January Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Happy New Year!

This is the new thread for our continuing (6 year old) conversation about all things to do with music - lessons, exams, auditions, theory, scales, practice and whatever else you want to talk about.

I am Waffle, teacher of woodwind, amateur composer, and unpaid consultant watching and commenting on all sorts of woodwind videos that people send my way! I am mum to Goo 12, and Rara 9, who both play instruments, do South West Music School and NCO. Goo plays flute and piano, and has Grade 8 and Grade 5 pending for some time this year. Rara plays cello and clarinet - working within Grade 4 for both, but hasn't taken a clarinet exam since Grade 1, and wants to do Grade 3 this coming term. She's way behind with Theory, so it's theory boot camp again this week. We start back to school late (Jan 8th) so that's good.

Oh totally alexandra im a northerner in terms of the uk, it's just i now live in rural Norway

Taggie - your weekend chimes with me. You aren’t alone!

Ealing- I hope your dd manages to pick her way through this and come out even stronger.

DD2 did her last school audition today. She was openly more nervous for this one than for the others and said she’d made some mistakes, but we’ll have to wait and see. She’s back there tomorrow for their academic scholarship assessment (strange as we didn’t fill in the application form), but she’s managing to do that then DH will take her to meet up with the group from school for the concert.

Thank you all so much for the lovely messages and for sharing your own stresses and strains. It really does help.

Sipping a cold gin and tonic and contemplating spiccato boot camp Mozart E minor sonata tomorrow morning. Lovely .

Thank you all so much for the lovely messages and for sharing your own stresses and strains. It really does help.

Sipping a cold gin and tonic and contemplating spiccato boot camp Mozart E minor sonata tomorrow morning. Lovely .

Oops - sorry for the double post!

to Taggie and mini and teenage Ealing.

Here is another sick bug who has been in bed the last 3 days, the throat infection really caught me this time, I have another couple of days on antibiotics so hopefully it will go away once the dose is finished( so far it hasnt worked, it could be the stress that I was having which didnt help). We have been dealing with family stress as well( my husband chronicle illness progressed really fast recently and its time to make a life saving decision. We now have to reconsider the private option for her too as if he wont be able to work then whether I could afford her fee. In theory yes I could, with a lot of scarification compare to our current living standard.

Regarding to music, it hasnt been our priority since Christmas, she is learning couple of Ciramosa sotanas (around G7 level), progress has been slow or she has been on silience mode so I couldnt hear. Violin picks up a little, our teacher is still skipping lessons(for example there will be no lesson the next 3 weeks as she travels abroad for 2 weeks then we travel 1 week abroad too for midterm). We made up by couple of whats apps records for our teacher to check on her practice. Surprisingly, the sound of the piece she is learning is really sweet. I am laying dead on my sofa in their library room and listening to her practising now and it was a pleasure, the first time I realised her violin practise actually has calmed me down.
We went for a 10+ exam recently and she didnt do the VR well(we only just started from Christmas). For example we didnt know it was a standard GL test with a separate answer sheet and 80 questions for 50 mins. She took time to figure out the answer sheet and just went question by question and when time was up she didnt finish them all. It was missing exam technique on timing as well. We had learnt the lesson now. Fortunately she was still invited for an interview so now we are waiting for the result. It means there will be a guaranteed place from yr7 and the successful candidate will only need to attend the scholarship test next year with few other successful 11+ candidates(all 25 for 10+ and top results 15 for 11+). I have a little hope but we wont be dishearten if we didnt get the 10+ offer as we could try again next year. We havent started on NVR yet however I have all books we need so I plan for NVR studying after midterm holiday.

to you and your DH Green. I thought I hadn't seen any posts from you recently. Hoping everything works out positively for you.

Oh Green I do hope you feel better soon and I'm sure stress has made it worse. I was thinking of your mini the other day - so good to hear she's forging ahead. I liked the fact her playing soothed you.
Hugs to miniEaling, too.
Well, DS1 had to skip marching band today due to excessive homework but did make it to the percussion lesson. He may have to miss another band this week but the concert is out of the way and schoolwork has to come first this year.
Cello practice is going quite well, though.

Hey Green! I'm very sorry about your husband, illness of a parent when you have children is very stressful. But it sounds like there is a solution, albeit inconvenient. And I don't mean inconvenient in a flippant way, but something that is doable but not obviously the planned route. And with possible complications and the stress of it all. And the doctors, consultants, opinions, and interpreting the opinions. No wonder you are under the weather. When someone is ill, you enter the world of it.

When my DH had cancer two years ago now, I didn't know if he would live before the operations, and dd2 was 5. Luckily his 9cm colon tumour hadn't spread. The previous two years I had consistently called him a bit of a hypochondriac . Needless to say I pay very close attention to his various health concerns now. If your DH needs the intervention sooner rather than later, then I am thinking of you and I hope it is very successful.

DD has changed violin teacher. It was very stressful. But she is now with the Oasby music group. A tad inconvenient, being in Lincolnshire and we live in Suffolk. Her previous teacher continues to teach piano.

I have seen, in RL, Trumpetboy. But I couldn't be sure it was her and, not having the appropriate footwear with pianos on them, I didn't approach her. What could I say? Walk up to a stranger and say, I have a very Niggly elbow? If it hadn't been her, it would have been a little, well, odd! It happened as I took DD to an AYM workshop day.

I haven't been on much as trying to catch up on various work things and am generally a bit down about still waiting for DH's legal case against previous solicitor to finish. Only 5 years. In that time, two directors/shareholders have died, one has had a very disabling stroke and DH had cancer. But, you know, we can wait longer. It's not like we want a life or anything!

