Autumn / Winter 24 - music thread

[northerngoldilocks]

Feels like time for a new thread for the new school year!

Come and talk about music lessons, choosing instruments, exams, auditions, specialist schools, orchestras or whatever other music activities are going on. Everyone is welcome, from those with total beginners to those whose children are studying music at advanced levels. Ask for advice or share successes or struggles.

Good luck to dd @minisnowballs

My dd also has a comp this weekend. It's a very small festival and she is singing. Her first singing comp. She's still getting over a very nasty cold and doesn't seem to have done any practice this weekend so I'm keeping my expectations...realistic. 🤣

Good luck to her too @QueenMabby ! She is a very busy girl.

Hi, please does anyone know where is the best place to study Music Production after GCSE? Many thanks ☺️

A Btec course at a local college. Unless you live near to somewhere like LIPA (Liverpool) or BOA (Birmingham)

@CelloMumFlums that was a really good idea to stay locally and attend NSSO as a day student- I hadn't thought about that!

Hello all.

Have been mad busy of late - new job, three other jobs, masters, and now an ailing mother who veers between 'death's door' and 'perky' in exhausting fashion.

DS has declared himself thoroughly sick of his diploma piano pieces. They seem to get worse the more he practices them. He was ready to take the exam in the summer, but his teacher said he needed more than a year between g8 (which he did in summer 2023) and diploma. Doing the same pieces for a year is sapping his enjoyment of the piano totally. So I've said to give himself, and teacher, a deadline of early December, get them as good as he can, and if teacher still declares it not enough, sack the whole thing off and play other things!

OTOH he's singing a lovely solo/duet with an opera singer in a concert tomorrow, and is in a piano competition next week...

I'm a long-time lurker, but I thought it might be time to say 'hi'.

My DD8 has been playing piano and recorder for a couple of years, without an exam in sight (she gets a lot of compliments on her musicality, but not on her accuracy - in fact the only instruction from her recorder teacher in her practice book this week is 'try to stand still while you play'). She's decided she'd like to learn the bassoon, and just had a go on a mini-bassoon they dug out from a music centre cupboard.

I was hoping you might have some collective insight on costs I might not have thought of (I know I'll have to buy reeds) and the secret of where to get insurance on hired instruments. I've been warned that the bassoon is expensive to learn, so I'll feel a bit silly if I say yes and then there's some enormous hidden expense! I know that buying one costs thousands, but it doesn't seem like that's likely to be a problem until she leaves school, and that feels so far away as to not really be relevant.

I've been saying to her that she can replace the recorder with a new instrument as soon as she settles on one for months now, but now the moment has come it feels like a big decision!

@TreeAtMyWindow - not the same instrument but we rented a school cello for years. It wasn't worth "much" (in instrument terms!) - about £1,100 and it was under the school policy whilst on school premises so we just added it to our home policy for the rest which worked fine.
Now she has her own instrument we have a separate policy with Allianz music insurance which is very reasonable.

@TreeAtMyWindow We use Allianz too. They seem really good tbh.

@TreeAtMyWindow can you find a bassoon teacher? They should be able to help you? My dd started bassoon at 10 and still used a mini then. She still doesn’t have her own at 15 and plays a ‘short reach’ which is for smaller hands which we rent from school.

unexpected costs? Reeds about £15 but last a while, and music can be pricey but dd lived on photocopies for ages and her lessons were half price as instrument was ‘endangered’.

The real cost was when she got good at it and decided to go to specialist school 100 miles away but that’s as much an emotional price as a financial one!

Good luck (and if you’re anywhere near London cym has two excellent bassoon teachers). And yes, Allianz for insurance

@TreeAtMyWindow my youngest went from recorder to bassoon ( although was doing bass recorder by then so even easier to switch) but the fingering has similar principles although there a lot of keys to get to grips with. We tend to have 3 or four reeds on the go at any one time but pretty sure one on the go and one spare will be fine for ages. Absolutely teach her to look after them though as if you brush them on a jumper etc when moving around they will be destroyed. If you can get an instrument on loan, that's the main other cost. ( Also the metal crook is stupidly expensive, so look after that too) And the cost of all the orchestra groups she'll get into being a sought after instrument! Bassoons are weirdly disproportionately represented in this group so ask any questions!!

Thank you all. It sounds like Allianz is the go to, I'll get a quote.

