September 2018 Music Thread

[folkmamma]

Hi all! Our lovely host Waffle is away at the moment and has asked me to start this months thread.

Here is a place for us to share stories, ask for advice, and generally support one another through our DCs (and in some cases our own!) musical journeys. All are very welcome, from the early beginners to the very advanced. Some people have been regular contributors for years, but we also have a lot of newcomers and love welcoming new contributors to the MN Music Thread team. I became aware of this group about 9 months ago via the NCO 2018 thread and I now spend more time here than on Facebook... .

Over here, I have Noo, just turned 11, violinist, violist and pianist. She is playing at aroud G7 standard on violin (first study) and is starting JD this month, eek!. Noo is also an associate member of NCO and this year joined the Pro Corda ensemble training programme, which she loves above all else! She is also very into musical theatre and regularly performs in professional and semi-professional shows - it is a challenge to juggle it all, but somehow we do. This month is a biggie for Noo as she starts secondary school as well as JD.

DD2 is Moll. 8yrs old and plays cello and piano. She is a very different kettle of fish to big sister - every bit as able, but some self esteem issues, together with a slightly quirky personality, mean her journey is not often quite so smooth (and mine completely turbulent!). Working towards G3 cello this term (although she doesn’t know it yet) and will go for a consultation at Noo’s JD sometime this term also.

I’m sure Waffle will drop in to update us on Goo, Rara and her own musical self once she gets back from holibobs.

Good luck to everyone with back to school, changes in school, new routines and audition prep! I predict September will be a busy month on the thread!

Over to you....

Ok no excuses in your particular case Floot - parents (and perhaps child) just got completely the wrong approach.

PS We have pile the books of standard repertoire that my DCs will come back to in year to come. Maybe one day or if not will help fund my retirement selling them off :)

It's funny, isn't it? Well happily buy our children books that might be read once or twice before being passed on to others, but have a different attitude to buying music. I wonder why?
But yes, I think there's a good market for pre-loved music, so hang on to it!

We do actually spend a small fortune buying sheet music but at time also cut costs (download for free, copies from teachers, other students etc.) So over the summer my son went for a private lesson with a very famous professional/composer on his instrument. I wasn't there or involved in his preparations but he showed up at her lesson with originals of several pieces but photocopies of her music! She wasn't impressed and ending up having to buy a book of her music and CD on the spot for maybe £50. Doh!

Ouch! Oh, dear!

Floot, thinking of you and your family.

Interesting to hear others doing tidy-up. I've just tackled two of DS's bookshelves in the living room. I found loads of match attax, yo yo cards, hama, loom twister, sticker books, origami, strange papers, various designs of rubbers, 11+ books, diary (!?) etc etc. Just managed to tidy them up, ready to receive all his new text books and stationery. Feel so good!

I still have to tackle many other areas (need to sort out his dated books/magazines/toys/putting away primary school stuff...). In fact DS was supposed to do this before starting school but he went through his room and couldn't pick a thing to put in a bin or a giving away bag saying he would keep them all FOREVER. So I must do it while he is not here...

Luckily his music doesn't need any tidy-up as his collection is not large at all yet. Everything fit in a tiny corner next to the piano.

Floot ugh, who'd be a music teacher with parents like that around. My Japanese friend who teaches in London complains about the parent driven exam treadmill.

I need to organise a slot for DS's piano lessons, or at least see if my piano teacher has a time slot available for him, now that we have his school timetable. He has been working pretty hard the last week or so and he needs a teacher to check that he is not "ironing in" any serious errors. As ridiculous as seems, given that he's a recent beginner and I have quite a few years of piano plus long-ago ABRSM grades, I can't really help him at all. He has very strong ideas about what he wants to play (romantic and impressionist music: he wants to tackle something from Ravel's Miroirs next) whereas I am more comfortable with classical repertoire.

I've never been able to understand this attitude of grade after grade.
I suppose if you are going for a scholarship and the school asks for a certain grade it's sort of understandable, but apart from this it isn't necessary.
Some of the best schools in the world only look for a grade 5 standard, you don't even need to have taken the exam neither.
I also don't see how playing 27 pieces throughout your childhood is enough to be a consolidated grade 8 player

Quite - and in many countries people don't even takes the equivalent of our grades at all. Also the specialist music schools don't care about grades either particularly - for audition or once in - accept it seems to tick off having done grade 8. Certainly in the private primary school my children went to there was a big element of parental competition which rubbed off on many of the children.

Floot, that sounds like a pupil/parent whose departure will lower the blood pressure. I think you've been very patient keeping them on this long. Good luck to your sister.

I like accumulating sheet music. For me and children. Anything the kids don't learn at the time can be pressed into service later for sight reading. Mine is kept in those 6 bottle wine boxes cut away on the diagonal to make makeshift magazine boxes but a bit bigger.

catkind

What a brilliant idea, I must buy 6 bottles and then I can store the music

Also, if you buy the out of date syllabus which is pence usually, the level isn't going to have changed and they make great sight reading material.
We never bought scale or sight reading books, there really is no need.

