Spring 23 music thread

[thirdfiddle]

I saw some sunshine today so it's officially spring! Here's a new thread for all things musical.

With a nod to those who started the series, well before my young folk picked up an instrument or I braved the vipers of MN. This little corner is for support only, and bragging about your young folk's musical achievements is positively encouraged.

How are things looking for new year? Anyone new want to join us for a chat? Any lurkers want to delurk? All welcome from pre beginners to music college and beyond.

Thanks @northerngoldilocks. Not that DS needs a new violin right now but definitely something worth checking when it's time for an upgrade for the next size.

Thanks @minisnowballs yes DS is state educated and plays in a local music hub so should be eligible. But it sounds like a lot of hassle so maybe only worthwhile when it's time for an expensive one. Good to know anyway!

@Minisnowballs DS2 has been playing a Muramatsu flute for the last 4 years and is very happy with it. He took ages to decide between it and another make, but definitely made the right decision in the end. Hope your DS is just as happy

That's so good to hear @Pollyanna8844 .. we have had weeks of vacillation - in the end she felt the tone of the Altus was 'darker' (which she quite liked) but the sound on the Muramatsu was 'purer' and 'sharper in a good way' ... so that's what she's gone for.

Can you tell I've no idea what she's talking about half the time? She spent a lot of time playing them with her eyes shut and getting me to record bits..

I'm glad both DDs oboes have just been available to us at the right time/ price and we haven't had to make choices as I can see DD just saying 'fine' to them all if she had to choose between several! Although j would love to go to howarths shop in London one day just to see the variety after being a long standing mail order customer.

Morning all! Lots going on on here.

We're in strange musical limbo at the moment. DS's voice is mid-change, so he is no longer the angelic choirboy of old, but sinking rapidly through the altos, and hoping to end as a tenor. He spends a lot of time playing Elvis songs on the piano, and singing along. Elvis had quite a low range!

He's been preparing for performance grade 8 piano for ages. Little did I know they've actually been recording at school. Had I known I'd have nagged him for some more practice, rather than aforementioned Elvis songs.

Love it when they don't tell you what's going on at school! We have a grade 8 next week, pieces/ scales fine, DD hates the aural though. Recording four Oboe pieces would not be an option though, three is enough to tire her out so am impressed at four grade 8 piano pieces in a row. She already has some stalling tactics arranged with accompanist to get her breath back! ( Not being underhand, just careful tuning and being careful about arranging the book on stand, even a few seconds extra helps!)

@horseymum that's fair enough - woodwind playing is particularly exhausting as their pieces get longer. DS needs a rest after a couple of pages so hoping his stamina increases rapidly (suspect this is just more practice) or he's going to struggle with gr 7/8! Surely there is some additional 'reed faffing' that can take place on Oboe to just give them a bit more 'recovery'. Know that violin can be exhausting too -but really that's kind of the deal with violin as in orchestras they'd need to be playing constantly - especially if they play seconds! Woodwind generally has more gaps!

@herbaceous - laughing at the stealth grade 8 and Elvis scenario! Pre gr 5 I had to ban DD from Christmas music until after the exam - own choice stuff is always more interesting, especially if they've been working on exam pieces for a while. DD has 5 weeks until her exam (if she passes theory) and we've been doing additional pieces (combination of Chopin and Taylor Swift - though not at the same time!) to stop it being a chore!

I want to encourage his love of playing, his crazily good improv skills, his ability to hear a song then recreate it on the piano, etc etc. And he's sick of his grade 8 pieces, lovely though they are. But a bit more application wouldn't go amiss.

A little less conversation, a little more action perhaps!

@northerngoldilocks are you awaiting grade 5 theory results in time for a practical exam? Dd3 took hers on 18th May and due to take grade 7 violin on 4th July 🙈 I was hoping for a result sooner rather than later as she wasn't very cooperative at all with the theory practice / revision and it could possibly need redoing 😫😬.

Yes waiting for grade 5 theory results to see if can sit grade 7 piano on the 11th July. Results should be out for us on 18th June. Theory is 28 days from date of exam released to the person who entered them.

I'm always super impressed by performance exams - an extra piece is no mean feat. DD2 has her grade eight flute in July. Pieces fine, scales fine, sight-reading probably fine. Aural she LOATHES. And i bet she's forgotten to go today as I forgot to remind her (one of the instrumental teachers at school does a session with her each week which is really kind).

DD is a bit bored with her pieces too@herbaceous. She's learning the rest of one of them on the basis that the whole sonata is a diploma piece and at least that's 'useful'- but it would be better if she could take the exam sooner rather than later now.

Shiny new Muramatsu ready to pick up this week though so hopefully that should encourage her.

And @horseymum Howarths is wonderful... a real Aladdins Cave. I was sent there to fix DD's rented mini bassoon after her second lesson - had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Stuck behind a panicking man on his lunch hour buying oboe reeds for his daughter in a scenario not unlike the Love Actually Rowan Atkinson salesman who spends ages wrapping things up. The salesperson wanted to talk about oboes - the dad didn't have a clue and just wanted to leave.

We'll add our hat into the ring on the grades front. Dd has decided yes to g6 performance grade for the cello so her teacher has emailed me a list of pieces/books to get. That'll keep her occupied over the summer hols! She needs to move to a full-sized cello although as we rent through school that won't happen until September when leavers' cellos are returned and we can all shuffle up one!!

Dd also heading towards g8 piano performance but still a way to go with that - she's just starting to think about it so it's probably a year away yet.

That will keep her busy @QueenMabby! Great that she can use a school cello too... DD would probably need a new one this summer too, but cello will be the casualty of her school move - so probably won't bother and she'll always have a 3/4!

It will @minisnowballs. She's been very lucky with her school 3/4 as it's a pretty good one and people are often surprised it's a school instrument. Just hoping we're as lucky with a full sized one! We'll probably buy her one of her own once she's settled into the larger size - second hand of course. I was astounded by the price of some of the cellos.

There's a girl in the sixth form whose cello is worth more than my car!!

DD's new flute may be worth more than our car... though that isn't much of a feat to be fair.

I'm not sure our car is worth more than scrap metal value... on which grounds we have several instruments worth more than it. We're also on full sized violin hunt duty once this term's performances are done. DD could in theory play my old one, but that's not good motivation to shift up as it doesn't sound as nice as her 3/4.
Feeling very impressed by all these Serious Exams. My two have g5 and then put assorted feet down about the amount of work involved. Hopefully one day will come back to tick off some higher ones, but it seems very intimidating the sheer volume of music and scales etc. Well done all, specially the littlies!

My little one is very keen on violin exams but his teacher is saying no for the moment. She lets him learn a lot of the pieces from the grade books but says he's too young to take the exam 😭. She says at 6 he might not comprehend what is an exam and might start chatting to the examiner or start crying if he got one note wrong. Although he went to our local music festival and won the highest score for strings up to grade 6, she still doesn't think it's time well spent on preparing for the exam. She's giving him new grade 3 pieces every week, recently taught him vibrato (which DS loves!) and developing emotions and feelings of music. What does everyone else think of her approach? It just seems hard to get sense of achievement without exam nevertheless DS is happy. He really wants to do the grades for beavers badges only lol.

To be fair. Dd has only done grades 1 and 4 on the cello and skipped a couple of piano ones too. She is the type of child who is very motivated by exams and the challenge of them so she usually asks her teacher when she feels she's ready to start working towards the next one.

Dd has two or three concerts left before the end of the school year and a similar number of chapel services too. She's just done call backs for a school musical so 🤞🏻

DD has done grade 1 and 5 on piano and will do grade 7 hopefully in July. On violin she hasn't done any though might do grade 5 at Christmas. Her teacher is keen for her to do one before she hits advanced grades.

I think that grades really slow them down unless they're motivated by them or need for something else. That said, I wanted both of mine to do grade 1 piano when they started just so they knew what the process was. DD was 7 when she sat grade 1 (days after her birthday) so was old enough to understand and follow.

For me, exams can slow them down and mean they miss out on lots of wider repertoire. Youngest has only done grade 5 and will likely do grade 7 this year but by the time she gets there, she'll have been playing grade 7/8 level pieces for several months but probably not chosen specific exam ones till closer. If your DC is still in the rapid progress phase, it might mean the teacher thinks that it would slow him down and make him bored. He can look for other things to mark progress like doing a recording and comparing it in a few weeks, playing at more festivals etc, writing his own music ( I sense he is quite musical do this might be fun for him). Especially at the earliest levels, mine played dozens of pieces at each 'level'. They still play way more than they are just using for an exam. They need to start to develop an internal motivation to play and improve, not just for a certificate; that can take longer for some than others. It's different for every child though, so maybe chat to the teacher to hear her reasons, she likely has many years experience.

DD's teacher was also keen to not bother with early violin exams with her, grade 5 is the only one she's done so far. She still found it pretty tedious having the same 3 pieces for a term, hence the not wanting to do any since. If he's used to new pieces every week, sitting on the same three for long enough to polish and wait for an exam date might be very frustrating.

I suppose you could ask teacher about doing a sneaky recorded exam for beavers kudos purposes. DD did a very random g3 piano that way, about 3 weeks from picking up the pieces to recording done. Bit of a pointless exercise in my opinion, but got it out of the way for a teacher who wouldn't skip grades.

Thank you everybody for sharing experiences. What a wonderful place this is! We learn from each other's experiences to so the best for our DC!
DS doesn't need to be motivated by the exams at all he's naturally motivated as long as he's playing something challenging. Therefore he would be bored polishing 3 pieces for months for an exam. That is exactly what the teacher said. She also noticed his sight reading gets worse when he's not playing new pieces. She's very experienced with younger children and I trust her totally. Just feels like we're never going to do an exam until grade 8 🤣. I think she's got a plan for him to pass grade 8 before secondary school. She says they'll be distracted by lots of things once in secondary school.

On the beavers side, I think we'll just use piano exams because the piano teacher is totally opposite. She plans for him to sit every exam. She initially thought about the prep test in the summer because DS only started piano in January but he's making really good progress she now agrees to do initial grade 🤣

I think it's also good for children to understand that a piece doesn't need to be longer/ higher/ faster or flashy to be a challenge. There are grade 4/5 pieces that some professionals would record on an album or perform in a concert, they do them beautifully though.