April Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Happy Easter! The sun is shining here (at the moment) so I'm hoping spring has finally arrived.

Here's a new thread for anyone who wants to talk about music lessons, exams, practice, concerts, aural, scales, theory, ensembles or anything else music related. Everyone is welcome, from beginners to advanced and also adult learners. I started these threads 6.5 years ago when I had a beginner myself. Her nickname is Goo, she is 12 and taking Grade 8 Flute next term. I think she's finally going to do her Grade 5 Piano in the autumn. When those are out of the way, she's thinking of taking up the recorder again and doing Grade 8 on that, because flute sort of took over and she never got around to it. Her sister Rara is 9, and is currently around Grade 4 on both Cello and Clarinet. She doesn't want to do any more exams for ages, so will probably do her grade 5s in a couple of years or so. Rara is a lapsed recorder player who will be performing on it next month, and she dabbles with piano, glock and accordion. Both girls do South West Music School, although I regularly go back on forth over whether this is still the best setting for Goo. We are pretty rural and hours away from any big cities.

Please can we all be extra careful to make sure that everyone is acknowledged and assisted where appropriate... I include myself in needing to make an effort, but I'm not around all day, every day. This is a lovely, calm, supportive corner of Mumsnet but I do receive a handful of messages from people who don't feel welcome because they or their children are less advanced, or they're not in a position to consider JD/ private school/ expensive instruments and feel left out, or they wonder if it's OK to post about certain instruments/ families. I did say I would try. Thank you all so much!

Kutik she sounds like a bit of a control freak. Hard as it may be, from all your comments I would seriously consider making a change. We bit the bullet changing piano teacher with DD and it was like a breathe of fresh air. She was already progressing well but her whole attitude to piano improved once we found a more positive, less stifling teacher.

Yes, positiveness is what we need. I feel too much negativity from the teacher at the moment. She may have her own reason to act like that but I just can't get it. She may not like to be out of her comfort zone. However I believe she is very much more capable than what she currently offers in her little living room, though it may be none of my business!

She kindly wrote a reference for DS's school application in which she cited DS as one of the best pupils during her 25 years teaching career. She also has a son who plays piano and violin like DS so learning two instruments is nothing new to her.

Sorry to keep going on about this. I shall shut up now!

Waffle - I am surprised that someone would say Goo Wouldnt get in! Technically I can’t imagine why not - once the passion is back, then I would have thought it would be great place for her. So maybe county is the way short term while she sorts out life post braces, solo playing etc? It’s hard for anyone to know what’s right for another child, but Goo’s love of ensembles matches dd’s and she loves JD. Are you taking Rara to wells single Reed day? We will be there, all being well.

Kutik - move Piano to JD maybe...?

Sorry final one - Waffle if Goo wants someone not local to go to a woodwind week with, I am sure DD would love to do something along with her again. She missed her and their other friend last week.

Lots of developments on the thread to catch up on!

kutik - I second what others are saying. I have no idea what is prompting your DS's teacher to have such an attitude but am sure you could do without the drama. I would go for a natural break in September and see if you could join his piano with violin at JD.

Lovely to hear about musicdoc's DS's NYO experience!

I hope everyone who is on residentials over Easter has/had a fab time! Great to see the videos of folk and taggie's minis. Folk - how exciting re JD audition for your DD!

Waffle - I have no experience with JD-level music so I couldn't comment but if Goo's playing is not what they are wanting then it's hard to figure out what is to be honest! Maybe that other child the teacher was talking about was having an off day on the day of the audition. Or maybe the child did a fab audition - just as Goo did for her NCO audition - and for whatever reason it just didn't work out. Who knows? I hope Goo finds where she wants to be musically. It sounds as though she is receiving a lot of support with working things out . I can see how the NCO audition must have knocked her confidence. I really enjoyed residential music courses when I was a teen. I never played in anything on a national level but I did lots and lots of county-level ensemble playing and I just loved it. I remember the 'down' feeling coming home afterwards - my friends and I used to call it 'post-course blues'. I can see how if she is used to playing at such a standard with close friends then anything else might seem like a 'poor cousin' - even when it's really not!

My DCs were away at my parents last week. They did a lot of recorder practice while they were there and theory but no piano or cello as no instruments. I am thinking about buying a cheap digital piano for my parents' house as they are there quite a lot during the school holidays.

They are back home now though. We are away on holiday from Tuesday so for the few days we have access to the piano at home, I am running a mini-bootcamp with a focus on scales. Sigh. Had tears from them both this morning. DS was crying as he is really struggling with the fingering on scales now that they are both hands together. DD was in tears as her self-consciousness is just through the roof at the moment.

