A personal recital from fsharpminor A lovely programme and impressive playing - thank you fsm!

Two hours music making with DawnF, as she has outlined. Some of our 'new' duets have real promise. Followed by a one hour lesson on my grade 8 exam pieces. Pleased to say that my teacher reckons they have all noticeably improved and I should get there OK by November. She also offered a 10 minute concert slot in November, not sure of any details yet but possibly solo plus clarinet/piano duet with DawnF. And, this evening, a two hour rehearsal with the Male voice Choir that I play for, for a concert in two weeks time - just got back.
As the old adage goes - it's better to have too much to do than not enough! Another thoroughly enjoyable day.

Haha... that was my first thought when I heard that I had passed my grade 5, last year! But I have since realised that my brother (aged 11) is working on grade 4, which is nearly grade 5, which is nearly grade 6... so he's catching up to me! He wants to stop after grade 5, though.

EDIT: all that is piano, but I've just realised that you are doing grade 2 piano, and you were talking about the flute...

As soon as I finish work today I'm off until Tuesday!

Theory exam Saturday, Practical on Monday though, so it's not quite a relaxing break all the way through

My paranoid side said I needed to do lots of practice before the actual exam as I'll probably be a bag of nerves...

Sounds like another great Playday, you two, glad you enjoyed it! I am not jealous because today Bev and I arranged one for next week. We too need to start thinking about new repertoire, for flute and piano and for two flutes, so we are going to try out a few new pieces. We haven't yet tackled piano duets, but I am hoping that we can start that when Bev passes her Grade 3 piano shortly.

Dawn you can get foreign characters on most keyboards using the number keys on the right of your letters (not the ones at the top). For this to work, Num Lock must be on so if it doesn't work try pressing that key first and setting it to ON (you may have a light telling you this). So press and hold the ALT key and at the same time press the sequence 130 on the right and you should get é. So piu sonorite becomes più sonorité - but isn't that a mixture of Italian and French? Is it più sonorità? Here is a link to a set of foreign characters using this method Foreign Characters. Good Luck!

My laptop doesn't have a number pad But I've done it before with a code....

Does it not have a blue function key that turns some of the letters into a number pad? I have seen that on a laptop.

Attending an EXCELLENT Early Years Music Conference...

That sounds great, Cyrilla!

No.... Never mind it's not that much of an issue. Someone else told someone how to do it on here and the poster then did a whole line of them. It worked on mine too but since I can't search for accented e unless I can do one I guess it might be a bit tricky

Ahh well, I play piano too. They're not that different really, both make pretty music.

I know how you feel about sibling rivalry though... my sister started learning the flute a year ago, and I was terrified that she'd take over and become the flautist of the house (but I didn't enjoy playing duets with her).

She didn't practice though, and wanted a 'break'. Now she wants to start again though, but me and her school music teacher have persuaded her to do oboe instead

Managing to get a compliment on my progress from my teacher Made me realise that I'm actually doing OK and didn't really notice it

I actually managed to play an accent on the violin with out the bow bouncing! That made me happy >.>

Thank you, Floss!

Met Munira Mirza who is BoJo's Cultural/Arts person...think she's going to get an e-mail soon...*lol*

Saying goodbye to a student yesterday and seeing their replacement for the first lesson today - seamless!!

Was the new student a clone of the first or something?

Ha ha - no, thank goodness!

That does make me wonder.... how many students on average does a teacher have who they would secretly like to get rid of (due to reasons like not doing any practice or just being downright frustrating)

I sometimes have a mad 2 nights of solid 4-5 hour practice into the early hours if work has been really busy. Especially if I've been otherwise engaged a few days before a lesson is due. I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my teacher's time, but it really takes its toll

I've returned home this evening after a few days in London, where I combined business with pleasure in giving a recital at one of the Cathedrals, and meeting up with various friends.

I visited several city centre churches today and, before lunchtime, came across one in which an organist was rehearsing. I listened for a while - he was playing very well indeed. When I had heard enough, I climbed up to the organ loft to tell him that I had enjoyed hearing him play. I introduced myself, and he said "I've heard of you somewhere! Hang on.... You're one of the organists at St. Paul's Cathedral, aren't you?". I wish!

I told him that, alas, I wasn't. He tried to remember from where he'd heard of me, but couldn't recall it. He asked me if I'd advise him about the suitability of various registrations, which I did for the next 20 minutes or so whilst he played through parts of his programme before his lunchtime performance.

After we finished going through the programme, he said "I know where you're from. You're from abc and you play at xyz Cathedral". Bless him! He was right about abc and nearly right about xyz. I spent a couple of years learning the organ at xyz. But I'm not the organist there. Again - I wish!

But I enjoyed the fact that HG's notoriety evidently goes before him!

Being at work in the normal place. It's only after the event I realise I have probably been very stressed and grumpy all week due to having to work in London yesterday.

Unfortunately I am also completely exhausted today. Ludicrously tired, I suspect this afternoon's music lesson will be less than ideal, unless I find some way of working several naps in to the day beforehand.

That's not the only thing that goes before him...

Waitrose deli counter

: )

Knowing it is Friday.

Out of interest, what did you play?

Jacob.

The organ!

oh! not the fool?

Yeah, that too!

Not quite what I meant, I think I walked into that one!

Jacob.

The birth of my 8th grandchild - a little boy weighing in at 6lbs 13ozs

Congratulations

Congratulations stetenorve.

...

Getting my hands on the piano accp. music for next week's exam... we were nearly at the stage of learning a new piece six days before the exam!!!!

Panic over


Now I just wish I could drill the scales into my head - for some reason I just keep messing them up

Only 4 weeks of school left

Just finishing writing up Lesson 25 of the third Jolly book...gosh, it's like giving birth to an elephant!

I wouldn't know !

*lol* neither would I, but I just have a good imagination!

One of my sister's friends had a baby the other day and ended up with 88 stitches... I'd guess that's probably the closest anyone will get to understanding!

Ouch

I have just found a friend I thought I had lost .

I had coffee with a good friend yesterday- I haven't been able to touch base with her since she moved to live in a community- I teach her son so we see each other in passing but yesterday she turned up and said 'This is my first Friday morning off since September' and we had an hour's gap to have a coffee.

Where did you find them, tucked down the back of the sofa along with the TV remote or something?

Err, no, it is a little more complicated than that, but just as pleasing nevertheless .

Exams are done!!!!

Now I have three weeks for solid recorder practice before my grade 8. (yes, it's an exam, but it doesn't count )

Enjoy yourself Sarah!



I'm happy because I've found a good home for some unwanted office furniture

Yay for Sarah. It is such a brilliant feeling- I remember it well!

Wonderful! Enjoy your well-earned holiday!

Cool, enjoy! Must be a weight off your shoulders to have all those out of the way

Solari, Andante in C, and Flossie have made me happy

I've had a great week working with reception and year 1 at my old primary school as a teaching assistant! They say the funniest things! I'm SO tired after just 3 days (TD day on monday), and I really don't know how the full time teachers do it, and I admire them greatly! I'm going to miss working with them after tomorow, but I think i'll volunteer for longer because I love working there! The children don't half moan though, In the space of 15 minutes at afternoon break I had 11 children come and say "She said this...He called me this...They wont let me play with them...they hit me!" etc!

I've also been asked at short notice to come and do a masterclass with International Concert Pianist Richard Meyrick, which is very exciting! I'm not sure what i'll play, i've been working on the Prelude from Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, as well as La Cathedrale Engloutie. I've also been learning 2 rachmaninov preludes which are the G minor and the G# minors, but I don't think they're quite ready to do in a masterclass... I need to decide which of the two Debussy pieces to play...

Jacob.