Annotations to your music
Following our roaring success of a community challenge with Gulli Björnsson's Landslög, I expect many of us have had thoughts on how best to learn a piece of music.
One such thought, which comes from a brief discussion with Mircea about annotating the scores https://guitar-community.tonebase.co/t/g9hm0cj?r=p8htzwx#p8htzwx:
What kind of annotations do you make to your scores when you learn a piece?
To summarise what we've mentioned so far:
- I put annotations on the scores to highlight things I kept missing like changes in time signature and occasionally notes when there were a lot repetitions, or also fingering. I used red
- This seemed to be more effective handwritten when I printed it out than on the PDF on screen.
- Mircea didn't put any annotations at all (!). - for him the pieces are short enough to remember everything.
- For Mircea annotations on longer pieces are vital in order not to forget things he finds along the way.
I think it could be helpful to find some ways to annotate our scores (or not) best, as well as to figure out what we can leave to memory.
Any ideas?
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Awesome, Roni! Yeah, I wouldn't personally annotate a piece as short and straightforward as Gulli's Landslög, however, I do find annotations to be very important long-term, especially on pieces I've worked on for a long time.
I actually find exactly the opposite - writing on paper feels so "final" to me, which is why I tend to not want to do it (I keep feeling like "what if I'll want to change something tomorrow?"), while annotating on my iPad feels really easy and allows me to write down as many layers of possible solutions as I want. Therefore, I also tend to do it a lot more! Having one has really been a big improvement for me, I have to say!
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Mircea Hi Mircea, Are you using an actual Apple iPen with Forescore? I'm wondering if I should buy one because I read they have some kind of palm rejection system that allows you to rest your hand on the tablet without making a mess of the score. I bought a knock-off tablet pen off eBay for $10 and it works fine if you have a writing technique that only touches with the pen but for me it doesn't work.
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Dean Hi Dean! Yes, I do use an actual Apple iPen with 4score. I also find it personally quite ridiculous that I have to pay $100 for a simple stylus - however, it does seem like my tablet was designed to really only work well with an Apple pen.
This being said, my palm still touches the tablet and causes unwanted marks to show up from time to time. It doesn't happen nearly as much as when using other styluses, but it still happens 2-3 times a day. Usually, only very small dots are caused, which I tend to not even notice right away, but still, yes, it can and does happen. Hope this helps!
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Mircea I have a gen 2 ipad which seems only works with the original iPen. Gen 3 and up use the newer (and even more expensive) ipen. Not sure if Apple's "palm rejection" is better on the newer pen or not. I can zoom in on foresore and use my finger with okay results but my scores are not as clean as they could be if I had a real pen.
Maybe this would be helpful https://forscore.co/kb/prevent-finger-drawing/
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Dean Oh, that could be very helpful, Dean! I am going to try it out tomorrow. Perhaps that option was off before, and I could completely stop the stray marks from happening in the future!
I also have a 2nd gen iPad - I have been able to connect my friend's non-Apple pencil, but it was quite choppy to use. I also find I can use my finger well enough (if I zoom in a lot), however, it just never looks as good as when I use the iPen.
(I guess I've just had so much more practice over the years writing with an actual pen / pencil rather than with my fingers
haha)
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I'm trying to come to grips with annotating too (intermediate level player). I've been using handwritten on challenging (for me) pieces I'm working on like Satie's Gymnopedies and Capricho Arabe but although it's easier to read the score, my writing is abysmal and I was ending up with multiple sheets of the same piece
I've recently purchased MobileSheets (android user) and it makes it easier to annotate and highlight multiple possibilities. It seems like a good choice but I haven't seen any other options to be a judge on this.
I should point out the main reason I've been working on annotating is to try and understand the piece as music (structure, mood, dynamics) and not notes to be played if that makes sense.
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I have never annotated my music. My early teachers never did it for me, so I did not even realize it is a common practice. I will start doing that to indicate fingerings where I need them. I’ll probably use a pencil for obvious reasons!
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Hello, yes, I use pencil and definitely and eraser. Although after seeing all these videos I want to buy an ipad next ;).
I put fingerings (mainly left hand), mark errors, circle difficult passages that need more work, and details of musicality and interpretation I find interesting. I am starting to write the preparation of fingerings (eg +1, +a) thanks to Mircea!! (this is something I never used to do and I am starting to practice)
