New improved software you can access from any internet enabled device.
Our Figurenotes software has undergone a much needed makeover. You can now access your Figurenotes tunes from any device with an internet connection! You are no longer tied to one computer, and there is a boat load of cool new features to boot.
Plus, you can access the software on iPads and tablets, meaning less printing, more playing!
You’ll be able to create, access and store your own Figurenotes scores as well as import and use existing tunes, simply by logging in to your account and accessing via any internet-enabled device.
Learning is a journey, and we are here for it! Our new segment Figurenotes Journeysis all about highlighting the fantastic work you Figurenotes Champions are doing, and showing how Figurenotes can help anyone access music.
Our first story comes from a Figurenotes expert and all round wonderful teacher, Jill Henderson.
A Figurenotes Learning Journey
‘That take was the one’
This is a story about a child at Craigmarloch ASN school, Inverclyde who we will call J. J is a bright little boy with a diagnosis of Autism which is the main barrier to his learning. From his earliest days at the school, he has shown a natural aptitude for music with perfect pitch, a beautiful singing voice and an instinctive sense of rhythm. When approximately three years ago Figurenotes was introduced into his class music learning, J took to the system immediately. The concrete nature, simplicity and visual attractiveness of the method make it very accessible for learners with Autism and before long J was sight singing and writing his own music in Figurenotes.
J also really likes to draw and taking himself to a quiet room with a glockenspiel, paper and crayons is an effective and enjoyable way for him to regulate his emotions and calm down if he is becomes stressed or overwhelmed. One morning during lockdown I gave him a booklet of familiar children’s songs written in Figurenotes. He quickly played through them all then asked why Mary had a little lamb was not included. I replied that I would write it for him for the next day. Imagine my surprise and delight when a few minutes later he came out from his quiet room having written the music out for himself! I had not explicitly taught him about lengths of notes but he had visually absorbed this information for himself and was able to write his own music using the system. This example reinforced my belief that Figurenotes was an accessible and meaningful system which enabled beginners and those with learning difficulties to learn to read, play and compose their own music.
This year, now in P6, J is learning to read and play 2 hands together on his favourite instrument, the piano. Again, the Figurenotes software allows teachers to write several parts together and clearly label them as desired-in this case RH and LH. Basing the learning on his favourite song Whole World in His Hands we began by mastering each part separately (easy bass line first) then playing the music together, a line each. After 8 weeks of positive little steps, he was able to play the song all the way through, 2 hands together. This video shows his delight in his success and J tells me he hopes everyone in Scotland will enjoy watching him play his music. In his word’s “That take was the one!”.
We’re feeling particularly festive this year. Everyone is in need of a big bucketful of joy after such a tough period and we’re hoping the Christmas break will deliver! Stock up on your mince pies, get out your fluffiest slippers, and enjoy not listening to Jingle Bells being played 30 times a day. Relax and enjoy the break.
But before you do…
Make sure your Figurenotes orders are in by 16th December for UK delivery before Christmas and the start of next term.
Our office will close for Christmas at the end of 17th December; reopening 5th January 2022. Orders for physical resources will not be processed between these dates. Digital resources, such as the Figurenotes software, will continue to be processed automatically.
Royal Mail have warned that delays are likely to happen due to coronavirus, so we can’t guarantee delivery by Christmas. However, we are following their recommended last postage dates, so all should be well. The earlier you order, the better.
Launching in 2022
We’ve got some really exciting stuff coming in the new year. Our little elves have been working away in the background producing some exciting new resources that will be a game-changer for so many Figurenoters. We can’t wait to tell you about them! Watch this space…
If you want to stay in the loop about the launch in early 2022, make sure you’ve subscribed to our mailing list.
“Not only was the training great, it was also really fun, which is so important”
As always, we had an absolute blast delivering the Figurenotes: Developing Your Practice course. The interactive elements always have everyone smiling and it really brightens our day to work with such enthusiastic music leaders.
The inspiration was sparking for our fabulous course participants from the very first week! It is so invigorating to set an activity or a homework challenge and see the ideas pouring out of the wonderful teachers before us.
“Online worked a treat! Well planned for the context and plenty of opportunity to share practice. Good space for thoughts to be absorbed too.“
The Group
Last time we had an international crowd, but this crew were all based in Scotland, so we are also building a lovely network of musicians that can support each other in their day-to-day work too. That is why we encourage all our Figurenoters to join the private Facebook group too. It’s a great place to ask questions and share ideas with other Figurenotes teachers and leaders.
Getting to know our small groups and working together over the weeks really helps us to deliver practical advice relevant to each person and their working environment. With such broad portfolio careers in music and music education, we love hearing about the incredible professional experience each attendee brings to their work. Instrumental and classroom teachers, mainstream and specialist schools, composers and community musicians – we had a wealth of knowledge and experience within this group. Music education in Scotland is very lucky to have such an inspirational bunch of musicians teaching the next generation.
“Excellent, fun, interactive, and curious sessions that were active and engaging.“
Week 1 – Rhythm
After introducing the basic principles of Figurenotes, we start the fun and games. Our rhythm activities using canon even got a live outing with a woodwind group in the week following the session, which went down very well with the pupils!
Our rhythm homework challenge inspired such innovative responses. These ranged from movement activities inspired by Pachelbel’s Canon, exploring and listening on an adventure with a cuckoo (Saint-Saens), all the way into outer space for a space-themed rhythm and structure activity. Their pupils are going to be having a lot of fun in the coming weeks working on this lot.
Week 2 – Composition
Chime cam made an appearance this week to showcase some compositions created during the session. We played with different ways of using rhythm and colour (pitch), as well as directing each other’s playing. It is always lovely to hear some live playing in an online setting too (the viola played as a cello was my personal highlight).
Week 3 – Groups
The Gingerbread Man came to play today. Incorporating elements from the past 2 weeks, this activity is great for differentiation, turn-taking and other ensemble skills, as well as having more extension activities than you can shake a rainstick at!
By combining this with practical tips for making group-work accessible and fun, this action packed week should set up our music leaders with the tools they need to get cracking with Figurenotes.
“I’ve already started using it and the kids just get it straight away. It’s definitely here to stay. It’s been life-changing!”
1:1 Follow-ups
Every participant can book a follow-up session with course leaders to ask whatever questions and queries that weren’t covered in the training or to dive deeper into certain aspects of their practice. This could be anything from reviewing and discussing resources created during the course, refining and developing them, or a walk-through of the software. These sessions are a wonderful way to tie up the learning from the previous 3 weeks to set our participants up with the skills and confidence to dive into using Figurenotes in their practice.
What Next?
Our next course will run in March 2022. Book your place here and join us for more Figurenotes fun and games, learning skills for delivering accessible music sessions, whatever your work setting.
“Loved all of the compositional games gifted and the resources of materials – an amazing package of tools to get going in a lot of contexts.“
It was a long wait, but our first in-person training since the pandemic started took place last week. It was an absolute joy.
We delivered training to new Associate Musicians of Drake Music Scotland who are working with the Sound Explorers projects. They spent two days in the company of Drake Music Scotland staff, with in-depth sessions learning about technology and Figurenotes.
Lauren and Rebecca took our new musicians through a fun play-together on instruments they do not usually play, forming a makeshift band. As always, the shorty bass proved very popular, especially with Figurenotes making it easy to play!
Our wee band was grooving away to tunes by Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Nancy Sinatra, and Ben E. King – all while learning about ensemble skills, leading a group, reading Figurenotes notation, catering for mixed-abilities, and choosing accessible repertoire.
For the second day, we took on a scheme of work based around a story, The Gingerbread Man, with a whole host of extension activities. This activity includes composition, turn-taking, performance, and much more! We’ll be featuring this in our online training course in September too, so make sure to bag your place before they all get snapped up. You can find out more through our training pages.
There were giggles galore when performing our story, complete with musical motifs composed by the group. The dramatic narration and turn-taking kept everyone on their toes, and Saint-Saëns would have been impressed with our animal inspired tunes and sounds.
So much fun was had, all through learning-by-doing, which we love!
We may have been socially distanced and masked, but that allowed us to feel safe, explore music together, and have some great discussions. Thank you to everyone involved in this training.
“I just wanted to say thank you so much for a brilliant two days of training. It was so good to meet everyone and the training was just excellent. I feel like I am going into this term so full of inspiration and motivation because of last week and all the tools you gave us on the training course. You are an incredibly inspirational organisation.”
Trainee
Want to join in?
If you’d like to join us for some more Figurenotes fun and games, book your place on our ‘Figurenotes – Developing Your Practice’ course. Running online over 4 sessions, we dive into the fundamentals of music-making with Figurenotes for all music leaders and teachers. Come and join in the fun!
The Gingerbread ManA clip of our makeshift band working on Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5.
Transcript of video lyrics:
9 to 5. For service and devotion, you would think that I would deserve a big promotion. Want to move ahead, but the boss won’t seem to let me. I swear sometimes that man is out to get me.
Did you miss out on our online course back in April? Well, we have great news!
Figurenotes training is BACK 🎉 for all teachers, tutors, music practitioners, and music therapists.
Join us for Figurenotes: Developing Your Practice, running online in September. Live delivery takes place in small groups on Thursdays, September 16th, 23rd, and 30th. We’ve adapted the time for this course, so that those who couldn’t make last time will get the chance to come; 1pm – 3pm (UK time)
We specifically wanted to highlight funding opportunities for this course, so keep an eye on our Facebook group where we will share these opportunities with you. For people working in Scotland this fund is brilliant: https://www.scottishmusiccentre.com/ymi-cpd. There is a fairly quick turnaround, so get your application in as soon as you can.
We can’t wait to meet you, whether you’ve attended previous training or are brand new to Figurenotes. With more interactive activities, opportunities for 1:1 sessions, peer feedback, and a whole load of practical advice and guidance, this is not one to be missed!
Our highly sophisticated random selection tool has chosen a winner for our Figurenotes Champion competition. Congratulations, Lifesize! You have won a bundle of Figurenotes goodies, including a stickers value pack, your choice of tune book, a year’s subscription to the Resource Base, and the new Figurenotes Software (which you’ll receive as soon as it is released!)
Lifesize is a Community Interest Company (CIC) based in Hastings and St. Leonards-on-Sea, UK. Providing music and arts engagement with young people and adults.
This fantastic organisation was founded in 2019 and delivers work in a variety of settings using both traditional instruments and technology. Lifesize works with all ages, including people with learning disabilities and people experiencing mental and physical health challenges. They aim to support artistic and musical ambitions, while working in a responsive and person-centred way, promoting overall wellbeing and self-esteem.
Figurenotes has helped Lifesize to “enable a creative environment where workshop participants of all abilities are supported to collaborate effectively.”
Our Figurenotes Champions map and profiles page are filling up nicely. We’d love to feature more of the wonderful organisations, schools, and institutions that are using Figurenotes in their work. Take a look at the profiles already on the site and complete the form to feature. This is a great way to reach new pupils, connect with local networks, and make global connections and collaborations. We’ll be highlighting as many as we can through our social media channels and newsletter too.
“Really great to see everyone’s ideas and the range of different minds from all over the world – great for inspiration!”
We had a fantastic time delivering our new online course designed to help people explore Figurenotes within their own teaching settings. Running 2 small groups across 3 weeks of training, we’ve really enjoyed getting to know more about the people involved and how they work.
Thank you to all our participants for engaging so well with this course. The activities and ideas created by your homework tasks were phenomenal and have such potential. We can’t wait to hear what you achieve in your lessons.
I have learnt how to use the Figurenotes system itself, but also some great ideas about planning, differentiation and different ways into composing.
Trainee 2021
Each week had a different focus, which was consolidated in the homework activity. Week 1 was an introduction to Figurenotes with particular emphasis on rhythm. Week 2 explored the world of creative play and composition. Week 3 focused on groups, ensembles, and differentiation.
As always, the creative composition task had the most wide-ranging results. The opportunities are endless when working with colour and shape. We have had everything from Kandinsky to puppets, train journeys to braille Bananagrams, Moomins to holiday snaps – and everything inbetween! What a creative bunch.
Tools for Creative Composition (week 2)
Our in-person training nearly always has a visitor to Scotland from another country, but with online delivery we can reach so many more people who could benefit from this training. With participants from Hong Kong, Greece, USA, and the UK this time around, we hope to reach even more countries with our next course date.
If you are interested in attending this course in the future, please get in touch, as we are currently working out dates and timings for the next run. With so many timezones to consider, it is helpful to know what works best for you.
The information was presented really well and you are both super knowledgable about teaching to diverse groups. It was great to get your insight.
We are looking for companies with experience in developing music software to help us take Figurenotes to the next level.
An exciting opportunity has arisen to help us modernise our Figurenotes software as part of our programme: Figurenotes – Everyone Can Play!
Drake Music Scotland welcomes bids from qualified organisations and individuals to transform our existing downloadable Figurenotes application into a web-based application that fully delivers the existing functions and provides required and suggested improvements.
Experience of developing user-friendly, online applications
Knowledge and experience of music software
Understanding of the context faced by charity and social agencies
C++ Experience (original code is written in C++)
Experience of programming languages/frameworks compatible with browser-based software
Minimum of 2 years’ experience in software development
Submission Requirements
A demonstration of your understanding of the brief.
Explanation of programming language/framework choices
A detailed methodology indicating the number of days proposed for each task by each member of the team.
An outline project plan, including review points
Details of approach to quality assurance (including adherence to timescales and the quality of key outputs) and any relevant procedures/accreditation and how these will be applied to this project.
Details of personnel who will undertake the work, giving particulars of experience and skills, including any sub-contractors you intend to use.
At least two examples of previous work that you feel display the skills you would bring to this project. These should not include examples of work previously done for Drake Music Scotland.
How you will deal with data protection, accessibility, information governance, and security systems
Risk assessment and mitigation that includes those risks associated with most application development projects, as well as those particularly relevant to this piece of work
An accurate breakdown of all costs including daily rates and expenses and any VAT applicable, including VAT relating to subcontractors
Ongoing costs to run application, including any technical support costs.
If you think this could be the role for you, please get in touch with the team at figurenotes@drakemusicscotland.org. Help us make the best software we can by sharing this post with your networks.
Please contact us for various accessible formats of the brief, stating your preferred format – larger font or word document. The PDF below is an accessible PDF containing alt text. If you have any other access needs or questions, please email us at figurenotes@drakemusicscotland.org.
“I thought you’d like to hear this story” is always an intriguing start to an email.
We LOVE hearing your anecdotes and this is such a lovely one. Jill Henderson, at Craigmarloch School in Inverclyde, Scotland, sent us this wonderful story from her lessons and kindly let us share it with you all. Both Jill and Criagmarloch have been using Figurenotes for a long time now and their work is fantastic.
“During Lockdown I am working at the Craigmarloch Hub with a group of P5 children. One wee boy is very musical and has really taken to Figurenotes. He has got perfect pitch and can sing familiar songs (his favourite is Mary Had a Little Lamb) by colour and letter name. We always begin the day playing tunes on the glockenspiel.
Yesterday, I brought a selection of ‘name that tune’ for him to try, in second stage Figurenotes. Within 5 mins he had played and identified them all then asked me why Mary had a little lamb was not there. I said I’d write it for him for next week then got on with the morning routine.
Next thing I knew, he had written out the song himself (first stage Fgn)! As you can see, the note names, colours and even note lengths are accurate. I had not explicitly taught this, he had clearly absorbed the knowledge by himself.
This is why Figurenotes is so great – it is clear and makes sense to beginners and those like this pupil, who are bright but like to learn in ways that are accessible and appealing. Figurenotes helps him do what he wants to do, which is play and sing music! Much of the time he refuses to engage in learning and shuts himself away in a quiet room to pursue his own interests, often to draw.
I just had to share that with someone who would understand and appreciate how wonderful this is.”
Thank you for brightening our day, Jill. We’ve shared it in the hope that it brightens all of yours too.
