By the way, my focus work is now Rush again. It's sticking this time.
My process for developing my resources was by putting myself into students shoes.
When introducing such a big work to students, I want to take small steps to ensure that they understand all the concepts.
WEEK 1:
One of my first tasks is to have students create a visual mindmap based on a first impressions hearing. I created one myself which helped me build the foundations of what I wanted to emphasise and explore when teaching this work.
I also read Hindson's thesis where he talks briefly about composing Rush.
He states that the introduction was inspired by The First Circle - Pat Metheny. I had never heard this work before but when I played it for the first time, I immediately notices the similarities. To break this down to students, I notated the rhythmic pattern and showed the division of rhythmic cells. I find this very straight forward and there should be no confusion.
On WiX (if you want to get fancy) there are slides or picture galleries that you can add. I like these interactive features as it saves space so students are constantly scrolling up and down.
I used the same interactive features for demonstrating phasing as well.
Whilst analysing the introduction of Rush (to be honest, I was a little stumped for a bit) but once I notated the individual lines out, I noticed a pattern.
To me, this pattern reminded me a lot of Steve Reich's Clapping Music.
I feel that this video is a very clear way to demonstrate this work and what phasing is.
I will have the students clap and perform this work (without so many repetitions of each shift) and I will also ensure that students swap groups so they get the chance to perform the second part.
I am using Audacity to cut out snippets from workings and using Sibelius (exporting PDF) to notate some short excerpts.
WEEK 2:
In terms of creating resources, at the moment, there isn't anything 'new' in terms of different methods of creating resources.
I have:
Notated examples of thematic alterations and combined them in a slide show
Using online video scores (if available)
A mixture between video definitions and written definitions (I personally prefer video definitions - I feel that it is more interactive with students. However, many videos only contain a short clip of 'useful' information so I have to be critical with which videos I decide to use as a resource.) In saying that, I do like this video that explains what a hocket is (which is a main focus for this week)