Song “List”… Order to teach songs, variations, etc.
Found in: Arrangements & Variations
Traci T.
I am trying to compile my own, but would LOVE to see if anyone has a “list” of the order in which they teach foundation songs… add in variations, arrangements and the other streams!
The further I get in to this AMAZING music… I’m needing a little bit of guidance on where certain things might “flow” together!
Jen
I would also love to hear from some of the voices of experience in this area!
I introduced the first Dreams arrangement first, but then thought that the first Honey Dew arrangement might have been an easier way to introduce that “chunky” chord….???
Also, I heard about some suggested names for the Arrangements, but I can’t find that… At this point, I’m having the students name the songs as we introduce them, but I’d love some help in that area as well!
Robin Keehn, Washington
Hi Traci,
I don’t have a list but the Playlist Management program is very helpful in giving you a sense of what the order could be. I teach the Foundation pieces in order but the layering in of variations and arrangement is really dependent on your students and what they are capable of. If you have a group of six year olds, it may be weeks before they are ready for any variations (like moving Dreams up and octave and up a note). On the other hand, students with previous experience will be ready for that the week after they learn Dreams and you should be able to start one of the arrangements for Dreams in another week or two.
You can also mix up what you do with arrangements–meaning you can teach a Dreams Arrangement and then skip onto Honey Dew and later come back to Jackson Blues and Night Storm. I teach the easiest arrangements first and save the harder ones for later.
Remember, it can take years to get through all of the arrangements. There is no pressure to complete these in any order or with any deadline. The point is to be working on them because they help develop generative students who are also able to memorize because they have learned how to see music in terms of shapes, patterns, sentences, chords chord progressions, fragments and more. Arrangements contribute so much to a student’s experience of reading music. Just remember to go very slowly….teach a small amount that is able to be remembered without students taking any notes. Build that generative skill.
As to Accompaniment, I like to start it after Amazing Grace. I don’t make students memorize the accompaniment pieces and I don’t have them keep them on their playlist. Instead, we are always learning new pieces outside of the curriculum to hone their skills. I just make sure that we go all the way through Accompaniment I in their first six months and then we do the Accompaniment Variations. The fun really comes when students can play the music that they love.
Mark M., New York
I’ve really appreciated Gordon’s TWS workshop programs on Arrangements 1 and Arrangements 2, in which he not only provides additional teaching strategies for all pieces but suggests when to time each piece in relation to the Foundation stream.
I’ve used Gordon’s recommendations to see the overall order he uses to integrate all Arr. 1 & 2 pieces. Then I’ve integrated into that all the Variations, making sure to introduce each variation first before any arrangements (per Neil’s instructions). So I just introduce Dreams “D” variation as immediately as possible after teaching Dreams original, and from that point on I just treat Variations/Arrangements as its own stream, keeping it going alongside Foundation and Improv/Comp, giving it consistent attention.
There is a little more to the story in that I’ve tweaked the order of some of the Variations/Arrangements for various little nuanced reasons, like just generally spreading out work based on particular Foundation pieces so that there’s good variety over time. Then beyond that general order tweaking there are times when I may tweak the order for individual groups/lessons for various reasons.
Doing it this way leads different groups/lessons to pursue each stream at a pace that is more tailored to them, which is both good and bad. It’s good for obvious reasons of comfort. It’s bad in the sense that some lessons that get “behind” in Variations/Arrangements compared to other may have benefitted from a bit more rigorous work on these pieces to improve their musical memory.
I do occasionally think about tying things more rigorously to Foundation timing, as Gordon suggests in the TWS program and as Laurie Richards has at times talked about. Independent of that, though, either way is the basic issue of the order for moving from one project to another within Variations/Arrangements, and however that’s timed in relation to other streams, I do think Gordon’s recommendations are pretty useful for that.