Calling all MuseScore users. Are you up-to-date with MuseScore 4? Have you also updated your Figurenotes plugins?
There are 2 plugins for Figurenotes. The first creates coloured noteheads in Figurenotes colours with just one click.
An example of the Figurenotes Colours plugin
The second creates shaped noteheads with Figurenotes colours for a slightly easier transition into reading stage 3.
An example of the Figurenotes Colours and Shapes plugin
Both plugins have been updated to use with MuseScore 4. You can access them via the FAM Hub or the MuseScore plugin library, where they are helpfully bundled into one package.
We’ve made a little video to help you install your plugin, in case this is new to you. Once installed, it will appear within MuseScore, ready for you to apply to your scores.
You can create stage 1 and 2 scores in our Notate programme. The plugins help you to create stage 3 scores. If you need a refresher on the different stages of Figurenotes, take a look at our Progression pages. We have lots of games in the Hub to help you transition from one stage to the next, moving towards reading standard notation, if that is your goal.
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!
Did you know you can use your computer keyboard to input notes into your Figurenotes notation programme?
We’ve got a lot of different ways to input notes into your Figurenotes score, so you are spoilt for choice. This one may not be as obvious as others, so we thought it needed a blog post. We hope this helps you find your ideal way to create music.
Once you’ve logged in to Notate.Figurenotes.org and have your score open, untick the ‘Lock Piano Keys’ box at the top of the page. This will allow you to use your computer keyboard to enter notes.
Each note entered will be one crotchet beat, unless you change the note duration settings on the right hand side of the page.
This should make it easier and quicker to enter notes into your score. If you want to use your keyboard shortcuts again, just make sure you tick the ‘lock keys’ box again.
We’ve made this handy diagram to help you understand your computer keyboard as a MIDI keyboard. You can find this in our Notate FAQs (scroll down to ‘Inputting Notes’) or download it in png or PDF form below.
After feedback that our current training clashes with the school run (we see you, jugglers) we need your help to refine our options.
We want to hear from you. What time of year is best? Which days work with your workload? Which times make life easiest for you? Let us know your thoughts and we will build our training around you. The survey below has 4 simple questions, is totally anonymous, and will only take a minute to complete.
Our current Figurenotes: Developing Your Practice course runs over 3 weeks. We deliver a 2-hour session once a week on Zoom, with homework activities between sessions. An individual follow-up session with course leaders can be booked at a time to suit you.
The interactive nature of this course means that being present, working in the small groups we deliver to, and sharing ideas are a huge part of the learning process. We feel that access to recordings won’t give the same benefit with this style of course, so we are keen to make sure people can attend live.
If you have any thoughts on other types of training you’d like then please send us an email at Figurenotes@DrakeMusicScotland.org. We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Pre-recorded videos, modular workbooks, in-person training – whatever you would like to see, let us know.
As a thank you, we’re offering 10% off resources in our online shop, including training! https://figurenotes.org/shop/ Just complete the form below. Thank you.
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.
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!
“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.
