“I’ve been using Figurenotes with ASN pupil since earlier this year &love it. Was great to hear a bit more from Drake Music Scotland at #sameconf23. Will now expand my use of this excellent resource with pupils to stop ASN being a barrier to learning & participating in music.”
It’s statements like this one that makes the 6am starts worthwhile. We got off to a sleepy start on Thursday and headed off to Stirling University for the 23rd annual SAME Conference (Scottish Association of Music Educators). What a joy to be surrounded by esteemed colleagues in the exhibitor hall and to meet so many current and new Figurenotes users over the two day conference. We even dusted out the old floor piano for a bit of fun with the delegates.
Whilst Rebecca and Emma were mingling behind the Figurenotes stall in the exhibitors lounge, Pete was leading a session on Figurenotes and other inclusive techniques called Everybody Plays – Inclusion Ideas for the Classroom.
Events like these are such a great way to reconnect with colleagues and share good practice. Teachers can often experience isolation and just having the opportunity to bounce ideas off each other and refresh really can help inform your practice. We collected some great stories from Teachers using Figurenotes and how it has helped them in the classroom.
We would like to thank the organisers, all the delegates and exhibitors for taking the time to chat with us. We look forward to the next SAME Conference in 2020.
As some of you may already know, we are in the process of applying to update the current Figurenotes Software. A part of the application requires us to estimate our reach i.e how many people are using Figurenotes.
With this in mind, we have launched our new project Figurenotes Collect! We are delighted to announce that we have been getting out and about in the Figurenotes Community, visiting projects, school, concerts and meeting some Figurenotes users.
Teens+
Rebecca was lucky enough to visit Teens + Ravenscroft, a unique service providing further education, life and social skills, transition to ownership of tenancies and lifelong learning, to young people who, due to their needs, would ordinarily be excluded from accessing any form of further education once they have left school.
Rebecca visited one of our Associate
Musicians, Fi Sharp. Fi leads a small group of young adults with a variety of
needs, in their quest to learn and play music.
It was fantastic to see these young
adults interacting with Figurenotes in different ways to suit their stage and
it was a real treat to experience people of differing ages and musical
abilities playing together.
Big thanks to Fi and everyone at Teen+
for allowing me to come along.
If
you are using Figurenotes in your school/council/community project we want to
hear from you!
“Today’s training has been a fantastic experience. Fantastic course and people! Thank you very much!”
“Music Teacher’s Toolbox has given me a new way to approach teaching, making music easier to understand and play. Everything was fantastic! I got a very comprehensive understanding of Figurenotes. I’ll be back for the next one!”
“Really brilliant! I learned a lot and had a good time. Keep it up!”
You can see why we love running our Figurenotes training days. We consistently get this feedback and it is brilliant to see people ending the day brimming with enthusiasm and inspiration.
Our next Music Teacher’s Toolbox will be announced after Christmas, when our new Figurenotes Officer starts their role. Make sure you sign up to the mailing list for updates. In the meantime, join our Facebook group, ‘Figurenotes – Let’s Make Music’, to network with other teachers and musicians. Let us know what you’d like to see at the next training day by posting within the group.
The group of trainees were brilliantly enthusiastic and got stuck in with all the activities. We worked on building pulse, rhythm, matching skills (inspired by UNO!), and ensemble skills. With Thumbjam solos on the iPad within our Figurenotes band, everyone got stuck into some Blondie at the end of the day.
Thank you to everyone that came for such a fun-filled day. We can’t wait for the next one!
“I feel sorry for those people that couldn’t make the training today, as I think they’ve missed out on something great!”
It is always wonderful to get a glowing review from our training sessions. Over two days, this one combined both Figurenotes and demonstrations of the technology that Drake Music Scotland use in their work. If you are interested in booking a bespoke training session or workshop, you can find more details and contact information on our website.
Last week, we packed up our kit bags and headed off to the University of Aberdeen to train students and recent graduates. The group was wonderfully enthusiastic and full of questions, which we love! We did tonnes of rhythm games, from body percussion to vocal work. Some really interesting pieces were created from modern artworks, all with audience participation! There were brilliant improvisations using the technology, but the sound effect switches were a particular hit. Squealing pigs, anyone?
Working with people who are totally new to Figurenotes is particularly rewarding, especially current students and new teachers. The enthusiasm and imagination that the group brought to the sessions gives a lot of hope for the future of music education.
If you’d like to receive some training in Figurenotes, you can either book a training day for your organisation, or come to one of our Music Teacher’s Toolbox days. The next Music Teacher’s Toolbox takes place on Saturday 24th November, 2018. As usual, it will take place at our space in Edinburgh.
From its establishment in 1997 Drake Music Scotland’s primary purpose was to create music-making opportunities for disabled people of all ages. For the first 10 years this was primarily achieved through the use of accessible music technologies, giving those with limited mobility and co-ordination the means to control musical sounds and express themselves creatively. As well as working with physically disabled people, we also provided opportunities for those with learning difficulties. Many of these were able to play conventional musical instruments, but the main issue for us was how best to help them develop musical skills.
The ability to read music notation is a fundamental aspect of learning to play an instrument and joining in music making with other people. Notation presents a barrier for many learners – not just those with disabilities – and we hadn’t found a way round this. We relied on different approaches to music making, such as improvising, rhythm games, playing by ear, and creative composition using alternative notation such as graphic scores.
Essentially we recognised our own ‘teaching difficulty’ rather than seeing our participants as having a ‘learning difficulty’.
In 2008, we became aware of Figurenotes and, since that moment, this colourful notation system has had a major impact on our work. Our former Artistic Director, Brian Cope, went to Helsinki, where Figurenotes was invented and developed by Markku Kaikkonen and Kaarlo Uusitalo with their pupils at the Resonaari Music School. He returned to Scotland enthused by its simplicity and effectiveness, and we didn’t look back. Although other colour-based systems have been created, Figurenotes presents all the fundamental features of notation in a clear and accessible way, and at the same time allows learners to progress through three simple stages towards standard notation. Following our ‘Inspire’ pilot project, testing Figurenotes with a variety of learners from young children to adults, we needed no further convincing. Our mission was to introduce it to Scotland, make it more widely available by creating Figurenotes software and resources, and bring music leaders and educators on board with this revolutionary, but simple tool.
Over the last ten years, Figurenotes has had a pervasive and positive effect on all aspects of our work. As we reach the major landmark of our 20th Anniversary Concert, putting disabled musicians ‘Centre Stage’, it is enlightening to assess the impact it has had. Rather than being a dramatic ‘solution’ to everybody’s needs, there has been a gradual growth of confidence in our flexible methodology. A combination of the right kind of open-minded, creative and versatile people – musicians and music educators – with the best combination of tools, teaching practices and technologies to create a holistic approach that can be adjusted to meet the needs of any learner, seeing opportunities instead of obstacles, and allowing people’s potential and talent to be realised.
Highlights
We have had many successes with Figurenotes, both on a small individual scale, at organisational level and in terms of the wider sector both here in Scotland and further afield. Creating a list of our ‘Top Ten’ achievements with Figurenotes is nearly impossible, but here we highlight some of the major ways we have helped our participants realise their potential with the brilliant Figurenotes system over the last 10 years:
Winning the award for Best SEN Resource at the Music Teacher Awards for Excellence
This award was in recognition of everything we had achieved since launching Figurenotes resources in 2012. It was the first in what is now a much longer list of awards and accolades won by Drake Music Scotland.
Collaborations between mainstream and special schools
Increasingly, Figurenotes is enabling pupils from all schools to play together in concerts and collaborations. Many of these pupils would not have had this opportunity without Figurenotes. One of the highlights was our Mambo concert in Angus that featured in the BBC Ten Pieces newsletter.
Links with national organisations to increase accessibility and inclusion
Our resources for BBC Ten Pieces, Friday Afternoons, and links with Sistema Scotland have given so many more people access to music making. It is great to see these projects increasing their focus on inclusion and accessibility.
Recognising our work finding digital solutions to break down the barriers to music making for disabled people, including development of the Figurenotes software. Our music software is now used world-wide by teachers and students alike. A great tool for composition and for adapting pieces to the needs of the musician.
This research project helped us see the huge potential of Figurenotes and it’s effects. The orchestra frequently plays with top musicians such as Sir James MacMillan, Nicola Benedetti, and Colin Currie. Prestigious performances in both Holyrood and Westminster prove that learning with Figurenotes can take you a long way.
From a pupil moving to a mainstream school to study music after learning with Figurenotes, to a pianist with Dyslexia who is now training to be a music teacher. We absolutely love hearing back from projects all over Scotland and further afield. Access to Figurenotes resources has helped brass projects in the favelas of Brazil, school work in Uganda, Israel, Australia, Europe and the USA; the list goes on.
Tirelessly training teachers
We have been training teachers and musicians to use Figurenotes to increase accessibility, inclusion, and success for years. Our Music Teacher’s Toolbox training days go from strength to strength, attracting people from Australia, Czech Republic, Sweden, among others. We have seen an increase in training requests from organisations, schools, and companies, which means more teachers using Figurenotes and more people gaining access to music making.
We are looking forward to the biggest highlight of all: Centre Stage
Mark Browne and Jill Reeves have been using Figurenotes to great effect at Craigmarloch School, so we asked them to share their experience.
Figurenotes has revolutionised music here at Craigmarloch School. Its visual style and literal colour-matching logic has engaged pupils at all ages, stages and levels, and it has become integral to learning across the school. At Craigmarloch, a school for young people with a wide range of Additional Support Needs, music is a key part of the curriculum for every young person (aged 4 -18). As a teacher new to the school, and enthused by the possibilities of Figurenotes, I have been keen to embed Figurenotes within a curriculum that enables learners to achieve early to second levels of Curriculum for Excellence. I have seen for myself the difference that it has made to learning here and it has opened the door for young people to experience a much greater variety of music making experiences.
Craigmarloch students rock the guitar!
The first challenge of this was setting up the classroom and the instruments to be ready for young people to use Figurenotes from the start of the current school year. Of course, there have been colour coded notation schemes in existence before – the evidence of this was there in the many stickers that embellished the keyboards and glockenspiels throughout the classroom. In order to “launch” Figurenotes effectively, these needed to be painstakingly removed and replaced, a long and laborious process involving nail varnish remover and lighter fluid! Actually it turned out that metal polish worked best, so perhaps this is a useful “hot tip” for anyone yet to begin their journey into the realm of Figurenotes!
Having done this, it was time to create new resources designed around the new notation system. The first of these was a keyboard course that I hoped would (a) encourage young people to start with a secure hand position on notes C to G and (b) enable pupils with a range of abilities to be able to play together even at an early stage in their learning. With its three distinct stages, Figurenotes seems custom built for differentiation and this has meant that more able pupils would be able to see the progression to standard notation. So I began the process of composing simple keyboard pieces – with silly titles like “Semibreve Siesta” – and printing them in all stages of Figurenotes. The course comprises seven pieces – the first four of which can be played together – and move to an arrangement of the Largo from Dvorak’s New World Symphony. All pieces involve fingers 1 to 5 in the right hand and gradually progress from a first piece using four beat notes only to the final piece using a range of different note lengths.
Mark’s worksheet to teach semibreves in 3 stages of Figurenotes
Figurenotes has also been embedded into more diverse schemes of work. A unit on riffs and ostinatos was produced, using Figurenotes exclusively. A study of Mars from the Planets involves clapping the opening rhythm using Figurenotes – a challenge to create, using a 15 beat bar; not the way Holst wrote it of course, but effective and accessible – while later on in the unit, differentiated parts for Billie Jean and Smoke on the Water were produced. One of the most popular recent songs in the school, Uptown Funk, forms the final group performance of the book. The different riffs are presented separately with a final “solo” keyboard version using Stage 3 of Figurenotes.
Doing this can all be achieved by simply using the Figurenotes software, but if you want to get your musical examples into a booklet format, using the screenshot tool in Microsoft Word and selecting screen clipping means you can do just that. This enables you to add (for example) pictures, words of explanation, cross-referencing numbers linking to Experiences and Outcomes (!), or artistic use of borders and shading. The same method can be used to insert music onto PowerPoint, especially useful if you are guiding learners through a unit and are using Figurenotes to exemplify particular concepts.
Performing with Port Glasgow High School
None of this seems revolutionary in any way, but I hope this has shown how Figurenotes can be used as an intrinsic part of the music curriculum, rather than as an add-on extra. At Craigmarloch, standard notation still forms part of the music curriculum, particularly for more advanced learners, so it was important to me that any new notation system would form part of a logical progression to reading and understanding standard music notation. With its different stages, Figurenotes does offer this, and it gives all learners – with or without Additional Support Needs – an accessible way to enjoy, and benefit from, a diverse range of musical experiences.
Mark Browne – Music Teacher, Craigmarloch School
We’ll make all of Mark’s resources available through the Resource Base, so you can download them and get cracking. Don’t forget to order your stickers for the classroom and download the software to help you create resources of your own. Thanks for sharing, Mark.
At Drake Music Scotland, the charity behind Figurenotes, we love using Thumbjam. Obviously, we love using Figurenotes too, so we wanted to find a way to combine the two. Our Associate Musician, Clare Johnston, came up with a brilliant way to use Figurenotes with Thumbjam on the iPad.
Clare is a bit of a Thumbjam virtuoso. Watch her perform her beautiful composition for three voices on Thumbjam.
For Clare’s full instructions on how to combine Thumbjam with Figurenotes, take a look in the Resource Base.
Clare created an underlay, which can be used with Thumbjam to show Figurenotes, just like in the image above. In order to do this, you will need a graphics editor capable of layers and transparency. Clare’s tutorial uses Adobe Draw on the iPad (free), cutting out the need for extra costs and an additional Mac or PC.
Set Thumbjam to the correct scale, octave, and span that you’ll be using for your piece; take a screenshot of this. Open the image in Adobe Draw so that it fills the whole screen. By creating new layers and adding a blue tint, Figurenotes shapes and colours, and setting them in the correct place on the screen, Clare has come up with a way to incorporate Figurenotes notation into Thumbjam performance. Once this process is complete, the original screenshot image is deleted, leaving you with an underlay for your Thumbjam screen.
Before moving across to the Thumbjam app, check whether the underlay image fills the whole screen by opening it using your Photos app. Then you are ready to move your underlay into Thumbjam.
Open Thumbjam
Go to the Preferences menu
Click on Options
Scroll down to Background Image
Click on Custom
Find your underlay image and click to use
The Figurenotes shape will disappear when you play that note, so some players may take some time to get used to this. They reappear as soon as you release the note.
Now marvel in the brilliance and simplicity of Figurenotes with Thumbjam. You could create several of these images for setups you use often, which means you can choose from a library of images without having to complete this process every time you want to combine Figurenotes with Thumbjam. Store the images on your iPad and you can call them up whenever they are needed. Remember you can get full, detailed instructions on the Resource Base.
Due to a flurry of recent training enquiries, we thought we should open booking for November’s Music Teacher’s Toolbox. This time around, Resource Base members get exclusive access to pre-sale booking. Only a limited amount of places will be released, so make sure you grab yours early.
All members of the Resource Base will be sent an email on 25th May containing a link to the online booking form. Complete this form to reserve your training place. Payments can be made when places go on general release on 1st June. Contact Lauren if you don’t receive an email and feel you should have; please remember to check your junk folders first.
You can also use your Resource Base members’ discount code, RB2017, to get 10% off.
The programme is still being finalised, so if there is anything you’d like to see then please let us know in the booking form. We love to tailor these days to the people coming along, so get in early to get the most out of this award-winning CPD.
Not a Resource Base member? You can sign up here, getting access to our library of downloadable resources, discounts, and access to pre-sale booking.
We can’t wait to see you for some more Figurenotes fun!
Adam Featherstone, a teacher from Middlesbrough, tells us how he used music from Harry Potter to inspire a creative project with BBC Philharmonic musicians (pictured above with a musician from Priory Woods).
I started to use Figurenotes in March of 2015 starting with whole class electronic keyboards, using single note melodies. I quickly progressed to getting the coloured shape notation sticker packs and placing them onto any instrument I could find. This ranged from chime bars to adapting some of our guitars to play open chords.
I am the music teacher in Priory Woods which is an SEN school in Middlesbrough for students with a mixture of special educational needs aged 4-19. These range from PMLD to SLD, however I feel the Figurenotes approach is suitable to both primary and secondary teachers as a good way to introduce students to practical music making. The only difference would be to change the difficulty of the material used.
We have used Figurenotes in a variety of ways. One such example has been to progress our post 16 music option students s to play rock and pop songs. I have written out songs by Green Day and The Clash, mostly chords. As a result they may take part in our end of year school show and hopefully at a battle of the bands next year. Most recently I have set up an inclusive orchestra using a mixture of hard to reach pupils using technology such as ICT, eye gaze, and traditional music instruments. This has held Figurenotes at its core.
We have recently had the pleasure of welcoming 3 musicians from the BBC Philharmonic into school for a day of workshops before a performance in the afternoon. We started the day exploring a simple melody taken from Harry Potter. I transposed this for some of the musicians quite easily using the software. The musicians took a few minutes to get to grips with the coloured notation, but settled in very quickly.
We had a student conduct our students and BBC Philharmonic musicians to create a rather beautifully layered composition. This gave us some ideas about how to progress the day, as our next steps fed into group composition using the entire ensemble, with iPads taking the lead with solos using the app ThumbJam. We also had a student on an eye gaze machine taking a solo. He was delighted to be able to take part. These students responded fantastically to whole group integrated work. One BBC Philharmonic musician conducted whilst the other 2 took solos on flute and trumpet during the piece and gave encouragement to the pupils.
Every person on that stage was valued as an equal and had an integral part to play, whatever their ability or experience. Each musician used Figurenotes. I hope to develop this ensemble at the start of the new school year, adding more ICT, samples, instrumentation and student musicians.
Adam sent us a lovely email saying “Without Figurenotes it would not have been possible. Thank you.” Thank you to Adam for sharing the ways in which he has used Figurenotes. If you’d like to share your ideas then please get in touch.
