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.

@HappyHaggis, my DS did NYSO last year but only sinfonietta so I can't give you any insight in the sinfonia. But I did watch the sinfonia concert and they were very good. I wouldn't be able to tell what grades they were because I'm not a trained musician but it felt like they were grade 8. The Sinfonia also played a piece with the orchestra above so they would've had chance to play and rehearse with much higher standard players. They also rotated their seats throughout the concert so everybody had the experience of leading the orchestra and played at the back in different sections. Assume that's a good thing.
DS just got his offer of a place in Sinfonietta for next year this morning. He'll be delighted when he hears the news.

Congratulations to your DS on the music festivals @chickentikkasalad - that must be really helpful for boosting his confidence as he's still really young. My experience is that the only thing that improves performance anxiety is doing lots of performing so your plan to find more things where he can play in front of others sounds good. My DD started performing piano at her Sat music school concerts about 3 years ago. The first concert she found it hard to walk over from our house - had to keep stopping because she felt sick! The second time it was better but she was still really nervous and then its improved massively each time. I don't think that you can (or would want to) totally eliminate the nerves as a player, but she's so much more confident now - to the extent that for school events she's quite casual.

She hasn't had the same solo playing experience on violin so gets more nervous on that at the moment so that's one that I need to help her find more opportunities on - she tends to play in ensembles rather than solo, but she's joined a piano trio playing violin this year so think that will help as its very 'exposed'.

Those of you with relatively young children starting to tackle the middle grades (4/5), are your children motivated to practice or are you doing a lot of the encouragement (mostly gentle and sometimes cross..). Also looking ahead to secondary, how do you manage the homework/practice balance? By then assuming the same trajectory but obviously with wider gaps between grades, (assuming a year) we are looking at grade 8 around year 8 on at least one instrument possibly two. Thanks

@chickentikkasalad congratulations to your DS - he’s done so well!

One thing that always helped me with nerves as a musician and now as an adult doing public speaking (which I really hate, despite being totally fine with musical performances!) is telling myself that the nervous feeling is actually excitement - the feeling is the same so reframing it can really help.

I have a question for more experienced parents - DS (6yo, violin) is happy to practice but has a short attention span (we do 15 mins x 2 each day) and gets bored of doing the same things over and over. He’s not really motivated to perfect things - think he’d ideally just play everything as fast as possible - and is quite sensitive to criticism so it’s difficult to find a balance (though we are working on all this!).

His teacher has been giving him one new piece a week then asking him to carry on working on the piece from last week, but the pieces are so short (few lines) that playing them both through a couple of times each only takes a few mins, and then he’ll do a few mins of scales. I’ve been filling the time with his Xmas music which has been great for his sight reading, but I’m wondering if I should ask the teacher to set him more stuff to do? I’ve really tried to avoid interfering and don’t want to push him, but I feel like he’d actually enjoy it more if he had more to work on. Or maybe he should just practice less?!

@Happydaysandhappysmiles also interested in the answer to your questions! I definitely have to cajole/encourage DS but he’s only 6 and has made super fast progress so far. I kind of hope that as he gets better and older he will become more self-motivated but not sure when that kicks in?!

@Compsearch , your DS sounds like he’s doing really well!
As a teacher, I picked up a couple of things from your post. You said that “playing through” the pieces a couple of times only takes a few minutes.
Playing through is a really common habit for students, particularly young ones and early stages.
It’s really useful to differentiate between playing and practising; it’s natural to enjoy playing what we find easy, not so much what we find hard or can’t do…which is the whole point of practising.

Of course, you don’t want to squash his enjoyment, so perhaps you could pick out a single phrase/bar that he’s not playing quite as well and make a game of seeing how slowly/quietly/smoothly etc he can play it - anything to challenge him to really think about how he’s playing it.

I think asking the teacher for more pieces will only lead to more playing through and less focused practice, but perhaps you could structure his practice sessions differently, so that he spends the first 10 minutes working on the difficult bits and finishes by playing through his pieces or playing something new as a reward.

Thank you @northerngoldilocks and @Compsearch for your suggestions and advices. His teacher did mention finding more performing opportunities for him so that's good. I also agree some degree of anxiety is a good thing. Same as doing sports you kind of need that feeling in order to harness all the energy to do your best.

@Alwaysplayspicc I still struggle to get DS to do anything other than play through unless i'm standing over him and making him focus on particular bits. He's worse on this on piano but even on flute he tends towards it and he's working on grade 7 and 8 respectively so to the extent that better practice technique can be instilled earlier I'd suggest its time well spent (DS is 13)

@Compsearch has the teacher showed him what practice should look like? Eg low notes, bow exercises, left hand warm ups. Then isolated bars that are tricky, not starting from the start every time. Slow practice. Have a look at some of the benedetti foundation videos for some exercises. Could he video so it's him doing the criticism instead of you? Eg what went well, even better if - they will know that from school probably.

I mean long not low!

Thats a good point @horseymum - DD's violin teacher has been much more prescriptive as to what she should do each week - so she starts with open strings for bowing work, then a study (or when she was a beginner some exercises) then work on pieces. Their piano teacher didn't really do this when they were young so its been more of a learning experience - DD practices better than DS on piano, but its taken a while.

@chickentikkasalad congrats to your son - he is brilliant.

@Compsearch - I always feel my overton window is wrong on these threads, but perhaps two lots of 15 minutes a day is too much and he could do just one? He's very little! DD2 hadn't even started any instruments at that age and could concentrate for about five seconds.

But maybe I'm neatly illustrating why I'm so bad at being a mum of a musical child! Sounds like he's doing fabulously anyway.

On learning how to practise, I think that's a constant struggle. DD2 knows exactly what she SHOULD do - she has teachers telling her this all the time. She will do this on her first and second studies because the teachers are prescriptive. Singing she doesn't practise at all and gets away with it

And I watched her play the piano this weekend when she was home for exeat. She's learning Grade 5 pieces with a view to recording them at Christmas. Is she practising? NO she is not.., she is just playing them through like she knows you are absolutely not supposed to do. She doesn't have piano lessons so somehow everything she knows about instrumental practice goes out of the window! I told her she'd get there more quickly if she took it more slowly but she doesn't listen to her old mum. WHo to be fair had been learning a lot longer than six months before she considered grade 5 piano.

She has just asked for an alto sax. For fun and because 'everyone else has one'.

To be fair my eldest got quite a long way just starting at the start every time and playing as fast as he could. It's just not the most efficient but he enjoyed it.

@horseymum that is exactly what DD2 does! Though she does now admit she wished she'd actually perfected the fingering on some of the pieces a little earlier before going at them full pelt. It's a learning curve - but I must admit I assumed she was further along it given that she does so many other instruments.

I have never heard of a child who is 100% self-motivated to do the practice 😁, at least not on string instruments as it's such a tedious job. DD has been playing for nearly 6 years now and while playing pieces has always been fun, scales and technical exercises are a different story. We are very fortunate as her teacher writes very detailed technical tasks in DD's practice diary so I can always point out to the notes and it's not just me being a nagging parent, but some other figure of authority telling her what to do. I still need to remind her to do structured practice and focus on difficult bars.

In DD's case predictable daily routine helps too - she knows that she comes from school, has a snack, some downtime reading/playing, then practice time so her days are very structured and she's happy with that.

Lots of multi-instrumentalists do early morning practice, before going to school - our violin teacher's DC practises 6-7am, and they're 7yo. Mornings are often more productive - sadly no one in our family is a morning person so never worked for us 😞

I've never offered any "bribes" but many people do and it seems to be working, too.

If anything, I find practice harder not easier moving up the grades. DD did grade 4 with barely 40 minutes of unstructured practice and not even every day, now at grade 8+ it's impossible to get away without working on the tricky bits separately - and this is just basic technical stuff, musicality, interpretation and expression aside. I guess it takes general psychological and physiological maturity, not just years of experience playing the instrument - though some children appear much more mature and focussed for their age than others. Also, it's probably slightly easier for girls at younger ages - we know exceptionally talented boys who didn't make enough progress for the amount of talent they have, simply because they struggled with practice due to a relative physiological immaturity. I think there is no universal recipe for practice, a lot will depend on the child and their individual music journey.

On an easier instrument though DD (11) is completely independent in her practice at the same grade 8 level - I don't even know what's going on as she practises at school and I can only see the results in concerts. It's only strings and piano that are hard work 😁

Oh yes, recording yourself - DD hates this, but it's such an excellent instant feedback! 😂 If something is particularly bad, I tell nothing but ask DD to record herself.

Love all the discussions about practice!
DS8 has been very much self-motivated for his violin journey from day 1 but practice has never been self motivated. He always needs a reminder or two to start. However he does have a long attention span from a very young age (5-6?). So once he starts it's usually easy job to keep going. But he didn't learn how to practice until very recent. He was just playing something over and over again. Now he's finally realised in order to make real progress he has to do targeted practice for sections, slow practice etc. it's a skill to learn how to practise.

Thank you all! @horseymum his teacher hasn’t really given him any warm ups or exercises to do - he’s doing G major 2 octaves separate bows and slurred but other than that it’s just 2 very short pieces each week (3-4 lines each). Perhaps I should ask for more exercises but then again, I doubt he would thank me for it!