@minisnowballs The council music centre in our city where she learns the recorder/piano will find a teacher, it was the staff there who warned me it's expensive. They've found her a few books to start off with. TBH I'm hoping it will be cheaper, music-wise, than the recorder; she ended up changing teachers twice in two terms, and each teacher insisted I buy a new book. I guess I'll just have to hope she doesn't get so good that she wants to go to specialist school!

@horseymum We can hire the bassoon - I can see myself becoming a bit deranged about defending the bassoon and the reeds. We have a three year old in the house, and she's going to be desperate to join in. I am rather feeling that a nice brass instrument would have got her playing without the orchestral mark up for groups, but you can't control what they're interested in.

@TreeAtMyWindow I think DD2 survived entirely with Abracadabra Bassoon and Learn as You Play Bassoon for a year or so. I bought them secondhand and sold them for as much as I bought them for. You can get a cheap box for the reeds but for some reason the norm seems to be to keep them in an M&S curiously strong mints tin with some kitchen towel until you get a particularly picky teacher. DD2 used to get her teacher's cast off reeds for cheap... Less so now!

Also I think bassoon teachers are always just so evangelical about the instrument they keep lending you their music. I was still returning books to DD2's first teacher six months after she moved to her new school. Good luck! Any questions just ask.

We still have a mint tin as overflow storage! Also when they get further on, lots of music is on IMSLP ( a legit website for out of copyright music) if you don't mind old editions of study books, sonatas etc.

Dd has "crossed the floor" and has been moved from second soprano to first soprano in her chapel choir. She's very excited as this means she will definitely get to sing all the lovely descants in the Christmas music.

This does mean though that after 7 years I'm now going to have to sit on the opposite side of the church...

Oh nice. I love a Christmas descant. I do love our church now but there's no real choir tradition in it so we don't have the lovely Christmas music I miss from my childhood church. I do get to play in an orchestra for another bigger church for their carol service and sometimes sing along with the choir from the double bass section!

I'm a second soprano, but get to do all the descants! Even do them from the congregation, much to the disgust of DS.

@QueenMabby DD2 is always trying to get moved down to second sop - both the london and national youth choirs had/have her as a second, her old school had her as an alto, but for some reason her new one makes her sing sop 1. She's too scared to say anything- but she's struggling with the top notes. Great for Christmas descants though.

This week just gets worse - she now has a dodgy flute I need to get mended, but a flute solo on Monday. Her teacher is suggesting repairers just outside bristol - I'll be down nearby on Thursday but without a car and with lots of work to do and she'd like me to take it somewhere to get it fixed - all in all it is a challenge I could do without.

Just a quick check. Gcse - it's better to do a grade 5 piece well than anything else isn't it? She's got some rusty grade 8 work but she usually plays in orchestras so is having trouble picking individual pieces. She says the grade 5 ones from her grade were years ago and boring 🙄.

Yes. Depending on the exam board you get extra marks for attempting a Grade 5 piece (Grade 4 for Eduqas I think) but no extra marks for attempting Grades 6-8.

However you lose more marks if you are not totally accurate than you can gain from playing a harder piece.

I thought that was the case. She's just picking now so wanted to be sure!

@GeneralMusings I think DD2 may do this - it is grade 5 but is also part of her flute diploma - as the whole sonata is on the ARSM list?

I concur re GCSE. Better to do a G5 thing very well, than try to impress with a higher-level piece that won't get any more marks. Don't think you get 'difficulty marks' like in diving!

Flogged across the county yesterday for a piano competition DS's teacher insisted he entered. Daria from The Piano was there, and amazing, but DS's class was won by a total prodigy who'd been playing since he was four, and is at a specialist music school. Second place was a school contemporary, who we know does hours and hours of practice.

DS is more of a 'play loads of things for fun' kind of guy, so not sure competitions are his bag!

Piano competitions are weird.

Well done to him for doing it @herbaceous - I'm pretty sure they aren't DD2's kind of thing either. However, they are probably good practice for the nerves of playing!

Just been to her solo lunchtime concert - always have to hold my breath for them. I reckon she did amazingly, she is worried she split the D on the Grovlez she was playing.

You do get difficulty marks but they only cover up to Grade 5.

So for AQA it is

Below Grade 1 - 1 mark
Grade 1 - 2 marks
Grade 2 - 3 marks
Grade 3 - 4 marks
Grade 4 - 5 marks
Grade 5 - 6 marks

There are then 15 marks for technical control/accuracy and 15 for expression/interpretation.

So you can see there are more marks to be lost on playing a more difficult piece less well than there are to be gained.

Edexel is slightly different but the same concept applies.