's policy regarding teachers, Prada. DS is a music scholar at a cathedral school, but they are flexible about this: DS has kept his private cello teacher and we were able to request a specific piano teacher for lessons in school (in our case, a work colleague).

Schwanengesang, we have a digital tuner so can tune to any. DS doesn't use a tuner (but this is another topic to talk about as I am not sure if his way is correct...) so it's left as it came from a shop which is 440.

I felt the same as Floot about miniPrada's school's policy. I remember you saying the school encourage the scholars to join the neighbouring jd. So I assume quite a few already go there. Don't they have their principal teacher there?

There are compulsory duties for music scholars at DS's secondary school (to be), such as scholars mornings (starts at 7.45am once a week...) plus orchestra, choir and so on. They also offers instrumental lessons but it's fine to keep the private teachers outside of school. DS will probably not take any individual lessons at school.

Floot my video is in the public domain:

Kutik - that was miniprada's Dad's view on the joining of a JD. How is that different? I guess as we are accepting of the free lessons, we need to accept the rules laid down. Plus, in all honesty, the amount of music she is doing means she has no time realistically for additional lessons. And I am over £40 a week up

Thanks, Waffle - will have a watch now. :-)
Prada, DS's school allows his free lessons to be on any instrument, or singing, or theory one-to-one. As it is, he's started piano lessons, but otherwise I would have signed him up for theory or another instrument.