Annotations

While it is important to create an emotional connection like in the Series of Events Chain lesson, it is just as important as making sure the students are able to play the notes. One of the ways that we help to ensure this is by teaching students how to mark up their music. 

Annotations are a cognitive literacy strategy that has earned its place in nearly every discipline.[1] Some music teachers believe that this is a form of "babying" the student. However, if you look at a professional's sheet music, there are so many notes written in that it might as well be a completely black page. Of course, that is an over exaggeration but it is very close to the truth. Sometimes a professional player only has a day or two to work the piece out and marking the music is how they decode everything that's on the page without forgetting about it. This is just as important when working with younger players which means that having a system to annotate the music is important. In the lesson below, I work on teaching students how to develop a system that will help them to succeed in a performance.