A very apt Gingerbready tale rounded off our Developing Your Practice course at the end of November, leaving us within touching distance of the Christmas holidays.
Our popular 3-week course came to a close with an engaging sound story, bringing together all the elements the group had studied over the duration of the training. This wonderful wee group worked on rhythm, creating activities and games for the people they work with. We then moved on to pitch and composition to bring even more creative ideas to life. Our final session focused on mixed-ability groups and ensembles.
“It’s an amazing amount of inspiration in such a short time”
Trainee, Nov 24
“One of the most valuable aspects for me was the sharing of ideas within the group. Seeing things someone else has shared and it sparking an idea, or sharing something and seeing someone go ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way’. It was really inspiring.”
Trainee, Nov 2024
We are always so impressed with the creativity and imagination of our trainees. The range of roles and settings in each group brings out so many different ideas and discussion points, leaving everyone brimming with inspiration and enthusiasm. From Beatles’ bass lines to percussion workshops, piano coordination skills to PMLD music sessions, there was a full range of fun covered within their creations.
We are thrilled to continue our relationship with BBC Ten Pieces this year. Figurenotes resources have featured in every list since Ten Pieces’ inception. This year is a corker! Not only are there 10 interesting and varied pieces by 10 incredible composers, but accessibility has become more of a focus.
Open Ensembles
The BBC Ten Pieces initiative has commissioned ‘open scores’ for two of this year’s pieces. We immediately loved Laura Shigihara’s ‘Grasswalk’ from Plants vs Zombies and the enchanting world of Judith Weir’s ‘Magic’ from Storm. Both are now available as open scores for accessible ensembles.
The open scores are more accessible to a wider range of instruments and players. We particularly love the inclusion of parts for digital instruments, including Thumbjam, Clarion, CMPSR, and Soundbeam. All these instruments have a strong relationship with Figurenotes and Drake Music Scotland, so we’re thrilled to be working together on this. There are Figurenotes parts transcribed for all instruments in the score, in different stages, so you can find the part that suits the musicians best. All parts are available on the BBC Ten Pieces website for free.
But we didn’t stop there!
Creative Resources
Laura Shigihara’s ‘Grasswalk’ is chock full of interesting elements to explore musically. We have created lesson plans and additional supporting resources to dive into these areas in a fun, engaging way. The lessons are divided into packs: Articulation, Chromatics, Rhythm, and Register. You can explore the lessons with a pick-n-mix approach, or work your way through more methodically. All packs are available on the BBC Ten Pieces website for free.
As ever, if you have any questions regarding Figurenotes and BBC Ten Pieces resources feel free to get in touch. Email Figurenotes@DrakeMusicScotland.org or call 0131 659 4766. Please do share your thoughts and feedback with us, as it is invaluable for future resources.
Tech Army, Assemble! We’ve never responded to an offer of help so quickly. Scottish Tech Army got in touch to say Drake Music Scotland had been chosen by one of their corporate partners for a day of volunteering. This isn’t your usual volunteering. A team of highly skilled tech folk swoop in and give you a full day of their time (and then some) to help solve a tech issue.
Scottish Tech Army are a catalyst for a step change in the application of technology for public good in the UK. Their highly-engaged volunteer community works in partnership with the technology ecosystem of the UK to deliver scalable, impactful solutions.
As a non-profit, we rely on funding and offers of support. Such is the nature of working in the third sector (and the arts!) This way of working means progress is never linear, so anything that gets us closer to our goals is welcomed with open arms.
PWC linked up with Scottish Tech Army for ‘One Firm, One Day’. The UK contingent worked on 3 projects across Edinburgh, Manchester, and London. We were lucky enough to be chosen by the Edinburgh team.
With offices in 151 countries and more than 364,000 people, PWC are among the leading professional services networks in the world. They help organisations and individuals create the value they are looking for, by delivering quality in Assurance, Tax and Advisory services.
One Firm One Day is described as an “annual firm-wide fundraising and volunteering event, where staff across the UK and Channel Islands are encouraged to join together and take part in giving something back to our local communities.”
The Edinburgh team worked tirelessly and we are incredibly grateful. Thank you to Scottish Tech Army for setting this up, PWC for choosing our project, and the volunteers for being so welcoming and working so hard.
Booking is now open for our ever-popular course for music educators and facilitators. Read on for more information, including funding pots and new discount for full-time students.
Figurenotes: Developing Your Practice
Come and join us for award-winning CPD for music practitioners and educators. Do you want your pupils to learn to play and read music quickly and to their full potential? Develop your teaching practice with Figurenotes, a form of notation that uses colour and shape to aid the first steps of learning music, progressing to standard notation in 3 simple steps.
Figurenotes: Developing Your Practice takes place over 3 interactive group sessions via Zoom, building your skills in Figurenotes and accessible music practices. Consolidate your work with homework activities between sessions. Follow up with a 1:1 session with course leaders to answer any further questions you have, get advice on specific aspects of your work, or for more general queries.
You’ll be guided through Figurenotes, from how it works, to its many applications. We will focus each session on one of the fundamentals of music-making:
Rhythm
All musicians need to develop a solid sense of pulse. Through rhythm games and challenges, learn how to make learning rhythm fun and engaging. Figurenotes notation shows rhythm in a very logical way, which then transitions easily to standard notation.
Creative Composition
We’ll explore a range of composition tools you can use in different settings. You’ll learn how to build and adapt an idea in an accessible way, enabling success across a range of abilities and additional support needs.
