Autumn / Winter 2025 Music

[northerngoldilocks]

Time for a new thread in time for the new school term!

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.

Hello!

Could we have a post summarising who our kids are, what they're studying etc? I find it hard to remember!

Well, DS passed the audition! He's been accepted into the Rodolfus Choir!

congratulations @herbaceousDS! He’s amazing!!

Congratulations to your DS @herbaceous.

My DS is starting at RCM (flute) in 2 weeks - gulp. This summer has been one of endings - 7 years at JD, 4 years at NYO and turning 18. Now for an autumn of beginnings...

Those 'ending' years are hard, aren't they. Once the 'beginnings' start, all will be well!

Posted on the old thread by mistake so re-posting here:

Well done mini @herbaceous! I don’t know anything about rodolfus apart from that they do a summer course. I presume it’s a regular commitment?

For the introduction bit, dd is my musically minded child (I have an older ds but he doesn’t do music). Dd is 16 and plays piano, cello and sings. She’ll be taking both instruments at g8 this year and singing will either be g6 or g7 depending on how negotiations go with her teacher! She does all her music through her school and she sings in a chapel choir most weeks. She doesn’t want to do music for her career though. She’s currently vacillating between medicine and biochemistry as degree options. She’s starting sixth form next week.

Ah yes, summary!

DS, 16, at Quaker school, doing lots of music.
Singing - ex chorister, multiple choirs, working on diploma. Also massive musical theatre fan, and has done lots of leading/supporting roles
Piano - just done diploma, loves Chopin and working through jazz classics.
French Horn - G7 level, various school groups and gets drafted in with 'grown ups' as orchestras always seem to need horns!

He doesn't want to do music as a career or at uni, though I'm hoping he'll change his mind!

As for Rodolfus Choir (posted on other thread too) It's an auditioned choir of about 100 16-23YOs. Members can either be from the courses, or just anyone.
You pay a small subscription, then have to commit to at least one thing per year, such as recordings, concerts in fab locations etc. So each gig isn't the full choir, meaning more exposure. They also have workshops, etc.

This Christmas they're recording evensong for the BBC's New Year's Eve!

Well done to you DS @herbaceous. DD is looking forward to being old enough to audition.

As an intro, DD is 14 and plays cello, clarinet, piano, drums (self-taught) and sings. She is currently working on her ARSM in singing and hopes to take this in year 11 (school doesn’t allow before then in voice), grade 8 in cello and clarinet this year and grade 8 piano before the end of December. She sings outside of school with National Youth Choir as well as school, church chorister and a children’s choir. Also involved with NYMT for MT and orchestra. This year in around five ensembles at school with orchestra and chamber. She also is heavily involved in acting so balances this all with LAMDA and National Youth Theatre. All in all very busy and just starting year 10.

She is keen to do a joint stem and music degree as she wants to have something to fall back on if singing doesn’t work out.

Definitely endings/ beginnings here. End of JD/ school/NYO for one, and start of conservatoire. Start of JD for next one, with a new, but not totally unknown, teacher.
We've had a lovely summer of music, hopefully more to come during this term. I've had some lovely support from parents on here, nicest bit of this website! There are no daft questions, just ask away, someone is bound to know the answer!

On this thread and against all odds the answer seemed for a while to be ‘bassoon’ 😁.

I am watching the Aurora orchestra on catch-up at the moment and there are some rather fine bassoons in there - quite the performance!

We went to hear that in the Edinburgh festival, it was epic!

@northerngoldilocks - ha. @herbaceous congrats!

yes- I have dd2 interested in music. She’s just turned 16 and is going into 6th form at the specialist music school she’s attended since year 10- boarding 100 miles away from us.

for those who know specialist schools, she picked the one with non-musicians too and still isn’t sure whether she wants uni or conservatoire in the long run. She does indeed specialise in bassoon, but also plays flute and sings- and is having a bloody good go at teaching herself the piano and saxophone.

this term’s excitement probably includes grade 8 singing as well as (she hopes) her flute diploma. She’s also determined to impress on the a levels and her epq. Lots to juggle. Mostly, at the moment, she’s engaged in buying shorter and shorter black skirts on Vinted and dyeing her hair colours that the headteacher won’t approve of.

@horseymum it looks it - I will watch out for them next year.

My DD graduated in the summer - a lot of her friends were/are flautists. She's back for masters so if there is anything you want to know please ask away.

@yodaforpresident - I assume your DD has Jo Tomlinson at NYC - she's utterly amazing (my choir director too...)

My child is about to start 4th year at conservatoire. He’s a horn player. Going to be a tough year for him but hopefully he’ll do ok. No idea what comes next other than he wants to be a pro musician but seems mostly committed to golf and beer.

In terms of intro and summary, DS is on the other side of the spectrum to most here. He’s an 8 years old violinist but also learns the piano, wishing to be a pro violinist. He’s also going to start singing lessons this term. He sings/hums ALL the time without realise he is doing it. But he doesn’t have the right technique. The piano teacher says he’s going to damage his vocal cord if he doesn’t know how to sing properly while doing it constantly. We had one trial lesson prior to the summer break and he’s improved loads already. Still singing constantly but it’s a SLIGHTLY less strained voice. Does singing comes to most your DC naturally or they have to learn the techniques as well? He might not do any grades on the singing just hoping to protect his voice a bit, as he’s already got a more hoarse voice now than say a year ago.

Just did grade 5 music theory 2 weeks ago and anxiously waiting for results - mostly worried about my room scan video…

@Londonmummy66 she did have the wonderful Jo but she finished her five years last year and there is a new director this year - Lynsey Callaghan. DD was lucky enough to be involved in the year that they did the three recordings on one course with her.

My 12yo DS is grade 5 piano, grade 3 Singing for Musical Theatre and we’re currently awaiting his grade 3 LAMDA exam result which he took in July. He’s supposed to be doing grade 5 theory of music and grade 5 Singing for Musical Theatre this term but he has been impossible to motivate over the summer so they will probably take longer than planned. He has suspected ADHD and he finds it very difficult to focus during practice or even to sit down and practice in the first place. He adores jazz so he’s working through some jazz piano books to improve his sightreading skills before he starts working towards grade 6 piano.

If anyone has any tips on helping young people to practice then I would very much appreciate them!

My 16yo ds sounds similar to yours StuntNun! His teacher was planning for him to take grade 7 viola this term, but he’s hardly picked it up all summer. He has been playing his guitar lots though. In terms of advice, the only thing that helps is me sitting in with him and encouraging him to begin, as he finds starting so difficult. Once he’s playing, hyperfocus kicks in and he doesn’t need me there then.

He’s doing A level music so he needs to start practicing again, I’m hopeful college will emphasise how important practice is! He’s also starting a music technology BTEC and is really looking forward to it.

Thanks @Londonmummy66!

@chickentikkasalad - re singing technique, DS just seemed to be able to do it, but he did start his formal singing in a church choir, so probably picked up good technique, warm-ups etc.

He didn't start singing lessons until he was working on his g5.

I'm a long-standing but infrequent poster on these threads.
DS is about to start second year at conservatoire, as a cellist. He was previously at specialist music school, in NYO etc; DH and I are both professional musicians.