August Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Welcome to the new music thread for August - a place to discuss anything you like to do with learning instruments/ singing. We have child and adult learners on here, and all standards from toddlers experimenting with music to the very advanced.

It's coming up to 7 years since I started the first thread, and I have been flagging a bit lately due to a long illness. When I started the first one, my daughter Goo had just turned 6 and was about to take her Grade 1 recorder exam! She is now 12 (13 in two months), has done her Grade 8 Flute (result currently under appeal), is thinking about Grade 8 Recorder next year (having not played since Year 6) and is learning the piano. Piano hasn't gone well this term. Her teacher has been going on lots of last minute holidays and also has another job now, so Goo has only had two piano lessons since Easter. Teacher has now decided to retire from teaching, so we need to find a new one. Goo has never, ever performed on the piano and hasn't taken any exams either. She has been learning since she was 10, and was recently learning pieces by Bach and Chopin, although I have no idea what she is practising at the moment.

I also have Rara (10) who plays the cello, clarinet and recorder at a good Grade 4 level. It doesn't come naturally to her at all, but she's more inclined to work at things... when it suits her. She plays the clarinet most, but swears she's in love with the cello. Her bass clef reading definitely seems stronger. We have started and stopped theory three times. I think she is more than capable of doing it, but she's distractible, longwinded and feels the need to reinvent the wheel. I have decided to wait until she's ready to do the whole lot in one go... hopefully when she is a bit more mature and developmentally ready. Goo had it done and dusted at the same age and I find it hard not to worry about Rara at times, but in many ways she's just as able... but on her own timeline.

I usually have 80-90 woodwind pupils on my books - mostly recorder these days, although I'm a clarinettist really. I currently have a clutch of little clarinets, a couple of flutes and a good saxophone pupil, so plenty of variety.

Hello ! Good to hear about everyone’s musical summers! I’m taking my older 2 children DD (flautist) and DS1 (French horn player) to the NYO prom tomorrow, DD requested to go and is excited about the concert, DS is excited about staying in a hotel with an all you can eat breakfast 😁 anyone else going?

No but we went to see the same concert at Snape proms last night and it was amazing - even dd admitted that the music was good - this sort of thing isn't usually her cup of tea
Enjoy

Oh my goodness I just found an old thread from April 2015. Talking about my 11 yr old not taking an exam for a year but moaning about the cost of buying G8 violin individual music (but where’s the collective book and CDs?)

On the surface it looks like time’s stopped still. In reality I think I’ve chilled a little about grades

Hello waffle! 7 years has certainly flown by. I'm not around much any more, but do have a flick through the thread occasionally - lovely to hear of all DC's enjoying music and having such lovely opportunities when arts subjects are in general getting pushed out by many schools.
DD, now 14, is busy practising for a recital in a couple of weeks and is really excited about joining a JD in Sept - she has joint first studies, but not sure how long that will be sustainable.
I reminded her today of the target she set herself in her end of term scholar assessment which she has conveniently forgotten about for the last few weeks (grade 8 piano). She has always been a very very reluctant pianist (very much a third instrument) so having got over my shock that she had suggested this was an aim of hers, I was stunned when she went off and found the syllabus online, printed out the Kuhlau and Chopin and promptly sightread bits of each not at all badly!! Seems the school piano teacher might actually be quite good - and I am now annoyed that she has just taken the attitude that 'it will be fine, I'll do it in a year or so' rather than it actually giving her something to really concentrate on.
Here's to another 7 years everyone

Ah, a new thread to try to keep up with - thank you Waffle, although I'm already late!

DS has recently secured his Trumpet Grade 8 Distinction and has just got back from the National Children's Brass Band course at Repton. He plays piano and sings (deeply at the moment!) We are now busy preparing for his start at specialist music school and London JD in September.

Once again we're 3 days into the month and I am just catching up.

DD1 (15) is currently in the middle of a two week trip away with her friend and her family, having done both a school orchestra tour and county orchestra tour. We've seen her for less than a week so far this summer. She plays oboe (working towards Grade 8) and alto sax (working towards Grade 7) and dabbles a little with piano.