Ensembles and Differentiation
Learn how to use Figurenotes on almost any instrument in a variety of settings. From one to one learning, full class activities, and varying ensembles, you’ll be able to get your pupils playing together quickly and easily.
1:1 Follow-up Session
This is an opportunity for you to work 1:1 with course leaders after the main sessions have been completed. The content of these sessions is entirely up to you. We can work with you on resources, help develop ideas, troubleshoot, or help with specific questions you may have.
We can tailor the day to those coming, so the earlier you book, the more we can accommodate your questions. Use your booking form to give us a heads up of what you’d like to learn.
Here’s what some of our recent trainees had to say.
Funding and Discounts
To improve access to our courses, we are offering £50 off for full-time students. Please email us at Figurenotes@DrakeMusicScotland.org with your institution and course-name. We’ll authorise the discount and send you a code to use at checkout.
Our staff band got a new member last week when MP Tommy Sheppard joined us to workshop some new arrangements for a youth music session we have planned. As the MP representing our local area, we are always keen to connect and share the powerful work that Drake Music Scotland does, as well as the challenges we face.
He was enthusiastic, but a little apprehensive that he couldn’t remember his guitar chords stored at the very back of his childhood mind. Fear not! We designed this band session for people who have never picked up an instrument before.
A quick guitar lesson from Bas
We set him up on a Figurenotes guitar, which is much more accessible. 4 strings are tuned A E A E, resulting in an open tuning. You then bar the 4 strings following Figurenotes stickers for guidance. This meant Tommy could dive straight in and play Shotgun by George Ezra with us. We had it together in no time at all and were sounding great.
To keep everyone on their toes, we all swapped instruments. We were playing everything from iPads using Garageband and Thumbjam, to the classics of keyboards, bass, guitars, percussion, and vocals – even chimes. I introduced our visitor to our little shorty bass and we got a bit more funky in our rhythms. We managed to rattle off Taylor Swift’s Shake it off and it was sounding great. I’m less sure about our rapping skills in the middle 8, but the band did brilliantly.
Tommy Sheppard MP plays bass using Figurenotes
“It was great to revisit the Drake Music Scotland team at their base in Craigmillar and hear about their work with disabled artists and musicians, which stretches from there to all parts of the country. Not to mention my guitar success using Figurenotes, the colour-coded notation system.”
Tommy Sheppard MP – Member of Parliament for Edinburgh East
The band arrangements got all the testing we needed and are ready for a band workshop for young people in our community. We will put these tunes and others up on the FAMHub shortly, so keep an eye out.
Thank you, Tommy Sheppard, for getting stuck in with music-making. We appreciate you visiting and discussing the many highs, and the various challenges, Drake Music Scotland has faced in recent years. It is also nice to have yet more proof of the 5-minute Figurenotes band in action!
In today’s guest blog, Fiona Sharp shares the success of a talented pupil she is working with in Scotland. Fiona is an Associate Musician with Drake Music Scotland, who arranged this project. She is also the founder of F Sharp Music, recently celebrating their 10 year anniversary.
Fiona and Arnas
Natural Talent
From a very young age Arnas has shown a great talent for music, especially listening to a song and then working out how to play it on an instrument. This first became evident when he was in primary 1-2 and one day his teacher noticed Arnas playing ‘Wheels On The Bus’ on a musical toy, which had buttons on it. Arnas worked out the melody using the sound buttons on the toy.
Development
I have been working with Arnas to further develop his musical skills and interest by using Figurenotes notation. Arnas has a keen interest in playing the piano, and over the past couple of years with support from Elaine, his teaching support assistant at school, Arnas has progressed to playing the piano with both hands, and learning to play chords in the left hand as an accompaniment for the melody in the right.
Last summer Arnas and Elaine played piano together for a school event. The school are now looking at ways to further develop Arnas’s interest in music and supporting him with his developments in Figurenotes. He has his own keyboard at school and at home along with music folders full of ‘Figurenotes Songs for Arnas’.
Some clips from Arnas’s sessions with Fiona
Although Arnas tends to play music by ear, Figurenotes has allowed him to play and access a wide range of songs and will continue to do so hopefully for many years to come.
Huge thanks to the staff at Rosslyn School for their continued support and encouragement with Arnas’s piano playing.
If you’d like to share a recent project, Figurenotes journey, or your top tips, get in touch via email at Figurenotes@DrakeMusicScotland.org. We love hearing from you!
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.
“Drake Music Scotland’s challenge is to create a new online platform that will transform their Figurenotes resource base into the world’s first and most comprehensive inclusive music hub. They would like to work with a Challenge Respondent to develop a platform that allows users to download resources, constructively rate and critique learning materials, and upload their own creations, creating a unique crowdsourced database of accessible music resources.
A successful solution to this challenge will provide Figurenotes customers with a space to share best practice in accessible music-making and support each other through their vast and varied personal experience.
Developing a new platform specifically for inclusive music-making resources will provide music educators around the world with a unique set of tools to make the benefits of learning and playing music accessible to all.
For the Challenge Respondent this is an opportunity to work on the development of an innovative, inclusive, and accessible new platform that could have wider applications across creative and wellbeing settings.
Applications for Challenge Respondents are open now and close at 5pm on Friday 16th April 2021. If you are interested in applying to answer this Challenge Project, join us on Thursday 18th March for our online Challenge Holder Q&A session. If you have any questions, please contact creativeinformatics@ed.ac.uk.“
Visit the Creative Informatics website for more details. Text quoted from https://creativeinformatics.org/challenge/drake-music-scotland/
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.
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:
