Figurenotes

The festive cheer has well and truly taken over at Figurenotes HQ. We’ve been planning some Christmas Figurenotes activities for Drake Music Scotland musicians and thought we’d share the joy with you all. If you’re planning Christmas parties and events at your school or music setting then read on for some festive Figurenotes fun.

1. Bauble Composition
2. Christmas Cake Composition
3. 3-chord Christmas songs
4. Christmas Rhythm Game
5. Christmas Corners

Bauble Composition

String up a garland, tree, or just some festive hooks (candy canes repurposed?)

Download this template for Figurenotes baubles or make your own. Inspired by Sorcha Pringle, we made some tactile ones using different textures for different notes. These work brilliantly for musicians with visual impairment.

Create a tune using the baubles

Play it!

You can also use these large print outs to pin the bauble on the Christmas Tree or hang them from Rudolph’s antlers.

Christmas Cake Composition

Get a traybake cake with icing that you can stick things to.

Source a selection of sweets or icing in Figurenotes colours (and shapes, if you’re feeling clever). Smarties, Skittles, Quality Streets – the list is endless.

Cut the traybake into bars. Stick your sweets to the top to create a tune.

Perform it before you eat it.

4-chord Christmas Songs

Take a look on the Figurenotes Accessible Music Hub for some Christmas bangers. Use Figurenotes guitars for the simplest way to play the chords. You can create a Figurenotes band in no time! Our suggestions are:

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

Feliz Navidad

Last Christmas

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

Christmas Rhythm Game

Christmas Rhythm Canon.

Our rhythm canon is back with a festive twist. These rhythms are set over two bars and can be mixed up to create a fun game. A great introduction to syncopation.

Christmas Corners

I’m sure many of you played a version of this at school. There are lots of ways to make this musical and accessible.

Set out 4 corners/areas of the room and assign them to something. For example, a Christmas tune, a rhythm, a colour.

People must listen for the game leader to play a tune, a rhythm, a note, or whatever you’ve chosen. They then must get to the assigned corner/area as quickly as they can. This develops listening skills and focuses the ear so well.

To make this more accessible for people with limited movement or classrooms with limited space, you can use torches shone on a wall, for example. Call and response also works well, be it playing, clapping, or singing. Let your imagination run wild.

The end of November saw the Figurenotes team heading down to Southampton to present at the Music Mark Conference 2023. After the complimentary tea and caramel wafer on the tiny plane, we were set up nicely for a day of inspiring talks. The day started with a key note on Learning to Thrive in a Generative AI world, which was fascinating and started some lively debate. The conference was themed around ‘Dynamism’ and there was a particular focus on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. This was a fantastically forward-thinking conference and we were thrilled to be a part of it.

As Music Mark was celebrating their 10 year anniversary, the inaugural Music Mark Awards took place in the evening. Some brilliant projects and people were highlighted in the shortlists, with emotional judges speeches that really brought the meaning of our work home. Congratulations to all the worthy winners.

Our session was titled ‘Building Rhythm Confidence with Figurenotes’ and highlighted the ease with which this accessible notation shows rhythm. We had everyone stomping, clapping, tapping, and clicking. By bringing out the iPads with Garageband and Thumbjam (our favourite app!) we had chords and solos. Adding chimes and vocals into the mix gave us a full band.

We had settled on Don’t Worry, Be Happy as our featured tune, because it always brings a lot of joy into the room. It felt good to bring some movement and energy at the end of a long day of sessions, and we were rewarded with lots of keen teachers hoping to use Figurenotes in their projects. We can’t wait to see what people do with Figurenotes as a result of this session. We’ll be putting the Don’t Worry, Be Happy parts up on the Hub soon, so keep an eye out for them there.

It was also lovely to meet up with our friends at Charanga, ABRSM, Open Up Music, DIGIT, MiSST, and many more organisations. What a lovely community there is in the music education world. We hope to be back at this invigorating event next year.

Snow is falling, all around me (we are in Scotland, after all). The children have indeed been playing (mostly Jingle Bells) and having fun.

As we get the school Christmas concerts done and before the frostbite from carol singing starts to set in, we thought we’d better let you know the last order dates for Figurenotes Christmas delivery.

Our last order date will be Friday 15th December. Please get your order in by noon, so we have time to process and post your items before Royal Mail’s last recommended posting dates. If you order after this date then your parcel may not be processed until January.

Office Closure

Figurenotes HQ is part of Drake Music Scotland, Scotland’s leading arts organisation working to enable disabled musicians at every level from education to industry. We all take a well-deserved break over the Christmas period and our office closes to allow staff time to recharge. We will be closed from Wed 20th, reopening in the new year.

If you have any questions, please email Figurenotes@DrakeMusicScotland.org.