Summer term 2019 music

[thirdfiddle]

A new installment of the long running music parent threads. Everyone is welcome from complete beginners to grade 8 and beyond. Thanks as ever to the lovely waffle for starting the threads up and looking after them for years. What are your plans for the coming term? Any exams, auditions, festivals, new instruments? Please come and chat.

Ginger have you looked at this website: www.musicteachers.co.uk/search

Ds hasn't done any exams (We seem to have missed some of the lower grades), but I understand the worry regarding accompanists.

I would look under accompanists, piano teachers and indeed violin teachers (if they can act as an accompanist might be a better bet for your dd) . I wouldn't use an inexperienced accompanist for an exam. In a different life when I did exams, I found my music teacher was excellent, smoothing over mistakes, catching up if/ or slowing down if I came in wrong.

Stupid question regarding piano exams: Ds has his prep piano test soon. Do they have a practice on the actual piano for the test (and for piano exams in general)? How does that work? Do they have to have two exam rooms?

@gingerbiscuitandacuppatea that's a pain. Bear in mind if you go with another accompanist that it is best to have a rehearsal beforehand and , if unrelated to the usual teacher or school, you may need to pay for this, the exam time and any travel expenses. Are there any other music teachers at the school who could do it? Think dd won't be taking gr8 this summer due to similar issues.

Finding an accompanist for an exam is hard. Second suggestion of getting in touch with local piano teachers - if they aren't free they might have a senior pupil who does it. Good time of year for catching students post exams. I did manage to accompany DS's grade 2 but don't know if I'll get much further before the risk of screwing up becomes too much!

Bear, no you don't normally get to practise on the exam piano, unless it's somewhere your teacher can access on a different day. I think you're allowed to play a little to try it out when you get into the exam room but you may need to ask for that at the time. Mine have just started so far, they don't have so subtle a touch that it would make much difference (done a couple of exams each). Then school piano is so dire if they can play that they can play anything!

Thanks ThirdFiddle. Glad it is just the Prep Test.

I would definitely have at least one or two rehearsals beforehand if it’s for a grade 8, the piano parts are normally pretty tough, and they will expect good interaction between the student and piano... but you will probably need to pay for the time. If you can get a recommendation from someone who has taken a similar level exam and understands what’s involved that would be best. We were lucky that the teacher could do our DDs grade 8 but I’ve paid a separate accompanist for one of my other kids’ exams and they weren’t able to play the part and arrived late! Luckily it was only grade 1 but would have been very annoying for a higher grade.

Bear there is a separate practice room where DS takes exams and he gets about 5 or so mins in there before going into the exam room, but no time on the exam piano beforehand. If your DC end up doing a few exams they'll probably be in the same place each time so they will be familiar with the piano by the time they get to higher grades. Good luck!

Bear an adjudicator one year at our Festival was also an ABRSM examiner. She encouraged everyone to try the piano before their piece, and said they should do the same thing when they go into a room to do their exams

In our exam centre there is a big keyboard with head phones to warm up on in another room ( the hostess or whatever they are called also provides a hot water bottle in winter to keep your hands warm!) You then go through and I think are invited to play a few notes before you start but my children would always start with scales anyway ( you have the choice) so you get a feel for the piano. It's a lovely grand in ours, the only thing is the music stand may be higher than you are used to if you play a clavinova like us. Friends ds was put off by this ( mine didn't bother!) You can get help to adjust the stool height if necessary.

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Anybody know any good free online resources for grade 1 aural? Bit of an emergency teaching somebody who is not prepared properly so need something by tomorrow and no time to order and get delivered.

If they have an apple device, the Abrsm app is really good. We had a similar emergency with DS2’s grade 2 piano aural the day before the exam (big fail on my part!). He had 30minutes with the app and went on to get full marks the next day.

Thanks Taggie - that is probably the best option. My teenage daughter is teaching her tomorrow so scrambling around for resources.

Second the ABRSM aural app. You have to pay but get content up to grade 5.

My second daughter is sharing lessons with her elder sister and although its cost saving and convenient(teachers come to home so no travelling) it feels like the focus is still much on her elder sister so I will need to work with their teachers on that. She is still on string in step book 1 after nearly a year, I am much appreciated if you have a recommendation on the next book please. Many thanks.

Thank you for the help. I've managed to find an accompanist now and she'll do a rehersal before hand. It's expensive though! £50!

Violin is Dd's second instrument, I might persuade her to skip a few violin grades after this one. At least learning piano she doesn't need an accompanist for that!

Now to practise as much as we can at home using YouTube's with accompaniment.

Greenleave... how about having separate lessons? I’m not sure about books, as my dd’s Teacher took bits and pieces out of lots of different books. But I would say if the focus is on your elder daughter, separate them. You could even allow 15 minutes separately and half an hour together?

Glad you found someone ginger.. good luck with the exam prep! 🍀

We had an exhausting end to last week. DD will be applying to music colleges/conservatories this autumn and we went to London for her to have a consultation lesson. It was absolutely brilliant, she got a huge amount out of it.

We then went up to Glasgow by train to have a visit and tour of the Royal Scottish. Stayed overnight, observed a masterclass and then flew back on Saturday afternoon! We both slept most of Sunday.

Interesting times as DD moves towards the next stage.

I lurk on this thread. Been around for a while under various usernames. We've got a busy few weeks - multiple music centre concerts for both dds (one does three ensembles; the other does two) and they'd both got exams coming up too - Grade 1 cello for dd2 and Grade 5 violin for dd1.

Dd1 will be leaving her current teacher and music service soon as she's heading off to a specialist music school in September. She's super excited, but sad all the same. She sees her teacher every week at strings, too, so I predict tears at that point mine, probably

ooh horseymum you sound like you might go to the same centre as us...though maybe there are just lots of lovely ABRSM hosts round the country!

Many thanks, PaddingtonPaddington!

Truffle; sounds exhausting! I don’t think my dc will be studying music, and a few years yet to go before making decisions, but it must be quite a journey (literally as well).