Chat – Justifying Arrangements
Found in: Arrangements & Variations, Practicing & Playlists
Gordon (Aus) The first part of this presentation will be mostly my pre-written notes. We’ll have time for questions after then. This chat is about introducing, justifying and ordering arrangements. We can get into specifics of presenting individual pieces at the next session [More Teaching Arrangements].
Since they were introduced, I’ve discovered more and more that arrangements are absolutely vital. In no way are they simply bonus projects. They’ve given me some real breakthroughs with students, where a light bulb suddenly goes on, and they really see everything so much more clearly. I think it’s to do with the increased concentration and focus required. The other day I had a shared lesson with two young sisters who normally have rather short attention spans, but the setup conversation I had with them about a particular arrangement project had them totally focused, and they had the entire song totally clear by the end of the lesson. I had to physically drag them away from the keyboard!
There is no hurry to move through the program. As far as Arrangements go, it’s meant two things for me: I’m sometimes leaving arrangements a little later than I used to, and I’m more aware of using arrangements to pace the unfolding of the program. We need to balance the contrasting pressures of the urge to move forward and the need to absorb things fully, and this is an important function of Arrangements.
The greatest temptation for many of us is moving too fast. Just because a student picks up on foundation pieces quickly doesn’t mean they’ve “got” the program. They may be playing by ear, or simply have a natural aptitude for the pieces at early levels. But if they breeze through the early levels too quickly, they may hit a brick wall down the track, where suddenly everything is “too hard”. They need to have plenty of time even at early levels to really absorb the SM way of learning.
You also don’t want them cruising through the first 2 or 3 foundation levels simply relying on the familiar comfort of the SHM’s, and then being hit in the face with the whole new challenge of Arrangements they weren’t expecting. This is avoided by proper set-up and by having them well and truly familiar with variations, and expecting that most weeks there’ll be something for them to do that’s not on the video.
Really, I suspect we sometimes fall for the idea that the Foundation program is the “proper” component and the others are just extras, or bonus projects. In fact all programs are equally important, and interdependent. In that sense, it’s good that from an early stage, students are getting so many non-foundation projects, however small, that it becomes second nature to do so.
So let’s talk about preparing students and justifying arrangements. Firstly, can you justify them to yourself? Anyone have difficulty with that?
caroline b AUS no
Ginny(PerthWestAust) no
Kerry V (Aus) no
Gordon (Aus) I may be repeating the obvious, but I know I took a while to really get this: our students are not here to learn a bunch of songs – they’re here to learn a way of learning. Of course, it’s vital that they’re achieving results they can hear, but they need to know that each project is taught for a reason and that some projects will be more fun or easier than others, and they need to be prepared to go along with what you ask of them.
I find that, like so many other things, the student’s relationship with Arrangements will be always influenced by how they’re first introduced. In fact, and you might be expecting me to say something like this, how well they accept arrangements is a lot to do with how well you’ve trained them in the earliest lessons to just do what they’re asked to do. Having said that, it’s good to have a kind of foundation session for arrangements.
I start the conversation at the time of their first variations (although I talk about Variations and Arrangements, from the student’s perspective, they’re really the same thing, just at different levels of difficulty). I may spend more or less time with the initial conversation, and will repeat and continue the conversation ongoingly. The conversation will go something like this:
“We’re going to start into some projects that will be very different from what you’ve already become familiar with. You know how I insist on you using the video and the notebooks, and how particular I am about how you use them? Well, we’re going to do some projects in which you’ll have no home materials at all! I’ll be showing you something in the class, and deliberately giving you no home support.
It won’t be on the video or audio materials, and I won’t write any notes other than the name of the project. It’ll be scary, like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, and I predict right here and now that sometimes you’ll forget. Are you prepared to do this?”
Of course, they’ll always say yes, and the build-up always seems to focus their attention. If they express memory anxieties, I’ll say:
“Remember that what we’re really doing in SM classes is ‘learning a way of learning’ – learning to see the instrument in a way that has you really understand what you’re doing. As part of LAWOL, you need to be strengthening the memory muscle (I sometimes use an analogy of going to gym – building the muscle with tougher challenges). At this stage in your learning, your memory muscle isn’t as well developed as it will become, and it will be normal to forget things.
You shouldn’t worry or see yourself as having failed if you forget something. Later on, you’ll be amused at how much you used to forget”.
I sometimes talk about the difference between musical memory and the kind of memory needed for phone numbers or shopping lists. I might say
“In music, remembering something is mostly a matter of understanding it, in seeing it in a way that simplifies the processing, so you don’t have as much to remember, just as the whole program is teaching us. With these arrangements, we’ll get you really looking closely, taking more responsibility for processing the information”.
Of course, I wouldn’t put it that way with a young child, but it’s a great conversation to have with the parent. For a child, it might be enough just to say “let’s see how much you can remember of this. You’ll really need to watch carefully”.
All the above is about remembering what to do to learn the song, but it’s interesting to me that students often have more trouble remembering what each project is called! Sometimes a student can play every Dreams arrangement but can’t remember which is which. That’s more shopping list memory, really. That’s the least of my worries, and we often joke about it. I ease the burden somewhat with the way we handle them in the Playlist, and by giving some of them alternate names. More about that later.
I also find it’s good to have students get used to the idea of the occasional more challenging project. I connect this with the Relationship conversation. You could think of individual pieces as peak, valley or plateau pieces. You can prepare students for the inevitable valleys and plateaus by giving them pieces that you know will be tougher. You could warn them that a particular piece is a plateau or valley piece.
You can also give them a little of the big picture by saying that down the track they’ll be self-generating, ie figuring things out for themselves, finding sentences, shapes, patterns etc, and these projects will be a bit like that.
There are particular actions in each piece that are valuable for students to learn – I think of it as adding new words and phrases to our “musical vocabulary” – e.g. Dreams Come True 3 LH. That action may occur in lots of other pieces in the future, and can be used in other projects like compositions, making jazz arrangements etc.
Sometimes you could introduce an arrangement as a simple exercise – eg in Dreams Come True 1, you can have students just play the two chords, without even discussing the song they’ll be used in until the following week.
Having terrified them with the prospect of jumping out of planes without parachutes, and crashing into valleys, it’s good to comfort them with regular reminders that to forget is normal. I also remind them that they can communicate with each other (in shared lessons) or with me (in private lessons) through the week.
I must say it’s very rare that a student calls with questions. Is this the same for all of you?
caroline b AUS yes
Kerry V (Aus) yes
Dixie R. USA Yes
Ginny(PerthWestAust) Gordon, I have generally in the arrangements setup conversation pointed out how we are often actually borrowing from something they already know from their core pieces, or simply adding a small new component, to minimize the student’s ‘fear’ of not being able rely on SHMs, at the same time as reassuring that is totally normal to not remember everything straight away.
Gordon (Aus) I agree, Ginny.
Now, we can go two ways in this chat. We can talk about generalities of how to present, or the order I present pieces. Which would you prefer?
Kerry V (Aus) Generalities of how to present
caroline b AUS bit of both
Ginny(PerthWestAust) both if time
caroline b AUS but I’m only just starting with arrangements so I’d like some guidance with when to intro, I do have a student racing ahead who I’d like to slow down
Gordon (Aus) Cool. Let’s briefly talk about the order I present the pieces. Remember that you don’t have to finish all L1 arrangements before starting L2 arrangements. Some of the L2’s are simpler than the L1’s.
This is a very rough guide only, and will vary from class to class.
Here are the first few I teach:
Dreams 1
Dreams 2
Night Storm 1
Jackson Blues 1
Honey Dew 1
This might occur between the very end of L1 and end of L3.
Next few:
Night Storm 2
Jackson Blues 2
Honey Dew 2
Amazing Grace 1
I’ll be There 1
Dreams 3
Jackson Blues 3
Honey Dew 3
Amazing Grace 2
I’ll be There 2
Chester 1
Ode to Joy (L1) 1
Then:
Night Storm 3
Amazing Grace 3
Fur Elise (L1) 1
Jackson Blues 4
Ode to Joy (L2) 1
Minuet in G 1
Sleeping 1
All of this may have taken us well into L5.
Okay, so about presenting…
Are there differences in how you present Arrangements compared to Foundation pieces? Fundamentally, no, in that you’re breaking pieces down, looking for shapes, patterns, sentences etc. But you can refine the way of presenting arrangements in certain ways. Here are a few points:
Correct doses – I found when I first started in the Arrangements Program, I was moving too far too fast – introducing pieces too early or giving too much in a session. So now I make sure I give only small doses. Some of the pieces are simple enough that the whole song is a small dose. Others could be presented over three or even four sessions, and not necessarily in successive weeks. The general rule is, err on the side of less.
You can apply more generative learning with arrangements. That is, have the students themselves examine a step on the keyboard and say “what can you see that would help you remember this?”. Of course, you will have explained that they’ll be doing more of this in the future, even with foundation pieces, and will need that skill to become self-generating down the track.
A great thing to do is have students come up with their own version of a Notes Book entry, such as a Rhythm Diagram where appropriate. They could do this on your whiteboard for the class, but of course wouldn’t write it in their own notes…and most importantly, you should not be the one to make one the diagram for them!!
You might spend just a little more time with each step in class. In a Shared Lesson, this would allow for more Receptive Learning. You could also, having moved on in the lesson to other tasks, return to the arrangement project for a quick review just before you finish. Also, the value of briefly reviewing the project as soon as you get home is very clear with arrangements.
You can, in a Shared Lesson, keep quicker students challenged with bonus projects – balancing faster and slower students in a class… That is, presenting an arrangement in class so that faster students can work on it, but slower ones don’t need to. Trick of it is that it has to be presented in a way that still has some relevance to the slower ones, so they feel included and that it isn’t a waste of time. Although this seems to be pretty much a non-issue, and sometimes they’ll appreciate having a break. Later the faster students can teach the project to the others. It’s a great generative learning task for the faster student, and an acknowledgement of their achievement.
Make sure, of course, that you’re working with duets as much as possible. As Neil points out, it’s crucial with any accompaniment-based arrangement that the melody is present. Also, duets are a whole new level of experience which only the Variations and Arrangements offer the opportunity for at early levels.
Any comments or questions at this point?
Dixie R. USA Are there some students who barely manage the foundation pieces, compositions & improvisations, & accompaniments, and who never get around to learning the arrangements?
Gordon (Aus) No, but it doesn’t matter how much time anything takes. I don’t change things much for students like these… maybe leave arrangements a little later, or do fewer. Progress is more about proportion than speed, if you know what I mean.
Dixie R. USA So do some students learn some of the Arrangements, but not all?
Gordon (Aus) For me, not every student will learn every arrangement, but increasingly I’m presenting more arrangements to more students rather than less.
Dixie R. USA Are the Variations essential before introducing Arrangements?
Gordon (Aus) For each level, pretty much yes… so, do all L1 Variations of any given song before starting the L1 Arrangements for that song. There may be exceptions, such as taking a student with prior experience through some DCT arrangements before later L1 foundation pieces. And of course you may still be doing some L1 Arr’s before some L2 Var’s.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) I find if I demonstrate some of the the arrangements early on (eg the full Storm or Dreams), but don’t teach them straight away, it is an incentive for them to really get the core pieces thoughtlessly, because they are suddenly hearing the relatively simple Level 1 songs sounding fantastically sophisticated (as long as I reassure this is not such a big leap as it may sound, if they take it step by step (I tend to introduce the individual versions as ‘variations, then talk about what an ‘arrangement’ is and get them to string it together as a longer piece. Do you think I should be warning them more realistically that it isn’t always going to be ‘easy’ in the way that having the SHMs makes it, as you have suggested above? ie talk about the scariness factor?
Gordon (Aus) Yes, I would, Ginny. You might remember Neil’s conversation about the gym coach. If he tells you “this is going to hurt tomorrow” you’ll trust him more and go along with him more willingly.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) right, gotcha
Gordon (Aus) I love the idea of playing Arr’s ahead of time, though – a lovely look into the future.
Are there questions at this point?
sreingold I don’t get the gym coach analogy–can you elaborate?
Gordon (Aus) You enrol in a gym, let’s say with a personal trainer, and he tells you about doing a workout and using weights, and he say’s “you’re gonna love it, you’re gonna get fit, you’ll have more energy, you’ll feel great “… however, tomorrow comes, and you’re aching all over, you didn’t know this would happen, it seems to contradict what the trainer said, you automatically think something’s wrong with the workout, with you or with the trainer!!
Whereas another trainer says, “You’re gonna love it, you’re gonna get fit, you’ll have more energy, you’ll feel great, but in the very beginning this will hurt, and if you wake up tomorrow and you’re sore, then that’s perfect, it means that what we’re doing is working! And in a while you’ll be stronger”.
Now, when you wake up tomorrow and you’re sore, you know this was supposed to happen, your trainer predicted it, you have more trust in them to lead you down the right path!
sreingold got it–thanks!
Ginny(PerthWestAust) I myself found it very useful to hear what lay ahead, when I first started learning and teaching SM because there was a dawning realization of what great-sounding stuff I could be playing. So I sometimes even play arrangements in the FIS or first or second lesson as part of the setup conversation, to promote the wonders of the program to students and parents…
Gordon (Aus) especially parents…and imagine how long it would take in a more conventional process to end up playing something like I’ll be There 3.
sonja (aus) I have found students so appreciate the broader scope that is also available through learning this way
Ginny(PerthWestAust) I guess the whole point is to show them what’ s possible without misrepresenting what it may realistically take, time and effort-wise, to get there? Although having said that, compared to traditional programs they are really getting advanced sounding stuff so much more quickly regardless of how long it takes to digest arrangements.
Gordon (Aus) I hope you always remember that it really doesn’t matter how long anything takes, and even if it takes a long time it’s still pretty quick! I can tackle another brief topic or two – either questions or more from my notes.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) Yes. I sometimes worry that I move too SLOWLY as a teacher, but to be fair to myself, I probably couldn’t realistically push anyone through more quickly without there being some fallout (ie there always has been if I introduce anything prematurely).
Gordon (Aus) Let’s talk about Arrangements in the Play List. I think there’s been some anxiety about having students remember so many arrangements. Do any of you have this?
sonja (aus) yes
Gordon (Aus) I wonder if sometimes it might be to do with how they’re managed in the Playlist, or even how they’re written into the Playlist. Arrangements are always included and maintained in the Playlist, just as Foundation Pieces are, and are managed in just the same way, except that until the piece becomes thoughtless, it might possibly require a little more repetition.
I have a particular approach to writing the arrangements in the Playlist, based on how I unfold each project. Most arrangements have their own entry, but some I consider to be steps in an ongoing single project. For example, let’s say a student has done all Level 1 arrangements. They’d have separate entries for Dreams 1,2 & 3, but only one entry for Jackson Blues Arrangement, because they’ll no longer play Jackson Blues 1 when they go on to Jackson Blues 2 and so on, since each of those is a stepping stone to the next. The same applies to Amazing Grace 1 & 2, but not Amazing Grace 3, because that’s a very different project to the first two. If you follow that, you’ll find by this approach it turns out there’d be 15 Play List entries from the L1 arrangements…
[Note regarding the following section – this chat was conducted prior to the introduction of the Playlist Management supplemental program, on which each arrangement has been given a specific name.]
I also ease the memory anxieties a little by giving some of them different names. The ones which are accompaniment projects I name as accompaniments, so the three Dreams Come True projects would become DCT Accomp, DCT2 & DCT 3. I call Ode to Joy 1, ‘Ode to Joy Arrangement.’ The Jackson Blues arrangements I call “Humpty Blues” for obvious reasons.
Are any optional? Well, if you look at Honey Dew 1 and Amazing Grace 1, they’re applying the same alteration to both songs, so you may not need to do both, but it would be so easy to do both anyway, you could tackle both in one lesson, and even try it in other accompaniments.
Also Bishop Street Blues 1 & 2, I consider to be add-on projects to Jackson Blues 1 & 2, but again, easy to teach, and have the benefit of reinforcing those important chords, plus there’s a valuable little lesson in marrying the hands in the second one.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) Admittedly I have introduced fewer arrangements and introduced them slowly rather than using all of them. The names sounds like a great idea! Once I have taught all or most variations for a given song, and the student has them confidently, I just call it eg ‘Dreams Arrangement’ and it goes onto one line on the Playlist as such, rather than treating them as separate songs. Is this not the best approach in your experience?
Gordon (Aus) are you mixing variations with arrangements? I don’t think there’s a big difference, but I think in the case of Dreams Arrangements, they’re different enough to be seperate entries.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) Well, it seems to me that an ‘arrangement’ is the way you assemble different versions, sections or interpretations of a song. ie sometimes it is easier to refer to each individual version as a ‘variation’ and the entirety as an ‘arrangement’.
Gordon (Aus) If they want to consolidate the Playlist later, they could either merge them into one entry, or drop the simpler ones. I get where you’re coming from now, Ginny.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) For example if I have Dreams 1, 2 and 3, they will eventually appear as “Dreams Arrangement’ because the student is generally playing them back-to-back as one longer song.
Gordon (Aus) The only downside I see to this is the Playlist won’t look so impressive. and there is an underlying value for students to see and actively manage a larger Playlist. Anyone else have comments about this?
Susan M (WA USA) Once they have such an “impressive” long list, and they’re into one of the higher levels, won’t we need to pare it down some more to avoid not fitting onto the page?
Gordon (Aus) Like I said earlier, Susan, they could then merge arrangements or drop simpler ones.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) This is the thing I have wondered about, when it affects their overall Playlist size and hence the impressiveness and readiness to start the reading process etc – although visually it makes a Playlist less cluttered too by Level 4 or 5!
Dixie R. USA Concerning Dreams, I’ve actually just put the variation with Dreams 2 & 3 since it’s a bit of a challenge to modulate from the major to the minor & make it sound good in my experience.
Gordon (Aus) Yes, Dreams may not work combining Arr’s in two keys.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) Dixie yes, I often get them to start ‘mentally’ in the core Dreams position, then start the arrangement from Variation 1 (the D minor position) and so on.
caroline b AUS thanks v. much Gordon, learnt heaps
Dixie R. USA Yes, this has been great!!!
Susan M (WA USA) Thank you so much Gordon. Lots of good info we can use
Gordon (Aus) The arrangements are an area where each of us have more flexibility. I love hearing how others work.
Ginny(PerthWestAust) Thanks for your time and experience Gordon. Thanks for introducing and re-iterating some of the best approaches and things to consider. It has helped to see where I am on track and where I might need to do things differently.
Gordon (Aus) Thanks to all of you for being here today…