@Alwaysplayspicc you are right re not just playing through, and I also agree that asking for more will hinder rather than help. His pieces are so short though that it’s not really a problem yet, and they don’t tend to have tricky bars as such (once he’s learned the notes), it’s just things like phrasing, dynamics that applies to all of it but he’s less keen on working on once the notes and rhythm are nailed. Maybe in fact my question is how to motivate him to want to work on this stuff? Or do I even need to at this point?!

@minisnowballs tbh I’m totally torn - on the one hand I think he’s still very young, and I totally agree with @Ubertomusic that boys (or at least my boy!) are less mature - I’ve got a 4yo girl who is nowhere near as musical but I can already tell will be a diligent practicer! - but on the other hand I had numerous people tell me we’ve missed the boat and started him too late 🤷🏼‍♀️. He’s happy to do 30 mins a day so I think it’s a question of making it worthwhile and enjoyable for him.

I think its probably too soon for studies for him - but maybe some bowing exercises. DDs teacher does a thing with the metronome set to 60 where she has to section the bow on open strings - so starting with 4 then 6 then 8 etc etc. She goes to about 16 i think. Focus on the bow not drifting off down the violin and maintaining the sound too, so he might find that 'fun'. Maybe ask the teacher though what they'd like him to do?

@Compsearch I guess 'missed the boat' might depend what the desired outcome is too? Is it to be a violinist, to enjoy music, to get a particular scholarship somewhere, to go to a junior department? I think it might be easy to get caught up in panic about this stuff, particularly in London.

Education in general is a long and surprising game and I couldn't have predicted where either of my children are now when they were six (and the younger one was the one who had never touched an instrument at that age or showed any interest apart from the three piano lessons where she kicked the piano and screamed).

As DD's school is so fond of saying, everyone's journey is different.

Personally, I think the things you mention - dynamics, phrasing etc - are absolutely vital to instil from the get-go when learning music, so I’d tackle his pieces differently from the moment he’s given them.

I tell my students that their brain is a computer and everything they do when playing gets programmed into it.
So, rather than having to programme it twice, eg first time the right notes, second time the details, it’s better and ultimately quicker if we input everything every time we play. (Notice how easily mistakes stick and how hard they are to correct once they’re set).

I’d work hard at getting him to put in as much detail every time he plays - that’s where the magic happens!

The other thing you could try is to let him have completely free rein to play whatever he wants in part of his practice sessions - let him improvise/create different sounds, experiment, have fun.
Once he’s done that, get down to the “serious” work.

Just to add, my DS didn’t start cello lessons until he was nearly 9 and got a music scholarship to an independent school at 11, grade 8 distinction at 14, specialist music school at 16, a place in NYO, and scholarship offers to all the top conservatoires last year…you have definitely not missed the boat!!

Thank you, really helpful @Alwaysplayspicc and that is reassuring re age! One of my good friends is a viola player (one of the top soloists/chamber musicians in the U.K. on her instrument - some of you may know who I mean) - she has got her 14 month old a teeny violin, and was surprised we hadn’t started DS sooner 🤣.

In terms of goals, I guess I just want him to fulfil his potential and have all the amazing experiences I had as a child/teen, if he wants them. And it seems on violin we need to be a lot more involved at a younger age to help get him there than if he played eg the trombone, but as someone who started much later (and had no support from parents whatsoever) I don’t really know what I’m doing! I will try a different approach with his practice and see how it goes.

I think that there's no "right" way to study music, or rather it depends what the DC wants from the whole experience. Which of course is shaped by the parents' input, especially when younger. I am in absolute awe of the wonderful achievements reported on this thread.

DS in Y13 is (if I can be biased) a genuine all-rounder, between music, academics, and sports. He'll be in a school show tomorrow ("A Night at the Musicals") where he will be singing in an a cappella group, and playing two instruments for four different groups of friends who asked him because he's a reliable band-member rather than a star performer. He absolutely loves it, and I really hope that he'll take that attitude to university.

Everyone needs those reliable band-members just as much as the soloists! Nothing wrong with seeking either role and training accordingly. (I speak as someone who sat at the back of the second violin section at school...)

you are so right about being a reliable band member.

when my son began playing he was infuriating. He would spend hours and hours just sight reading/playing through things. He would never work on technique and refused to do scales. He failed his scales in the first year of conservatoire & only now has started to practice them. (Aged 20). He is not the best player out there.

BUT - he’s already working. He appears to be very in demand because he is reliable, flexible and can sight read/improvise. Ok, he doesn’t work in the world of classical music but accompanying cabaret singers and playing for musical theatre shows is pretty well paid.

he says another big part of the reason why he gets work s that he “gets” the style and that can be more important than being completely accurate so I agree with alwaysplayspicc there.