DD played Ladies in Lavender beautifully tonight. I think the new exercises she is doing with new teacher are really making a difference.

Oh, and about Ciramosa sotanas. I asked DH about this composer (he is our Classical Music Knowledge App), and he said was very unlucky to be composing in the same period as Mozart. And had Mozart not been around, he would have been considered and revered today a genius.

Very sorry green.

We have had disastrous practice tonight. 2 instruments with playing of pieces way below the standard she has been playing them at recently. Total arrogance from dd who refused to believe that inaccurate playing at g5 would cost her the exam.

Thanks everyone, I found like home here as usual!xx
Oh Niggle, I understood every word you said. Hopefully there wont be as much worrying anymore for you both Xx. And it was actually nice to hear that you gave up on your teacher even you know I would always advise you to stick to her. It was lovely to hear that yours is making progress and enjoys her practice too. And nice to see Trumpet in real life. I have met Petra however surprisingly I missed Alex many chances we should have met. And fingers crossed for his case to be closed soon. For his illness, it will be a transplant operation and we will be under various of tests first. We didnt plan this to happen this year, we were hoping it will be next year when the toddler starts primary and the elder finishes her 11+ tests. Her tests although has really come down of my priority lists now. She is ok with maths and English(finished the recent tests comfortably without any challenge), we need to work alot on VR and NVR and sharpen maths and English.

So sorry to hear about your health worries Green and how lovely that you could find comfort in your DD's playing

Niggle good to see you back. Changing teacher is tough but I'm sure it is the right decision. From your posts on the NCO thread, it seemed that the fit wasn't quite right with the old teacher.

se empathy and sympathy for disastrous practice.

loose empathy and sympathy for the juggling act. You are doing a marvellous job of keeping those balls in the air/plates spinning (feel free to choose your favourite metaphor.

Thanks again for the lovely posts during today

What Taggie didn't mention about the weekend was that the reason they were late for choir practice was that the adjudicator was still speaking about that class, 25 minutes after the next class had been supposed to start ... (though he does give good value and I wished I'd recorded some of what I heard him say in the morning, would have been useful for the parents of a student that had to give up last term!)

The following class was the 6 and unders and did make up a bit of time (I had 4 little students in it - great fun!).

Crossing fingers about yesterday's audition - my son got the wrong idea about why the accompanist was suggesting he take his main piece a bit slower, and I suspect rather firmly insisted on maintaining his tempo ...

Green; so good to hear from you, but so sorry your family is going through a challenging time. Good luck with the forthcoming result for your DD.

And good morning to you lovely lot who are always giving such wonderful support. I attended a parent talk evening last night on all things teenage. Reported back to DD who nodded and listened wisely, with a final "don't worry mum. I'm so over last week, let them bring it on"

Not sure whether fighting talk was there off the back of a good swim session but I liked it 😁

Good news Ealing !! Ds seems to be cushioning himself against it all by having an equally quirky set of friends and being totally oblivious to everything else !! I'm not looking forward to dd's teenage years though
Green hope you feel better soon and . It must be a very worrying time for you and your dh fingers crossed that all can go to plan

TaggieOHara, how poor is the little boy and hope he can still enjoy playing violin.
I don’t think it is common for U10s, we took part in U9s last year, the adjudicator was too nice and always said to every age group : very very good and it is hard to choose first place. Only good comments, but we hope adjudicator can give serious comment because it is much helpful for practice in the future. Especially for non musical parents.

Our local festival is very positive with all age groups. Including adults, I've done it myself :) Kind of three positive comments and a thing to improve then another positive note to finish on.

Which festival were you guys at? Was it Oxford by any chance??

So I had a very long chat with Noo’s teacher last night about the whole JD thing. He was completely wonderful and very supportive. So we are going to give it a go! Wish us luck!

Ooh Folk I'm being too indiscreet, although I haven't said anything that I wouldn't have said had we had a chance to give feedback.

All the DCs played very well and had prepared thoroughly - no weak players - and the little girl that won was terrific. Very well deserved. I completely agree with honest feedback but I would have preferred the public comments to be general with critical personal comments given in individual reports. I just think that it is a bit much for the little ones to be criticised in public with not much in the way of encouragement beyond the double edged, 'you could be good if you had a technique and listened to your teacher'

I had my previous post removed because I slipped up and mentioned a potentially identifiable child. I am not bothered about being identified myself. That horse has bolted [waves to Python] but it isn't fair to bring others into it. Humble apologies to the thread.

green sorry to hear you're not well and you're facing a serious operation for your DH earlier than expected. Hopefully, it's one of those years and you will soon be able to sit back and breath because your DH will be OK and minigreen will have landed in the right school of her.

Just heard DS is through to final of school music advanced comp. I'm doubly happy because this way I get to sit in the audience and hear all the best players across all years!

Lucky boy got a last minute invite to Ronnie Scott's last night. Came back from school, dropped bag, out the door again. He was supposed to practice but came back saying the drummer was really good and he had learnt a lot just watching him. So that's practice done then!! At least he was not revising GCSEs again, he so needed a break.

We're still choosing A-levels, not much time left. He needs a program that will allow him lots of time for music. But the main thing in his mind is to choose a program that will interest him. His motto is "no dry subjects". He wants subjects that will allow for an element of creativity and that will be taught very much in a class discussion/debate mode. Music and English Lit are decided. Third option and electives still to be decided. So many of your are light years from these decisions!!