Ok,assuming child is very able musically-what is next?

[Worriedandlost]

Dd1 is taking music lessons and considered to be good at it (piano/violin). Assuming that pattern continues, what is next? To carry on with private lessons as it is now or are there other ways? And what is about future, what are employment opportunities for the adult musicians? I have heard that music area is very competitive and low paid. The reason for the question is that dd1 is coming to the point where practicing takes too much of our time and this affects other activities, this is not to mention cost of the lessons, would be nice to know that there are at least remote possibilities to get something back out of it :)

mistlethrush, thank you for advice, I will try to do it this way, it will save a lot of time! Again, I made requests about singing but was told wait till later. dd1 has perfect pitch though, according to her teacher.

FriendlyLadybird, this is useful bit of information, thank you! If dd is not told something like that in a couple of years I will know that she is not the one :). For the time being I only know she is the youngest in the orchestra and her teacher told me she only includes good private students. Other children seem to be much older.

Ds sung in the church choir from the age of 6 and took grade one singing when he was 7. I have no idea what perfect pitch was until I googled it. Ds has this too (not sure how useful it is).

OP, your DD is practising far far more than almost all of her peers and, with some natural talent (which she must have), will obviously make much more rapid technical progress than them and will be playing at a level of usually older children. At a young age these differences in technical proficiency are always more marked but less so at 18 when the later starters have come through.
At the end of the day it will be her musicality in interpreting pieces that will make the difference to what level she can achieve (assuming she continues with the inner drive to pursue music). A love of listening to music may help with this.

I agree that a the ability to interpret music is not always apparent until older. However the impression I get is that most top classical soloists were extremely technically proficient at a very young age.

Also think OP that if your daughter has got HFA then a major benefit for her longterm, whatever she ends up doing, will be developing communication with others through all the channels music enables. If she is particularly good at it, even if mainly at a level of technical proficiency, then she will also get a lot of pleasure and feeling of selfworth.

Hi Worried I have a very musical daughter - she is now at a specialist music school. At the age your daughter is she only played the recorder and did 15 min of practice a day.
She started piano at 7, and brass at 9. She only did the amount of practice you are talking about from the age of 10.
I would say that it isn't the technicality that makes a musician (though that is obviously a big part) but their inate musicality. From a very young age people have said my daughter was clearly musical. Often in the local music festival she would be described as having tremendous musicality.

I don't know if any of that is useful to you, but I thought hearing from another mum of a musician might be handy :)

summerends, richmal, BanjoPlayingTiger thanks, totally agree that it is musicality and not technicality that matters. Watching for this, I think it is improving slightly, but not quite sure, cannot say she is really good at it.

summerends , listening to music-oh! you will not believe what CD collection I now got in my car! Dd has no problem listening to the most "heavy" classics, I struggled a bit at the beginning but got used to it now. Still, would prefer David Garett to David Oistrakh :)

BanjoPlayingTiger - yes! all opinions are appreciated and valued! from mums particularly :) About early age, I was told that from the beginning that children who start later make more rapid progress, in fact I slightly regretted starting violin so early, as she really struggled for the first three months or so. She loved piano from the very beginning though. Re practice-teachers require min 30 mins a day and there are two instruments + dd is a bit hyperactive, so everything takes longer, even lessons!

bisjo, they say perfect pitch is nice to have but not really essential :)

Innate musicality is key. Ds has this in spades and it is something that cannot be taught no matter how technically proficient you become. I don't know what age KS1 goes up to, is it 6? If so then an hour's practising a day seems a lot to me. Ds does 30 mins a day at school aged 9 and that is deemed enough until you get to above grade 5 when a lot more is required. None of his music teachers have ever said he should be doing more than 30 mins a day. He learns two instruments so does each instrument on alternate days.

bisjo, I guess it depends what you are aiming to? Frankly speaking we could do each instrument in 10-15 mins, dd is reading from page well, does not make mistakes often, so could play once and off we go... But no matter what happens I want her to be good at it and not only have fun!
The thing is-if child does not learn well certain things problems will build up. Many children loose interest when program becomes more difficult. But to make it easy one have to practice! And it is good to get it into habit whilst she is still young.

Not agreed about musicality, dd could not even sing in tune till about 2.5 (ds was doing it at 9 months but the he has older sister who is playing!) and yet it turned out that she has perfect pitch! Besides, she is not very musical in MY opinion, dh and her teacher both think she is musical :) Time will show, but thanks to this discussion I feel we are on a right track if she continue to love it :)

Thanks again everyone who contributed!

Ds practises and performs for over 22.5 hours a week. The only thing we are aiming for is that he enjoys himself whilst he is doing it. I'm not musical either but I can appreciate ds's love of music as it is what defines him. I leave it to those who are qualified to tell me how exceptional his musicality is. I would never ever push him to practise.

I REALLY don't like this sentence in your last post:

But no matter what happens I want her to be good at it and not only have fun!

That's quite sad imo. Having fun is all life should be about at 6yo.

Is the OP's dd 6? I agree with you titchy! 6 is very young to be doing that much practising a day. Mind you I wonder what it is like to have a child that will do what you say and practice as much as you ask them to. Ds will only practice when he wants to and there would be nothing I could do to make him.

titchy, I am the person who has never being to pushed to do something, as a result I still fight my infintilism :). I want to send dd a message-you try your best at what you are doing, is it smth wrong with it?