DD2 (11) is Grade 7+ on bassoon and will be doing NCO again this summer. She's currently driving me mad with her attitude and her constant attempts to negotiate practice time down. Just trying to limp through to NCO so that all the purple patches are fully secure and then she can have the last 10 days or so with no practice. She also plays classical guitar (working towards Grade 3) and will be starting piano when she begins secondary school in September.

DH is completely non-musical while I did Grade 6 piano back in the mists of time when a teenager. It annoys DD2 that I can read music and have a reasonable ear so that I can pick her up on things, although I'm not so good on the tenor clef!

Thanks Taggie, I'm going to have a look on facebook for the training orchestra. I'll show DD also

DD (16) sings in a cathedral choir and national youth training choir and is in southwest music school. She's working towards a singing diploma and is hoping to become a professional singer (early days).
I'm wondering what people on this thread think about post-Brexit music careers. Doesn't look good. Is this affecting how you're advising your children?
See this for example: www.howardgoodall.co.uk/articles-press-etc/brexit-and-music-theme-and-variations

Really interesting read . Ds is still young so may well change his mind about music as a career . But if he doesn't we'll support him regardless ( and support him to make sensible decisions) . He's well aware (as much as he can be at 13) of how hard it really could be - AYM are very hot on this . But with everything looking so uncertain ( Brexit or no brexit ) I'm inclined to support him at least having a go at something that makes him so happy . It's a very different world to the one that I entered as a graduate 20 plus years ago

DS is 18 so those decisions are even closer here. I'm pretty sure no parent advises their child to take a musical path, what you want them to have is a nice stable job with a good career progression, ideally where they are going to flourish and earn pots of dosh. If they have the burning passion for it then there is nothing you can say that will change their minds in any way. All you can do is accept that this is the thing that they want to do and suppress your worry that they will be living in a cardboard box at thirty.

I have been suggesting alternate sensible career paths since DS was 11, it has been a total waste of effort because he wants to do what he wants to do. He's a bright lad and there are many other things he could do and they will all still be there when he graduates if he decides then that music is not for him.

Pretty stark... . With DD1 travelling in Europe with such ease this summer, I wonder, too, about the impact there might be on school and county music tours.

Knitting I think I could be writing the same thing about my Ds in a few years . That sums him up completely.
Double I was thinking the same thing - also about our holidays !!

Trumpet family holidays you would persevere with, although you would need to plan ahead - no more last minute breaks. How easy would it be to organise for 100 or so members of a youth orchestra?

You're right it totally won't be and that will be such a shame .
Ds's other career choices to date are philosopher or archaeologist !! So musician seems quite a tangible career choice at the moment

I would love Goo to be a musician! But I think she is going to end up in the courtroom.

Hopefully the right side of the law Waffle!

Oh, yes. And making sure that everyone else obeys the law too!

I have been encouraging DD to think about other career paths. But I'm now thinking, with Brexit, that 1) she should maybe enjoy higher education doing what she loves, 2) professional music could be a route to emigration. This may be misguided though. What do others think?

Dissuading someone to drop music because of Brexit would be pleasing those out there who despise the Arts, see it as a redundant industry and think it's more important to have their national pride back regardless of how many jobs are lost on the way. So keep playing everyone, like those string players on board of the Titanic. Don't let them feel they've won and silenced our children's instruments...

I am rather optimistically thinking and hoping that Brexit won't actually happen.

Me too waffle

I'm with you on that Waffle. Brexit is a terrible, costly, unworkable mistake. I also think that anyone who wants to study music, art, drama, creative writing or anything else should go ahead and do it. I went to uni in the dark days of the late 80s and remember hearing a load of rubbish about how arts and humanities were a waste of time. Completely false as it turned out.
I remember a girl at school whose parents made her apply for law instead of music - she appeared to go along with it and switched to music as soon as she got there. Not sure how long it took for her parents to find out!
I know DS1 sees music as his extracurricular as he's got his sights on psychology at the moment. DS2 hasn't ruled out a music degree, though. Funnily enough, the rest of us can see him as a lawyer!