Recorder is, as I like to say, a cookie of a different crumble.
When kids learn recorder, they know it is a rite of passage. They are playing an instrument that resembles a band instrument, something “the big kids” play.
While children have been reading notation while playing other instruments like xylophone and percussion, for the first time, the kids are playing an instrument where they can't watch their hands as they read notation.
This may seem like a small point but it's a huge hurdle for both the teacher and the student.
This is also the first wind instrument that a child will play in school.
Regulating breath on recorder is a reflection of the old cliché “less is more”.
Kids imagine that they have to put a lot of effort into blowing into the instrument.
The opposite is true: the effort is always focused on restraint and a solid hand position on the instrument.
It is also an adjustment for the general music teacher. This is the intersection of general music and band instructional techniques.
I found that with kids reading recorder notation while playing, the strongest solution at first was not individual books or papers but rather using a Smart Board. I supplied music sheets of everything that was on the board with kids who had recorders at home.
By the way, note names were never allowed to be written by kids over notes on paper.
When dinosaurs still walked the earth and I was a new teacher, I used a chalkboard.
If you don't have access to a Smart Board, the best solution is getting your five-line chalk staff maker out and putting quickly drawn etudes on the board for children to read the notes while you point.
Back to the Smart Board.
Pointing
Before the recorders ever came out of the cases, we did a lot of pointing to the board.
And saying because “if you can’t say it, you can’t play it”.
When I first pointed to the Smart Board for the children to say the pitch names of the notes, I literally had them point with their index finger fingers to the notes as I pointed to them with a stick on the board.
It allowed me to focus on their eyes and their hands to see if everyone was following that melodic line.
The next step in the progression was to see if they could point with their eyes without their fingers.
After they proved adept at pointing with their fingers and naming the note pitches, I explained that they now had to point to each note not with their finger but with their eyes. This is called “eye pointing”.
They had to “point” (look) and “track” with their eyes at each note, remembering all the time that “if you can't say it you can't play it”.
I called naming the pitches, the rhythms, and the fingerings the “trifecta”.
The instrument did not even approach the mouth unless the kids could perform the trifecta; namely, say the names of the pitches of notes in one pass of the etude, the rhythm of the notes in a second pass of the piece, and the fingerings in the third pass.
When kids learn recorder, they know it is a rite of passage. They are playing an instrument that resembles a band instrument, something “the big kids” play.
While children have been reading notation while playing other instruments like xylophone and percussion, for the first time, the kids are playing an instrument where they can't watch their hands as they read notation.
This may seem like a small point but it's a huge hurdle for both the teacher and the student.
This is also the first wind instrument that a child will play in school.
Regulating breath on recorder is a reflection of the old cliché “less is more”.
Kids imagine that they have to put a lot of effort into blowing into the instrument.
The opposite is true: the effort is always focused on restraint and a solid hand position on the instrument.
It is also an adjustment for the general music teacher. This is the intersection of general music and band instructional techniques.
I found that with kids reading recorder notation while playing, the strongest solution at first was not individual books or papers but rather using a Smart Board. I supplied music sheets of everything that was on the board with kids who had recorders at home.
By the way, note names were never allowed to be written by kids over notes on paper.
When dinosaurs still walked the earth and I was a new teacher, I used a chalkboard.
If you don't have access to a Smart Board, the best solution is getting your five-line chalk staff maker out and putting quickly drawn etudes on the board for children to read the notes while you point.
Back to the Smart Board.
Pointing
Before the recorders ever came out of the cases, we did a lot of pointing to the board.
And saying because “if you can’t say it, you can’t play it”.
When I first pointed to the Smart Board for the children to say the pitch names of the notes, I literally had them point with their index finger fingers to the notes as I pointed to them with a stick on the board.
It allowed me to focus on their eyes and their hands to see if everyone was following that melodic line.
The next step in the progression was to see if they could point with their eyes without their fingers.
After they proved adept at pointing with their fingers and naming the note pitches, I explained that they now had to point to each note not with their finger but with their eyes. This is called “eye pointing”.
They had to “point” (look) and “track” with their eyes at each note, remembering all the time that “if you can't say it you can't play it”.
I called naming the pitches, the rhythms, and the fingerings the “trifecta”.