And no, dd is not 6, though you may round it to 6 perhaps :) up or down I am not saying :)

bisjo, would you please remind me how old is your ds? Just to remind you that dd is younger and autistic, and sort of g&t, she will have to be guided every step. Guys, honestly, just assume that I know more or less what is the best for dd's well being, most of you if not all judge from the position of a parent of a normal child. Dd has behavioral problems and I know how to control and put her energy into something positive :) I may make mistakes, who does not, but one thing is for sure, dd is not pushed into music in a nasty way, she loves music, she is very good at it and it is definitely her thing. How good she is only time will tell. But you have to be realistic, no one loves boring staff, and the younger child is the more child has to be helped to get through the routine practice.

But she may easily spend hours at the piano, playing her own tunes, playing some violin tunes or just playing build in music games.

Just trust me :)

Ds is apparently KS2 age, using your terminology. He's not NT either which imvho makes it even more important that he leads rather than me trying to push him.

In this day and age where children are expected to achieve it is very easy as a parent to latch on to something your child appears to be good at and use that to show they are better than others of their age. In reality most children have strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes and (at least for me) it is important to encourage lots of interests rather than focusing on one thing from such an early age (assuming that KS1 means your dd could be anything from 5 to 7).

If ds chooses to continue music when he is older than good for him. If he doesn't he will have had an unusual experience for a child so young which he can add to all of his many other interests.

I found at that age that my dd responded better to only being allowed to do a small amount of practice. I would stop her practicing whilst she was still having fun and that way she would be really eager to get back to it the following day. Doing it this way meant that by the time she was playing more instruments and was about 9 she was great at disciplining herself to practice as it was a fun thing for her to do and has never been a battle.
If you push too hard your little one has something to rebel against.

bisjo, let me shake you hand (re not NT child :))
I agree with your last post 100%

BanjoPlayingTiger, mine cannot control herself even over basic staff. Most of the time I will stop when we covered what I planned or she says she is tired.

On the other hand we have this conversation with her teacher at summer, it was horribly hot, the children were out playing, we came poorly prepared couple of times, and her teacher was on and on and on about the importance of good practice. I(!!!) told her that dd is just a young child and have to have some fun esp when weather is good. It did not help, her teacher still insisted on practicing and said that we actually had to practice more as dd was getting older. This teacher is a really good experienced teacher, passed by word of mouth only, fully booked etc, surely, she knows what she is saying?

It is different to what my children's piano teacher said. Their teacher wouldn't take pupils until they were 5 as they don't generally have the concentration skills needed until then. At 5 years old she said that 20minutes was more than enough. Any more than that and they get bored and it becomes a chore.
My dd is the second of her pupils to get into one of the top music schools in the country recently, so she knows what she is doing.
I have no idea about your childs teacher as I have never met her. However from my experiences if your child is only 5 or 6 then I would have to disagree with her.

my dd has behavioural problems and is awaiting an assessment for aspergers amongst other things.

My dd also loves performing. My dd also plays violin and piano. My dd is 8, yours cannot be older than 7 in KS1.

However, there our similarities end.

Being a professional musician, and obviously having many musician friends, mine and your ideas of what makes a successful musician are very different, also how to nurture our dc is also very different.

I would be interested to know where you would like to see your dd in say 20 years time? I am just trying to understand what you are trying to achieve, and how you think dd will cope with that.

I still think that you should be aiming to concentrate the 'practice' and really make the most of it - then if she wants to go on and play afterwards, fair enough - but concentrated practice is going to be much better than simply playing through the pieces 2 or 3 times. I used to do my practice then spend some time playing through Albums that my grandfather had of G&S tunes and other arrangements - my mother would play the piano with me.

very tongue in cheek name change, but I have previously worked in the business side of classical music and ran for the hills as there's not much of a business left outside of arts organisations. Of course I'd like to hear what 1805 and the other pros on the thread have to say.
Union fees for sessions are pretty poor and are constantly being adjusted downwards. In spite of that, it's simply not economically viable for many recordings to take place in the UK any more - operas are pretty much all done in France where the government supports it (1805, what do the players get for those sessions, do you know?). Effect is that there's very little work here - but probably a lot in Prague but at derisory rates. Getting permanent places in orchestras is getting harder -the BBC are hauling in their belt and they're desperately trying to get commercial work for their permanent players.
It's not all gravy for the soloists either- the size of recording deals for them are tiny. The amount of work they are required to put in to make a few thousand is astonishing - so they need to make it all by playing live, which means a full diary of extensive travel around the world relentlessly. It's really bloody tough.
Of course a lot of the people working around performers have a playing background / were at music school. There's a lot of working more for love than money until you're running the Opera House / your own agency etc but there's a lot of love and there are a lot of fun careers that don't involve playing, which give a more stable / normal lifestyle and for which a 6 year old can enjoy playing for the sake of it, as well as having some playdates and riding a bike of an evening.

Worried, I think her musical development would be better aided by encouraging her 'playing around' or experimenting on her instruments than as much technical practice. The former will allow her musicality to come through and creativity that could be quenched by the emphasis that time spent on technical progress is more worthwhile.