12/19/2023 0 Comments C note recorderSo fell out of favor and was silent for many, many years. But early flute sonatas were actually written for recorder. But it was overcome by the needs of louder orchestras, and so the transverse flute became the instrument of choice. What are your feelings on that?ĭePriest: The recorder was a very serious instrument in the Renaissance and the Baroque - actually it reached its zenith in the Baroque. Because of its ubiquity as a learning instrument, it's developed a reputation as a pre-band, kiddie instrument. Gabby Rosenblum/William Beye Elementary SchoolĮng: The recorder has almost become a victim of its own success. Students at William Beye Elementary School in Oak Park practice the recorder with the help of iPads during music class. The kids can carry it from home to school easily - unlike, say, a piano, which not everyone can afford to have at home. The soprano recorder is also just the right size for young children's hands. It's possible, with good teaching, to get a good sound out of the recorder quite quickly. Why is the recorder the first instrument used to teach kids how to play music?ĭePriest: The fact that it's a simple, direct melody instrument makes it the perfect instrument for young learners. It was a recorder that could last quite a while, until they wanted to explore another fingering or an alto recorder or something like that.Įng: OK, so those were the historical factors that brought the recorder back. In Oak Park, when I was teaching, we charged $5 for a recorder, and it was a good little recorder. With the advent of good plastic recorders, we could provide instruments to all of the children in the school at very low cost. They were well-tuned instruments and could be sold cheaply. In the 1960s, recorders started to be manufactured in mass quantities out of plastic. In 1964, he demonstrated his teaching style with children in Diessen, Germany.Ĭarl-Orff-Stiftung/hide caption toggle captionĬarl-Orff-Stiftung/Eng: There was also a big technological development that made the recorder popular in schools, right?ĭePriest: Right. German composer Carl Orff pioneered an approach to music education that emphasized improvisation and exploration. The Schulwerk approach stressed participatory playing and creativity. there was a rise in popularity of the Orff Schulwerk approach to teaching music, an approach to music instruction. that led to the creation of the American Recorder Society in the early '60s. There was a revival of interest in music of the Baroque period in the U.S. Valerie DePriest: The recorder came into the public schools during a confluence of events in the 1950s. Monica Eng: Why do so many kids learn the recorder at school? Here are some interview highlights between Curious City's Monica Eng and DePriest. She argues that the recorder isn't just an ideal instrument for early music education, but a serious instrument that deserves more respect than it gets. She's also a board member of the Chicago chapter of the American Recorder Society and plays in a recorder ensemble, called a consort. To get to to the bottom of George's question, Curious City sat down with retired music teacher Valerie DePriest, who taught the recorder for 17 years in Oak Park's public schools. And that's largely because most states - like Illinois - have long required kids to take some sort of music instruction in elementary school.īut why do schools use this particular instrument to teach children how to play music? It's rarely featured in any contemporary bands or orchestras, it reached its artistic peak about 200 years ago with Baroque-era music, and as lots of parents have experienced, it can inflict some squeaky torture on families when grade schoolers first bring it home. A representative of Music Arts, one of the nation's largest retail chains for band and orchestra instruments, says their stores sell nearly 100,000 recorders each year. Well, first, not everyone in the United States had to learn to play the recorder in school - but many generations of school children did and still do. So George wrote to Curious City and asked: Why did we all have to learn to play the recorder in school? The whole thing was confusing on a number of levels. "No one told me that this wasn't something that all American kids just automatically knew, like a national pastime." "I got to my new school and they said, 'Hey, here's this thing called a recorder and you're going to have to learn it," he remembers. When Lebanon-born George Semaan came to the United States via Canada during his fifth grade year, he thought every kid knew how to play what he considers a distinctly American instrument, though some parents might call it something else. Music teacher Valerie DePriest explains why it became a staple in music education.Įditor's Note: This story was originally reported by Monica Eng in 2017. The recorder often inflicts squeaky torture on parents.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |