My son is performing at the Royal Albert Hall

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Bigtallfatbloke

New Member
...yep...another proud parent moment!

He will be playing live at the Royal Albert hall next week. Performing a song he has written especially for a competition run by the United nations called 'Peace one day'. He and his 4 piece classical 'band' of 13 year old schoolmates were on the shortlist of 10 that made it through the initial rounds of the competition. All the schools in the United Kingdom were invited to enter so just to get this far is a huge achievement. He has to perform in front of a live audience and a panel of music industry 'experts/producers'. If he wins he will get to play live again at the royal Albert hall along side household names like Annie Lennox under 'other special guests'

http://www.peaceoneday.org/concert.aspx

. He plays the piano and has a very good female lead singer in the group. He wrote it all himself and scored it all out as well for a full orchestra. He has organized everything and has driven the whole exercise from start to where they are now.

He has done all this himself...I am very excited for him. Even if he doesnt win the this final round I have told him that he has won already as far as I am concerned.:biggrin::becool::blush:

..he's already being treated like a superstar...got details through last week of his own dressing room etc

..I just wanted to tell everyone.:biggrin:
 
Well done to the Lad for getting there and good luck.
 

ChrisKH

Guru
Location
Essex
What a result! Well done that Lad.

Not unrelated BTFB, I am having trouble getting adequate tuition for my 7 year old who has just started Piano lessons. How did your son manage with the Piano early on? His school (which is relatively small) doesn't support Piano players (unlike other instruments). He has his own upright which is brand new but I'm struggling on the tuition side.
 

Emu

New Member
Location
Croydon
Well done him! Just out of interest which school does he go to?

ChrisKH - where in essex are you?
 

Elmer Fudd

Miserable Old Bar Steward
Excellent news big fella, bet you're grinning like a cheshire cat.
 
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Bigtallfatbloke

Bigtallfatbloke

New Member
Thankyou all..I will pas son your comments to him.

Hi Chris,

Not unrelated BTFB, I am having trouble getting adequate tuition for my 7 year old who has just started Piano lessons. How did your son manage with the Piano early on? His school (which is relatively small) doesn't support Piano players (unlike other instruments). He has his own upright which is brand new but I'm struggling on the tuition side.

..well it's a long story, but basically I am a musician myself so he has always been surrounded by guitars and recording gear etc. However what got him going was when i refused to let him play his great Grandads keyboard which was in the garage after his death. he was 3 and breaking everything he touched, and I was being a prat as usual. Two years later I woke up and let him have the keyboard. Very soon he was playing Christmas carols etc just by ear. Then i enrolled him on a Yamaha keyboard course run by the Billericay music academy (just behind Waitrose car park on the high street). It is a very laid back course run by a guy called Tom. The lessons are fun for th ekids...not just a typical dark room with an old bat and 150 year old piano type thing! He loves it.

I then bought him a Yamaha PSR 275 kiddies keyboard..which has a self tutor gizmo on it which he uses all the time. In addition to that i downloaded a demo version of Sibeilus4 notation software for him and hooked it up via midi to his keyboard. That allowed him to really take off, because he could now do his music and sit on the PC all day! It isnt a tuition package, but it allowed him to learn to sight read music just because he was using it all the time to play and score out film scores like Pirates of the Caribean, Corpse bride & harry potter stuff etc (he's a big film score fan). I cant afford the full version but will get it for him soon, with a plug in called GPO which will allow him to make his compositions sound exactly like the LSO was playing it...and we can record it all here at home in his bedroom..very cool.

I would simply say though that mostly he has taught himself because he loves his music...he plays all the time without any encouragement to do so. All i do is make things as easy as I can for him to learn by provideing the gear, tuition and loads of positive feedback (never any negative). Deep down inside of him he has something that drives him to do this. Like I did when I first picked up a guitar 30+years ago.

His school at the time did nothing to help him.


Emu hi,
you asked which school he goes to.

He goes to a comprehensive school in Essex
 

ChrisKH

Guru
Location
Essex
Thanks BTFB. I've always regretted not applying myself in music lessons at school and now wish I could play guitar/keyboard. I would hate for my two sons to feel the same way. I recently inherited a new Yamaha upright Piano and it would be such a waste for it to just sit there.
 
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Bigtallfatbloke

Bigtallfatbloke

New Member
I thinks kids learn best when they teach themselves. They teach themselves best when they aspire to be like someone/thing. In my sons case it's John Williams, Hans Zimmer etc...but he also watches the proms etc and will conduct orchestras on TV with a chop stick:biggrin:

...as soon as they realise they can get attention from something they often pick it up...jmho
 
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