The instrument did not even approach the mouth unless the kids could perform the trifecta; namely, say the names of the pitches of notes in one pass of the etude, the rhythm of the notes in a second pass of the piece, and the fingerings in the third pass.
Occasionally, I would have kids do the trifecta silently in their mind while I pointed to the notes.
Just as it's crucial for kids to understand that before a musician makes a sound, they have to think, and that the sound they produce is only the fruition of the thought, it is equally critical for the teacher to do all of this preliminary up-front work to insure the best possible performance with the recorder.
I never used those exact words with kids.
I said it in different ways.
But being able to say it before you play it was the crux of the idea.
Then, and only then, were children allowed to pick up the recorder and play as I continued to point to the notes on the board.
Some might think that my pointing to the notes a lot at the beginning was a crutch, but I saw it as a reinforcer.
It was important for kids to know that at no time were they going to take their eyes off that board, that playing the recorder was going to require a lot of note reading, that they would eventually do the same thing with a piece of paper.
Predictions
For any of you who are instrumental teachers, one of the highest predictors of success that I've seen with fourth graders with band instruments is a period of time playing recorder prior to learning a band or orchestra instrument.
Learning recorder gets a lot of the mechanics out of the way and off the table.
Practicing at home, bringing your instrument, saying it before playing it, and general responsibility for your instrument and playing are best learned on a $3.00 recorder than a $400.00 saxophone.
If you want a successful band program, make sure your general music teacher is teaching recorder in 3rd 4th and 5th grade.
It's one of the greatest reinforcers for band or orchestra that can be provided for children at that age.
Up to this point, children have not had an instrument at home that they are learning in school.
Recorder is the first one.
Assessments
For me, recorder was an simple but accurate assessment tool to see who was motivated to play at home and make advancements on their own.
Which students wanted more supplemental material, more songs, more etudes?
Which students just had a hunger to make music on an instrument on their own terms?
Recorder was the answer for that a child.
Within three weeks of starting, it was easy to see who's consistently playing recorder at home.
That means the teacher needs to be prepared with supplemental material for those kids who are really juiced to play.
I’ll wrap up a with a couple of guidelines for recorder management and stoking motivation in “Stacking Skills for Success: Recorder – Part Two”.
Just as it's crucial for kids to understand that before a musician makes a sound, they have to think, and that the sound they produce is only the fruition of the thought, it is equally critical for the teacher to do all of this preliminary up-front work to insure the best possible performance with the recorder.
I never used those exact words with kids.
I said it in different ways.
But being able to say it before you play it was the crux of the idea.
Then, and only then, were children allowed to pick up the recorder and play as I continued to point to the notes on the board.
Some might think that my pointing to the notes a lot at the beginning was a crutch, but I saw it as a reinforcer.
It was important for kids to know that at no time were they going to take their eyes off that board, that playing the recorder was going to require a lot of note reading, that they would eventually do the same thing with a piece of paper.
Predictions
For any of you who are instrumental teachers, one of the highest predictors of success that I've seen with fourth graders with band instruments is a period of time playing recorder prior to learning a band or orchestra instrument.
Learning recorder gets a lot of the mechanics out of the way and off the table.
Practicing at home, bringing your instrument, saying it before playing it, and general responsibility for your instrument and playing are best learned on a $3.00 recorder than a $400.00 saxophone.
If you want a successful band program, make sure your general music teacher is teaching recorder in 3rd 4th and 5th grade.
It's one of the greatest reinforcers for band or orchestra that can be provided for children at that age.
Up to this point, children have not had an instrument at home that they are learning in school.
Recorder is the first one.
Assessments
For me, recorder was an simple but accurate assessment tool to see who was motivated to play at home and make advancements on their own.
Which students wanted more supplemental material, more songs, more etudes?
Which students just had a hunger to make music on an instrument on their own terms?
Recorder was the answer for that a child.
Within three weeks of starting, it was easy to see who's consistently playing recorder at home.
That means the teacher needs to be prepared with supplemental material for those kids who are really juiced to play.
I’ll wrap up a with a couple of guidelines for recorder management and stoking motivation in “Stacking Skills for Success: Recorder – Part Two”.
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