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.

Hope everyone doing holiday courses has enjoyed them, well soon be entering the headlong rush towards Christmas. 9 concerts between two of us so far lined up! Don't know about middle one yet so maybe more. I love it! Can still remember COVID times when there was nothing so never moan about it now. I'm sure if you're a chorister family it's hard though!

Good luck to anyone doing the NYOS audition tomorrow

@MyBlueSloth mine has to wait until the one at the end of the month! Hope it goes well.

We’re braving the train chaos from the north to see the ESO concert, and see DS safely home. We ish me luck…

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest - We’re in the foyer, propping up the bar. I bet you’re here somewhere!

It was good @herbaceous - sorry to miss you! Hope you all got back OK. DD2 safely back at school - but think it was a long trip for her after a concert.

It was an amazing concert. That Mahler... gosh. Though you could tell by the end they were flagging!

DS was most impressed with the bassoon section!

Though the memory he'll most treasure is squeezing so close past John Major that their buttocks brushed!

DD2 completely disinterested in former prime ministers @herbaceous ! Still smarting from having her original concert dress rejected for showing 'too much shoulder' - it's the one she has used for every other orchestra she's ever done. They were very strict on it!

Getting back to concerts and shows, I was just pondering over the use of social media for young performers. NYO is obviously all over SM and it looks inevitable they'll have to be online to promote themselves. Some young violinists (not teenagers though) are really big on SM. It starts even earlier for dancers and I was actually coming from that perspective as dance SM can attract some weirdos and it's been always a big no from me. I guess it may be different for classical musicians though as there's not so much interest anyway and the "classical subculture" is very formal. Then again, for MT or TV actors it may be different in some other ways.

I don't actually have any well formed questions to ask at the moment, but I would appreciate some thoughts and experience - has it been actually beneficial for your young performers to be on SM, how did you navigate it to avoid nasty things happening online? The whole internet is rapidly changing of course, with deep fakes now emerging, so probably younger generations are more cautious now, but I just don't understand how they are going to make a living with real life performances dying out and everything shifting to online and streaming whether you like it or not.

@Ubertomusic really interesting question.

DH uses social media as a performer and is quite active on it - he sees it as a necessary evil but mostly limits his content to concerts/promotion and connected social activities (eg backstage at x venue, photos on tour). It is definitely expected within the industry now.

We have been super cautious with our kids though and DH has never/would never put them on his social media, even though most of his peers with similar aged children put them on a lot (and they would no doubt improve his engagement) - eg I won’t say his name on here for online search purposes but a good friend former BBC YM finalist/pianist and his musician wife have chronicled a lot of their son’s life so far on Instagram.

I have to say I can’t see many positives for teens who are not yet fully formed musicians (or humans!) to be putting themselves out there in that way. A better way round (in my view) would be for the social media to follow/ flow from some kind of real life success, rather than being used to generate that success, but (a) im very risk averse and (b) the world is changing fast, so interested in others’ thoughts.

Am interested in this discussion too as DD of the age where she probably needs to be making connections to secure the beginnings of freelance work ( still likely to be unpaid just now but hopefully heading towards being paid occasionally!) which isn't driven by me and my connections such as they are. Would probably limit it to factual content from concerts etc rather than anything more personal. They have to make a basic webpage as part of studies this year so a link to that as well is probably as much as we'd have.

My son doesn't post much on social media. Mostly the odd repost of productions he has been involved with and the odd announcement when he gets a contract but he has joined LOTS of chat groups. Youngsters don't tend to use Facebook much but my son realised quite quickly that the people who employ others who are usually older, are still on Facebook.

There are groups for dep musicians, groups for theatre musicians, groups for professionals asking for advice. Dh is active on them, sees work advertised on them and is prolific in adding these people as friends and messaging them. He is very mindful of what people can and can't see about him.

Thank you for your replies guys! They actually bring up some more thoughts - I wasn't thinking about Facebook at all for example, I'm Gen X but have never actually used it and it didn't come to my mind people actually use FB groups for work these days @Comefromaway , interesting to hear it's still a thing.