She's 11 and am hoping it's 'just' hormones/a (short!) phase. She seems to have little or no confidence and keeps saying she's 'rubbish' at everything...even when she's not! She has the volume turned so low on the piano we can barely hear her. DP is afraid she's going to get absolutely squashed at secondary school next year if she's so embarrassed about anything and everything so he got cross and then more tears. Nice Sunday morning!

I have entered both the DCs into a festival for the end of the month - DD in the Grade 2 class and DS in the Grade 1 class. I checked with the organisers and they said there is usually a mix of ages for each grade so am hoping they are not going to be the oldest by a mile! DP thinks am nuts as he's afraid DD is just going to freeze and refuse to play. I was hoping it would help develop her confidence a bit but am now having second thoughts. Oh well. There's still time to pull out.

The secondary school she will be attending is not that big on music and I don't think there will be many ensemble opportunities for her at school so I will be looking out for other out-of-school playing opportunities for her next year, hopefully. It's still early days for her on the cello.

DD vastly prefers ensemble playing too. She adores pro corda but knows it’s an every other year at the most re. cost (and perhaps never again as we (happily) graduate as a family to squeezed middle rather than penniless so no super generous bursary in the future) but went when she was young enough the first time that people are familiar and her then teacher was the course director. It must be so frustrating to be turning down fully funded places, I’d go bonkers!

I worry about the point of lack of passion with dd too, she doesn’t express her joy in playing due to nerves and pre teen self consciousness whereas some children I meet are either impressively un self conscious or very mature and confident in their tastes and ambitions.

string we can't do the Wells day due to a birthday party and NCO. We're actually meant to be at a rehearsal at the same time as NCO and I have had to say no! Good would go to a wind week if your DD went. Swms would pay the first £600 so we would manage.

Waffle DS went through a phase of not wanting to participate in much or take on much beyond his comfort zone. Turns out he was judging himself too harshly. It soon went away and then now he can't get enough. She sounds like the perfectionist type and she may just need to find her confidence. It may happen sooner than you think.

Ah musicdoc DS was encouraged to audition for the drums part of the Bernstein Mass but decided not to go for it because of GCSE revision. Just bad timing. It must've been awesome!!

She has also just been through puberty, and I think that has caused a big wobble. Going with what she wants in the medium term...

Piano teacher has her working on one piece to help with arm weight, and another for fluency. Both have been set for grade 6 * faints *. Goo told me today that she has played the piano in a little group in class music - chords and very simple improvising. So that's a small step towards an eventual performance! I don't think her first proper piano performance should be in an exam room!

It is such a difficult and vunerable age, the consequences of something going 'wrong' are magnified so much. And the perception of 'wrong' seems to cover so much. Dd1 is off to the regional finals of a youth culture competition on friday so we've been finding sleeping bags and air matresses , she'll probably barely sleep any way but i have to try . She seems quite relaxed atm but thats probably because she has no chance of making the national finals so no real pressure.

I really need to do some practise as i have a concert on saturday but somehow time never seems to be enough.....

waffle just one more thing. Having heard Goo I think whoever said she was not jd level is bonkers.
kutik your piano teacher is bonkers too. She is possesive and resentful if you want to shine. But she has been a good teacher, all has to be said!

What's your concert mendingfences? Good luck to your DD1. What does a youth culture competition involve?
In other news, trying to set up a trying out brass instruments lesson for DS! He thinks he fancies french horn, we'll see.

Lol drummers, say it like it is!!!

Wow busy day on here!
Drummersmum what a shame.... for future reference, there was quite a lot of ' revision space' timetabled in/

Kutik it all sounds strange - and a shame there can't be a more open discussion as to why this is happening. But I echo the others... sometimes it is just time to move on before any true hard feelings develop.

Waffle it all sounds very tricky. My dd has had a very similar experience - she was in NCO for two years, managed to get a full place (after being on the reserve list) last year, then this year just a place in regionals. It knocked her confidence when all her friends were getting places and so am just having to hold back and see what she wants to do. She has never wanted to be a professional anyway (how do they decide when they are only 10??!) .... I think we can only guide them and support them, and hopefully not make them any more anxious than they already are. I second the idea of lots of fun ensemble playing - with people of similar age and standard, if you can find that. Or even make your own opportunities, that don't involve the dreaded audition! Good luck 👍🏽

LOL drummers!

Same age and standard is proving tricky, MusicDoc. And it's not that she's a genius or anything, it's just the way it is. She has two close flute friends in Year 11 who are a bit behind her. They all run a flute group together and have such a laugh. She is distraught about them leaving school this term.

Waffle I know the feeling... my two certainly haven't had anyone close to them in either of their schools. My DS loved NYO so much because of the people.... but I can't convince him that JD is a good idea. We travel for an hour to a monthly music group that my DD has brilliant friends in, same age and standard, but she only wants to meet and play with them regularly and it is logistically impossible!

