Spring Term 2020 music thread

[squintsoftheworldunite]

Thought I would start the ball rolling on the first 2020 music thread since I’m awake. Happy New Year all of you and your lovely little musicians. Carrying on the long tradition of music threads here begun moons ago by wafflenose .... hoping our threads continue to be a place that’s welcoming to all, whatever standard, experience, backgrounds or situations of music bring you here.

2019 brought incredible music experiences for us, our biggest year to date. Exhausting but incredible. We said goodbye to the year with a final music lesson to end what has been an amazing first year on a new, and now first study, instrument. We’ve had a year free from practical exams but full of auditions and performances and so much to look back on with gratitude. I certainly couldn’t have predicted 2019 this time last year! I hope we can say the same of 2020 this time next year. Happy New Year xx

Good luck with that mendingfences. Euphoniums (a?) look heavy.

All good with the secondary allocation. I'm pleased. She's not so pleased. A tense summer on the waiting lists I think.

Well it doesnt weigh as much as a tuba and it's not as big as the double bass so i'm going to call that a win

My DD has today been offered a place at her top choice, one of the US Conservatories. We are so happy. No need to hurry to accept, either, as deadline is 30 April and they can't force you to accept before that. Still waiting for two offers, but that's no longer stressful.

Lovely news hiding

Thank you, Mendingfences. It's still real this morning - I had to reread the e-mail to check!

Great news @hidingmystatus. It’s been interesting to get an insight into US Conservatoires.

I'm happy to discuss the finer points with anyone who wants to know, but I don't know about instrumental because DD's gone for composition.

So ds has decided that he no longer wants to study music tech as he doesn't like composing his pwn music any more (though he still loves manipulating/programming other peoples. So he is going to apply for a Music Performance Btec instead of a Music Technology one.

Hidingmystatus - that's famtastic. I thinnk ds's dream would be to go to Berkley (because of Adam Neely) but that's never going to happen!

Music technology is interesting, it isn't what I thought it would be but DS has enjoyed it. Sadly just can't squeeze it in this year for nat 5, I know his teacher will be disappointed. He doesn't see it as composing but I think he is quite good at it. Maybe he'll pick it up again later. Congratulations on the place hiding!

Thank you all. Still so happy... awww.

My lo does her first exam, g1 clarinet tomorrow (eek!) and the ideas on here have really helped. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. Will post a post mortem tomorrow as she has a chaperone.
How long after the exam do the results come and how do we get them?

Fantastic hiding!

Good luck alakazam's DD! Re results, did you enter her or did teacher? And is it ABRSM or Trinity or another board?

Mine are doing their exams (piano G2 and G3) next week. Anyone have any tips on the sort of questions that get asked in Trinity G3 musical knowledge? DS is considering bailing out sight reading, it's going badly.

DD did musical knowledge about 9 years ago thirdfiddle and I seem to remember it being based around her pieces. She liked it as an option.

Brilliant news hiding.

Good luck to Alakazam's DD and anyone else with exams on the horizon. Its our music festival this week.

Thanks It’s Abrsm and she entered as part of a group entry made by her music service if anyone knows. She wants to know and I’d like to be able to tell her!

Alakazam - all changed this year. Get her ABRSM contact Id from the music service. You can then register on the ABRSM website as a student/parent and see the results and mark sheet at the same time as the music service (within a week or so now - much faster than last year)

Thanks, thirdfiddle and raspberry

Great thanks @Trumpetdad. I didn’t know about that. I’ll ask them tomorrow. A week or two isn’t too bad!!

Well a very busy week here! We have had the woodwind section of our local music festival (I am chair so busy for me too) and DD played (and thankfully quite comfortably won) 3 classes. 2/3 classes scored over 90 so she was over the moon.
ABRSM exams this morning with my students though and they’ve vanished off the system! I can see my private visit entry (DD’s grade 8 harp) but not my public venue exams so can’t retrieve their ID numbers. Has anyone else had this? I have seen them on there previously 🤦‍♀️Slightly panicked I must admit as they apparently need them to sign in! Does anyone know if that’s right?

Good luck to Alakazam's daughter.

We've just done G5 flute and theory! I'm pretty certain DD will have passed, probably a middling merit for both. It looks as if we can get the flute result next week and the theory in about a month.

I'm just popping on to thank whoever it was that recommended getting an app for scale practice (scale book?). It terrified DD enough to get her to spend the past fortnight practising them properly for 10-15 minutes/day.

I'm looking forward to hearing some new tunes!

@Madcats Hope your dd has passed. My lo amazed me perfect behaviour and listening well. We think she will have passed which was all we were aiming for. Know what you mean about new tunes. I’ll be so glad not to hear the same few (ever) again!

We're in danger of having the same few still going on still till summer music festival as the graded classes ask them to play exam syllabus music. I hope teacher has something else up her sleeve this time, particularly for DD who learns quicker and also gets bored/mucking about quicker.

Well done madcats and alakazam's DDs though. Never mind the result, they did it, cake time!

Well done everyone's DCs.

We had sneaky salted caramel muffins on way back to school!

Just checking back in on the thread, well done to all for conservatoire offers, festivals & exams. Great to hear it went well today Alakazam. Going to be interested to hear how quick the results are with the new system.
DS is gearing up to take G4 piano in the summer term. I'm remembering 'exam pieces fatigue' reading the last few posts. He's got some non-exam things to work on as well so hopefully this will balance it all out 🤞.