November Music Thread

[Wafflenose]

Welcome to all musicians/ parents of musicians, young and 'mature', beginners and advanced, plus everything in between. This is one of the nicest corners of Mumsnet and the music threads were started for my older daughter towards the beginning of her musical journey, 7 years ago. Everybody on the thread was a beginner once!

I have recently seen "we're not a musical family", "I'm not musical" on here quite a lot, and would like to gently challenge that... perhaps you may not have found the right instrument/ teacher yet, or have no desire to play, but I think that everyone is musical. It's not a special something that is limited to certain individuals, although of course everyone's aptitude and natural ceiling varies. I have had the pleasure of teaching almost 1000 people to read and play music now, ranging in age from 3 to 96 and incorporating a range of additional needs, and I think they all got something positive from their lessons! What our young musicians most need from us - whether we play ourselves or not - is lots of encouragement, time and space to practise, and of course the constant taxi service and financial support we give to their lessons and ensembles!

I have two DDs, Goo The Energy Conserver (flute and piano, lapsed recorder and picc player) who is pretty lazy and complacent at the moment and just wants to enjoy her life, and Rara The Awkward (clarinet, cello, recorder) who tries hard... when it suits her! We have nothing special lined up this term, but possibly piano and clarinet exams for next term. Goo claims she wants to dust off her recorders and theory books to get another couple of Grade 8s before she leaves school. I'll believe that when it happens.

Over to you.

Well, results in from Nosebleed Boy's first audition - reserve offer, so basically a waiting list. Reflects the view that he's a marginal candidate - and that the playing went well but the interview badly - and a whole load better than a straight rejection -

Absolute first choice institution audition this Friday. NB uncharacteristically nervous.

Well done nosebleed boy! Much better than a rejection and great that he got good feedback on his playing. His interview will probably be better next time, now that he has the experience of a university interview.

A reserve offer is better than no offer. DS has this week and next week with no tuition (although the ensembles continue) because of it being audition week. When he saw it on the diary he was a bit concerned that it was him that should be auditioning for something but I did think that it was so to free up staff for auditions for 2019 students.

The second one will be easier for him because it will be altogether more familiar.

Crazy - we didn’t get in with tge C clarinet as others have done but the Eb got her through grade 1, made the transition to Bb before grade 2 but had to wait to take it until she got used to the size! She’s still diddy now and still wears a sling with her wooden clarinet most if the time, especially for long practices and orchestra etc.

Fingers crossed for Nosebleedboy on Friday!

Good news on the reserve offer nosebleed boy and good luck for Friday

I'm going to drop a link in here for those with older children who may be thinking about conservatoire applications in future years

www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/ucas-conservatoires-releases/ucas-conservatoires-end-cycle-2017-data-resources

If you scoot down the list to the last section "instruments" you can see how many offers and how many acceptances were made in each category - it's not split by institution but gives you an idea of how many applicants were chasing how many places. The numbers are rounded to the nearest five which may be significant for those with minority instruments. Depending on the instrument the competition may be smaller than you think.

Was the audition (nosebleedboy) for conservatoire? I am interested what the difference is between that and doing music at Uni? I checked the link just posted and ds2's unusual instrument is listed, but with 0's all the way across - no applications. Which of course does not surprise me but I have no idea how to interpret that!

Zero could be less than five, all the numbers are multiples of five so that is what they round to.

Really interesting @knittinganewme. Being non musical I’ve not really got much understanding of conservatoires, so like @Wiifitmama I’m also interested in the differences/advantages
Well done Nosebleed boy sounds promising and good luck for the next one

Very well done for NBL and fingers crossed for Friday!

Sorry that was supposed to be NBB! 🤧

Thank you knittinganewme - really interesting data that I hadn't seen before. A reminder how tough to get in (1 in 7 or so for top conservatoires) and how few places in certain instruments. 30 for percussion across all conservatoires surprised me especially given how many will be from overseas.

Thank you for the interesting link knitting - we are a few years away from this but the 1 in 7 stat pointed out by herts should help to keep ds focused.

It's worth noting that The Guildhall School has a bespoke application procedure outside UCAS and so it's numbers don't feature in the stats. Don't know if there are others?

Well done to NBB and good luck for the big one.

Just wanted to says congrats and very best of luck for Friday for Nosebleed Boy! I'm sure he'll do well.
It turns out DS2 has been playing a grade 7 cello piece these past weeks rather than a grade 6 as intended! It looks like he's going to skip grade 6 and work on G7 instead but I have pointed out there is no skipping G5 theory! I think someone could be spending his Christmas on practise papers...

Druidsong - maybe I am reading it wrong or got the wrong table but in in the acceptances table for 2017 I see 25 for jazz drums, 5 for jazz percussion (maybe the vibes players?), 10 for non-jazz drums and 30 for orchestral percussion/timpani. For applications looks like 95 for jazz drums, 20 for jazz percussion, 55 for drums and 115 for orch perc/timps.

Fair point on Guildhall which would bump up the numbers especially for jazz. Not sure if anywhere else major is missing.

I went to university, and remember that they accepted 1 in 9 of applicants for my course at my 1st choice university.

I haven't had much to add lately, except that Goo has had a bit of a disaster so is at a musical crossroads... take it seriously or stop lessons and just tootle around at school in her 7 ensembles. She seems to be veering towards the latter. Not much we can do. One thing is definite... she will be leaving her Centre of Advanced Training soon.

That sounds hard waffle. Is this still a fallout from last year's NCO audition or has anything else happened? Maybe she just needs to have a break but keep the door open should she want to return?

Yes it is, and yes something else happened. I think if she stops lessons and practising, that will be it... she has been in her room drawing for about 8 hours straight today. That seems to be her big interest at the moment.

Delurking to ask advice from people what know about clarinets....

One of my DCs would like to play clarinet but is still small and still has all her baby teeth. We are in no rush; they do Kodaly and might start the piano. Anyway, how does one approach the clarinet when you are small? I take it we have to wait until top teeth are through? Do most people start on the E-flat before moving up to the Bflat? And is a B flat clarinet the normal one you see in an orchestra?

In the meantime I am hoping the music centre where she does Kodaly will start a recorder group, as that seems a good way to get started on wind instruments without waiting for teeth. Thanks in advance:)

Hi, I am a clarinet teacher. Bb is the usual one, yes. Crazy's DD started at 5 or 6 with all her baby teeth. Hopefully she will be along later. It can be done, but is hard when they are at the no teeth stage. Recorder is a fab idea (I teach that too) and teeth don't matter for that. I know of 3 DCs including 2 on here who started on Ebs. It's definitely unorthodox, because they are so much more difficult to to play, especially perfectly in tune. For 5-6 year olds, I recommend the Lyon's C (no longer manufactured as they have been superseded by the Clarineo, which I don't like) and it weighs about 200 g. I have one, and they sometimes come up on eBay. Most 7 year olds can manage a standard C clarinet and I teach a 7 year old who's bigger than my own 10 year old - he plays a Bb.