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.

I suspect dd2 and the doublebass was a combination of niche and contraryness as well as some sort of genuine desire/attraction. Regardless of the motivation its going very well.

Oh, yes to ideas for music themed presents! I have a 17 year old guitar player who is impossible to buy for, a 14 year old whose whole life is music and therefore we have bought all the usual things!, and a 10 year old recorder player. All into folk music.

Hi Everyone,

Cannot believe it is November already!

We have DD1 9, violin and oboe, DS 8, violin (and desperately wanting piano) and DD2 5, recorder. We are going through a bit of a difficult patch with practicing at the moment, so have bought a giant bag of jelly beans to bribe them for today, fingers crossed....

A Christmas present for Dr Who musicians:

www.tostadora.co.uk/web/wibbly-wobbly_timey-wimey/677854?s=H_A27

My daddy makes some rather lovely hand turned pens / pencils..

We got Noo an awesome Kinsman folding conductor stand for her birthday, it's just fantastic! Got it on amazon.

@folkmamma those pens are amazing! I would love to know more as ds2 would love one!

Music stands never get used in my house! We actually have a rainbow coloured folding one that ds3 uses when his recorder teacher comes round, but as folk music is played by ear, the other two don't use them! Obviously, piano music sits on the piano stand.

@Wiifitmama have messaged you x

Beautiful pens folk.

We just have boring music stands in our house. A rainbow-coloured one would be fun!

Waves hello to all the newcomers.

Am sorry you are feeling low disorganised. I know it must feel frustrating as you perceive others to be achieving goals, etc. but your DS is playing so well and at such a young age. Am sure he will get really useful feedback when he goes back to the GS in February.

It's not comparable as my DS is still a beginner on the viola and I am not familiar with strings at all. But I must admit to being mildly surprised at the amount of time in an hour's lesson not actually spent playing the instrument at all . His teacher has also mentioned to us that DS is hyper-mobile. Not something I have picked up myself as I also have super-bendy fingers, that is my 'normal' and I didn't notice that DS's hands were 'different' in any way. But his teacher has suggested finger-splints and spends what seems like a very long time each lesson working on bow-hold, posture, etc. Not being a string player myself I think am a bit naïve/clueless when it comes to that side of things.

Am feeling stressed today. The mega exam week is upon us with DS and DD both sitting theory exams on Tuesday and then on Thursday DS has a piano exam and poor DD has piano and 2 x recorder exams. And I have a busy week at work. AND I have given up alcohol until Christmas so I can't even take solace in that.

Melting.
One day at a time. I'm sure your DCs will be great this week. Deep breaths.xx

www.amazon.co.uk/Konig-Meyer-10010-000-99-1240mm-Adjustable/dp/B0002F6K2U/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=colourful+folding+music+stand&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1541333892&sr=8-6

This is the music stand we have. We dd NOT pay that for it though! I think we got it in a car boot sale!

Knittinganewme I am rather taken with that T-shirt! Excellent idea!
Folkmama ooh, would like details of the pens.
Those music stands are great, but I have to admit we got all of ours from car boot sales!

Dd2 has that music stand too wiifit

Good luck melting DD and DS! That's quite a week.

Loose he has it on a hoodie that he rarely takes off, I've just ordered a t shirt for him for Christmas.

disorganised i feel for you and your ds, 12 is not an easy age (from the mother of 1 12 year old violinist to another). Dd1 has spent a fair bit of time recently on etudes with her teacher with a lot of focus on her whole body, where bits are, where they are heading to, balance, weight, leading following etc. And it really seems to be paying off. Dd1 seems to be responding really well to a more cerebral / mechanical approach to the technical stuff. (If this all sounds overly positive i should point out i have yet to find any technique to get dd2 to do anything other than her own thing!)

Hope you find a good solution for you ds

Knittinganewme the hoodie may be going on my Christmas list!

The other one he has had a lot of wear out of was a different form of this one

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/I-See-A-Little-Silhouetto-Of-A-Man-Mango-Queen-T-shirt-premium-t-shirt-tshirt-/321853185746

He has had random people come up to compliment him when wearing each of these.

Oh that's brilliant, too! Thanks, Knittinganewme!

Disorganised this is something that worked for my DD(14) but with dance not music. It might work for your DS if he is motivated to fix his technique issues.

On her own, she will video her dance routine on her iPhone, watch it back and look for flaws, mostly technique related, work to fix them and repeat. Usually only when coming up to competition or exam..
It works best for her when no one is looking and she takes control herself.

(I will add that unfortunately she wouldn’t dream of putting in such hard work with her music, she has at least 2 ongoing issues that she can’t be bothered to fix...)

On the subject of music in the IB my DCs go to an IB school and one doing IB now and there are several people doing IB music without GCSE including at Higher Level. I think the school requires min grade 5 or equivalent on the instrument but no other requirements although for Higher I think would expect at least an GCSE A in a subject with essay writing skills. It would be obviously be better to have composition experience from GCSE with say LogicPro but can learn it from scratch doing IB. Also universities seem to take HL level music as a proper subject and is perfectly acceptable even applying to Oxbridge for a non-music course.

hertsandessex: thanks - that sounds encouraging.
With the composition: is it all computer/tech-based, or do people still use manuscript paper and pencil? I feel very out of touch with the technology …

I suppose he'll get essay-writing skills from English/Ancient History/RE at GCSE which he's also taking. Good point about that!

For practical, he'll have at least one Grade 8 by then, so that's taken care of.

What do you think in general about the IB? Our other option would be for him to move to a different school in sixth form, to do A levels instead, in which case I suppose I ought also to be thinking about whether he'd be expected to have GSCE music before doing A level.

I think GCSE and A/IB composition is pretty
much all on computer these days (Logic Pro, Sibelius etc). My DS had pen and manuscript out to transpose a flute part for his instrument last week as quicker to do by hand than type into Sibelius but seems to be a rarity and wasn’t for an exam.

IB more generally is great especially the learnings skills, studying topics across subjects, theory of knowledge etc. However, it is a hard work. A lot more work than say 3 a-levels to get to what top universities consider similar level as they tend to focus just on highers (although can manage a bit by picking less demanding combinations). Also so much ongoing coursework need to be very organised.

Muse score is fine for using at home and trying out ideas . You have to do the actual composition at school as controlled coursework. So unless they love composing it’s not necessarily worth spending the money on it . Ds does love his midi keyboard though which also works with muse score and means you can input music much quicker !!