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....

He also had such poor fine motor skills when he first started school that he practised his spellings using a large paintbrush on long rolls of plain wallpaper ... makes me smile when I see his dexterity on a clarinet these days, but also makes me glad that he didn't encounter music too early, so that his physical development matched what he wanted his fingers to do musically.

cant, I wonder if it's the same academy... Where DS was organised special weekly courses for goalies on top of normal training sessions if my memory is correct. DS wasn't a goalie.

I've read it through now and am even sadder. Three years of my live brought back in a thread! I've relived DD bringing back the bari from school for the first time (and it was the end of an era handingit back in July this year), and 5 Grade 5 exams!

Also, I seemed to be more articulate in those days!

I remember all the Grade 5 exams - both yours and then ours a few years later! And we are likely to have another three Grade 5s next year - cello, clarinet and piano!

raspberry I’ll look out for you on Sunday too! DD is playing piccolo.. a bit out of her comfort zone but she’s looking forward to it. I’ll try and remember to post what I’m wearing on the morning!

Wow waffle, mini-mini-goo :) What amazing momentum she has had to get from there to here, albeit temporary doubts. Makes me wonder where we'll all be in 7 more years.

I think school ensembles being something you help out rather than get challenged by is quite a common experience for half-serious musicians unless at a very special school. Is there any possibility of you or school organising a higher level small chamber group? Could you get her in on anything at your own school or music making? I've played with some amazing young people recently who've been coopted by parents or teachers when my adult groups were missing someone or needed an extra.

I'm getting a little nervous about piano teacher's focus on exams. Been thinking about it as both have come home with lots of next grade scales at the start of term. Last year wasn't too bad for DD who picked up the exam stuff for 8 weeks then dropped it again, but DS was stuck on them for over 6 months which I don't like at all. I have a suspicion now I think about it that almost all her pupils I've heard in festival/concerts have been playing exam pieces. At the moment I think DS is definitely with me on no more exams but there's a risk he'll get competitive if he sees friends or DD doing them. So also worried if I negotiate no exams with teacher DS will then undermine me or be grumpy. Then he was horribly grumpy about exam practice and festival practice anyway (but then best thing in the world when he got good results, eyeroll). Hopefully I'm borrowing trouble and they're just scales for learning!

Changing a teacher is not an option? The teacher you described remind me the teacher of my friend's son. She spent quite a lot of time consolidating foundation until grade 1 (so everyone took a long time before being allowed to take grade 1) but once grade 1 was done, grade after grade was her style. My friend liked how my DS was developing with a different teacher who wasn't grade focused so after two rushing grade exams she asked the teacher no exam any more. The teacher didn't like it at first but eventually agreed and started using Burgmuller Opus 100 in Y4. When her son was in Year 6, and he had been still using Burgmuller, my friends asked the teacher if he could take an exam before leaving primary school. She expected he had reached a couple of grades higher since the last time he took the exam as 2-3 years had passed. But the teacher was freaked out by the idea, and told her he wasn't ready for any exam as he stopped working on exam syllabus ('he's out of the system'). The teacher probably didn't know how to teach without grade or just didn't bother working hard because no exam? The boy (Y7 now) is still with the teacher, and still prodding along the same book - Burgmuller. I really don't know where this boy's piano learning is heading for. I think my friend should have changed his teacher when the teacher was reluctant to teach outside of exam syllabus. He is a bright boy and I am sure he would have achieved a lot more under right teaching. It seemed the choices were either getting on an exam treadmill or prodding along limited repertoires over many years when you have this kind of teacher...

Gosh Patrick, all due respect to Burgmuller but that sounds dreary. I don't think anything like that's in prospect, but we will have to keep a close eye. Teacher has some very big advantages in other ways (musically and logistically) so I'm really hoping either I've read the exam thing wrong or she's got alternative routes too.

my DS was once quite a serious footballer before he got bitten by a music bug. It's so interesting how children can change so much in a totally unexpected direction, isn't it?

My DS didn't show the slightest interest in listening to or playing music until he was 14, and until he was 15 he had never played a piece of classical music or read a piece of sheet music. Previously he was into riding BMX bikes and programming, now he spends 2+ hours a day playing the piano and also plays guitar, although less than he used to.

We finally have a slot for lessons, he will do 1 hour a week with my piano teacher and he is also doing a jazz guitar class and a rock guitar workshop. He chooses his own piano pieces - fortunately teacher is flexible! - this week he's started on a very pretty Chopin waltz this week (the popular B minor one that was set for grade 8 recently). It is a bit easier than the other pieces he was interested (which were ridiculously ambitious) so I think his teacher will approve .

Waffle, glad to see you back and hope everyone is on the mend after illnesses. Goo is at a difficult age but - it passes. My dd was also ridiculously reluctant to play in public at that age. Goo will change a lot in the next 2-3 years and you just have to hold on tight until it's over.

Patricks, wow how do teachers like that stay in business?! It's just kind of incompetent not to be able to come up with repertoire outside the exam syllabus.

I know it's quite shocking. I thought they were doing fine once the boy stopped chasing grade. I knew he ALWAYS played Brugmuller for every performing opportunity but didn't realise that's only what he'd been doing until quite recently. I suggested he could try school lesson from y7 as he's moving to a very academic school with a wonderful music dept. But my friend decided to stay with her for a couple of reasons (my friend knows the teacher is so uninspiring). More shockingly the teacher was educated in music specialist school and conservatoire and pro pianist/composer who often travels abroad for performance and recording. During her absence she provides other teachers. My friends said those teachers sent to her were all impressive musicians but teaching wasn't that good nor constructive. One teacher kept showing how to play and seemed enjoying playing and the boy ended up touching piano a lot less. Perhaps their main income is not teaching and they don't put much interest/effort in pupils progress? I have no clue what's going on in their brain...

Patrick, you make an interesting point about musicians who have trained as performers not necessarily making good teachers.
The old adage," those who can, do" just isn't true, IMO. I had a piano teacher at JD who was just making her name as a concert pianist. She was a poor, disinterested teacher. In contrast, I had a teacher as an undergrad who was less of a virtuoso performer but a fantastic teacher and educator.
The thing I've found about teaching is that you learn so much more about playing from your students than you ever did from your own teachers.

Catkind, I go through scales with all students most lessons, regardless of whether they are working towards an exam. They are such a staple for technique, and also useful warm ups.
One of the most 😶 things I ever heard, as a teacher and musician, was a piano student that had just taken grade 8 and was hoping to audition for music college, say that he was relieved he'd never have to practise scales again!
Even as a post graduate, I had to take a yearly scale exam, and we had whole classes on scales alone.

Out of interest, do you remember which scale (or study?) books you used after g8, Floot?

Re talking about good educator vs good performer, Galamian is popped in my head.

So interesting patrick. My teacher was a famous children's violin teacher and also a marvellous player in her youth. She was a pupil of Carl Flesch. Even when she was in her 80s, her playing was spellbinding (if not technically perfect anymore)

She certainly could have had a performing career. However, she told me that often when she listened to music as a student, rather than thinking 'how would I play that?', she would think 'how would I teach that?'. Although a prodigious talent as a player, her true vocation was to teach, and she felt that from when she was a teenager.

Patrick, I took piano as ( a very poor) second study, only taking grade 8 when I was 19 and in my 2nd year at music college. I can't remember what study books I had, other than Hanon, but I'll have a look through my music library and see - my teacher then was a stickler for tchnique, so I must have had some.

Incidentally, she was a terrific teacher. I reckon she could get a table to play the violin (with a straight bow! All the way to the heel! Near the bridge!). How I wish I could take mini-Taggie to her for lessons.

Studies seem less of a thing on the piano that violin/flute floot. Post grade 8, I did Hanon and scales and lots and lots of Bach!

Taggie, that sounds about right! All those lovely 2- and 3- part inventions!

Oh I see. Interesting you said studies are less on the piano than violin/piano. I know there are massive amount of studies for violin, but I didn't know flute is also like that. I wonder what kind of studies serious flutists have to do (mainly blowing technique??).

What kind of studies people usually do after g8 violin? A lot of scale schemes seem to be available.

Flute studies cover all sorts of technical aspects - so tone, finger dexterity, articulation ( single/double/triple tonguing), vibrato, intonation etc.

Patrick - Don’t know about the flute, but on the violin:

www.violinmasterclass.com/en/graded-repertoire/violin-methods-and-etudes

Grade 8 is about level 5. Mini-Patrick has all of this ahead of him...

You can tell how ignorant I am! So fascinating. Thanks, Floot.

Taggie, how exciting! Interesting no Mazas nor Hrimaly are listed.

floot are there any flute study/technical exercise books that you would recommend for grade 8 plus? We don’t have any at all currently, we’ve just done the ones from the ABRSM syllabus with each exam