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.

Oh that sounds tough waffle
Good luck to NBB for the next audition.

Things are a little fraught here, dd1 joined dd2 in her bass lesson so they could work on some Christmas duets (which went well), unfortunatly the (slightly less than tolerant) 12 year old decided that it was completely unreasonable that the (quirky) 10 year old spent so much of her lesson chatting to her teacher about barely tangentially related stuff and still manages to make decent progress..... i think im just going to have to ride this one out. Ds is at least peaceful and harmonious but i dont think we should prsctise his Christmas duet eith dd1 until she's feeling a bit more harmonious too.....

Oh waffle that’s tough . As long as she’s happy that’s the main thing and keeps playing at school then she’s done so well she’s keeping the door open .

I am sorry Waffle, it must be hard for you knowing what she could do if she wanted. Music will still be there for her later in life, it's not something that is forever denied to you if you give up as a child. She could tootle now and go back to it later, you never know what the future will hold.

I have asked her if she wants art lessons or plans to do Art GCSE... no and no! She can give up music lessons if she likes, but not to sit on her bum in PJs more than she already does. She can take up another activity and help around the house.

Thanks for the clarinet advice Waffle and sorry for blundering in - on reading up now I realise that things are a bit tough. Didn’t mean to be insensitive

Waffle, would she maybe want to pick up a different instrument like sax that she could explore a different style of music with - and keep learning?

Not insensitive at all, and I enjoy it!

Goo hasn't decided to give up or anything. We'll see. A couple of weeks ago she wanted grade 8 recorder, piano and theory to go with the flute! Before Stuff Happened.

Sometimes you just need time ( and a change? ) . Ds wasn’t in a great place a few weeks ago , but a new teacher seems to have rekindled his love of playing. Hope she feels better about it all soon

Was the audition (nosebleedboy) for conservatoire? I am interested what the difference is between that and doing music at Uni?

Nosebleed Boy is applying for jazz performance at conservatoires, yes.

For him, the difference is about performance - ie learning to be a performing jazz musician - rather than studying 'music as a subject'. I think if he had been a classical musician, the two are potentially more closely intertwined, but as a jazz musician he wants to 'do jazz' [and possibly in the future teach it] rather than 'learn about music, especially not about all types of music'. He does do music A-level, but that is as far as he wants to take that side of music.

If he does academic university applications - will be post A-levels - he will in fact not apply to study music at all, but instead follow the [equally unlikely to earn him a living] Modern History / Politics.

cantkeepawayforever - thank you for explaining! That confirmed exactly what I thought but wasn't sure about. One last question - do you get a degree from a conservatoire? Or if not, what qualification is it?

By coincidence, ds2 (my very very musical one) is planning to take History, Politics and Music A levels so sounds very similar! We went to a 6th form open day this morning and visited all three of those departments!

BMus, validated by a university - e.g. Leeds College of Music degrees are validated by the University of Hull.

Those are DS's 3 A2s (his school still does 4ASs followed by 3A2s)

Ds is only in year 9 but has now announced he plans to do music history maths and physics a levels definitely can’t help with the last 2 but I can see that they sort of go together though if you had asked me 6 months ago I would have thought he would go for music history and politics ( or philosophy- philosopher is his second career choice !! Though it might now be something to do with astronomy instead !!)

Obviously actually earning a living is high on ds’s agenda !!

DS on earning a living:

'Well, I'll probably end up teaching something."

He'd be the third generation of teachers in the family, so he's probably right....

I don't know anything about clarinets Jaffa but your name made me lol.

Goo says she is doing Music, History and French GCSEs. She has to do English Lang, English Lit, Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry and RE. She wants to do English Lit, Law, Maths and Music A-levels. At the moment, anyway! I realise it could all change, but she seems to have it worked out.

Sorry to hear that waffle , do you think maybe after a short break or relaxing time for a while she will get back to it? Very difficult situation for you 💐

Cross post! Sorry to hear she is off playing, not sorry about the GCSEs !! 😂

I think a break would be disastrous, so we're doing our best to jolly her along. She doesn't cope well with change, but is going to have to change provider and teacher. She's acting like she'd rather stop than do that, but due to a similar experience recently, I think she will change her mind when the end is in sight.

Sounds like you know what will be best... hopefully things will improve soon. Shame if she has to change teacher if it’s someone you’re both happy with though

waffle, that sounds complicated. Hope she can find a way she's happy with one way or other.

cantkeep, reserve place at this stage is really encouraging, good luck with the next audition.

Teacher comes with her current CAT. Which she needs to leave.

Is there no way she can stay with the teacher anyway waffle ? I think goos CAT is slightly different to ds’s which only advises on teachers so you are free to go to who you want . Both myself and ds were really worried about him changing teacher - but I think it’s turned out to be a really positive thing ( although it caused me a few sleepless nights finding someone !!) hope it all works out

If Goo's teacher is not part of the issue she has experienced at the CAT maybe there could be a private teaching arrangement? Obviously, if the teacher is part of the issue then I could see why you'd be looking elsewhere. Alternatively, if the teacher is the issue then maybe Goo could stay with the centre but with another teacher? You have probably already been through all this as options...