Using Notion in Jazz Guitar Lessons
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:43 pm
For the most part, the discussion of using Notion in music education focuses on conducting, but there are lots of other educational uses of Notion. I use Notion in teaching jazz guitar lessons, both private lessons at my home studio, and online correspondence lessons. Here's how I use Notion in online correspondence lessons.
I create notation files using Notion. The jazz font, new in Notion 3, looks good for the jazz materials I write. I use a third-party tool to capture a portion of the Notion screen and embed it into lesson file written in HTML, as an indication of the content of the piece:
The HTML lesson has a Notation File link that opens a PDF of the Notion notation. I create the PDF from within Notion by printing to the freeware CutePDFWriter. The HTML lesson also has a link to a sound file. For simple exercises, such as arpeggio studies, I create a wav file from Notion, including a simple bass part, a drum part consisting of just hi-hat on 2 an 4 for time-keeping, and the guitar part. Example:
The Notion guitar sound output is, to put it politely, not very guitar-like, so for sound files demonstrating more complex exercises, I record the guitar part myself. I output just bass and drums from Notion to a wav file. Then I import that wav file into n-Track Studio, and overdub the guitar part myself. I use an Edirol UA-20 USB interface to feed the guitar into the computer.
Example:
I create notation files using Notion. The jazz font, new in Notion 3, looks good for the jazz materials I write. I use a third-party tool to capture a portion of the Notion screen and embed it into lesson file written in HTML, as an indication of the content of the piece:
The HTML lesson has a Notation File link that opens a PDF of the Notion notation. I create the PDF from within Notion by printing to the freeware CutePDFWriter. The HTML lesson also has a link to a sound file. For simple exercises, such as arpeggio studies, I create a wav file from Notion, including a simple bass part, a drum part consisting of just hi-hat on 2 an 4 for time-keeping, and the guitar part. Example:
The Notion guitar sound output is, to put it politely, not very guitar-like, so for sound files demonstrating more complex exercises, I record the guitar part myself. I output just bass and drums from Notion to a wav file. Then I import that wav file into n-Track Studio, and overdub the guitar part myself. I use an Edirol UA-20 USB interface to feed the guitar into the computer.
Example: