Fancy some free resources?

We have updated our free bundle of resources for 2025. Anyone who receives our email newsletter can get the new ‘Starter Pack’, so if you haven’t signed up already, you can do so here.

The pack contains:

• Five well-known tunes using the notes from middle C to the G above.

• Backing tracks at different speeds to help with practice and performance.

• Songs and activities to help build musical skills, such as listening, turn-taking, rhythm, and pulse.

• An explanation of how Figurenotes works

• Puppet cards to add even more fun!

The tunes are designed for ‘5 finger piano’, but are not instrument specific. They would work well on digital instruments too, such as Thumbjam and Clarion. These tunes are written in Stage 1 Figurenotes notation. You can read more about progression here.

The songs and activities can be used in group and 1:1 settings, with options to adapt and extend for more creativity.

We’re thrilled to be launching this set of resources, available free to anyone with an email address. It is especially lovely to feature musicians from Drake Music Scotland’s Singing Group in the recordings. To learn more about the charity behind Figurenotes, take a peek at Drake Music Scotland’s website.

How do I get my bundle?

Pop your details into the signup form. You will be redirected to download your Starter Pack.

For those lucky people who are already signed up – your resources are in your inbox now. Go and take a look. Happy Figurenoting!

Join us for a webinar exploring Figurenotes and BBC Ten Pieces resources. 3rd June 2025, 4-5pm

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.

For anyone who missed out on this iteration of the training, look out for the next cohort starting in the first half of 2025. Dates will be updated on our training page, as well as via the blog. Keep an eye on the email newsletter for early bird bargains.

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.

Keep an eye out for the postie if you’ve made an order with us recently. Figurenoters receiving stickers, magnets, and tune packs may notice a wee extra in their parcel.

We’ve been gradually improving the environmental impact of our packaging, from compostable ‘plastic’ envelopes, to limiting the amount of paper included in each parcel. Our latest endeavour is blooming beautiful!

Feast your eyes on these little seeded beauties.

1. Scan the QR code to get support and information on anything Figurenotes related. You can bookmark the Linktree page for the future.
2. Break your card up into small pieces
3. Place them in soil and water them lightly

Treat those little seeds well and you’ll be rewarded with some wonderful wildflowers! They’d be perfect for a classroom project.

For more instructions on planting your card, see this blog from the company that creates them.

https://littlegreenpapershop.com/blogs/news/how-to-grow-seed-paper

We’ll be following up with some music resources inspired by nature, so keep an eye on the Hub and our newsletter. Remember that you can upload your own resources to the Hub to share with other teachers too. Let’s build a global network of accessible music educators and facilitators sharing what works; sowing the seeds of inspiration and watching them bloom.

The end of November saw the Figurenotes team heading down to Southampton to present at the Music Mark Conference 2023. After the complimentary tea and caramel wafer on the tiny plane, we were set up nicely for a day of inspiring talks. The day started with a key note on Learning to Thrive in a Generative AI world, which was fascinating and started some lively debate. The conference was themed around ‘Dynamism’ and there was a particular focus on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. This was a fantastically forward-thinking conference and we were thrilled to be a part of it.

As Music Mark was celebrating their 10 year anniversary, the inaugural Music Mark Awards took place in the evening. Some brilliant projects and people were highlighted in the shortlists, with emotional judges speeches that really brought the meaning of our work home. Congratulations to all the worthy winners.

Our session was titled ‘Building Rhythm Confidence with Figurenotes’ and highlighted the ease with which this accessible notation shows rhythm. We had everyone stomping, clapping, tapping, and clicking. By bringing out the iPads with Garageband and Thumbjam (our favourite app!) we had chords and solos. Adding chimes and vocals into the mix gave us a full band.

We had settled on Don’t Worry, Be Happy as our featured tune, because it always brings a lot of joy into the room. It felt good to bring some movement and energy at the end of a long day of sessions, and we were rewarded with lots of keen teachers hoping to use Figurenotes in their projects. We can’t wait to see what people do with Figurenotes as a result of this session. We’ll be putting the Don’t Worry, Be Happy parts up on the Hub soon, so keep an eye out for them there.

It was also lovely to meet up with our friends at Charanga, ABRSM, Open Up Music, DIGIT, MiSST, and many more organisations. What a lovely community there is in the music education world. We hope to be back at this invigorating event next year.

In today’s guest blog we look at why Figurenotes has been so successful in additional needs settings. Iain Macleod works in Kaimes School, a wonderful specialist school in Edinburgh. They have had projects from Drake Music Scotland for many years, alongside their regular music lessons. Iain explains his reasoning for using Figurenotes in the classroom.

My name is Iain and I’m a music teacher. After starting my career as a peripatetic guitar teacher, I started teaching general music in primary schools in London. I qualified as a secondary music teacher in 2012, but have spent most of the time since working in Additional Needs settings.  

I first came across Figurenotes when I was working at a residential school where all the students had experienced significant early years trauma. This meant they had struggled with mainstream school because of challenging behaviour and were now in a more nurture-focused environment. All these kids were amazing as people and had bucket loads of energy and enthusiasm, but they also had very low self-esteem and would quickly give up on something if they felt they would get it wrong. Basically, they hated school and would go to extreme lengths to avoid ‘work’.  

I eventually realised that the less time I spent talking and explaining stuff, the better the lessons went! This is why Figurenotes was a huge hit with the students – they didn’t need any explanation as to how it worked. They could straight away just start following the music and playing on the keyboards! All I had to do was figure out easy versions of songs that they liked and print them off. Everyone was happy! Once they could play something they liked and had chosen, they were much more open to trying other activities and/or instruments. Engagement in music lessons was much better across the whole school. 

I am now teaching in a school for ASD students, and they love Figurenotes too. I think it is the best thing for introducing notation and getting people playing straight away. I think if it was used in all schools (mainstream and specialist) a lot more people would be motivated to learn instruments and get involved with music.

Thanks for sharing, Iain. You can check out Iain’s music on his website.

If you have a story you’d like to share with us at Figurenotes, please email us at Figurenotes@DrakeMusicScotland.org. If you’d prefer a chat, we can set one up via 0131 659 4766.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

Figurenotes© Software promotes inclusion across the spectrum of music-making opportunities and differentiation within them.  By moving to a web-based system we are opening up accessibility to more devices and more learners, increasing accessible music education worldwide.

The required web-based application will allow a worldwide user-group to create, compose, playback, print, and share scores. The ability to access Figurenotes© Software and files anywhere via an internet connection will allow a diverse range of people to access music and encourage collaboration.

Closing date is 9am on 31/05/2021 

You can view the full software brief here.

The successful contractor will preferably have:  

• 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.

Thanks to ScottishPower Foundation for supporting Figurenotes – Everyone Can Play.