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....

littlelads, your DS seems to be riding well on his adventure wave.

Green, if your DD goes to independent school, I suppose she will do most of her extra-curricular at school and some activities are included in the school fee. If she goes to Tiffin, then you can carry on funding her expensive hobbies. You can re-consider her activity plan once you know where she goes. I am sure there will be a way out!

cat, don't worry about the cost of 'serious hobbies'. DS did football and music pretty seriously and he did many other activities yet our monthly fees has never reached anywhere near Green's. I must add that we live in an affluent area of London. But DS's violin and piano lessons were half an hour weekly and either at school or teacher's home before joining jd (and at jd his lesson was still less than an hour) so that made some difference perhaps.

[flower] [flower] to folk and floot. I have similar attitude to herts. Partly because I'm non-musical as you know, so can't really get into details. But it's also because I like him to learn the consequences and that it's his choice. When you know what they are doing (as you are a musician yourself) it's probably harder to ignore though.

For instrument collectors, there are costs of maintaining though, woodwind and violin value might not go down but piano, brass, almost everything else will be loosing value as the day it goes? Ofcourse, unless cost isnt a problem(I am sorry I am so on budgeting mood these days).

Se22: if we could travel and likely will have loss of income(most teachers only teaches week day) plus loss of precious free time, then £48 to me doesnt come cheap. The thing about coming to teachers: lessons are more well scheduled/structured, choices of smaller lessons and better pool of teachers to choose.
Patrick: colleague of mine lives in Chelsea pays £75/hour for his 7 yrs old son, luckily we dont live there.

Practice: I share your pain, productive practice time means I need to sit near by still, I was hoping this might change once she gets older, apparently that isnt the case.

DS is currently in London, having chosen his T-shirt very carefully, buying his new sax....

(DS does not care about his clothing EXCEPT his T-shirts, which he carefully chooses to match the occasion. Today was 'Saxophone playing giraffe', apt given his bamboo-like physique and the impression that he has legs slightly too long for him to be fully under control of them at any given moment)

For all feline obsessed musicians going on residentials etc these are fabulous cards .

Ps Greenleave our lessons are on Sunday- we are very lucky

Green, but it's not that you have to pay such hefty fee just because you live in Chelsea. You can hunt and settle with your choice. Presumably it's worth for your colleague.

cant, good luck to your DS for his sax hunting. So exciting.

Romany . Do they use all the same clef? BTW, I remember you mentioned your DD used to play violin. Presumably it was more to do with time issue rather than she hated and wanted to stop. Does she miss playing violin? Do you miss her playing violin?

Nosebleed Boy has a new saxophone . And is on a somewhat broken train slowly edging its way out of Paddington, apparently... At least if they get stranded he can entertain everyone with a spot of busking!

On average, music - so far - has been a LOT cheaper than dancing: 45 minute lesson for less than £25, a whole year of county music groups for £150, all instruments, except the ones he owns, free through the music service.

Upgrades to clarinet - secondhand, wonderful - and now saxophone - new, shiny - have been the big 'one off' expenses, and if he does get into junior conservatoire after tuesday's audition, life will get ... a little more exciting financially.

DD dances. Termly fees (though for 10+ hours a week of tuition, so it probably works out OK per hour), competition entries, costume hire / material and patterns to make costumes, pointe shoes, tap shoes, soft shoes, leotards, tights, exam entries (3 genres so 3 lots of exams) .... definitely our expensive child, DD.

However, she is soon to finish exams - only 2 more Advanced Vocational exams to go, one in Modern, one in Ballet - and has stopped growing out of shoes & costumes, so I think DS will overtake her soon.

Thanks all. @Floottoot I feel for you too. Must be even harder knowing DS's school place depends on it!!

I secretly recorded last practice session (audio only) and have shared it with DH and DD2 teacher. DH has a tendency to make out it's as much my problem as hers as I don't have much patience. But even he had to admit today that it wasn't that black and white. He had a big long talk with her and as I suspected, much of her behaviour is about controlling me, and trying to monopolise my time to keep me away from DD1. She is so incredibly insecure and jealous! Because I spend 'so much time' with DD1 she doesn't think it's fair, so the stalling tactics are about keeping me (and the room) out of bounds for DD1. And as they say, to a child, any attention is good attention. She does want to keep playing the cello though, so they talked a lot about perseverance, self discipline and patience. We are on a 2 week trial and if things don't improve, then for all our sakes we will be stopping cello. The difficult thing is that her interpretation if we stop will be that I don't want to spend time with her....

I think you are all very brave working out the cost of all the music lessons - I much prefer the 'head in the sand' approach!

I also apply this to the purchasing of music, and definitely to the supply of reeds!!!!