My understanding is that those who are mildly serious about music tend to chase grades because that's an useful tool for them to know or handy proof to show where they (or their DCs) are. Those who are lots more serious about music have a totally different level of expectation and ambition so certificates of a couple of grades aren't any use. Personally I think there is nothing wrong with using exams/grades to see where you are or use them as a motivation (we all do it to some degree, not just in music but in many other areas), as long as you don't get unhealthily too obsessed with it. Sadly the mother of Floot's student has unhealthy attitude with such narrow mind that'll be quite damaging to her precious daughter's relationship with music. What's a shame.

cat, the wine boxes storage sounds fab. I imagine they look pretty cool in your room.

We have a small bookshelf next to the piano. I usually buy the Henle collections. I don't mind spending money on sheet music! It all seems to get used eventually.

That reminds me I need to order some new music for this year :)

Ooh Mistigri, would you like to share what you are thinking to get? Love to hear which pieces others are planning to work this term or year!

Meant to say that a particularly lovely aspect of yesterday for DS (apart from one of the people taking the audition saying that he would like a go on DS's new sax some time) was that he had an impromptu meet-up with graduates from his county jazz group, now at conservatoire doing the BMus

The nearest to DS in age, who he played with a couple of years ago, saw him in the warm up room quite by accident. Then not only did he return with some conservatoire friends to chat to DS at length later, but an older county member who had never even played with DS wandered by too to say 'Hi'. A sort of 'one of ours is in the building, let's go and say hello' moment - very in keeping with the 'these are my people' posts of a couple of pages back.

My dh is a leader in his field, it's very narrow , for him not learning to accompany students on piano, and taking ABRSM exams/ university kept him from a lifetime of teaching, which he didn't want, but would have been stuck doing had he gone down that path. Nothing wrong with teaching, but not a good choice if you want to be a player.
He has a grade 6 Clarinet, not even his first study at college
it was enough to get to music college where he won the memorial prize for his instrument/ jazz award and gained a graduate Diploma.

This grades debate has prompted me to share a story from Noo at school this week. She had her long awaited inaugural class music lesson yesterday. The teacher did a 'hands up if you play an instrument' session, followed by 'and what grades have you done?'. Noo being Noo (ie completely literal) proudly announced she's done grades 2 and 3 on violin. And then didn't expand. Thankfully head of Music knows her capabilities but I think her class teacher might be a little surprised to see her sat on 3rd desk in the senior orchestra next week!!! Especially since the next youngest child is in yr10....

folk that is funny. DS2 would be the same. At NCO when the other children asked him what grade he was, he said 'grade zero'.

But I suspect quite a few DCs at NCO haven't done any grade so grade zero shouldn't sound out of place.

DS's first violin teacher used to say 'grade doesn't give me any idea of a child's ability, I need to listen to them'.

Def true at the NCO - dd has done hardly any clarinet grades; can’t remember when she last took one and whilst g8 is mentioned vaguely occasionally neither her and her teacher are the least bit interested. The other instrument - well she was def expected to get it done ASAP as were all kids on her string programme.

@PatricksViolin I am buying the big Henle collection of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, plus Brahms 3 intermezzos. These are both for me.

For DS I'm going to get the proper sheet music for Debussy's reverie (which he is halfway though using a free pdf off the internet). Otherwise, we have quite a lot of his piano wish list, including Chopin's fantaisie impromptu and études, and Ravel's miroirs. He also wants to try a Chopin ballade ("they look doable" ) and some Liszt. I'm not ordering those yet lol.

@TaggieOHara I can so imagine him saying that, lol :-)

Wow Mistigri, that sounds so exciting. Do you fight over piano with your DS? Like TV control?

I imagine you have massive collection by having several family members playing several instruments (I remember your DD played guitar quite heavily?). Do you have any tip to keep them organised? Our music book self is far from 'collection' yet. But I'll probably be tackling with lots of music in a few years time. I am a bit OCD so I've got to find the best way to keep them in place so I don't go mad.

Hi all I thought I would join in as my dd has been getting into music recently. She only started last year in year 9 when she got a very good school music teacher who she really likes. At the time we said no to starting piano lessons as we didn't think she would stick at it having never done it before, and the cost of the lessons was hard to find. However dd has been quite determined and taught herself to play her old guitar using online lessons. She really loves it and has decided to do GCSE music, luckily she got the teacher she likes and he has assessed her as being grade 4. I was very impressed with this as she has taught herself it all in the last year which I think is very good. I didn't realise you can do grades in rock guitar but apparently you can so she is going to do that (not sure if she will take an exam or just work through the books) and join in with the school music productions. Her main problems are that she doesn't read music only guitar TAB and she is very shy. However if she can overcome these obstacles I think she will do well in her GCSE and enjoy herself.