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.

Ooof! That'll be noisy! Hope the drop off goes ok on Thursday @minisnowballs - we'll all be thinking of you.

Also good luck to all those with nyo auditions this week. I'm sure they'll all have a blast, regardless of outcome!

Do you mean your middle one has got through to final assessment days, horsey?
If so, that’s a great achievement in itself!
DS started with NYO Inspire during lockdown and it really opened up the path to everything that’s happened since.
NYO is such a great organisation and they do so much to support their musicians - I’ve been blown away by how much input they provide into the application process.

Yes, middle one is through to final assessment day. She's had great support from NYO- an individual zoom lesson and an excerpts session. We're going next Monday to Chatham's. She did an inspire day last year, which has encouraged youngest to give it a go too. She's got inspire at end of October.

Exciting to hear about all the NYO auditions - good luck double reed gang!

I've just spotted this and thought it might be of interest as there was a lot of bassoon chat on the Spring thread

Thanks @Pollyanna8844 for the bassoon info!

@horseymum my DS is at the same NYO event as your middle DC on Monday!

Hello! Thought I'd quietly come in...

I dont have geniuses like some on here and not being musical myself have no idea of things.

I have a child going into yr 10 and is working towards grade 8 Flute at the end of the year (as in summer). She is desperate to get into a local youth orchestra but they want grade 8 for flutes!

She's come up the grades quite quickly so have found ourselves looking at grade 8 a bit sooner than I thought.

Questions I have are

*how much time would you expect a child to practice who is working towards grade 8? She does enjoy practicing and is in her school orchestras and a Saturday orchestra so has things to keep her interested but just wondered what the norm was.

• how long would you expect for lessons? She's been having an hour (30min flute 30mins piano but is only grade 2 or 3 piano). I've said it's fine for them to focus on flute now she's working at this level so I'm assuming this might be normal to have longer lessons?

• if she passes grade 8 - do most people carry on lessons? I thought she would want to even if it's bringing her orchestra pieces to work on. But maybe I could reduce the time. 30mins or hour fortnightly?

We don't have a lot of money but she loves music so we're trying to facilitate (she's started oboe too- we got a grant for this for this year!)

All the best to the NYO auditioners. Have a fabulous day and fingers crossed for some places/playing opportunities too.

& Hi cupofcoffeeplease :) That's really tough that the local youth orchestra is so competitive for flutes. I guess it has double disadvantage of being a popular instrument and one they only need 2-3 of. Have you looked at things like NYO Inspire for her? Others here can tell you more but I understand it's free and everyone speaks really highly of it.

Practice and lesson times for grade 8 - really variable. I would think 3/4 hour lesson and practice would be kind of a minimum to play through pieces and scales, work on some aspects, and do some sight reading. Some do a lot more, some get away with less. So i think the lesson would be okay if she splits it more like 45/15 for a bit.

After grade 8 you just get even better pieces to learn - and longer ones, so most people want longer not shorter lessons (sorry!). It depends really, what are her aims with it? Some people just want to tick off a grade 8 for uni applications or something, but mostly if they're enjoying playing they want to keep learning and advancing more. If cost is an issue could you have a hunt for any grant or trust funding to help out there too?

Lesson length to prepare for grade 8, I would say no less than 45 mins but preferably an hour.
Anything less is really a false economy, as it will probably take more lessons to get to the appropriate standard to take the exam.
Of course, if a student is happy to pass the exam and isn’t fussed what mark they get, it’s probably doable, but the reason everyone talks about “getting grade 8” is because it’s challenging.
The exam itself is not cheap, so I don’t tend to enter pupils until they are on course for at least a merit - that way, unless they have a disaster on the day, they’re pretty sure to pass.

If you’re taking the practical exam, the supporting tests need a lot of time spent on them in lessons, so that’s another factor.

Practice - I’d say 40 minutes, 5 times a week is a minimum, but it’s more important HOW you practice; you can spend 40 minutes just playing through pieces, which isn’t as effective as 20 minutes actually working on improving passages.

Its a really individual thing.
As a teacher, I aim really high with all my pupils and I know the time and effort it takes to do well in exams.
Grade 8 is a benchmark achievement and IMO worth spending time on.
As for continuing lessons afterwards? I think of post grade 8 as like passing your driving test - that’s when the fun really starts! From then onwards, you’re able to explore loads of really great repertoire and enjoy playing for playing’s sake.

Cross posted with thirdfiddle - great minds think alike!!

Phew, I'm relieved I didn't say something completely different to you alsoplayspiccolo 😅

Hi @CupOfCoffeePlease - welcome. Sounds like your dd is doing brilliantly. @Alsoplayspiccolo and @thirdfiddle are experts on this stuff so i won’t bang on about it. However I have a dd same age as yours who has just done grade eight on flute so I’ll just add a couple of personal bits .

dd had 45 minute lessons for a year before doing her grade eight- 30 mins before that- it didn’t feel enough so we increased it. We took the other prep out of the lessons- so she had aural prep at school to take that out of the equation and give teacher more time.

other useful things? Your online pianist is a website that allows you to buy the backing tracks for pieces. As an unmusical mum that really helped for our dd, and the Sam gee scales generator website meant she could do a random set of scales each morning.

She got a distinction even though she felt she had a really bad exam, because as @Alsoplayspiccolo suggests her teacher waited til she was really really ready. She was fed up by this point though.

good luck- flute is so tough with orchestras. Our local one said dd can’t move up until she gets her diploma. Great your dd has places to play for now- that will really help. sounds like she’s making brilliant progress.

Wow this is all so useful. Thankyou all 🥰.

I had said to the teacher to use the hour however with an understanding the piano would be much less part of it. At her lessonbyesterday they did 45mins flute then the teacher asked her if she wanted to do piano/carry on (she wanted more time on the flute!) So it looks like we are now at 45/15 with some flexibility which chomes in with what you've said
Phew. I think she does it all with this tutor. (ie she does gcse music but not aural training etc)

I dont think she's practicing enough at home for grade 8. (She did grade 5 and then wasn't working for grades specifically but learning pieces with her teachee for ages (well as it seemed to us- we were happy not to be grade focused) so the plan to work towards grade 8 next summer started just before summer if that makes sense. I will talk to her about stepping up practice.

She does practice most days but I dont think it's 45 mins. This was partly why I posted. I also think from what I gather she mainly plays the piece.. and some scales... ? This current piece she's learning in small chunks so she has smaller bits to work on.

NYO - I'll go on a Google hunt. I assumed you had to be child genius but didn't realise they had other things going on!

The youth orchestra she wants to be part of has training ensembles which she is in which will hopefully lead to a place next year but its auditions so not just "pass grade 8". Some friends have got in with grade 6 (French horn/viola) but they're clear it's 8+ for flute! I don't think her oboe playing will get that good that quickly.... but I think long term.she was thinking it could be useful (as well as wanting to learn oboe- I think she'd learn a couple more if we had money!)

Really appreciate you all. Thankyou!

Oh yes I'm taking on board she'll want to continue lessons. I know my daughter would say she wants to I just wondered if I could cut back from a financial perspective... but I can see she will want to develop further!

We do get a grant each year which pays for the summer school. (And for oboe for a year) We're not completely on benefits but it just means we say can't go on a proper holiday as our money is tied up in this (and other child's activity) but they do love it and this will be a lifelong gift 🥰.

I teach my pupils to practise smarter, not longer.
So, scales are used as a warm up and gone exercise, and as part of any scalic passages in their pieces. Whatever key a piece is in, sightseeing or prepared, we run through the major/minor scales, selections and any other related scales.
At grade 8, I ask them to play scales extended as high as they can on the way up and as low as they can on the way down, to warm up the extreme registers.

Also - and this is really important - cover part of every piece, every practice session. This ensures that nothing is left untouched for days (students tend to play what they enjoy/ can already play, rather than focus on what they can't - it's human nature!).
Much better to practise, for eg , 3 scales, 3 arpeggios, 2 doms, 1 dim, 1 chromatic, and that nasty bit in each piece every day, than all scales on Monday, all pieces on Tuesday etc. Keep everything ticking over every session.

Finally, don't forget sightreading! Even a few bars every day makes a HUGE difference.

@CupOfCoffeePlease - welcome! I also have a dd just starting year 10. I'm not sure if she'll taker her grade 8 this academic year (piano) but she's done g6 and I know she's not doing g7. Currently sitting between g7 and g8 and working her way there. Dd has 1 hour piano lessons but probably doesn't do as much weekly practice as she should. She also plays cello and sings.

I'm just going through the hell that is school music lesson scheduling. Now she's in year 10 she's not allowed to have a rotational lesson in school time so all are having to be done outside of academic lessons. That's fine in principal but with 1x 1 hour, 1x 45 min and 1x30 min lessons to find time for in addition to three orchestras, a choir an off-timetable gcse and a whole school musical it's a bloody nightmare!

Currently dd now has music commitments before school every day, two lunchtimes and one after school. Extra gcse is one lunchtime and two after schools and the drama is one after school and a lunchtime plus other ad hoc rehearsals. That's before we add in her out of school activities. I shall be keeping a close eye on her this year that's for sure! Thankfully the drama will fall away at half term and the gcse in May/June so won't carry into next year.

How does everyone else cope with all the busy-ness? It's such a pain!

Wow that does sound really busy. We would struggle with before school (gave up swimming when we realised that was coming!)

We have the 1 hour out of school but still have the 20min oboe in school (I do wonder being year 10 if that will be in tutor/lunch though)

School orchestras are after school 1 day and flute group one lunch.

Youth orchestra ensembles Saturday.

So much less! It still feels a lot when mixed with sisters sport commitments.

Welcome @CupOfCoffeePlease - my DS is also going into Y10 and I absolutely agree with you, @QueenMabby and others about how busy and consuming it is to accommodate DC musical commitments. We've had a lovely restful summer but now the rehearsal schedules are starting up again. We even had an unexpected dash to a rehearsal on Sunday that I hadn't known about (it had gone to DH's junk mail and the admin team had to phone us!). DS is taking GCSE music as an extra, which means being at school for 7:30am twice a week! Whenever I hope we can do something on the weekend as a family, there's always a musical commitment in the way (Dh and I also do various choirs etc). It's nice, but too much overall (and don't get me started on the Silver D of E commitments).

In terms of grade 8 practice, I agree that regular coverage of all aspects is really key. DS had a scales chart for his, and a practice schedule for the week to make sure everything was covered regularly. He practiced maybe an hour 5 x per week, but also plays in things constantly which was a big help.

His lessons are usually about 60-90 mins every 3 weeks ish, but his teacher lives quite a long way away so they do an intensive lesson when they do meet. He did a half day lesson over the summer to really focus on a broader range of things (and start to look at reed making).

We are based in the north east and DS is at our local state school, which means we have a lot of miles to cover to get him to anything really decent to be part of. We'd never heard of NCO, for example, when his teacher suggested it a couple of years ago, and that's really transformed his playing and his motivation for seeing what other kids his age take part in. We're too far from London for lots of the really good things I see advertised, but he's in our regional young sinfonia as well as our county groups (which honestly have more enthusiasm than anything!). I do worry that so much music is going to take time away from GCSEs as he gets older, but it's hard to know what to drop!

@PinkGrapefruitSorbet - I hear you! Dd never wants to give up anything! Always lots of tears over it. She's trying to drop one of the two choirs but her singing teacher takes it so it's all a bit tricky.

Changing the subject completely, does anyone's school or music teacher use Practice Pal? Our school is starting with it but I've no clue how to use it.

@CupOfCoffeePlease the scheduling has been a nightmare for music -we've wimped out now and DD is off to a music school where 'practice' appears as a scheduled period alongside her timetable and everything is on site. Lots of downsides to that too of course - she'll do fewer GCSES and (the biggest one) she will only be home every three weekends.

She was doing flute practice before school, bassoon and singing after and trying to fit in a million other things (including DofE, the school musical and an after school music GCSE) and it had definitely got too much.

Oh wow music school must be wonderful. Hope she really enjoys it. What an adventure!

We are thinking about not doing D ofE simply as we can't fit the volunteering in... she has a sport that's flexible so that and music would cover a lot of it. She has to decide in the next few weeks.

She noticed last yrs Yr 10 and mocks, expedition and big orchestra concerts all v close together and wasn't sure she'd like that (also autistic so can get overhwlemd)

@CupOfCoffeePlease it is sensible to know how much you can take on. my older dd is very good at knowing herself - musical dd2 is a nightmare and will just take on more and more until she breaks. Sounds like your DD is more balanced. I don't think DD2 will do Silver DofE - bronze was quite enough.

@QueenMabby Never heard of Practice Pal, I'm afraid, so can't help there. Solidarity with the scheduling overload though!

@CupOfCoffeePlease the only way we managed to fit in DS's D of E volunteering was to do an online project that he could do here and there around everything else. The Zooniverse website has loads of options (he did Penguin Watch) and they are set up to certify for D of E hours in many cases. Although I wish he didn't, he really loves D of E and the expeditions, and I'm keen that he doesn't just do music (even though he seems to do all the music) so reluctantly we soldier on with D of E. There just wasn't another slot in the week for volunteering live, so the online option solved that problem.

Ooh yes that would be an option.

I have just told her that it comes down to doing the expedition and she's said she'll swe which friends do it!

Thankyou 😊