Alexandra my cousin went to one of the OHMI concerts a couple of days ago - he said it was fantastic and sent me a link to one of the players he saw Felix Kleiser Amazing - well worth a watch.

alexandra. How fascinating! And humbling. It reminds me of this guy: prestigeonline.com/sg/people/-/meet-adrian-anantawan-canadas-one-armed-violinist/

folk sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations . I would be inclined to leave her to work through a basic 5 minute routine (prescribed by the teacher) on her own, and make up the half hour doing something totally different and fun one to one. Maybe a card game or snuggle in front of a favourite tv programme. As she settles to that you can gradually increase the time on the cello.

floot sorry to hear you are having troubles too. Your DS is older, so could practice on his own? My 13yo DS1 now practices on his own. His progress is probably slower, but he is at least still playing (grade 7 piano). Your DS may also be tired and stressed from the beginning of term? Hopefully things will gradually improve

The fact that you get her into the practice room no problem suggests that her intentions are good, but that she is sabotaging herself. Maybe it is to do with Noo, maybe fear of failure, maybe frustration.

Sorry - that got scrambled (on my phone). Last para is for folk

@TaggieOHara you are totally right about sabotaging herself. It's an unfortunate trait of hers. I do like the idea of giving her half an hour and saying if we get a short but good practice done, I'm all hers for the rest of it. Great idea x

Ah we have had a lovely day violin shopping. It's a first for us and so much fun...DD was in her element so many beautiful violins to play. I now know what a quality 1/2 size sounds like.

I think practice will be much easier for awhile.

Wow Alexandra eye harp! Sounds like an amazing conference.

I'm hoping it's just almost-teenager hormones, but honestly, it is nearly killing me. He won the school music prize at the end of last term, got into the county youth orchestra, has just been asked by the HoM at school to join a string trio, has a fantastic teacher who thinks he's great, and has BAGS of potential...but he just doesn't love it or even appear to enjoy it ( he enjoys playing in orchestras and groups, just not lessons and practising).

Would it be a problem if he just continued to play in orchestras and groups and didn't practice seriously? Up to a point, playing in groups is enough to progress, or at least stand still, and that might be enough to keep his school place? I think that fighting with a pre-adolescent over music practice is a bit like fighting with a toddler over food - you might win the battle but you will never win the war.

I have kind of the opposite problem as we have to negotiate with DS about not playing piano at certain times of day (eg after dinner). He uses music as a way of abating anxiety as well as just because he enjoys it, so he plays quite a lot.

I have kind of missed the boat this year as I should have signed him up to the local conservatoire while there is still time for him to get his French equivalent of grade 8 before leaving school. His playing has come on in leaps and bounds over the last month and I am starting to think that out of my two children it will end up being the "non-musical" one who actually does something with music! (He had never touched an instrument until last summer).

DS is back with the saxophone of his dreams (well, no, the saxophone in our price range of his dreams!)

He is in his bedroom, improvising happily. It's an Eastman, not a well-known make but the one he loved best on our expedition just over a week ago and still preferred when playing it against the rest of his shortlist (and a joker in the form of a much-reduced usually more expensive one) today.

Replaces his much-loved Yamaha YAS280, which as a student sax got him through Grade 8 jazz and always sounds fab.

well, no, the saxophone in our price range of his dreams!
Ha ha, the same here. I keep saying it's DS's dream violin. But precisely speaking, it's the violin in our price range of his dream. Sounds like there are at least two happy DCs with a shiny new instrument, owlm and can't.

Re practise alone, my 11 years old practises on his own. We don't have a practice room so he does it in the living room usually (when he wants privacy he goes to his room - he has piano in his bedroom too). He likes having audience and often wants to show me what he's worked on. But he doesn't appreciate my input. His progress may be faster if I help him but as a non-musician I have a history of telling him wrong so I learned to be backed off... I used to have to remind him what he was supposed to practise as he tended to be distracted by a slightest thing and easily slipped into his own world. But these days his focus gets better and he has developed his own system that seems to be working (at least making some progress). Well, for now. Things change so much so often that I can't tell how long this honeymoon period lasts! It 's not so long time ago that I was worried about him practising totally alone at his new school as my presence in his practice session seemed to help keep him focused.

Alex, thanks for the feedback, never heard of it, will have to google it, it sounds mind blowing.
Cant: you are right, dance is also very expensive. I used to have an Art private teacher when she was little and paid £50/hr too and really its more like crafts making so we stopped. To be fair she fail in love with drawing since(I now only have to budget for books and canvas/brush/oil etc).
Patrick: its true, unfortunately, great and reliable teachers usually dont come cheap.:(
Se22: its great that your DD has Sunday :).
Harp: I usually roughly know how much but dont come to every penny(this time I did even put in the monthy couple of magazine costs, piano tuning, exam costs). We didnt get a JD place which I love and was hoping for, we didnt get in, we will try again the year after next(when she is in yr7, hopefully). For now, I am hoping to rush through the grades(meaning knowing the very basic) then she can be on Orchestras and easy on school lessons. She can then choose to just juggling along for fun or being a little more serious.
Mistigri: I didnt know your son plays, I only remember your daughter plays piano and sang beautifully.

Sometimes I like to ask fun questions just to entertain myself. Here is another one. Who is the best violinist playing Bach for you? I heard Hilary Hahn is good to play Bach. Do you agree? DS seems to listen to lots of David Oistrakh recently.

Kennedy playing Bach- pure bliss