Variations & Arrangements – Taking Notes
Found in: Arrangements & Variations, Playing-Based Methodology, Practicing & Playlists
Kristin I., Illinois
I have a questions about writing notes for Variations/Arrangements. I understand clearly from all my training materials that there are no support materials for this, and I am not to let them write down notes or clues for how the songs went. So, I am working hard at doing lots of repetition and giving clues during the lesson so that people can remember them. I’m also encouraging people to review on their way home/as soon as they get home/ before they go to bed, etc.
However, does that mean that when I write notes at the end of the lesson, I am only to write down the name of the song and nothing else? (I have been using the Playlist Management program, so I use those titles, which have a lot of clues in themselves). Or, is it okay to give them a clue like “Up and Up” for Soaring Dreams, or “on, above, below” for Left-Handed Family?
Sheri R., California
My understanding Kristin is that the support they get is visual and aural but not written. And students come back knowing either none, part, or all of what was taught. They develop their memory muscle by this process. Eventually they get better at remembering what was taught (a stronger memory muscle) and come back more often knowing what was taught. They are robbed of the experience of learning at a different and deeper level when notes are written.
And have you ever had students who didn’t even remember what the notes meant? The Arrangements Program is meant to exercise a different way of learning–they already get to learn many things (Foundation Program) with a huge amount of audio/visual support. It’s important to give students the opportunity to also learn without notes–it can only enhance their overall musical experience. It really does help to demystify music on an even deeper level when we give students the opportunity of relying solely on their memory.
If you are following the recommendations on teaching Arrangements on the Playlist and Notesbook Training then your students will not only succeed with the Arrangements but this way of learning has massive spill-over effects into all their other learning. As an aside, I have found that some seniors have more of a challenge and sometimes I do give them a little extra. I really don’t want to see them frustrated week after week. For the rest, let them grow re-accustomed to this natural (how we learned everything before we went to school and started writing and reading) way of learning.
By the way, I try to teach Arrangements at the beginning of a lesson so that I can ask a few times throughout the lesson for verbal descriptions to help cement the learning.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
When I write notes on the board for arrangements, I just write how much we covered. For example,
Arr.
Night Storm Acc. RH 1st half
or
Arr.
Soapy Dreams sent 1 BH
But they are to remember what they learned in that section.