Hi everyone - first time of posting on here, although I have occasionally posted on the NCO thread. Interesting to hear all the discussions re JDs and specialist schools and it does cause a certain amount of stress, based on the fear that we might not be doing all we can for our children. My child is in Year 8, at a state comprehensive with very little music, although the music teacher is very well-meaning, supportive and keen to give him opportunities. We made this choice because firstly it is very academic and hopefully will give him a significant push at GCSE as he will need it when trying to balance practice and study. Also, having experienced a dynamic and motivational, music-focused high school with the (much) older first-born, it was almost counter-productive as the school music took up so much time. With child 2, his music experience comes from the county youth orchestra which meets for four weekends each term, the NCO U13 plus regionals and also the occasional day with a local amateur orchestra who tackle some pretty amazing repertoire.
His teacher, who is a professional orchestral player, has a high expectation of what a fully-rounded applicant for conservatoire should look like and for him it's all about orchestral experience and getting to know the standard repertoire, not necessarily JD or specialist school. He says he has seen too many cases of burn-out in the specialist schools. His take on it is to consider JD at around 15 or specialist school for sixth form, if it is absolutely obvious at that point that a musical career is the chosen path. .
We are very lucky that we live in a city so the opportunities are there, so for now we have every intention of staying with the current teacher - whom we love dearly and who has been inspirational - however I know that child 2 will come home from U13s with a renewed plea to go to a specialist school now and I will start wavering again!
Our main issue is being organised enough to do the homework and practice, which is where I think that a JD does make a difference, unless you have a highly motivated and conscientious child who loves doing homework. In our house it's hard to decide which provokes the most fall out - homework battles or scales!
There is always a sense of pressure about whether you are doing the right thing musically for your child, but I think that basically it all boils down to having the right teacher. If that is right, then the rest will look after itself. It isn't a race and in my experience, as a parent and a music teacher, the most vulnerable age where it will all unravel is between 11 and 13. Get them past that, whichever way you can, and it will come right again - even if they end up doing something that's not music, nothing can remove the enrichment they will always have from playing an instrument!

Great post, Polly and I hope you're right about the 11 to 13 thing. I think Goo needs to move on, but am leaving everything as it is while she's all wobbly and self conscious. Hopefully she'll knuckle down or realise that she's just pratting about, which doesn't require lessons. She says she wants to do music at the very highest level, but has to be told to practise!

If Goo ends up staying at her current school until she's 16, we will then consider music school for sixth form if that's what she wants (there's one fairly nearby), or the local sixth form college if she goes down the law route. Which we think she will.

Hi,
Just wanting to respond to theinitial poston this thread, and let you all know that I find this thread useful in terms of information and sometimes perspective as well. I have music playing children, on the violin and recorder mostly, but not at a particularly advanced level for their years.
I really appreciate how helpful and supportive the members of this thread have been when I have come on with questions in the past, and i find the discussion about the pros and cons of different teachers/ schools / teaching methods very interesting. I think however, I am not able to offer much insight myself as a far less experienced parent, so I'm sorry I don't post much.

I wish all of you well in your endeavors to support your amazing children, and i will delurk occasionally....

Thanks, Thistly. I'm heartened by the number of people who do find it supportive, and nobody has emailed me to the contrary so far this month.

Thanks, Waffle. Such is the psychology of the 12 year old! We have the same thing - for some reason there is a total block in seeing the logic of great practise = high standard. We have a poster up that says "Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard"but the penny still hasn't dropped! His teacher is very laid back about that and says it will come, he's only 12 and can't be expected to practise like an adult, but it's very hard not to start fretting about the scales and studies that get lip service (Literally!) before he launches into a full rendition of everything else he wants to play - although I shouldn't complain because it's great fun to bash through the accompaniments with him and if I look back, I remember my Mother saying the same thing to me!
Which goes back to what I said before - the important thing is to get them through the danger zone any which way and things will sort themselves out. It sounds like you have great options for later on, whichever way it goes. I'm sure that the NCO audition has redefined how she sees herself in her own mind and she is struggling with this new identity as well as coping with Year 7. It is therefore easier not to put in the effort as it's almost like a get - out clause for not succeeding, instead of being in the situation where you work your socks off and then don't succeed... if that makes sense!

Yes it does make sense. She says the only thing she's learned is that Don't Try Hard + Wing It = Success, and Hard Work + Stunning Audition = Rejection. I know why she feels that way, but she's basing that on a very small sample size... 3 NCO auditions.

No, it's 4!

No wonder she has lost her way a bit - it must seem so unfair to her.