Spring 21 virtual music thread

[thirdfiddle]

New year, new lockdown, new virtual ensembles and digital exams - welcome to a new, virtual, all digital, socially distanced music thread.

This is a continuation of a very long running and friendly series of threads, dating from long before my time, and anyone with music learning kids from pre beginner to music college is welcome to jump in at any point. Thank you to our esteemed founder and to all the lovely knowledgeable folk who chip in.

PS success stories welcome too, we like a cheery post. Never mind the stealth boasting here, just boast, your kids earned it.

I love the sound of the bassoon. I am however glad that it is not a realistic option for any of my 3 because we have run out of room.... I thought dd2 had picked something lovely and small and practicle to carry around (flute) them she added double bass...... and euphonium..... 🤣 ds started big, percussion then piano - but at least you dont have to transport them so often, then he added trumpet and cornet which are not too big. Dd1 har stuck to violin and å bit of piano but it's still rather crowded in our house....

Can see your point mendingfences. We now have cello, viola, violin, piano, the bassoon and dd1 has just requested a guitar ('just for fun mum'). DD2 is begging for a piccolo, but at least that wouldn't take up much space.

Can I ask the fellow musicians with multiple instruments.... who do you insure with? Because our insurance bill is high (but I still think it's with a great company).

Musician’s Union (£20 per year for students) membership comes with free instrument insurance upto £2000. Though each claim has a £100 excess. (Also get public liability and other insurance for free.)

Their insurance is with Allianz

Not sure our insurance is very useful as we are not in the uk
I almost dont want to say this as i know it's very tough on others but å very happy dd1 got to go back to ensembles in person today 😃

@Mendingfences - where are you? We're in France. (But our insurance for everything but the pianos is UK based).

Norway 🇧🇻

No idea what that bv is all about...

We use Allianz Insurance for all our instruments. Had no problems with the couple of claims we have needed to submit re accidental damage.

Hello, I've posted on a few of these threads but have got out of the habit so it was good to see it pop up again. DS (11) plays piano and is preparing for G5. No lessons currently due to lockdown but he's doing well practising & sending videos to his teacher. He absolutely loves the piano and seems very committed. He also plays the cello (roughly G2 level) but is less enthused and finds Zoom lessons hard. It's been hard to know what to do as he picked the instrument so he could play in ensembles. He does an orchestra online with school but keeping up motivation is really hard when it's online. I keep encouraging him because I think he will enjoy it once the live ensemble opportunities return but its difficult to keep this up. I think it's hard for young people to believe things will ever be 'normal' again and it's been tough on musicians. Really hoping for some opportunities in the summer but also trying to be realistic...

It is difficult to know how positive to be, i feel like there is a danger we focus too much hope on things that then get cancelled and thats just dissapointment in bucket loads......

Hi Kitty, good to hear piano is going well. That sounds hard with cello, both teaching and learning string instruments over zoom is really difficult. DD is lucky to have a violin playing classroom assistant - though she may not always appreciate it as I let the teacher know things that are going wrong out of camera shot! "Um yes, it might help if she put both feet on the floor..."

Hi All, are anyone else's children doing Modulo Orchestra for all? DD's school is and starting on Wednesday. Hoping to find an online thing that she enjoys as she is picky. Also looking forward to NYO Inspire next month. Fingers crossed!

Mendingfences I agree, it's difficult 😞, glad it's not just me!

Thirdfiddle I knew nothing about strings prior to DS starting but that is reassuring. It looks hard to me, so much to coordinate! Yes, I am forever nudging his feet so they're flat on the floor 😄.

👋 bostik sounds like things are going well for your DD. I might mention that to DS's orchestra leader. He's been fantastic online mainly using BBC resources but always good to hear what else is out there.

Ah yes Kitty, I've found sending the odd picture of how DD2 is sitting (for both cello and bassoon) quite helpful for teachers who genuinely couldn't imagine how you could play the cello with your feet wound round the chairlegs, or the tenoroon while standing on one leg on the sofa. I still think there will be a lot of correcting to do when teachers actually see them in person..

Commiserations - mine really miss ensemble work too - though do some recordings for quartets etc which help somewhat. My older daughter is really struggling with learning vibrato online (viola/violin) - not sure how I help with that!

Ooh minisnowballs, there are some great online videos for helping with vibrato. Try googling "with Nicky vibrato" for some of Nicola Benedetti's. Might give her some different things to try.
Standing on one leg on the sofa is hilarious, that's a step further in musical gymnastics than my DD thankfully.

That's a brilliant idea, thanks @thirdfiddle - she's developed a real psychological block over the whole thing (just changed teachers and doesn't want to show the new teacher in case what she was doing was wrong after a year of online lessons). Not entirely sure the bassoon teacher has recovered from the sofa gymnastics revelation - it had clearly not occurred to her that any child would ever attempt anything like that.At least she can't stand up with the full size one, no matter attempt dangerous balancing tricks.

I have noticed a lot of questions over the last couple of months about the new performance grades. My daughter and I are new to music and have been learning violin together for the last few months (and now piano). As I don't have a background in music, I looked on Youtube to get an idea of whether we are making decent progress but most progress channels are for total prodigies who are practising many hours a day and videos only show completed pieces as opposed to showing a more realistic 'work in progress'. So we started our own channel. We have also been showing our performance grade results with full mark breakdowns - we can't show the actual recordings as it is not allowed but we show rough recordings which is usually a little worse because we're obviously not trying hard - it will however give people taking performance grades at the lower level who have never taken grades before a rough idea of level and what progress looks like for normal amounts of practice on cheap instruments. We have completed grades 1 and 2 in seven months. The link is here:-

www.youtube.com/channel/UCC8zsmOrNdYIz52TYLIQBXw

Exam results playlist:

Any tips on getting Ds to play as though he’s in a live audition or performance rather than a recording.

He has a total mental block about making recordings. We need to get his NYMT one done today. Failed last night.

I can’t just leave the camera (my phone) running as it needs me to hold it so they can see him play.

@Comefromaway it's really hard isn't it!! My DD's really struggle with audition recordings, especially the younger one due to her ASD. It just gets massively stressful and things descend into chaos....

I try and stick to a 3 take rule. We set up, we've got 3 takes. You keep going no matter what happens and select the best of the three in terms of a balance of performance and accuracy.

If, after 3 you really don't have anything, leave it and come back another day. NYMT have extended the submission deadline now so you so have a bit more time, although I appreciate it needs to get done at some point!

Also, we have a gooseneck holder that clamps to pretty much anything that I can mount my phone or iPad in. Holds it steady and if needs be I can leave....

Tryone Gooseneck Tablet Stand,... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EMMKI4O?ref=ppxpoppmobappshare

Ds has asd too.

I’ve tried the restricting takes but he just gets frustrated.

I’ve just gone onto the website and seen the deadline extension. We do now have two usable recordings , one piano, one synth) so fingers crossed. I know it’s a very long shot.

I thought I remembered that @Comefromaway .

Good luck to your DS. We are waiting for news too x

Comefromaway you have my sympathies (we had to record G6 performance last week). Have you tried propping the phone up with a combination of books and bluetack (or maybe you have a cookbook stand at about the right angle)?

My phone kept adjusting the sound balance so we ended up propping up a laptop and recording using Quicktime (even then it ignored the low slow notes a lot of the time). In the end we left DD(13) to switch the camera on and off.

Good luck!