grade 8 clarinet result

[Looby]

Well done Kingsley!!
My daughter got as far as grade 2 and Red River Rock is forever engrained in my memory!

[Wulfruna]

Great stuff Kingsley - I hope you realise how many of us were actually taking it for granted that you would get a great result I have always loved the clarinet and envy you the opportunity of learning it to this standard. Hope you can keep it up and enjoy playing inside an orchestra of real quality!

[kingsley]

Thank you everyone!

Is that a diagram of where the spit goes?

That picture didn't look like my foot!

My daughter got as far as grade 2 and Red River Rock is forever engrained in my memory!

That reminds me of fernando who can still remember 'Sonatina in B flat' from 3 years ago on the piano!!!

[Scurra]

Hey, I reckon I could still make a decent stab at the first page of Für Elise on the piano, and that was [cough, cough] years ago!!

[Bunnylump]

I started to try to teach myself the clarinet when I was about 13, using a clarinet I think my Dad got for a few pence at an auction house (he's every bit as much of an auction house fiend as he is a rag and bone man fan, well, and scrabbling about in hedgerows to rescue a copper cauldron fiend, but that's another story). I think I got as far as "merrily we hop along" before I gave up. Trouble was it was so difficult to get a sound out of it felt like my eyes were going to burst out of my head!!! So I stuck to my stringed instruments, and got nice callousy fingers instead!!

Mind you, when my daughter first brought home the saxophone she borrowed from school (she started to learn in year 10 I think), she blew it and it made the most God awful honking noise. My initial thought was "Oh my word, how can I tell her that I can't put up with this racket??" She's now about a grade 8 (she got her grade 7 with distinction, but couldn't face another grade 8 exam) and has her own lovely (wildly expensive ) saxophone.

[giraffe]

Fernando played alto sax briefly (about two terms) and it was a horrendous racket. I was quite relieved when he swapped to horn. Kingsley started tenor sax this holiday and only 3 weeks in is making wonderful music. I wonder if being a lower instrument it is less "honky", plus a bit more skill I suppose, and even though it's a borrowed instrument at present it may also be a better one than the sax F's school lent him.

[MBH]

What a talented bunch you all are - it's like languages I suppose, once you've got the first 2 or 3 under your belt you start the process of 'comparative learning' automatically and things get a lot easier very quickly.

Hey, I reckon I could still make a decent stab at the first page of Für Elise on the piano, and that was [cough, cough] years ago!!

At probably about the same time (or even earlier) I was playing the first page of this tune in one of the piano books at lessons. This first phrase WAS the piece - it wasn't the full score.

I carefully (painfully) worked my way through by the music, then got into trouble for flowing into the second phrase (that wasn't printed) playing by ear

If it wasn't for the left hand I'd be a pretty decent pianist But I can 'vamp' with the best of them. ## Grab your coat don't forget your hat, let this happy tune....## (to fade)

[giraffe]

Kingsley had Grandma in floods of tears yesterday while playing Maple Leaf Rag on the piano. (I didn't think it was THAT bad)

[clvrlad]

so when we starting the PB band?
weve got brian on the sound desk and me on lights....... (see we are useful)

ok ill admit to have lessons on the piano, guitar and french horn at different times in my past......
and for several years i was part of a theatre group which was more musical than id hoped....
(almost totaly musical style stuff) even the panto

[fernando]

Trouble was it was so difficult to get a sound out of it felt like my eyes were going to burst out of my head!!!

This reminds me of two of my friends at a school concert. I had been asked to play the bass clarinet in the band because the normal player couldn't make it to the concert. I was warming up beforehand and two friends wanted to have a go. One of them could get a sound out of it, but the other turned as purple as a beetroot just trying! (Incidentally it was the one who could actually get a sound out of a normal clarinet that turned purple!)

[kingsley]

Trouble was it was so difficult to get a sound out of it felt like my eyes were going to burst out of my head!!!

This reminds me of two of my friends at a school concert. I had been asked to play the bass clarinet in the band because the normal player couldn't make it to the concert. I was warming up beforehand and two friends wanted to have a go. One of them could get a sound out of it, but the other turned as purple as a beetroot just trying! (Incidentally it was the one who could actually get a sound out of a normal clarinet that turned purple!)

Sorry this was me who wrote this. Fernando has forgotten to log off the website!

[Laura]

Well, I'll throw my flute or piano playing into the band, but I think at the moment you'd be better off without my sax and clarinet playing! I'm trying to get to grade 5 on both to take the exams at christmas. I'd like to be a peripatetic woodwind teacher eventually, but I have no qualifications in some of the instruments I can play. So I'm madly practising pieces and scales again. I thought I'd finished with all this when I did the grade 8 flute and piano years ago!

[MBH]

Kingsley had Grandma in floods of tears yesterday while playing Maple Leaf Rag on the piano. (I didn't think it was THAT bad)

Grrr - it took me weeks of hard work to get the INTRODUCTION to that sorted out..... but I did it eventually

I love ragtime piano

[giraffe]

I wish I could play anything well.

[Bunnylump]

Me too. I used to be a good classical guitarist, but I hardly play now, so I'm pretty rubbish these days. I'm good at playing the fool, does that count? My whole family put me to shame. You know about my OH and my daughter, my son plays guitar, sings,(both of these he did have formal lessons in) and also plays piano and harmonica pretty well without ever having had a lesson in his life.

[giraffe]

Classical guitar's my instrument too. i got through grade 7 many years ago, but I played for the first time in about 10 years the other day. At first my fingers couldn't even reach the strings properly, but within about 5 minutes the were beginning to respond. My finger tips were sore for about a week afterwards!

[MBH]

See - even more talented people.

We learned guitar in an after school class. Got through all the basic chords and a few 7ths and was able to pick or strum in a variety of rhythms.

Being a 'keyboard' layout (in my head anyway) I could also finger-pick melodies by ear - but just like the piano I was not able to put chords to a tune. Still - write me down a D, D7, G, C and I can accompany someone singing.

Proudest moment was probably when our great Music Teacher got a half-dozen of us together and picked ME to alternate melody to harmonize with the rest of the group in "Eight Days a Week".

No qualifications in it, and not touched it for years (but my fingers can still find the chord sequence to "House of the Rising Sun" )

[SparkOut]

I can play half of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes.
Either the first half or the second.
Half is as much as I can manage before passing out for a couple of hours, it's hard work!

[Bunnylump]

Now THAT I would PAY to see.

So when are we starting this band then? I won't play in public, but I make a damned fine groupie.

[MBH]

Thanks Sparkout - that's got me laughing.