Autumn 2020 music thread

[thirdfiddle]

Oh go on then, let's have a new music thread. Spring wasn't good.
What's going on music parents? Are they going back to real live lessons? Is it all virtual for Autumn? Have they sustained interest over lockdown? Any new starters want to join us - or new departures for established musicians?

To be fair the online provision is excellent and they are going in sometimes. It is making them realise just how much they love it as they look forward to their in person days so much.

DS isn't going in at all. Apart from a choir there there have been no virtual ensembles. But they are working with them now to record a virtual Christmas concert.

Its sad for DS as he was only having two years of JD. Even if it is a bit more normal in the summer term his priorities will be his A levels. I wish we'd organised it earlier, he was a Cathedral Chorister until he was 14, and we didn't really think about until after that.

@WordsandMusic2020 wow if your DD managed to get to G5 level in one year I'd definitely say she's got great potential! There are quite a few similar aged children at the JD, in DS's ensemble there are 6 children playing his instruments all between 8-11 year old. And in his Dalcroze class I'd say about a dozen children in this age group. Anymore questions feel free to message me. Good luck whichever you decide.

Hi Words
My daughter auditioned for two junior Conservatoire’s early this year. She had to do a video audition for both. The two she applied for was Birmingham and ram primary...she got in for both and decided to go to ram.
My Daughter plays the violin passes her grade 5 with distinction at 7 and grade 7 standard at time of audition. My daughter loves playing the volin She is probably no where near the best at the academy as some children are very advance at very young ages. She is very musical and memorises music well and I think that shine through on the video audition.
She loves doing the academy at the moment it’s all on line apart from one Saturday a month they have a live meet. She has her 1-1 lesson on line which is an hour long, grade 5 theory, general musicalship, quartet and choir.
Her teacher works her hard in the lesson which is good for her. I think your daughter should definitely try out and give it a go. I don’t think she should have any problems with the work as she has gone from 0 to grade 5 in a year and that’s amazing. My son plays the cello and is round grade 3 level and has been playing for 2 years. He is aged 7.

The auditions were recordings. We set ourselves a limit which help. We did 3 recordings and sent the best one out of the 3. I found the last recording was the best as she knew I wasn’t going to do another one.
If it was a live audition she would of only had one shot at it.

Can't comment on JDs except to say your kids are all very impressive! The enthusiasm as well as the ability. DD is 8 and loves her music, but 45 minutes of zoom music centre is about her limit.

BBLY was asking about performance exams up thread. ? Does teacher think it won't be taken as seriously by the student, or by other people? Because I don't think it really matters to other people whether kids have an exam at all or what kind, even less so intermediate exams once they've moved on a year or two. I think when you are trying to produce a recording it's a different sort of pressure than an on the day exam - you don't want to send off a recording with errors.

On the other hand I'm not that keen on DS doing a performance exam as it's another excuse to dodge sight reading, and in terms of long term progress he needs to work on sight reading more than he needs a grade 4 certificate. So generally not so keen on dodging skills they find harder, because they'll just find it harder still when they need to pick it up again. Though I guess you can do a board with slightly different aural options if a particular one doesn't suit e.g. kids who don't like singing.

For those upthread asking about the performance exams, dd has done the g5 one online for piano.
When her results came back her teacher said that the “catch” for doing pieces only seemed to be that the examiners were very strict! She got a distinction but only just and grades 1-3 were all very comfortable distinctions for her. (She didn’t do g4).
I’m not sure I would want dd to do all her exams as a performance but it was a good experience for her and she enjoyed it. She intends to do a practical exam for her next one.
Hope that helps.

@thirdfiddle thank you for your comment. Our piano teacher thinks the performance exam results won't be taken seriously by other people, such as conservatories, but I'm with you on that G4 and G5 won't matter hugely a few years down the line when DC is older and doing auditions etc.
@QueenMabby thank you for sharing your experience. I think I'll have another chat with the piano teacher in the new year, see if we can come to an agreement re the performance exam.

DD not at a London JD and like raspberry also joined at 16. It’s not about what grade DC are at a certain age it’s about what they see in their potential. If anyone is interested here is a list of music centres for advanced training, scroll down to music ones: www.gov.uk/music-dance-scheme

Anyone else really fed up with no ensembles etc? We're now back to zoom lessons too. Christmas without all those concerts will be a sombre affair here.

Horsey, I'm with you. I'm really struggling with the recording expectations from DDs' music school. We're not very techy and she keeps needing to record things with click tracks/backing. She doesn't have much time and neither do I (and what time she has she ought to be spending on her G6 flute which should be in early december). It feels like this expectation is for the music school's social media, rather than for the kids. But that's probably just me being mean. We're drowning in it rather, and it's making practice miserable - where ensemble playing is usually a joy for my dd. The final straw was when they asked if she could wear a christmas hat - which means I now need to spend the evening getting decorations out of the loft, because funnily enough I don't have one hanging around....

Yeah, really fed up. Hoping December may allow at least a bit of distanced quartet playing.
I don't desperately mind recording. I think for my two it helps them engage with virtual ensembles and not just tune out. Also helps the tutors know what to work on next. It must be hard teaching ensembles into a zoom void. But we only have one piece per child, sounds like you have an overload mini.

thirdfiddle, ignore me - I'm a miserable sod ...it's the fact it's two instruments for one child and one for the other and everyone wants a recording (and the bassoon keeps breaking - honestly, it's like a petulant child). One recording down, three to go. Will be so glad when things go back to normal!

Just reading the end of the, Spring music thread where I was telling you about DS starting at Trinity Laban, in Greenwich, on his trumpet performance course, and someone kindly said to let you know how he's getting on......
Well he's had a really great first term there. Getting on so well with his two trumpet teachers and having in person weekly lessons with them. They're both asking him to focus on slightly different things so that's been great having them both. Also is in a brass quintet that practices together weekly, so that's keeping him going, when there's clearly not as much music making going on as there would normally be.
He's also made a lot of new friends including a new girlfriend who's coming to stay with us for Christmas, partly because she's from India, and getting home this year would be very difficult for her.
So am looking forward to meeting her and hope we can provide a welcoming and homely Christmas for them both.
My DD is a student in Swansea, and staying on there this Christmas with her friends. Missing her but it can't be helped - hoping there'll be a good window to meet up soon in the new year

We are lucky to still have ensembles at school and a very limited choir - year group only though. Very, very grateful.

Is anyone waiting to hear from NYCGB?

Mini- I feel your pain, bassoons can be fiddly little beasts. We've had to do a few minor repairs like sticking cork pads back on but I drew the line when we had a sticky key. Turns out ( after photos and holding offending piece up to screen) that DD had slightly bent something. Teacher did a long cycle over ( permitted exercise!) to fix it on the doorstep. As it involved a lighter I'm glad I didn't have to do that repair over zoom! Thankfully at last face to face lesson he was also able to help DD sort her feed as that is tricky over zoom 😂
Lovely that some folk are able to play in-person. We quite enjoy recording projects but they can pile up.
Waiting to hear results of abrsm theory and NYOS audition.
Juggling, glad your ds is enjoying his course, what an experience to be immersed like that.

Hi everyone Has anyone needed to be in touch with ABRSM customer services recently, and can tell me what their response times are like?

DD took an exam nearly two weeks ago. Her music teacher got the result within a week and we received an email from ABRSM on Sunday to say we could set up an account to view the result and mark form. Unfortunately, it seems the teacher input the wrong DOB so the system won’t let us create an account.

The teacher tried to email a PDF of the mark sheet but it won’t open in Acrobat. I did notice DD’s surname is incorrect in the filename so I’m concerned it might be wrong on the certificate (at this point I’m also concerned that she didn’t get the surprisingly good result we were told and somehow got someone else’s by mistake!).

No response from ABRSM customer services - I’m sure they’re very busy with exams ongoing, but it’s a bit tough on DD.

Zero response to two emails over a week ago seeking an amend to the certificate ....fully expecting the certificate to arrive without the correction. Sigh....

Thanks for replying, Totalshambles. I expected better from such a well established organisation

We've also had a 'permitted exercise' bassoon visit - horsey - but the bassoon remains unusable. She's grumpily back on the mini one. Fiddly isn't the word.