Autumn 23 Music chat

[horseymum]

It's autumn term already! I'm sure there's lots of music going to happen this term. Welcome to anyone who wants to chat about your child's music activities, whether current or things you hope to do. It's a friendly group with experience at many different levels.( I've learned so much) No question is a daft one and don't be put off by chat about higher levels, all our children couldn't play a note once.
Come and ask about starting music lessons, which instrument to choose, exams, music festivals, specialist schools, orchestras and ensembles. We love talking music.
We also love to share music exam successes or struggles etc ( you can't always shout about these on FB!).
Feel free to do a wee intro if you want, although it's still public so only share what you want to.

@chickentikkasalad no words of wisdom here but just congrats on the exam result!

Congratulations on the piano result chickentikka's DS.

We've had a similar thought process about violin exams vs repertoire. For DD it looks like being 5 (done), 7 (maybe next term), 8 (no hurry). And definitely doing them when comfortably in range. Polishing up three pieces at her cutting edge playing level would be way too much like hard work. I do think it's being a helpful consolidation exercise again. Not least making her remember the scale fingerings rather than doing one set one week then moving on to a different set the next week and forgetting the first.

My DD was a year between 7 and 8 on oboe and it will be 18 months between 7 and 8 on piano. No rush on piano as she did lots of repertoire and technique. She will be glad once the pressure ( she puts on herself) is off for piano and she can just learn to improve and enjoy, and probably not do any more exams at all for piano.

I didn't get around to actually doing g8 violin till about 4 years after I was playing repertoire at that level. Guess there wasn't really anything i needed to tick it off for and the longer you leave it the less of a daunting project it is.

Latest thinking from DS is to leave the exam to later when he's comfortable to do a grade 5 exam. The reason is there's a musician badge in beavers for grade 5! His teacher is right - kids in this age range change their mind so quickly. So there'll be no pressure for violin exam for quite a while!

Sweet, great incentive!

Yes. His motivation for grade 1 piano was to get a beavers badge too...

Does anyone know how long practical ABRSM results are taking to come back at the moment? DD took hers last week and is getting twitchy. She keeps remembering all the bits that went wrong!

Can Be as quick as 48 hours, or up to around 2/3 weeks. Did you do the entry or was it through school? Our last one was through the JD and it took forever to be processed, we were getting very twitchy! Next one is mid December and I'm not confident we will get it before the holidays unfortunately.

DDs is on the 19th and I'm wondering the same @horseymum - might be that we don't get the results until after Xmas, which in the grand scheme of things isn't long and nothing compared to when I did piano exams as a child, but will definitely feel like forever!

It will still feel like ages!

It was through the local music service, so they put the entry through. The examiner then came to the music centre headquarters. Not sure if that makes it faster/slower/any different.

Probably slower as you are waiting on when they have staff to send things out. Children are not the best judge of how they have done though so I'm sure it will be fine.

NYSO update - the results are out. DS got a reserve place. We all think it's a great result as he's still very young and it's first time he tried auditioning for anything.
BTW DS moved onto 1/4 violin today and the sound is much better!

Amazing, you know he's on the right track then. My DD took three attempts to get into NYOS,worth the perseverance. NYOS have posted on social media saying results out next week hopefully so youngest hopefully not long to wait. She was a reserve last year but noone dropped out. Enjoy the new violin. I'm sure it will take a bit adjustment but the sound will get better and better.

Exam was on Monday and result was through on Friday morning. She got a merit so was quite relieved, as were we!

@horseymum , good luck to your NYOS result. Nice to know that it can work out with perseverance :).

Congratulations on the merit @Butternutissquashed. Glad you didn't have to wait too long.

