3 Tips to Refine Recorder Instruction

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

by Jacob Autio

Submitted on behalf of the Kodály Society of BC

Since 2018 I have become a general classroom teacher who continues to look at teaching through a Kodály-inspired lens to guide my students’ learning. For the past two years I have been teaching intermediate (Grade 5/6) French Immersion. My goal has been to build an environment where students can explore their new language acquisition through singing and listening to French music. This year not only did we learn a variety of canons and short songs from the www.viamusica.ca  collection and listen to music from Radio-Canada’s www.icimusique.ca but also, we were introduced to the recorder from a sound-to-symbol approach.

My school does not have a designated music specialist before Grade 6/7 band, therefore my current grade 5 students had a wide variety of experience with Western music notation from private piano lessons to informal singing and perhaps some exploratory activities before they came to my class. As mentioned, we started the year with lots of canon singing and simple songs from the Via Musica collections and others. After Spring Break we began exploring the recorders and I wanted to share my top 3 tips that were successful with this group.

Tip 1: Hand Placemats

A common challenge for new recorder players is to know which hand to place on top and which one on the bottom of the instrument. For a visual-spatial and kinesthetic approach I made a placemat with my (large) hands traced on legal-size paper (You can download a free PDF version or make your own!) with a mouth drawn on the side closest to the left hand.

The teaching process was simple: students put the piece of paper in front of them with the mouth diagram closest to them. Then, students placed their hands inside the traced hands on the page. From there, students lifted their hands and put them on their chest with the left above the right. We played with this many times before I distributed the recorders saying aloud which hand was placed where. Then we played with numbering our fingers.

Tip 2: Number Your Fingers

Though the class had gone over reading music in C, F, and G = do and had a quick introduction to absolute vs. relative pitch, with the introduction of the instrument I wanted isolate the physicality of playing the recorder and making sound before attaching Western music notation.

I was inspired by Lynn Blenkin and Sarah Drew’s Kodály for Band (1997) whereby I wanted students to build their own fingering chart as we learned the different sounds the recorder could make. When searching for a blank fingering chart I came across the WikiHow page How to Play the Recorder whereupon I was introduced to the idea of using numbers for each finger, rather than the commonly found coloured-in hole visuals we often receive with the recorders and method books.

On the placemat I mentioned above I numbered the fingers for students. On our placemats we played with lifting our different fingers, saying them aloud, and making up different combinations. We noticed that not all fingers have a number and that if it doesn’t have a number we won’t be using it to play notes.  We did the same processes on our chests, lifting fingers and making different combinations. This was a great segue once we had the recorder in our hands as we already knew where to place our hands and what each finger was called. From there, we had lots of success because we had established the same vocabulary when referring to the instrument.

For the first three lessons we played purely with our finger number vocabulary. We were able to help each other ensure all our holes were covered and that we could create a nice sound on each finger combination. We also used these lessons to talk about articulations and different used rhythm flashcards on single notes and the rhythm of known songs on single notes. We were able to try all finger combinations from C to C’ and students experimented and found out that sometimes you can keep some holes covered and it stays the same sound.

During the fifth lesson I then gave out a table with the printed notes B A G and low D and high D whereby students wrote in the finger numbers. On this sheet we also practised writing our treble clefs and reviewed our absolute pitch names. Since we already had prior knowledge with these notes in solfa and absolute letter names, we were then able to start playing and writing our familiar five-note songs we learned since September.

Tip 3: Write Your Own Score

In a similar fashion to Kodály for Band (1997) I created scores for students that had rhythm stick notation and solfa with a line of blank staff beside it for students to transcribe and write the melody then attach the rhythm. We started with a song they knew well Hirondelle (from www.viamusica.ca) and wrote the treble clef as well as the melody and rhythm with G=do. My class has not focused heavily on accent and meter beyond the aural perception this year so we did not add that notation, though it would be simple to go back and add it later.

Giving students the time to write in the notes as well as sing it in solfa, rhythm, and absolute letter names gave us the confidence we needed to read and play our familiar songs accurately and musically. We continued this process 4 or 5 more lessons whereby I also gave the exact same package with the marking F=do at the top and students rewrote their songs and played them in a different key. I also introduced other known and new repertoire using the same tone sets in full standard notation namely À la claire fontaine in G=do and Le bourdon dit à la clochette (from www.viamusica.ca) in C=do.

This was great practice for writing as well as reading since students were the ones physically writing the notes in the correct place. I also invited students to write in fingerings to notes they were less comfortable with to encourage independence and differentiation. This came in handy when we read printed songs, students knew they were able to write in the finger combinations to less familiar notes.

Success!

The result of these 3 tips were that students were the ones making and writing their printed music. Moreover, it was sound-to-symbol and students gained ownership of what they were learning. It allowed students the chance to focus on one new skill at a time. In contrast to prepared method books this proces allowed students to build their own understanding of the recorder and of Western music notation by physically placing their hands in the right place; having vocabylary for each finger and its place on the instrument (which really helped since we were using Baroque fingering with the fork F, or 01234-67!); playing with the different sounds and articulations capabilities of the instrument, and individually writing the music helped them know where on the staff each note lived and how they related to one another.

This process did take time, but it allowed me to differentiate and individualize which gave all students the opportunity to experience Western music notation and recorder playing in a way where students accessed what they knew from singing and reading notation to the unknown of playing recorder. It was a lot of fun and I will be using these tips again the next time I teach recorder!

Let me know what has been successful for you in the comments or on our social media channels!