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.

So much excitement over new shiny flute here - DD has just had her first lesson on it, though is obviously still working with the slight shift to embouchure needed etc. She is playing in a woodwind concert next week.

It will be her last one before new school, and head of woodwind has asked her to play on both instruments, but both pieces are really long. I'm afraid I asked whether people will just get sick of her, and the HoD looked appalled (!) so I'm hoping there isn't a sea of seething parents at the end of it (we've picked shortest pieces possible).

@minisnowballs is your dd going to music school. That’s very exciting for her!!

@Alakazam8 yes - she joins year 10 in September. She's wildly excited (although I'm sure nervous underneath) - I'm just sewing in a lot of name tags and thinking how much I'm going to miss her...

@minisnowballs congratulations and good luck for the music school! Sounds like she's very keen - excellent!

Love hearing about all these instruments and musical events going on!

We've just had a lovely musical evening ourselves - I'd been hoping to take DS to see a live orchestral performance, but everything was a bit far away and on a bit late for primary age. Then last week I spotted that one was playing in a local park tonight, with free entry too! Finally, a bit of luck! Nice weather for it too... well, perhaps a little too warm for the players, but at least the rain held off!

DS will be doing his summer piano recital soon, so we have that to look forward to as well.

Sounds good @Teapotkitten - is this through your local music service? Nice that they do concerts that pianists can join in on. What's he playing?

@northerngoldilocks the recital is just a little one his teacher organises for family to come to. He's going to be playing 3 pieces, two from an app they use and the other is a piece of music from a Zelda game which he worked out. He'll actually be performing twice because DH couldn't make the first date so his teacher suggested he play both!

The concert in the park was a visiting conservatoire, sort of a mini proms! Flag waving and all! We were just watching - DS really enjoyed seeing and hearing all the instruments, at one point he snuck right to the front to sit on the grass and watch because we were in a bit of an awkward place to see. (There were lots of kids running about by then so nobody would have minded).
From what the conductor said during it, I think they'd actually contacted the local council to organise it. I still haven't figured out what the county music service/hub actually do around here yet!

That's so lovely that the piano teacher organises a recital. It's really helpful for pianists to have opportunities to perform as otherwise it's just exams really!

Guess he's done quite well in having a few informal opportunities recently then - he's played in a school assembly, at my Nan's care home and at messy church in the past few weeks... If there's a piano about, he's there!

That's brilliant @Teapotkitten - he sounds so keen - particularly impressive he's worked out the Zelda piece.

We are in the middle of massive GCSE stress here. One more week to go. I'm afraid music takes a back seat in these weeks - DD2 is basically ready for grade eight and we're focused on getting DD1 over the line with her GCSES which seem to just go on forever. I've not looked at any latin literature for years but am being called upon to remember what the heck is going on with Petronius, Suetonius and Pliny on a daily basis.

DD2 has her (zoom) audition for her school musical for her new school today. She's learned a monologue from the Tempest and they've asked for a folk song as well, but it feels quite weird to be doing it on Zoom for a teacher who has never even seen her in the flesh. She's having to rush home from rehearsals from her current school musical in order to do it, too. Fingers crossed it goes ok - we've just no idea what the standard is like compared to her current school.

@Teapotkitten great that he's having the opportunities to perform. Nice to see someone so natural and enjoying it so much!

@minisnowballs hope the audition goes well. Just one more week to go with GCSE then everyone can breath. I have a friend her dd is doing gcse the whole family is feeling/sharing the stress!

On our side, I found an amazing teacher at our local music hub on Saturday. She will teacher DS music theory and invited him to join the junior windband that she conducts, playing percussions. Don't know how that'll go - DS is good at normal rythyms just can't count the long notes or long rests. Hopefully that'll help him. The teacher told him to do theory training using an app and show her when he's reached a milestone. DS has been working on it non stop since coming home and finished all the grade 1 by next morning. He'll now plead me to let him do grade 2 theory trading playing time/ YouTube time - I'm happy with that!

Best of luck for your DD's audition @minisnowballs - I'm sure her natural talent will still shine over zoom!

@chickentikkasalad - glad your ds is getting on so well with the theory app. My dd is also motivated by challenges like that - she flew through them!