Well done to your dcs @Butternutissquashed and @chickentikkasalad! Both really impressive. And @horseymum i think getting into things is all the sweeter when it takes a while- it’s good to remember perseverance is rewarded. I was stupid - the first time dd1 auditioned for nco she got projects when she’d applied for the main orchestra and we thought we’d been foolish letting her audition as her teacher was disappointed. The next year she got in to the main orchestra and she’d learned success is not a given along the way. So it all worked out ok.

as an aside- she now has the tutor she had at nco projects as one of her teachers- which is brilliant continuity and has really helped with her transition to specialist school- because someone has some idea of where she’s come from and what her progress has been!

hope Christmas concerts ramping up for all? Thursday we’re off to see our ward play in her first ever school concert- on cello, and then dd1 and 2 have performances at the weekend which require a swift transition between London and Somerset. Fingers crossed.

Apologies for dropping off the thread recently.
This term seems to have flown by, with DS applying to conservatories and subsequent auditions. Unfortunately, it wasn't without a huge amount of stress, after he discovered that someone had backed into his UCAS account the day after the application deadline and withdrawn all his applications.

Thankfully, his school managed to contact the conservatories and they reinstated his applications but the ensuing enquiry, involving various external agencies including the police, has been incredibly stressful for DS and us.

DS had his last audition on Thursday and had his first offer on Friday (from what's probably his preferred choice), so hopefully he can relax now; he's been so stoic about it all and was really happy with how he played at all his auditions.

Looking forward to having him home in a couple of weeks, for a couple of weeks, before he's off again for NYO and then straight back to school for mocks.

Alsoplayspiccolo that's absolutely shocking your poor DS. Do they have any idea who? What a horrible thing to do. Congratulations on getting through all that and offer 🎉🎉🎉

Thanks, thirdfiddle.
We know who did it, as the UCAS discovery opened the lid on a whole series of previous incidents that no-one had connected - other online tampering, harassment, coercion etc.
However, we can't get concrete evidence without actioning the police complaint - there is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence - and we don't want to put DS through the stress of a prosecution, so we've chosen to have it logged and recorded for now.
We have the option to action the complaint any time in the next 6 months and may well do so yet, as the person in question hasn't stopped their behaviour, despite being warned.

@Alsoplayspiccolo that is totally totally horrific. Your POOR DS. I m so glad they managed to get it sorted, but what a horrific stress. I really hope he's OK and being cared for. I cannot imagine why anyone would do that - but perhaps that's my naivety.

Well done on his first offer!

Congratulations to your Ds. I can’t believe the person hasn’t stopped their behaviour. You’d think they’d be frightened of potential prosecution.

So….this weekend has been rather mad for Ds.

he was a bit down last week. Finding it hard to get motivated. Can’t see the point of the academics. Hates practising scales. Finding it frustrating that the show he is conducting is with tracks not a live band.

but he went down to London on Thursday (conservatoire gave him the time off) to play in a concert. Got last min tickets for Elf Thursday night and turned up to the rehearsal Friday.

It turned out that every other player had west end, national tour or similar credits including playing with some famous pop stars. He was so motivated to be playing alongside them. (As a keys player his advantage was in getting the job that most were tied up with panto contracts).

He got the train back Saturday morning and when he was 15 mins from home got a text asking if he could be in a certain city in an hours time. To get a taxi and they would pay.

you may remember he was gutted to have to turn down a tour with a film music orchestra due to being contracted to the musical theatre show in a few weeks. Turned out they desperately needed someone to cover a rehearsal. So he went and sight-read the synth part to a well known film score.

he still can’t do the shows but he was buzzing (& terrified). Then a taxi back to play a gig with a covers band. Due to the snow he finally got home at 1.40am and had to catch a train back to conservatoire this morning (slow train due to strikes) for a rehearsal this afternoon.

I fully expect him to crash tomorrow but luckily his driving lesson has been cancelled & his lecture is online.

Wow @Comefromaway how brilliant for your DS that he got some time with the show he had to turn down too. Sounds like a totally bonkers weekend but hopefully he's now super proud of himself and shaken out of feeling down about stuff. He's obviously amazing to be so in demand.