I have noticed that a few good grammar and comprehensive schools have an admission policy of allowing 10% off their pupils entry based on musical aptitude. I contacted one school and they will not consider DS's musical attainment or experience, only how well he will do on what is effectively a musical IQ test. Firstly I would like to understand more about this test and also any thoughts on if it really determines how a child will achieve with a musical training.

My other son sat such a test when he was younger and got the highest score that the school had ever seen, and this was at a choir school. However, he is average on his only instrument and cannot sing at all - he is the small percentage of people that genuinely cannot sing! Baboon boy did not do well on a similar test but this has not hindered his progress.

You are talking about state schools and they are not supposed to discriminate against certain ability groups (except grammars), but they are allowed to have a specialism. So some with academy status are allowed to select a proportion of their pupils on scientific aptitude or and aptitude for languges. If you go to their websites and read the admissions policies in detail it may shed some light on it. One of our local comprehensives has a sport specialism. As I understand it this means they get extra funding from the government for sport and they are allowed to select a proportion of their pupils on an aptitude for sport. I think this isn't supposed to be things already achieved, as that might discriminate against people who couldn't afford to pay for coaching.

No, MNW is right when she says that some state schools are allowed to select on ability. Dame Alice Owen's in Potters Bar, for example, takes 200 new pupils a year, of whom 65 are selected according to aptitude and ability and an additional 10 are selected by Music Aptitude tests. Not quite the same as the 'specialist' designation.

I'm afraid I know nothing about the musical aptitude tests, though I would love to.

Some local schools have a system (don't know the correct term, I'm afraid) whereby students sit an aptitude test for various subjects and are stratified according to ability/potential. The school then takes a certain percentage from each bracket, in order to ensure a truly mixed ability intake. So your chance of getting in doesn't depend on being the best at something, but being in a bracket that isn't over-subscribed with others of a similar level.

It's called banding, I think.

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Oh yes!

Think about the sort of pupils schools would like to have and you will probably find that their so-called musical aptitude tests, or any other aptitudes tests, will tend to select those kinds of children. That doesn't mean that if your child is the kind they want then it will be selected, but the children that are selected will be from the pool of children of the type they're after.

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I frequently refer to my youngest as B*gg*r-chops. It's a term of endearment, honest.

I refer to my bassoon as the "baboon" quite frequently!

Practise sessions are known as Baboon v's Bassoon. So far the bassoon is still winning. One day he will master it...one day!

P.S. What does this mean? It reminds me of exhaustion, it all being too much, hard work and constipation.

See Mad Tom, you are actually quite sane!

One of my friends called her two sons cesspit and bogbrush, also terms of endearment.

My kids (now in their 30s) still call me Mumbums. The trouble is, that's how they tend to address envelopes to me, so the postman knows it too!

It's meant to be a person playing a clarinet.

I haven't ever met anyone who 'genuinely cannot sing'...

Ah, now I geddit.

*Renames children Kit-cat and Strumpet*

I think in theory everyone can, that is, if they have a set of bellows, a larynx and a functioning mouth cavity.

However, in practice the combination of
(a) retarded development of the ability to coordinate the sound in your "mind's ear" with a sound from your larynx - which is further retarded if you don't get any practice at it
(b) being able to "get" the physical sensation of the singing voice as opposed to the speaking - regardless of pitching ability
© extreme inhibition based on the awareness of (a) and (b)

results in there being, alas, not a few people who can't sing in any meaningful sense of the word.

It can be done. But in some people it takes a lot of time. I did have a succession of young men at one stage who wanted to come for lessons - one, alarmingly, was already, so he told me, doing gigs with a band! - but found great difficulty in pitching accurately either against a piano or against my voice, in whatever octave. Most of them decided that as they were not as good as they had thought, they would cut their losses and do something else.

One did stay for about four lessons, though. He knew it was going to be hard work, and said he was determined to get there. In about the third lesson, I had him on Hey Jude (because he said he liked it)

He managed the first two notes at the right pitch. We could always work on improving the sound quality later. He sang the third note at the same pitch as the first, instead of the second, as it should be. I did quite a lot of work getting him to copy me, draw diagrams with his fingers, etc, sing so-mi-mi and so on.

Then he started again. So-mi-so...

"Oh no," he said "it's going up again, I can hear it"

That was a bit of a revelation to me, as I had thought up until then that everyone "thought" the note they were going to sing before pitching it. Since that time, I have come to realise that there are many people who pitch without aiming first, and only know if it's right when they hear what comes out.

It's do-able. But as this lad was 24 and hadn't done any before, it was going to take a very, very long time, and a lot of intensive work. I think he was wise to decide he had other musical priorities.

Start them young, in school! Make sure the nursery and reception and year one teachers are not singing in a half-speaking voice way below middle C! Or they'll end up like poor old whatisface that I was describing up there.

I am just about to try to help a primary school music teacher to find her voice - she's so nervous and quiet, but would love to sing with the kids more confidently. In return for piano lessons for DD. A win win situation, I hope!

Seriously, DS cannot sing. He tries to sing but it comes out as "talk".

Since he appears to have other musical ability, it should be possible at his age for him to be helped, one-to-one. But he has to want to in the first place. Some people can't sing becasue somehow they don't want the singing voice heard!

If I were working with him I would be trying first to get him to imitate all sorts of "calls" - not non-vocal things, like squeaky doors or sirens, but various inflections of hello - gradually interspersing things like "yoo-hoo!" and that oooh sound that girls make when thye think they've caught someone out in a slightlymore romantic situation than was intended (help me out, someone, what am I saying here?). If he doesn't think he's singing, it's possible his voice may go up there. And the singing voice, which in a child (how old is he? I am assuming his speaking voice hasn't started to drop yet?) should be mre high and "flutey" than the speaking voice, may be very feeble to begin with, but it's capturing the "feel" that is important. It can't always be achieved by instruction.

He must be able to sustain on a vowel sound, though, even in his speaking voice. And then add a little more breath support underneath it. And give it a bit of a crescendo. And change the vowel for another.

But, as I say, he has to want to.

I agree with linda.ff's last two posts - in particular that starting young is invaluable - and also that you can be TAUGHT to improve and to learn, as her example of the young man shows.

Would you just shrug your shoulders about a child who is having difficulty reading, and say, 'Oh, well, he just can't read' and leave it at that?

Sorry...

Yet.

Indeed!

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Aha! Someone else who doesn't allow the expression "can't" without the magic word?