How can Figurenotes help as we plan to return to our settings?
Today the Scottish Government released guidance on returning to early years settings. Many practitioners in Scotland and all over the world will be wondering how music is going to fit in to the “new normal”.
Here at Figurenotes HQ, we want to help all of our customers continue to provide their vital contributions to the development of young people. We have teamed up with Drake Music Scotland‘s Associate Musician Fi Sharp to provide some useful resources which enable practitioners to carry out music sessions for their young people.
Fi has made these super handy videos which help to plan activities from our First Figurenotes pack. You can find these handy resources and supporting videos under the Lesson Plan tab on our Resource Base. There is something for everyone including emotion stories, movement activities, Figurenotes parts and fun-filled cross curricular activities like this one.
Whether you are new to Figurenotes or a distinguished #FigurenotesChampion, we have something for everyone on our Resource Base. Subscription is £23.99 a year (less than £2 per month) and is full of useful resources, tunes, lesson plans and much much more.
Brand new customer? You can get everything you need to get started with our Early Years Value Bundle!
Lockdown has brought different challenges to different people. You may have discovered that you’ve got tonnes of time to practise. Maybe you’re juggling multiple responsibilities and need to make your practice time as efficient as possible. Or you might find that having lots on your mind means you can’t concentrate very well at the moment.
We are here to help! We have loads of tips to help you increase motivation to practise and make your practice time more effective. Do you have any more tips to share? Let us know by email or social media.
Let’s get motivated
Make like Mr Motivator and get yourself pumped for practice! Getting started is the hardest part, so set a regular schedule for yourself. It will soon become as easy to fit in as brushing your teeth.
Try setting an alarm for starting your practice – the same time each day, if you can, or work out a time for each day of the week. Put this in your calendar and set up reminders.
Ever heard the term ‘eat the frog’? If you’re finding your practice hard, start doing it first thing in the morning. Getting it done early means you can relax for the rest of the day without worrying when you’ll fit it around your other commitments (those TV shows won’t binge themselves).
Try a practice challenge. We have charts available all the way up to 100 days on our Resource Base. Set your goal and give yourself a prize at the end of it. There is a special covid-19 day practice chart in our free resources bundle.
Now we’ve got going, how can we keep our focus and make our practice really effective in the time available?
Make your practice goal-focused. Be specific. Instead of thinking ‘I’m going to practise this piece’, think ‘I’m going to improve my dynamics in this middle section’. Write down a short list of goals for each practice. This is best done at the end of the previous practice session, as it means you can open your book and get cracking without having to plan and think too much.
Don’t always start from the beginning. If you start in the same place each time, you’ll get really good at that initial bit. Your brain will soon become tired and you will stop in the same difficult places each time. Start with the hardest/least familiar section.
Practice makes permanent! In order to improve, you need to work on playing things more times ‘right’ than ‘wrong’ (‘right’ being the way you want it to sound, rather than the way you’re unhappy with). Find your small tricky section – really reduce it down to the specific bit you need to work on. Repeat this until you can play it 3 times in a row exactly how you want it. Made a mistake? Go back to zero. Once you’ve managed 3 in a row, can you do 5 in a row? 10? Go wild!
Slow down. Your brain and body need time to process. Practise slowly and you’ll reap the rewards!
If you practise something slowly, you forget it slowly. If you practise something fast, you forget it fast.
Itzhak Perlman – violinist
Rewarding yourself
Life is hard enough at the moment. Be kind to yourself and take stock of what you’ve achieved, rather than focusing on the things you’d like to improve. Managed to improve your bow hold? Great! Is your intonation much better than 6 months ago? Look at you go! Is your ear so good that you notice when your tone isn’t AMAZING? Well, look who is one step closer to their virtuoso career!
Put on a concert for friends and family – this might be over the internet, phone, or even through the window. There aren’t many concerts happening at the moment, so you’ll really brighten someone’s day. It is a great practice goal to aim for too.
Give yourself a treat for all your hard work by playing something really fun at the end of your practice session. It makes all the technical work worth it.
Send us your videos and we’ll share our favourites on social media. Tag us @figurenotes or use #FigurenotesAtHome. We’d love to hear more of your practice tips too!
Rhythm is so intuitive with Figurenotes – the note is as long as it looks!
So how does it all fit together?
Our newest #FigurenotesChallenge aims to help you/your students understand the relationship between different rhythms through this gentle movement activity. This is the first in a series of videos designed to develop rhythmic skills whilst promoting a healthy activity you can do at home.
You can use our FREE supporting resources on rhythm to create your own rhythm words or movements for each rhythm. Make it your own, or play along as it is. You can use your instruments to play along, or use the movements suggested in the video. Whatever works for you or your students.
Go on and have a wee go! Then share your findings with us. Drop us a line at figurenotes@drakemusicscotland.org or share on your favourite social platform. Tag us @Figurenotes and use the hashtags #FigurenotesChallenge or #FigurenotesAtHome. We will post our favourites on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
Figurenotes HQ would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who took part in our first #FigurenotesChallenge. It was great to see you all showing your support for our #FrontlineWorkers by sharing your renditions of Somewhere Over The Rainbow alongside a huge number of young people all over Scotland.
On Thursday 30th April at 8pm, musicians all over Scotland are going to pick up their instruments and show their appreciation for our NHS and other frontline workers by having a great big play-along!
This national event named the Over The Rainbow Project has been organised by MEPG (The Music Education Partnership Group) and will encourage musicians in Scotland to play “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” together. Instrumental Music Teachers all over Scotland will be providing parts and backing tracks for a range of instruments and in a variety of keys. You can find parts and backing tracks – including Figurenotes resources HERE.
Want to get involved? Then we’ve got you covered! We have Figurenotes parts available as part of our FREE RESOURCES BUNDLE and will be posting scores on our Facebook and Twitter channels in the run up to the event.
We would love to hear your renditions so please share them with us. You can post them on your chosen social media platform and tag @Figurenotes and use the hashtag #FigurenotesChallenge or you can email them to us directly at figurenotes@drakemusicscotland.org
Staying home comes with some challenges, but one HUGE positive is we can still make music. You might even have more time on your hands to practise! This is a great time to pick up that new instrument, learn a new piece, or finally nail that beast of a drum fill you have always dreamed of playing.
So dust off your instrument and get your hands on our bundle of FREE resources here. These are ideal for teachers to send to their students too – a great support for those adapting to online teaching.
In addition to these free resources, we will be posting lots of lovely musical challenges on our social media channels for you to join in with, so make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We’ll be sharing the best responses to our challenges, so share them with us by tagging us and using the hashtag #FigurenotesAtHome.
Furthermore, we are actively taking requests for tunes and resources to share with you all. For everything we share with you all, we’ll be posting the editable files in the Resource Base for our members, making it easy to adapt them to your pupils’ needs.
Got brilliant ideas you would like to share? Join our Facebook group Figurenotes – Let’s Make Music! and we can help each other stay connected and inspired. Also, keep an eye out for some nifty tutorials on our YouTube channel.
Diversions, written by Ben Lunn, was performed by Drake Music Scotland’s Digital Orchestra and Hebrides Ensemble. The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh was the setting for this accessible concert of new works.
Figurenotes was used by some members of the Digital Orchestra alongside their colleagues using standard notation. These fantastic musicians created some phenomenal new music that has been duly recognised in four categories:
Please note that, while our online shop is still open, there is likely to be a delay in processing orders due to the coronavirus. The situation is changing quickly and we will be following governmental advice on how we handle it.
We are very excited to see that the BBC Young Composer competition is accepting alternative notation. This means you can enter with your Figurenotes scores!
This would make a great project for a school class, as the deadline isn’t until 11th June 2020. Plenty of time to learn how to create your own original music, write it up in Figurenotes, and send it in. If you’re aged 12-18 and are a budding composer, take a look at the entry requirements and have a go. The prize looks fantastic!
You could use some of our creative composition resources from the Resource Base to give you a boost. Figurenotes works brilliantly for creative composition. You can take inspiration from abstract art that uses colour and shape; maybe use our composing dice made up of rhythms and pitches; or perhaps you want to map out your ideas using coloured sweets or other foods. The possibilities are endless!
Let us know if you’re planning on entering, as we’d love to know how many Figurenotes entries they get.
ThumbJam is undoubtedly one of the greatest apps of all time! This much has always been known amongst music botherers. With over 40 exclusive real instrument samples and hundreds of ready-to-load scales, the flexibility and sensitivity of the app allow for a level of musical expression equal to a traditional instrument. Perfect for beginners and virtuosos alike. S
Here are just a few of the features:
“ThumbJam makes use of tilt and shake to add vibrato, tremolo, note bends, and volume swells for more realistic and expressive results. It supports up to eleven (or five on iPhone) simultaneous touches and up to 24 voice polyphony per instrument. You can even load more instruments simultaneously and split the screen to play them. Delay and lush stereo reverb add depth to the sound. Put on your headphones or plug in to your home stereo and prepare to be blown away.”
In fact, ThumbJam was so good upon first release, it has survived a long stint without any need for drastic changes and updates.
Until now! And guess what they decided to pop into their latest update? Figurenotes integration!! That’s right, now you can add Figurenotes shapes. colours or both to your ThumbJam session. It only takes a few clicks.
Here is Karen, a member of Drake Music Scotland ensembles and fantastic iPad musician, explaining how it all works:
Why not try ThumbJam and Figurenotes in your music sessions?