@Compsearch Yes, I see the point of online presence coming from real life success, but what I'm thinking is it's still online presence with its pros and cons. NYO placement is a real life achievement but then they need to keep posting. It's minimal in NYO case but if we take TwoSetViolin for example, they were both successful real life soloists before going on Youtube, but their online success is incomparable and actually hugely improved their real life careers and touring.

Sometimes it's more difficult to control what comes from real life - DD performed at local festivals (not competitions but the actual community festivals) and public events in very touristy places like Covent Garden, and you cannot really stop everyone from filming in such places. I haven't used my own videos for SM but now I think what's the point if it might be out there anyway...

@Ubertomusic I don’t mean this harshly at all but when I said real life success I meant something that will propel them to a career, like a major competition win or something, not membership of NYO (which is obviously a fantastic achievement).

Eg the winners of BBC YM will need a SM presence once they have won it, but I don’t think it would make any positive difference to the outcome of the competition to have had a SM presence beforehand. Maybe this will change though?

I think it’s important to think through what the goal is and imagine how your child might feel about it down the line. My DH was on tv as a 16 yo music competition winner and finds the videos absolutely mortifying now, but fortunately they are only available on VHS at his mum’s house!

Major competition wins are very rare though so it would be no online presence for anyone but a few Chinese/Korean/Japanese violinists or pianists 😂

Competitions are very niche these days. Even BBC YM is now structured in such a way that no other groups of instruments can actually win.

Yes, old videos are mortifying! 😂 I'm wondering if there might be an opposite trend in younger generations to reduce their online sharing as people now have more experience and awareness of the creepy or aggressive side of SM. I don't really know, just guessing.

Goals differ of course but I was mostly thinking about making a living as a performing artist in the digital era with waning interest in classical music and dance. People are already perfectly happy with AI generated music so what is left for real musicians, I wonder. "Dancers" can be deep fakes too, no one cares.

DS being on BBC Young Chorister a few years ago I'd assumed would be a springboard for more singing opportunities, so I set up an Instagram account for him (with me controlling it) linked to a YouTube channel. Nothing came of either! I think they need managing properly, promoting etc etc which is a job in itself. DS didn't want any of that, and for any further success to happen organically, if it did at all.

I'm hoping that with the rise of AI and the encroachment of digital nonsense into every corner of our lives that live music and theatre - and in fact anything with real human conneciton - will become more valued. Could be wishful thinking tho!

I'd think that too! But I've heard from many people outside of music bubble that AI music is good enough... 🙈🙉

Yes, it's a job in itself for sure. I think the violinist I mentioned before and her friends set up an SM agency or consultancy for musicians. I haven't explored that as I don't really like their sexualised approach to promotion of classical music, but on the other hand I came across a Youtube channel of a young opera singer who doesn't do any risky vids but still criticises classical musicians for being unapproachable and blaming their lack of commercial success on the stupidity of the audience, not their own outdated ways of promoting their music and performance.

TwoSetViolins definitely do some "dumb down" tricks on their real life tours, it looks like they have to even though they are perfectly serious classical soloists and their audience does listen to classical music 🤷‍♀️

@Ubertomusic Major competition wins are very rare though so it would be no online presence for anyone but a few Chinese/Korean/Japanese violinists or pianists 😂

I think that’s what I mean really - I don’t see the purpose of any child having a SM account for their music. By the time they are old enough to be making a career they most likely won’t want those videos to be out there. It’s different once they are adults and at conservatoire etc, but I think you are asking about children?

I guess I went for it, as DS's treble voice wasn't going to last into adult-hood! Needed to seize the moment.

More teenagers than children though as I said for dancers it starts much earlier and they have to start working and earning earlier as by 30 most of them have to retire and retrain or go into teaching.

Yes sorry @herbaceous that makes total sense and that’s what I meant in saying it makes sense to create an account after some real life major success as well. And it’s just my opinion.

I follow a lovely state primary school in Hackney on Insta that posts lots of videos of the kids performing and I find it incredibly heartwarming and inspiring, so I’m also very glad that accounts like that exist!

Yes I meant all under 18s (legally children). Not sure really that it matters what dancers do though? Musicians’ careers luckily can last so much longer - thankfully as DH is well past 30 now!

I think the most important thing we can all do for the future of the profession is to make sure that we and our children and continue to value live performance and show that by going to as many concerts as possible. AI in music genuinely terrifies me.