@QueenMabby, thank you -pleased to know the app can work in long term and take you through it. Not sure how long he'll stay obsessed with it but nice to know someone has gone through it as an example :). Like your DD, DS is very much challenge driven. He complained school math is boring and too easy yesterday so I guess his mind just needs the challenge, not just he likes it he actually needs it to feed his brain!

Also he's year 1 and already almost free reading. I don't know what to do to satisfy his brain because I don't know what to do about the school stuff - I guess they have to make sure everyone reaches a certain level at a certain point so they're not going do anything to him. His teacher did say both his math and reading are way ahead of everyone else but didn't tell me what to do about that.

I just have to let him learn music as a challenge!
Slightly off the music topic but how does everyone else deal with a bright child in terms of school? I gathered quite a few if not most of the kids here are bright and dedicated kids.

DS had taught himself to read fairly fluently before he started school, so he too was bored rigid by phonics and Biff and Chip. His first school refused to give him anything else to read, but after reception he moved, and I think the teacher used him 'to help'...

@chickentikkasalad - just do the bare minimum on the school readers and just provide lots of reading materials - fiction and non-fiction - for your ds to read for fun. Your local library is your friend here!!

Thank you for the ideas. His teacher let him choose whatever book he wants to read from the school library so I think he's quite happy in that. He's more frustrated with how boring the math is. He showed how they were working out 4x6 using arrays where he already knows his times tables 🤣. I feel sorry for him!
But he did another hour of grade 2 theory after school for some brain exercise. He said he'd save the rest for tomorrow 😂.
Sorry for hijacking the thread I'll keep it to music 👍

lots of maths challenges they can do online @chickentikkasalad - perhaps something like this? https://parallel.org.uk if school maths is dull. Or the Murderous Maths series of books is fun?

My dd2 never used to complain when things were easy - she's not really that driven. However, she suddenly started reading fluently at 3 and we only noticed because she was correcting her older sister (neglected second child!). She spent most of reception falling asleep in the book corner because she is a late summer born and found school really tiring. The time spent role playing and digging sand pits was definitely the bit of reception she needed to do -they didn't really make her do the phonics, she had spellings instead. She still learned loads and loved school

Move on a few years and I'd say her sister, who read at a perfectly normal age, is the more analytical and intuitive reader in terms of literary understanding. DD2 is very 'quick' - it's the word most applied to her by teachers of all types, including with music - but DD1 goes much deeper with her analysis. Teaching DD2 to slow down and really think deeply is the hard bit for her.

So yes, lots of reading, bit of language learning, and music (though much later than your DS) gave her something to think about.. nowadays she's just so busy that being 'quick' barely gets her through ...

Thank you @minisnowballs for sharing your experience. How interesting each child develops at their own speed...
I've been deliberately not teaching DS math in case he finds school even more boring.
We'r not native English's speakers so he has to learn reading from school. That was what made school so interesting and pleasing for him.
Now he's free reading I feel like he's frustrated because school doesn't provide that challenge any more.
I think I'll leave it as is and see if he complains more then see what I can do. It could be that when he goes to year 2 suddenly there'll be whole new level for him he'll love it again 😍.
I'll just fill him with music in the mean time so that he challenges his brain - that' what his piano teacher says why he needs to learn music anyway.

Mine has his end of first year recital tomorrow, he has to do well because he's failed a module and so needs to impress in other ways. Hopefully he'll be allowed to resit it over the summer.

fingers crossed for him @Siriusmuggle !

Fingers crossed. Mine had his final year recital last week and so it is all over bar the results….

Good luck to your DS today @Siriusmuggle - hope it goes well for him

thank you all. He’s feeling quite excited about the recital. I’m just so sad for him about the module he’s failed. Surely they have to let him resit?

@cantkeepawayforever it must be nerve wracking waiting for results. Do they have a plan for afterwards? I think my DD already knows if she wants to be a musician it will involve a variety of jobs, I wonder how well music college prepares them for that.
@Siriusmuggle hope it goes well. And he gets the opportunity to resit, surely that will be available.

@chickentikkasalad my youngest taught herself to read at three, we never really did school reading books but her writing took a while to catch up. But she also finds maths challenging. She has found things like learning tenor clef easy though. I think there is plenty challenge available in music playing and theory that will expand his brain. He will then also learn emotional aspects of playing with others, coping with challenges, learning how to learn. These will all help whatever direction he goes in. He might like chess or Rubik's cube as well for extra challenges.