I'm 55 years old male. Never tried recorder at school. During lockdown however I needed to learn something knew. Now I'm working hard to get to grips with my tenor and saprano recorders. I'm not very good but love it!! Your videos are inspiring and keep me wanting to pick up the recorder each day after work. Thanks
@eternalboredom love this! I'm 40 and started playing recorder for the first time since 6th grade when my daughter kept leaving her recorder out about a year ago. I find it pretty difficult to get a good sound, but it's SO FUN! It just feels like you can have so much more direct control than with a piano or drums etc or ukulele. These are all instruments I love, but the recorder has its own brand of special.
At arts night, my daughter's 4th grade music teacher told their soloist and the assembled parents and grandparents, that one day the soloist will move on to a "real instrument, like the clarinet or even the saxophone." My gorge rose. My daughter was visibly upset. This attitude came from a music teacher of over 30 years, and taught them very little. Screw that! I've been teaching my daughter, because the arts make life better.
Thanks for doing this! As an enthusiastic amateur, this week’s coverage really made my blood boil, especially how dismissive those BBC Breakfast presenters were. I like the point that any instrument in the hands of a beginner isn’t going to sound amazing, but it’s part of the process. No-one’s talking about getting rid of violins! I’m very grateful to you and the professionals featured for representing our beautiful instrument so well.
I don’t think getting rid of any music instrument is helpful, it’s you the musicians who make them sound amazing , biased and negative people just add to more negative behaviour as seen on the breakfast show , if you want to make a difference play well it’s not any instruments fault it’s attitude of people who can’t play as we seen on the breakfast show as well not one played a decent bit of music but had the ordacity to criticise , typical media , I relate learning like learning to drive a car , we all where awful but we got through being consistent with practice and then we earned our licence to drive , all instruments are great when used well.
@@TKZprod … all instruments do not sound great when first learning them , singling any one out is not cool at all , people need to sit back and reflect on them selves before passing judgment , we all have to start at the bottom , encouraging people to be in music no matter there choice of what they like to play would be more encouraging than to say one is better than another or not as good as another , put them together and amazing things happen
Sarah... as a school teacher... a parent... and someone who has taken up the tenor recorder in their 50s I agree with everything you have said. RUclips is full of videos, not least your own, that show what a fantastic instrument the recorder is.
Recorder playing saved my life as an undiagnosed autistic kid. I was great at it in elementary school, then wouldn't put it down when I was "supposed to learn a real instrument." There was a Michaela Petri album in the bargain bin at the music store (it was the 90s), and I finally convinced my parents to find me a teacher. The early music community was a safe place where I could make art through my passion for history. I did Indiana University summer recorder academy and Interlochen, and also pickup playing through the society for creative anachronism. I learned how to socialize better, how to be gracious, how to listen, how to hope for a better adulthood. In my teens, my consort groups were the only safe social spaces I had. I didn't end up being professional, though I thought about it, but now that I'm an ancient history professor, I still play with our campus collegium. I'm lucky to work somewhere that has one. People being awful about recorders just hurt my heart. That tweet stick kept me happy enough to stay alive.
I am so glad to have been part of a generation that has been « tortured » with the recorder! Nobody played music in my family. Because of that « torture » I discovered music and loved it so much it became an important part of my life. I loved the recorder, played clarinet in the concert band in highschool, studied classical guitar at conservatory, later played the viola da gamba in consort, to finally take back my beloved recorder that I abandoned but never ceased to love. Without it I probably would have never played music….
Sarah, your vehement defense of the Recorder is really admirable. Your passion for music and love for the Recorder, as well as your continued Recorder education on this channel, and in the Netherlands, as well as others continued support of the Recorder, and your channel is what is going to preserve the history of the Recorder, and keep it alive into a new era. You're fantastic! p.s. I am not a Recorder player, but, I am a music student, and I love your channel.
Music education in the public schools in the U.S. has added so much to my life! I started with the recorder in the third grade. Then came clarinet, tenor saxophone in school, followed by guitar in college, piano lessons on my own and back to the recorder five years ago.
Well as a beginner recorder player I’m definitely bad at it but I’m still loving it, one day I will get good I’m sure but I just take it one day at a time..
Beginners tend to compare themselves (ourselves!) to the top-drawer musicians we hear in recordings and concerts. We should remember that those players started out sounding like us.
Thirteen months ago I would have made those jokes. I actually advocated the ocarina, which to my ear sounded sweeter. I own three of them and found them easy to play. But I had bad memories of school music lessons (despite coming from a musical - brass banding - family) and of the horrible noise a recorder can make. The last year I attended a concert of early music and heard this sweet recorder playing. So I bought one. And practiced. And heard Sarah, Lucie, Michala et al and heard whole recorder orchestras; thanks You Tube! So, just about one year after I started playing - and now with a small collection of recorders - I would defend the recorder against all detractors. I don't play well, but I have fun and reading the notes of some obscure dutch street performer from centuries ago and turning it into music I can hear is such a wonderful thing to do. And there's so much fantastic music written for the recorder. Sarah, keep up the good work.
I hate the recorder with absolute passion. It was so easy to mess up with the notes and i had troubles to remember to bring it to class. which made things insanely more difficult.
@gadeaiglesiassordo716 If you hate the recorder so much, perhaps it says more about your attitude and possibly your teacher than the instrument itself. Every learner has difficulty with fingerings and getting the notes to sound correctly. That is why slow practice and repetition is essential. Forgetting to bring such a small instrument to class suggests that you didn't want to learn for whatever reasons. That's a shame because far from being a cheap toy the recorder is a beautiful instrument. It has been around for hundreds of years and a huge repertoire of music exists for it.
@@bahoonies I'm autistic and i was when i was a kid. I was verymuch scolded but still i didn't remember. Once i entered in secondary education i stopped forgeting but still i hated it with absolute passion. i actually bet it's because the specific timber of the soprano recorder (the one that we used at school) that is still hurting my ears no matter how well is played. Then I entered uni and in the teaching degree we did xylophone. I loved it so much that i even pushed myself to aim for the best mark
@@gadeaiglesiassordo716 Thanks for explaining. It looks like you eventually got the support you needed to help you deal with your autism and be the remarkable person you deserve to be. I'm glad you found an instrument that you can really enjoy. An old friend of my father played the xylophone. It's a beautiful instrument. I play piano, ukulele, guitar and of course the recorder. Where would we be without music in our lives?
Thank you so much for your work Sarah. I’m 50, I’ve joined in the Conservatoire of Bordeaux (France) as an adult pupil in the recorder section this year and you know what: This is one of the best things I’ve done in my life!! And this is thanks to you. You helped me to expand my recorder culture and you helped me to feel less self-conscious about it! Like in the uk, recorder is seen as a torture instrument in France. So much that the education system decided to stop teaching the recorder 15 years ago!! And the funny thing is that the young generation does not have those prejudices anymore. My sons are 13 and 15, never came across a recorder at school and both are really proud of me. They tell me when they hear progression in my practise. They never complain about the squeaking or any kind of discomfort. And they are really surprised when they see people making a joke at me playing the recorder.
I learned to play recorder at primary school. It was my introduction to playing and reading music. I turned 50 last year and considering picking up a recorded again after hearing a recorder ensemble playing medieval music at a local museum.
As an enthusiastic amateur recorder player I was saying "yes" and "amen" to everything you said! Music enriches human life in so many ways! I'm doing my part in the small town of Escanaba, Michigan. I've helped to organize a new baroque chamber ensemble, "Esky Baroque", and we performed our first concert to a very appreciative audience this spring. I had a the time of my life playing the flute part of Brandenburg 5 on tenor recorder, and I think a lot of people were surprised by what the recorder is capable of. Of course the big star of the evening was our harpsichord player. We are very fortunate in a town of 12,000 to have a talented and versatile keyboard player who owns a harpsichord and reads figured bass comfortably.
I started my love of music with recorder. It was indestructible, portable, washable and CHEAP. It taught me about proper breathing, melody and really listening keenly for pitch in a way that the piano couldn't. It is the most accessible and fun instrument for ANYONE and it's a tragedy that it's being dismissed so easily.
I learned the recorder in primary school, I now play a tenor recorder with a group of seniors. We are called Second Wind, we have 20 players of all the recorders except the contra bass.
I've been a woodwind teacher in the south of England for 33 years. I started on recorder at 6 even though flute was the instrument that got me through college. I've spent most of my career trying to do what you were doing here - trying to convince school teachers, parents and pupils that recorder is so much more than they've been lead to believe. I've had some sucess in some schools at times but it continues to be an uphill battle. I'm now working in one school where I get to start children off on a penny whistle at year 1 and many then move up to recorder when they're older already knowing the basics. The descant was obviously introduced initially because of the size. Understandable in some ways, but I don't think the recorder would have this unfair reputation if children were starting off on the treble. As you also said, beginners learning it seem to have a worse reputation than almost every other instrument (except perhaps violin but that somehow has never quite suffered as much) Anyway, I'll keep doing my bit while there is still some music going on down here and keep trying to showcase just how wonderful the recorder can be.
I grew up in England in the 1970s. Our dad was head of music at the primary school, and not only did we play recorders at school, but we were also surrounded by music constantly at home: Dad gave guitar lessons and played piano. We all learned to sing, I learned to play piano, double bass, even organ. Christmas was amazing, as we went around a local village singing carols in four part harmony - and being fed mince pies by various well-to-do families (sometimes mulled wine as well). When I finished studying maths at university one of the first things I did was join a band, and I ended up playing in Blues, Jazz, Salsa, Soul, and Prog Rock bands. I loved synthesizers as well and I now make electronic music. I've also been learning ukulele and tin whistle (I might get a recorder soon too, now I've found your video!). Until I became an adult I never fully grasped what a lucky and privileged childhood I had. Music never lets me down, and it's always been there for me and always will. To this day (I'm now 58) I don't know how I could survive without playing my beloved piano every evening, and I want everyone to have that kind of comfort in their lives. Music education MUST be preserved at all costs.
I live in the eastern part of the USA, and in the USA we also suffer from diminished funding for the arts - a long-standing problem that has only become worse. However, I am happy to say that the music teacher in the local elementary school where I do regular volunteer work (in eastern WV) is doing an excellent job bringing the recorder to her students, who are very enthusiastic. I am gratified to be increasingly involved with her work and bringing more about recorders and repertory to the students.(I am an amateur, not a professional player, but I too am very enthusiastic about the recorder and always striving for improvement and knowledge)
In the arts desert of a 1969 coal mining town, being given a recorder was like a gift from the gods. I learnt to read music (it’s just another language after all) play in groups and solo, and at 66 pick up and start learning the violin to play in community orchestras. The gift that has bought so much joy and depth to my life. Forever grateful!
Sarah, I really enjoy your channel and your playing has inspired me, as a 69 year old, to take up the recorder for the first time. I have now been playing for 3 months and I love it - I love the sound you make, and I love the sound I make (with all its squeaks and mistakes) because it gives me pleasure and I'm making good progress (so my teacher tells me - who, incidentally, was a pupil of mine when I taught English!). I didn't have a musical education and I'd never had the opportunity to learn an instrument, but my playing has now inspired my little granddaughter to continue with her piano lessons. All music making is wonderful. Thank you for flying the flag!
I'm in the US. When I was in elementary school, back in the 70s, we were taught the recorder. I loved it! I wanted to keep playing, but my parents wouldn't buy me the instrument. Life happened. Though I never forgot my love of the recorder, I never picked it back up. Fast-forward 40 years. I was watching something on YT, I don't remember what it was. But, it brought me to your channel and renewed my love for this instrument. It wasn't until the past year that I realized that the instrument I was hearing in some of my favorite music, was actually a recorder. All these years, I thought it was a flute! Now that I'm old enough to buy my own instruments, I've purchased a couple of (less expensive) recorders and I am so happy! I will likely never play on a stage, or be a teacher. But, I am very much enjoying making pretty music.
This is a very important and timely video, extremely well and passionately argued. Thank you, Sarah. I’ve been playing the recorder since the early 1950s in the UK, when we expected to be taken seriously as instrumentalists, and were: baroque concerts with some 4 or 5 of us, recorder jam sessions in the lunch hour, culminating in visits to the Haslemere festival in the summer, where the Dolmetsches, our heroes, reigned supreme. And all this before David Munrow, and his successors, including you, Sarah. So the current state of music in state schools in this country, and especially the attitude of the Government to the arts in general, is more than deplorable - it is a crying and utter shame. So more power to you, and the influence you have had over the past few years. And how good it is that we now have recorder professors in the Colleges and Conservatoires.
I’ll be forever grateful to the recorder because it was an instrument we coukd afford, it was easily transportable, and within a short period of time I could play sings I recognized and liked. From there I took up the flute, and eventually branched into other wind instruments. I used to go and play in my room in the darkness when I was happy, scared, sad, it was a way of expressing my feelings when I didn’t know the words. I’ll be forever grateful to my parents and teacher for putting the recorder in my hands.
Please, don't mistake the recorder for a stepping stone to "the higher" instruments! A common error that will make you miss out one of the sweetest instruments in their own right.
I'm embarrassed for those in the media that displayed their ignorance. (US homeschooler that used the recorder for basic music instruction and thankful for it. )
I had the great honour of meeting Carl Dolmetsch, a maestro of the Recorder, who showed how the instrument transformed music and the wind instruments to what we have today. At 68 years old I can still play the recorder but my favorite memory is practicing with my niece for her school concert. Especially as she was playing my recorder, given to me by Mr Dolmetsch.
Great video and very relevant. I play recorder in my comedy and musical shows and after nearly every show someone comes up to me and says “Wow I didn’t know the recorder could sound good, it’s usually appalling”. It’s so engrained in the public consciousness and I strive to be part of reversing that (as you and your channel definitely do).
I've had precisely that same experience a number of times after playing recorders in public. People just don't believe they can sound decent and musical. They're amazed when they hear good recorder playing. I think one of the major problems is that in schools, people are often given their earliest recorder lessons by someone who is not a recorder player, and, often, not even a music teacher. That was my experience, in the 1960s. My formal tuition was, eventually, on flute. I taught myself to play the recorder decently as an adult, after I returned home from University. It's now a regular part of my music.
I am a violinist, but I found your channel about 4 years ago and I loved all your information and passion for the recorder that now I have multiple recorders in multiple sizes, the newest acquisition being a bassette and I absolutely LOVE learning this instrument. Good work being there and teaching the masses about this super fun and versatile instrument!❤
Funny, how Sarah does that to you, isn’t it! I was content with my four plastic recorders (sopranino, descant, treble, tenor) until I started watching this channel. I persuaded my hubby that I could hardly be the school’s new recorder teacher with one set of plastic recorders and gradually most of the money I earned from the VMT side of my job went on building up a large collection from garklein to great bass, in modern, baroque and renaissance styles, plus some new plastic instruments. So much more exciting, and what a legacy to pass on to my daughter!
You're absolutely right. Any instrument played by a beginner will be unpleasant to listen to, but I think what sets the recorder apart is that it's virtually unknown today, outside of children's music education. While there are many famous professionals who play the violin, or flute, or trumpet, or any other relatively common instrument, there are very few well-known recorder players in the current musical mainstream. In general, the recorder is so uncommon that many people have probably never heard it in the hands of a skilled musician. This leads the wider public to perceive the recorder as a "kids' toy that cannot possibly sound good". I think you and other recorder-playing RUclipsrs are doing very important work, showing the world that this is just as valid of an instrument as any other, and it can sound great when played well! Clarification: when I say "virtually unknown", I mean unknown outside of music enthusiasts, music students, and recorder fans like us. Of course *we* know the recorder is a legit, respectable instrument, but I find that most casual consumers of music just aren't aware of this.
A cowbell played by a beginner will not be particularly bad sounding compared to a practiced musician. And sume melodies by a beginning piano player may sound awkward, but will lack the shrill timbre of a poorly played violin or recorder. And one can create interfaces to electronic instruments that allow dynamic and tonal nuance with largely gross motor skills already posessef my the student. Musicality can be developed in a child that way
Music teacher in Southern California, USA here. Been teaching music for 15 years, 10 years in my current position. Our district and families are highly supportive of our music program. Given this information... we still hear the jokes about recorder. My 4th graders this year were the first to get back to recorder after covid. Their notes to me at the end of the year talked about how much they loved the recorder and some said it was their favorite thing all year! I can't wait to continue the recorder, drums, xylophone, and ukuleles with my students in the fall. I know my teammates feel the same! Keep fighting the good fight. Our students deserve music education!
Thank you for this video! Always call out the media because they are corrupt. I work at a private Classical school in a low-income area in America. We don't have a big music program, but our teachers and even our principal have worked hard to ensure that music is included in our curriculum. The 5th grade teacher has the students learn the recorder and they lead songs at events throughout the school year. It is a great instrument for students to learn music. And like you said, it helps students to learn so many more things than just music - they learn how to work together with each other! Learning music and the arts really does help to form a well-rounded person!
I am so glad I was taught to play the recorder in school, it has allowed me 40+ years later to buy a bass recorder, pick it up and play it (albeit with practice) on music I am composing for my MA course. Thank you for an insightful and thoughtful video, you have another subscriber!
It's just as bad here in germany. Once the one music teacher we had was broken down by the students (they bullied her and sent her straight to therapy) she never really came back (she came back for one week only to then suffer another break down due to the horrible people called "students" after which she was done for good - I really hope she's better now, she was a nice person) we didn't receive any music education anymore, because we never got another music teacher. We also only had one art teacher at the whole school. It really is bad. Unless you have rich parents who pay for music lessons in your free time or a private school that offers music education, you have almost no chance
same in Italy, so much so that I can also relate about the mental state of my last music professor: I don't remember if he actually had a nervous breakdown, but he was completely frazzled, poor man.
So true in my school too, in my country (in the middle east) no one ever takes music and art seriously, we didn’t even do anything in class the teachers just gave up and it was this free time we had to do anything we wanted
I think it depends on the part of Germany you are in. Here where I live, the (public) school of my kids offers choir and orchestra. Private music lessons need to be paid, but flute lessons for my kid are not too expensive and are perfectly enough. Same goes for guitar and piano. Not to mention that almost every village has its Blasorchester where kids can get music lessons for free (if they like trumpets). Good instruments are expensive, true, but our teacher rented us a flute for a small price, so that helped until we saved money for an instrument. It is not as good as in some other countries, but it is not that bad either.
@verak.5134 sorry for being so negative then. I guess what else would one expect from saxony-anhalt - unless you're here too, then I really just had extremely bad luck i guess😅 Sorry for being so generalizing before
I'm aware I can't speak for everyone as I attended a school with a focus on music, that partnererd with a local nusic school. We had a concert band, a symphony orchestra, big band, recorder and guitar ensembles and choires. Some of them were very good and took part in national and international competitions and even there you were looked down onto for playing the recorder. That is so sad. Those people should know better and still we received more hate for a single mistake than anybody else. Things only improved a bit when I started mainly playing the basset in ensemble. I guess, because noone recognised a basset as a recorder and one with a crooked head looks like a gun.
I am in Total agreement with your comments..I am of Caribbean Black ethnicity.. brought up in Birmingham UK had a great music teacher with the Recorder played in School ensemble.. Now in my late 70,s trying to promote the Recorder in Church in St Maarten/St Martin Dutch/French West Indies.
Couldn't agree more with your argument. It's much more than an issue about recorders but about the reduction of education to training for financial rewards. What a dismal state we have reached😢
I teach elementary school music in the US, seeing the students only once a week and potluck Friday. I love teaching recorders and ukuleles to my students. Since I have my students only once a week, I make sure to let the kiddos know its like trying to learn their hardest math, but I only get them once a week, not every day like their math teacher. Then, one day, it clicks, and they are in awe of how amazing they sound, and that is absolutely the best moment of the year.
Great work Sarah. I am an Australian flute and recorder player and teacher and here we have a similar depressing state of affairs. Really valuable music education happens mostly in private schools and in public schools where the parents step in and fund it themselves. The NSW Arts Unit does a fantastic amazing job at making sure gifted kids get a high level musical experience but there are many who go through school with the bare minimum. Yet, if anyone posts anything disparaging about recorder in the press, out come inevitably, a band of professional musicians of my vintage who all say their musical journey began with school recorder playing, how much they credit recorder with their subsequent musical journies. We have a vibrant Recorder community here and Zana Clarke from Orpheus Music has done a remarkable job to keep new quality Australian works rolling in. Genevieve Lacey’s incredible concerts are always packed out and she is much loved. So WTF? It’s just so very depressing unless, like me, you are lucky enough to have the job of launching all these beautiful fresh beings on their musical lives. They gain so much which is undefinable. They take risks, they learn to be open and expressive, they learn so much about themselves. Anyway, preaching to the converted I know. Thanks once again.
Growing up in Germany, I had recorder lessons in primary school, which then led to taking Querflöten lessons and piano lessons privately. Nevertheless, I always experimented on the recorder as a child. Improvised, playing two recorders at once, explored extended playing techniques without knowing that such a thing exists. I even saved my pocket money for buying an alto recorder. I still regard these early experiences essential to my musical thinking. Yes, the recorder is way too hard for children, but it's also fun, and one can do lots of interesting things with it.
Huh, we didn’t have any recorder lessons at school. But we did have a recorder group in the basement of the local church which was led by my school music teacher. It’s there I got the spark… at first I didn’t want, but a year later I decided to join the fun so a teenager caught me up to what the others had been learning over the last year… in three weeks. I even continued to F flute (alto).
This is so spot on!!!! Disparaging, dismissing and downgrading the Humanities, disparages, dismisses and downgrades our humanity. As for my own music education, I'm in my 50's and in elementary school we played a recorder-like thing called a tonette (which is also my youngest sister's nickname by the way 😄) In middle school I learned the clarinet and I kept that up for 5-6 years. A few years ago, I started teaching myself the recorder. I switched to the alto recorder because of your channel--I never even knew there was more than one type of recorder before I found your channel. Now I speak up for the recorder whenever I hear anyone bad mouthing it!
The teacher who introduced us, as 10-11 year olds to reading music and playing the school recorders (wash under tap before using) was named Mrs Porter. She had perfect pitch. Imagine her pain, and that she did it to better us all.
I was very lucky to grow up in a musical family - my Mom plays and teaches piano and my Dad plays saxophone and recorder. We were exposed to classical and early music, so heard recorders played well a lot. I never played recorder in school (US, 1970s). We even had one of Edward Hunt’s books! (I still have it.) But the internet, morning TV, and even the news, are about eyeballs on ads, not about advocating for anything worthwhile and good for society. Disparaging remarks sell more ad revenue than thoughtful content. I do my best to advocate for the recorder whenever I hear it disparaged or incorrectly represented!
Thanks so much Sarah. I detested the recorder in primary school but later in life ran a renaissance ensemble for 20+years accompanying a lavish Elizabethan feast and many other events.
I was smiling when you commented on the "disruptive student" sitting on the side covering her ears. When I was teaching high schoolers recorder, they learnt to play but my focus on music was secondary. I took that opportunity to teach discipline and respect. I saw rude students begin to treat others the way they wanted to be treated. I saw shy, timid students blossom and flourish, coming out on top of the class. It was a long time ago and I can still see the little emerging, confident faces even now. Very rewarding... both ways.
I'm from Germany (Bavaria) and as you go through schooling (at least when I went, born in 1989), you pick a "branch" of education that determines which subjects you will be focusing on. There are branches such as modern languages (less STEM, but you learn an additional foreign language), maths (more STEM, less language focus) or art. My dad was a professional musician (tubist for a state orchestra) and I myself was in choir and orff class as extracurriculars in elementary school but also really enjoyed painting and languages. When it was time for me to decide on my "branch", my dad asked the advisory lady from the school I was going to go to, which branch she could recommend and how much of the curriculum would focus on painting, crafts and music, as well as if there would be any such classes in the linguistic branch. He was informed that the art branch focuses on arts and not music, and so there would be three hours of arts class (painting, art history, etc.) and one hour of crafts a week, as well as one hour of music weekly up until 8th grade, after which the music lesson would be replaced with an additional maths lesson. BUT, she said, there was a school band that practices once a week after hours and sometimes performs at school functions. This was a group of 6 or 7 students who played instruments in their spare time and two, sometimes three girls who could sing. They would cover two or three pop songs and perform them around Christmas and at the end of the year. He was stunned and incredibly deflated and while I did pick the arts branch, I ended up studying languages anyway because the actual education in the arts was so incredibly thin, it barely covered basic knowledge of the subject and due to a lack of teachers, we didn't have a single crafting lesson across the entire four years I was in that branch. It was replaced by an additional history lesson. Music lessons were essentially watching a video recording of a musical or opera or some such and then discussing it in a general manner and sometimes music history lessons about composers or pop stars. I also remember we got the option of either singing a pop song or giving a presentation on a band we liked for a mark once in 8th grade which was fun I guess.
As heavy metal RUclipsr Glenn Fricker put it, "You have to suck before you get good." Also, music education as a child helped my mother recover from a stroke. Music apparently helps a brain develop even more, which meant when my Mom had her stroke, her brain had more pathways to reroute itself.
Hi Sarah! I was brought up in a British primary school in the seventies where the recorder was the staple of music education. We played at every morning assembly (and not just because you got to sit somewhere more comfortable). We also had various instruments loaned to us by the school and peripatetic teachers who would teach us for free (funded by the local education authority). At present I work in Portugal at an international private school and was saddened to see that the auditions for the school music scholarships were for violin, piano and voice (the more lucrative 'instruments') The recorder is much sidelined and badly played as there is no proper teaching of it at present. I enjoy playing various wind and string instruments as a hobby these days and enjoy playing in bands in my area and it has positively enriched my life.I would probably never have been brave enough to venture into music as a hobby without my background at school. Yes, i still love playing the recorder😃
Where I am from, musical education at school is pretty rare. As someone that only found the recorder much later in life, I would definitely have loved to be introduced to it at school.
Thank you for this, Sarah. I have a conservatory degree in recorder and I teach and perform, mostly in the Eastern US. I also play other "weird" woodwinds that are often disparaged (especially historical and folk bagpipes), but like you, this is my full-time job and I love it. Your ability to stay somewhat positive in the face of what's happening is really impressive--thank you for not just giving in to despair/snarkiness/fighting fire with fire. I wish I could face the situation with your equanimity. Everything that's been happening in the UK has been happening here in the USA as well, where it's even harder to get any sort of arts funding and arts education is being completely phased out of entire public school systems, often in favor of bigger budgets for sports programs (and I'm not against sports at all, as I think they also teach valuable life lessons...but too many people see it as a binary choice, just like STEM vs. liberal arts). I think it's true that the entire "ecosystem" is collapsing...when I moved to Boston 20 years ago to go to conservatory, there were many more performance opportunities, and three strong EM conservatory programs. All three have measurably declined now--the conservatory where I did my Master's was sold off lock, stock, and barrel to another institution in another state, who immediately ended their preparatory program, which dated back over 75 years. "Too many generations" indeed...I think the decline in instrument makers on this side of the pond is worrying too. Tom Prescott retired this year, of course (deservedly so), and it makes me sad to realize that once Patrick von Huene hangs up his tools (I've worked on and off for von Huene for the past 20 years and have so much respect for the people there), there will no longer be any professional-quality recorders being made in the United States. Perhaps the worst effect of the financial strangling of the arts is how conservative concert programming has gotten. Boston used to be a hub for both HIP and new music, but the major ensembles here are "running scared" to the point that they program the same warhorses year after year--even French Baroque music is considered too risky, and too likely to alienate the ever-dwindling and ever-aging donor base. On one level I don't blame them, because they're just trying to survive, but it becomes a vicious cycle where everyone is too frightened of financial disaster to take a chance on anything, whether it's new school programs or new concert programs. People here are still making beautiful music, skilled teachers are still inpsiring, and a few amazing kids are still bucking the trend to pursue careers in early music, but the generational disconnect that Tom mentioned is already here. In a country where we can't even seem to keep our school kids from being shot at on a daily basis, I don't know we turn it around.
My husband and I have Masters degrees basically in Baroque Performance Practice (back in 1982), but chose playing for the Army (him) and teaching (me) to be a better way to raise a family. The Baroque Flute Ensemble that he co-started in the Army's Fife and Drum Corps (at Fort Myer, VA) is still performing. The music program I built at my private school is in the capable hands of a new teacher. Orff-Schulwerk is still 'de riguer' in the Washington area (for now) due to dedicated, talented teachers (through George Mason's capable Orff program). Since our 'bread and butter' funds were coming from full-time jobs, we found that performing our Baroque Flute/Bass Viola da gamba Duo (I'm primarily a singer, so we add that in, too) everywhere we can, paid or not, at least brought some bit of Baroque music to kids/people through churches and small recital halls in the DC area. I believe we brought many people to the 'altar' of how wonderful that era of music was, and how these instruments have a fabulous sensitivity that appeals to modern ears in a sad era in our world. I'm also a product of studying cello with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra players--and they are still a vibrant, well-loved orchestra in the Twin Cities. But, it's harder than it used to be...our government is a mess and we are getting poorer as a population. I pray that you'll find a prosperous future in your endeavors, and I hope to one day hear you play...
@@annerolls444 Thanks Anne! It's great to to hear what you've done for the scene in DC, and how you and your husband made it work in terms of the balance between doing what you love and paying the bills. It's never easy... I've met some incredible and inspiring musicians in DC, and I play regularly with the Folger Consort and Hesperus, so perhaps we'll meet up at some point. I hope so!
I live in the Netherlands and was very blessed by primary school teachers who loved music. I learned how to play the recorder, from a teacher, after school hours. And we had a few teachers who loved to sing. We sang in class allmost every day, and in the last 2 groups - children who wanted to, could play along on the recorder. We also had a school choir and I loved it all. This was 20-25 years ago. My daughter is now 2 years and we sing, clapp, make 'music' every day. It brings joy and is a great way to express yourself and be creative ❤
I very fondly remember my recorder playing experience in the United States during my 4th grade year in elementary school. Playing the recorder was my life line and escape during some difficult times at home. It was extremely helpful and influential in my musical career. I am now playing the Native American flute, and just bought a EWI. Thank you for your insights!!
As a teenager (into rawdy music - metal & punk) i randomly purchased a cd of recorder quartets from a car boot sale. So soothing and otherworldly. Think i am going to dig out my old recorder tomorow!
I found you on RUclips about a year or so ago. You made me want to pick up a recorder and learn to play properly. I have always had a cheepy one but splashed out on a yamaha. That was great but I struggled with the high notes. So determined not to be defeated I found a new youtuber demonstrating the aulos. Got one. My playing started to improve, but now I feel I've hit a brick wall. A recorder was always my go to instrument to tinker out a tune by ear. So it has been nice to try and learn to play by reading the music. I always tell people to check out your RUclips tutorials. You've taught me so much. Thank you. I'm in Wales uk.
Recorder players unite! Beautiful, powerful video, Sarah. Thank you. I am self taught. Recorder is my third instrument. I'm classically trained on piano, but no instrument has challenged, frustrated and absolutely delighted me like the recorder. I practice outside. People hear Bach being played on a "strange flute" wafting through the neighborhood or park and often they come to ask me about it. They are always surprised when I tell them that my Alto is a recorder. They say, wait... Like that plastic thing we played in school? They tend to leave the conversation with a new appreciation for the instrument. It's my way of supporting recorder visibility and education. The best experience was when my 9 year old neighbor heard me play and raced inside to get his school recorder so we could play together! The recorder is the most difficult instrument I have ever played and I love it a way I haven't loved other instruments that I'm far better at. There's just something magical about it and I hope people start to realize what musicians have known for hundreds of years.. The recorder is a beautiful, sublime instrument that takes great mastery.
Well said, Sarah. You're right on the money. I am a maker and player of English bagpipes which have been enjoying a revival somewhat analoguous to the trajectory of the early music movement. My instruments are played professionally and otherwise in the early music and folk worlds. We tend to suffer the same 'marmite' problem as recorders. A colleague recently had the opportunity to appear on a Radio 2 breakfast show invited by a presenter who had heard of an upcoming bagpipe event in the midlands. The colleague agreed to an interview on condition that they did not take the piss. They took the piss.
Sarah! I resonate with everything you said about the importance of instrumental music education in early childhood. And blowing air through recorders in a group setting during the pandemic was ill-advised… and I had just started teaching when the shutdown happened. But that’s not what I want to talk about. Funding for the arts in the US is suffering as badly as it is in Europe. In Baltimore for just 5 years, I learned that there was almost no instrumental music available in the public schools. I decided to design my program with the recorder! And earlier this month, after the pandemic emergency was ended, we restarted! This video has energized and inspired me. Now, I must go start playing music from your book that just arrived in the mail!
The same situation with music education is happening here in the USA. Unfortunately, the recorder is taught generally badly in grades 3-4 (because music teachers don't have any recorder training) and is definitely considered a stepping stone to playing a "real" instrument. Even many professional musicians here in the USA have never heard professionally played recorder. Thanks for your video. I entirely agree with everything you say, and THANK YOU for your excellent channel!
Dear Sarah "...I am a recorder Player" Your Videos are such a motivation and an inspiration for me to begin at the age of 60 recorder playing. This videomix of different topics like old techniques the "didl" at Quantz or your variations on the WELLERMAN or the storical topics like the works of Jakob van Eyck I really enjoed. You are also really talented to make very good inspirational videos. I am sure that you can inspire other people for the flute, as you can see in the other comments. ... a small criticism i can sometimes hardly understand you acoustically
Having failed miserably to learn the guitar throughout my life, but always loving live music, I stumbled upon your YT channel. What an inspiration. At 65yrs and recently retired I have finally found an instrument I feel able to learn, enjoy, and surprisingly feel proud to brag about. I'm taking the alto (treble) route to unsqueakingly preserve my marriage. Keep it up Sarah, and many thanks.
I've been a hobbyist guitar player for my whole life, and I actually picked up the recorder last year to challenge my musical ability and take myself to the next level, not to become a recorder player necessarily but to give my brain a different way to explore music. Love this channel, keep it up!
As a 6-year-old kid I was offered the recorder at school, but scornfully declined, having heard schoolmates play, and declared I wanted nothing to do with that disgusting dog whistle. I wanted the piano and eventually got it. Some years later I heard Michala Petri on TV and was flabbergasted, bowled over! THAT can be got out of a recorder? Needless to say, my opinion of this beautiful instrument changed by 180 degrees. Now I play semi-professionally and compose for recorder combinations. I have played several instruments since then, but the recorder remains my preferred instrument - all sizes of it.
Your assessment is spot-on, Sarah! Thank you so much! I'm an enthusiastic amateur, but also old enough to have gone to primary school (in the US) before recorder became ubiquitous. So I was naive when started (around age 50!), oblivious to all the baggage. Didn't take long to catch on!
Here across the pond, I was introduced to an aulos recorder 50 years ago. My dad played the harmonica and accordion. He also made a copper fife that I still have. Although my limited attention span has made it challenging to master any instrument, the recorder was the gateway to my harmonica (7), recorders (3), Armstrong flute, aulto sax, clarinet (2), Mountain ocarina (2), thumb piano, Melody Harp, Autoharp, keyboard, mandolin, Seagull Merlin, slide whistle, Irish whistle (4), walking stick flute and most recently a Ukulele. I don't believe that early exposure to the recorder impeded my development, but it has kept me out of trouble. Oh, did I mention I like to make my own simple system flutes?
Hi Sarah, what a brilliant video. I started playing recorder in my 58th year, it’s a fantastic instrument, very complex, very rich. The repertoire is stunning and has something for everyone. I was fortunate to find a recorder first study (Nigel Martin) from the very first, and although I have to travel two hours a week to lessons, and another hour to play in a consort, it’s absolutely worth it. I recently played to a group of my friends, who kept ribbing me about Londons Burning, and they were open mouthed with astonishment at the music. With Nigel’s encouragement and some help from another recorder first study this year Im starting a BMus with University of Sheffield, to be a first recorder study myself and to teach this stunningly beautiful instrument. It has brought me so much joy and happiness. As a child my mother forbade me to play any instrument in the house, so this is my childhood dream come true. Go Sarah, you’re a hero!
My brother now plays the guitar, sometimes gigs, but he is not a professional, he thought about college education in music but he didn't pass the audition. I'm convinced he would be now working as a musician had he been thought music in his childhood but instead he's working at something he doesn't enjoy as much as music and that's just sad. I envy people who gets music education
2:15 Also, in the U.S.. They always want to cut the arts budget first! However, we go to school to learn how to live A good life, not THE good life. Music education is as essential as Reading, writing, and arithmetic!
Sarah, like yourself, I first learned to play at a lunchtime school club, except this was in the late 60's - early 70's. The school's head master was a massive music fan and regularly played records in our morning assemblies (I remember Mendelson's Fingal's Cave, Fleetwood Mac's Albatross and Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World (played on the day that he died)). Sometimes he invited talented pupils to play the piano or cello for us. His interest in music (and his ability to connect music to our everyday lives and to our emotions) is definitely one of the reasons that I fell in love with all types of music and is the reason why, even today (at the age of 61) I never go a day without listening and/or playing/singing music.
I agree with so much you are saying. In school it’s so important for children who are still developing and learning their strengths to have the opportunity to try different options. I did music for my leaving certificate in the 1980s and even though science & maths were always my strength (and my career) I am so glad that I learned how to follow scores, learnt some history and learned and trusted what I do and do not like as far as music is concerned. My main regret is that I never played in an orchestra as it was the piano I learned. Governments seems so focussed on STEM subjects to the exclusion of arts and humanities. Keep up the great work!
Excellent video! My only experience of playing the recorder at school was one or two sessions in secondary school in the 1960s. (Note: not one or two sessions per week, or even per year, but one or two sessions all together!) And the main thing I remember about the use of the recorder was dipping the mouthpiece in some sterilising liquid that had an interesting taste - probably meths (methylated spirits). Some boys liked the taste and did multiple dips! In primary school we learnt a bit of reading music. I wish I had learnt more. In adulthood I took up tin whistle playing.
Sarah! I just had time to watch the video, and I am from Perú, I am a recorder teacher on the National University of Music and have been also teaching at schools, and much people just see recorder like an transition instrument. We are more and more professionals being the career quite recent, and we are working hard here and in all Latin America to show the possibilities of the instrument so the students know the options if they choose to continue with the recorder. But it is not easy because not just authorities but also other musicians have really bad comments about the instrument. Also here is much more difficult to get wooden instruments, but there are great movements in different cities, also working with the Suzuki Method where children love the instrument. Renata Pereira and her quartet are great referents, and also the virtual project of "Flautistas dulces de Latinoamérica" that gather latin american professional recorder players to show the things that are happening. We have a lot to do, but is great to see how many professionals are working really great on this, recorder players are an incredibly community!
I am 60 and learnt when I was ten and loved it. I fell out of playing until my husband joined a Morris Dancing Team to dance with them, about 5 years ago, and I wanted to join the musicians. Thankfully they were very accepting of my descant recorder and I loved every minute of picking up playing again. I now go to a folk music 'Steady' session (little slower) once a month at a local pub and join all the melodians, violins, penny whistles AND a couple of fellow recorder players to play lots of folk music. I have also joined a more 'classical' group and have started learning the Treble Recorder. I had only heard about the controversy - not seen the BBC article, until I saw your video, Sarah. Watching the behaviour of the BBC presenters made my blood boil too!! I've seen many of your videos, Sarah....keep it up! They are brilliant!
Private music teacher going on 40 years now. Also taught wind band pre-college. Piano primary, bassoon primary woodwind, also clarinet/recorders/flute/sax. Only ever one or two recorder students at once. I'm in the USA Midwest. My favorite band concert of the year is the first beginning band concert. Many parents and staff hated having to come to that concert. And I always say that it's my favorite concert because six months ago, the kids barely knew the names of the instruments, let alone how to put them together or to make a sound on them. Now, just a few months later, they're making music together. Pretty awesome in my book! Of course, many of the adults were the same that would go to an elementary school basketball game, where half the kids couldn't dribble or shoot the ball high enough to reach the rim, and the adults hoot and holler for them the whole game... There's a pretty infamous Lexus auto commercial here, where they have a bunch of kids playing very poorly (I think it was discovered that the kids could actually play and the company dubbed intentionally poor playing over them), and the parent sitting in the car, closing the window and shutting out the sound. Yeah, great image thanks... The denigration of student musicians on all instruments seems to be somewhat universal, unfortunately. But to recorders, one of the impediments, unfortunately, is the elementary classroom teachers themselves. There are many who well understand that they're teaching an instrument and ensemble playing, and that for many students, this could be their only opportunity to play in such a group. They also understand a good musical foundation can give students an excellent start in other instrumental music programs. Rarely and sadly here in the States do you see young recorder groups. But anyway, there are more than a fair share of classroom music teachers who look down on recorders, would prefer not to have to teach them at all, and if they can get away with not, remove recorders from the curriculum. I've been doing this long enough that I've got a couple former students who are now general music teachers in schools themselves. I'll be contacting them to see about doing a recorder demonstration in their classes - bring the batch of recorders I have from garklein to great bass, play some things, show videos of things I can't do, like Medhat Mamdouh's music or there's a Royal Winds music of a Trombetti piece with all low recorders - even two subcontras (This is my go-to show how cool recorders are video). If time and energy ever come back for me, I'd see about trying to start a youth ensemble. Someday soon I might pick your brain on that. It'd be helpful to have those groups for kids, though. Thanks for all you do and all your amazing videos!
We (some of us, anyway) learned to play to play the recorder a little in 5th grade in my public school. I loved it! But is was only for a time during that school year. I received my 1st recorder as a gift from my parents when I was 20, played and annoyed my family often. When I moved from home, I couldn't play for decades because I lived in apartments. I pulled it (soprano) out decades later when I bought a home, but by then I had a soprano-recorder-intolerant dog. So I bought an alto. Better. Then I bought a tenor. Even more tolerable, although I find the size difficult for the reach of my fingers. I'm hooked. Wish I could find a teacher nearby. Importantly, recorders are very affordable and plastic ones have good sound and are easy to care for. As far as the noise a beginner makes on the recorder... Beginning musicians are difficult to listen to no matter what instrument they study.. Violin? Ouch. Clarinet? Ewww. Recorder? So, what do people expect? With PRACTICE, accuracy and beauty come.
I hope loads of ‘important’ people hear your voice. I can only speak for myself but, as a child growing up in a working class home in a north UK industrial town in the 1960s, I am indebted to ‘Miss’ Dunn, music teacher at my state primary school, and to Mr Shaw at my state grammar school. Between them they encouraged me to have a life long passion for music in all its guises. I am sure that, without their skill and intervention, my experience of life would have been the poorer. No one, hearing me play the piano, the recorder or singing, would ever think that I was any good 😂 but it does not matter as the joy and pleasure I get from music making and experiencing music is incalculable. The state paid lots of money teaching me stuff I have long forgotten or discarded, but what they spent on teaching me music still enriches my life. Thank you all music teachers and thank you Sarah for your musical passion.
Hello Sarah, I live in the Netherlands in the province Zeeland, I was looking after a recorder teacher at the 'miziekschool Zeeland', but the last teacher is retired and now there is no teacher on recorder anymore , such a shame. I play in a baroque ensemble, which is very nice, but I want to improve my playing on the recorder itself. I'm very happy with your RUclips channel, I already learn so much from you. Thank you for all your lessons and promoting the recorder. Nice greetings, Petra 😊
I advocate for music education in our schools. In your list of benefits, I'd like to add the element of neuroplastic growth in the human brain. Neuro-pathways forged through music education, like those of foreign language learning, provide measurable enrichment to a person's quality of life in the long run. Thank you for your RUclips channel & your enthusiasm!
Thank you for such an inspiring and important video. Although I am now a dedicated amateur flutist in Rio de Janeiro, I will never forget the huge emotion I felt when I played my first tune on the recorder at the age of ten. Thank`s to that beautiful instrument I can make music everyday, and it’s a big part of my life.
I was so fortunate to have a dedicated and incredible teacher in upper primary/junior school. She later left primary teaching to become a full-time music teacher, but she put time and effort into music at our school that was above and beyond. We had three choirs, a full string based orchestra, and...a recorder ensemble! I had the chance to learn Tenor, treble, descant and sopranino from the age of 8, and it gave me a lifelong love of the recorder and Early Music. One teacher, one voice can make such a big difference. Keep up the amazing work you are doing here, Sarah! :)
I live in Japan. Music education here starts with the melodica, where all kids learn harmony as well as melody and rhythm, and when they get older they all learn the recorder as well. Japan is one of the only countries where record sales are still huge, and people still regularly attend live concerts across many genres.
I just wanted to say thanks for playing on Bob's Burgers episode: Amelia. That was a really powerful and beautiful episode and learning that you were part of this is really wonderful - it was just a wonderful part of the episode too.
Terrific and insightful piece here. Yes, the usual cheap/obvious jokes about youngsters learning music and I've joined in on these at times BUT any conversation will conclude that from small acorns we get mighty oaks. Much like sport, it doesn't matter if you are too good to begin, but you learn the teamwork, collaboration, invention and the old classic, just have fun. Strong foundations. Anyway, your philosophy here is bang on and you rightly highlight the risk of future generations missing out. For me, the introduction of a recorder at a critical point during a jazz funk piece can produce an incredible soaring effect. Love it.
I have a happy story about changing someone's mind on what the recorder can do. My wife teaches music and Latin at a local parochial school, and in April she brought me and our oldest son in to demonstrate consort playing for her students. I was on basset, son was on tenor, wife was on alto, and she picked one of her students to play soprano. We played a stanza of "O Sacred Head Surrounded," which went off pretty well given that our soprano player was sight-reading. Two weeks ago, at the end-of-school party/cookout, one of the moms came up to us and told us how much she enjoyed sitting in on that particular class, and how she was blown away by the beautiful sound of the four-part consort. She'd always thought of the recorder as something for playing "Hot Cross Buns" badly, and what we did, imperfect though it was, was a complete revelation for her. We're already thinking about consort pieces for next year. 🙂
IN a different life (twenty years ago) I was a music teacher teaching class music in primary schools in the UK. One of these schools where the head teacher was also a musician, every infant child (5 year old's to 7 year old's) learnt the recorder. It was this head's inspiration that every child could read standard music notation, play together, listen in a group and respond, understand rhythm, timing, even dynamics. In these lessons I then had to put the recorders away and teach the music on the National Curriculum. Then there was an Ofsted inspection. The inspector watched the first part of my lessons - the recorder bit- and then left. Her comments on my lesson after showed no comprehension of what she had seen and I would put money on it that she was not entering other schools where the school was employing a music specialist and seeing 5 year olds reading music and playing together. Says it all really. The inspection system doesn't value a proper music education but prefer the dumbed down. You are right, the arts are not valued. What we need is another Renaissance.
I first learnt to play the descant recorder when I was five years old. I still have the descant my uncle and aunt bought me when I was around 8 years old. I have a vast collection of recorders, descants, trebles and tenors. I have plastic as well as wood recorders. Yes, I still play...I class it as my main instrument. Guess what? I turned SIXTY YEARS OLD A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO!!! The recorder started me on a life of music, I own lots of other musical instruments and play them all.
Hi Sarah! Such a nice correction of attitude you are offering here, firm but kind. It is true that some people, upon learning one plays the recorder, will say „I used to do that too, in third grade.“ Not so a friend of mine, who plays viola in a world-renowned string quartet. He said „Respect! I am sure that instrument is quite demanding!“ Goes to show that whatever someone says mainly reveals something about the speaker…
As an flautist who can also play passable recorder (which I learned in school AFTER having started flute) I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea that it isn’t the instrument that is squeaky, it is that any non percussion instrument is going to sound squeaky when played by a beginner. In my area many of the schools have switched to teaching school kids violin. Which makes me a bit sad. Most of those kids won’t be able to continue outside of school because even an inexpensive violin is outside their families budgets. Where a decent but inexpensive recorder is very affordable. It can also be taken to and from school without serious worry of damage or loss which allows kids to be able to practice. I was talking to a neighbor whose kid was learning violin at school. They get a half hour group lesson a week but can’t use the violins outside that time because the same violins are used for all the students in the school as a cost savings. I was aghast. How are you going to become even remotely capable of playing in a half hour a week? I fear a lot of kids are going to decide they’re no good at it because they weren’t given a chance to make as much progress as they could. I also worry that a lot of what music can teach about persistence and progress is being lost.
This video resonates with me so much since I am a recorder player and fan and a musician that started playing music at 10 in an elementary school tambura orchestra (tambura is a plucked string instrument), and I still play in it 30+ years later. EDIT: I still remember my awe and enthusiasm when I found out that recorder is not only the soprano recorder, but a whole family of instruments and now I'm a proud owner and player of a tenor, alto, soprano and sopranino recorders, the tenor has a special place in my heart ❤.
Sarah, you have ignited a love for recorders in so many people, I am sure of it! The good work you do with Team Recorder cannot be overstated. As a young child, I and the rest of my schoolmates played the recorder for only a year before heading off to secondary school, never to pick it up again. In my school, there were band classes and string classes, neither of which included the recorder (I myself went on to play the clarinet for a little while, before scheduling conflicts sadly forced me to drop music as a whole.) I, as I am sure many others, saw the recorder in such negative lights as espoused by British media last summer, as a simple child's instrument used to facilitate the introduction to reading music, playing notes, and practicing rhythm, to be discarded in favour of a "real instrument" later on. It was only seeing your (and Lucie Horsch's) presence in the recorder video TwoSet Violin made in 2020 that really made me look at my ignorant thoughts quite foolishly, and opened my eyes to the wider world of the beautiful recorder. It's charming that so many languages refer to it as a sweet flute, and I most wholeheartedly agree! You have done SO much for the recorder's reputation and appreciation on RUclips, and spread musical education to so many. It is such a beautiful, charming, pleasant, and enchanting instrument, and I cannot thank you enough for making videos about it ❤
I have been a profesional musician since the age of 16, and lessons on a basic flute, a cousin of the recorder, and these lessons were a help in getting me started. As a teacher I started many very young woodwind students with the recorder. I always introduced them, and their parents to professional performances to stress that the recorder is a complete instrument and not a toy.
Hi Sarah and hello from Atlantic Canada! There was a wonderful kids show that aired on the CBC in Canada from 1958-1985 called the Friendly Giant. As a kid in the 70s and 80s this was a show you would watch when you were home sick from school. There was a lot of recorder playing including puppets playing baroque music among others. I read Bob Homme’s biography and he said they pressured him to play kids music, but he believed children should have their horizons expanded and could appreciate more than adults gave them credit for. My daydream of wanting to learn recorder to play like the Friendly Giant is why I’m on your channel. (If you don’t know the show, there are clips on RUclips).
The recorder is a "tool of torture"? No! I love the sound of the recorder. My late brother, James, loved to play his, especially during children's theatre. It is just as much an instrument as any other. Keep on playing!
in my middle school, we had music class on tuesday and thursday each week, where we would sing, learn music history, and play the recorder. seven years later, i am a clarinet performance major at my university. this year, our school started the first early music collegium group, where we have a class dedicated to historical performance practice in both solo, and chamber settings. living in texas, music is definitely a little bit more popular for marching band, but the arts are still being cut and and music programs at the public school level aren’t as strong as before.
Great response, Sarah.I've been teaching recorder for about 70 years, informally, then in schools (full classes, no auditioning out), and for the past 28 years to retired adults.All are left in no doubt about the beauty and difficulty of recorder playing.Big problem in schools is a lack of dedicated and trained teachers who know what recorders can sound like, once the initial learning pangs are dealt with.They don't have to be virtuosic players, but reasonable, and aware that the recorder is a beautiful instrument, and that children are discerning enough to know when they are playing well.I played recorder CDs each day so they heard what to aim for.They should not be patronised into thinking their bad playing is good; they know the difference. The public perception of our instrument is something I've been dealing with all my life, even when I received a Churchill Fellowship to study the teaching of recorders in UK. I found only one child at Chetham's in 1991 doing recorder as a first instrument.My answer to disparaging comments from people who 'know' how awful recorders are, is that they have heard only young beginners, and how do clarinet and violin beginners sound? The difference is that recorders are dropped before the skills to play Vivaldi are reached.People'know' that violins are serious instruments that play in orchestras.Oh, I could go on....
@@AnnFBug Thanks, Ann. I began in my teens, teaching neighbourhood children, then as a classroom teacher, and haven't really stopped! Now we are all retired in my recorder ensembles and recorder orchestra. We have all ten sizes of recorders.
I totally love the recorder and every other musical instrument out there , I took up the violin about 6 mo this ago and totally sucked at it in the early stages teaching myself using the internet for help. The rest was up to me , practice practice and practice , I’m playing not to bad now and loving it even more , every one around me hated it , but now their heads are turning and they are impressed , recorder players stick with it no matter what , you can and do play. Beautiful music , I myself love British music , jigs really is something I love , but even all other aspects of music I grew up with , music lights up our souls , love this lady video she’s spot on , liked and subscribed 💐
Thank you so much everyone for your thoughtful and insightful comments! Let's keep the conversation going!
squeeekkk squeekkk lolz
Stairway To Heaven is played on a recorder.
The recorder is definitely on the stairway to heaven and also the match to light many people's fire.
I'm 55 years old male. Never tried recorder at school. During lockdown however I needed to learn something knew. Now I'm working hard to get to grips with my tenor and saprano recorders. I'm not very good but love it!! Your videos are inspiring and keep me wanting to pick up the recorder each day after work. Thanks
@eternalboredom love this! I'm 40 and started playing recorder for the first time since 6th grade when my daughter kept leaving her recorder out about a year ago. I find it pretty difficult to get a good sound, but it's SO FUN! It just feels like you can have so much more direct control than with a piano or drums etc or ukulele. These are all instruments I love, but the recorder has its own brand of special.
At arts night, my daughter's 4th grade music teacher told their soloist and the assembled parents and grandparents, that one day the soloist will move on to a "real instrument, like the clarinet or even the saxophone." My gorge rose. My daughter was visibly upset. This attitude came from a music teacher of over 30 years, and taught them very little. Screw that! I've been teaching my daughter, because the arts make life better.
This was a government school teacher?
Thanks for doing this! As an enthusiastic amateur, this week’s coverage really made my blood boil, especially how dismissive those BBC Breakfast presenters were. I like the point that any instrument in the hands of a beginner isn’t going to sound amazing, but it’s part of the process. No-one’s talking about getting rid of violins!
I’m very grateful to you and the professionals featured for representing our beautiful instrument so well.
What's this about getting rid of violins on TV! I think there should be more violins on TV!
When I was 15, I learned the clarinet. My sisters were not very enthusiastic , when I was practicing, to say the least!
@@joshuapettus6973 What she meant is that nobody is saying "get rid of violins" even if violin classes sound as terrible as recorder classes
I don’t think getting rid of any music instrument is helpful, it’s you the musicians who make them sound amazing , biased and negative people just add to more negative behaviour as seen on the breakfast show , if you want to make a difference play well it’s not any instruments fault it’s attitude of people who can’t play as we seen on the breakfast show as well not one played a decent bit of music but had the ordacity to criticise , typical media , I relate learning like learning to drive a car , we all where awful but we got through being consistent with practice and then we earned our licence to drive , all instruments are great when used well.
@@TKZprod … all instruments do not sound great when first learning them , singling any one out is not cool at all , people need to sit back and reflect on them selves before passing judgment , we all have to start at the bottom , encouraging people to be in music no matter there choice of what they like to play would be more encouraging than to say one is better than another or not as good as another , put them together and amazing things happen
Sarah... as a school teacher... a parent... and someone who has taken up the tenor recorder in their 50s I agree with everything you have said. RUclips is full of videos, not least your own, that show what a fantastic instrument the recorder is.
Recorder playing saved my life as an undiagnosed autistic kid. I was great at it in elementary school, then wouldn't put it down when I was "supposed to learn a real instrument." There was a Michaela Petri album in the bargain bin at the music store (it was the 90s), and I finally convinced my parents to find me a teacher. The early music community was a safe place where I could make art through my passion for history. I did Indiana University summer recorder academy and Interlochen, and also pickup playing through the society for creative anachronism. I learned how to socialize better, how to be gracious, how to listen, how to hope for a better adulthood. In my teens, my consort groups were the only safe social spaces I had. I didn't end up being professional, though I thought about it, but now that I'm an ancient history professor, I still play with our campus collegium. I'm lucky to work somewhere that has one.
People being awful about recorders just hurt my heart. That tweet stick kept me happy enough to stay alive.
I am so glad to have been part of a generation that has been « tortured » with the recorder! Nobody played music in my family. Because of that « torture » I discovered music and loved it so much it became an important part of my life. I loved the recorder, played clarinet in the concert band in highschool, studied classical guitar at conservatory, later played the viola da gamba in consort, to finally take back my beloved recorder that I abandoned but never ceased to love. Without it I probably would have never played music….
Sarah, your vehement defense of the Recorder is really admirable. Your passion for music and love for the Recorder, as well as your continued Recorder education on this channel, and in the Netherlands, as well as others continued support of the Recorder, and your channel is what is going to preserve the history of the Recorder, and keep it alive into a new era. You're fantastic!
p.s. I am not a Recorder player, but, I am a music student, and I love your channel.
You don’t play the recorder? As they say in the Netherlands, “Wat een schande.” “Try it, you’ll like it.” 😊 👍
Music education in the public schools in the U.S. has added so much to my life! I started with the recorder in the third grade. Then came clarinet, tenor saxophone in school, followed by guitar in college, piano lessons on my own and back to the recorder five years ago.
Your story sounds very much like my daughters! (see my comment)
If you want to be good at something, you must first be prepared to be bad at it.
A human once said, "Sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at it."
I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to realize this is true.
Well as a beginner recorder player I’m definitely bad at it but I’m still loving it, one day I will get good I’m sure but I just take it one day at a time..
Beginners tend to compare themselves (ourselves!) to the top-drawer musicians we hear in recordings and concerts. We should remember that those players started out sounding like us.
But on the recorder you can start sounding good very quickly.
Thirteen months ago I would have made those jokes. I actually advocated the ocarina, which to my ear sounded sweeter. I own three of them and found them easy to play. But I had bad memories of school music lessons (despite coming from a musical - brass banding - family) and of the horrible noise a recorder can make. The last year I attended a concert of early music and heard this sweet recorder playing. So I bought one. And practiced. And heard Sarah, Lucie, Michala et al and heard whole recorder orchestras; thanks You Tube! So, just about one year after I started playing - and now with a small collection of recorders - I would defend the recorder against all detractors. I don't play well, but I have fun and reading the notes of some obscure dutch street performer from centuries ago and turning it into music I can hear is such a wonderful thing to do. And there's so much fantastic music written for the recorder. Sarah, keep up the good work.
@Richard Morley
Congratulations for your musical journey and may you have many pleasent moments, but please: don't call Van Eyck "obscure" 😉
I hate the recorder with absolute passion. It was so easy to mess up with the notes and i had troubles to remember to bring it to class. which made things insanely more difficult.
@gadeaiglesiassordo716 If you hate the recorder so much, perhaps it says more about your attitude and possibly your teacher than the instrument itself. Every learner has difficulty with fingerings and getting the notes to sound correctly. That is why slow practice and repetition is essential. Forgetting to bring such a small instrument to class suggests that you didn't want to learn for whatever reasons. That's a shame because far from being a cheap toy the recorder is a beautiful instrument. It has been around for hundreds of years and a huge repertoire of music exists for it.
@@bahoonies I'm autistic and i was when i was a kid. I was verymuch scolded but still i didn't remember. Once i entered in secondary education i stopped forgeting but still i hated it with absolute passion. i actually bet it's because the specific timber of the soprano recorder (the one that we used at school) that is still hurting my ears no matter how well is played. Then I entered uni and in the teaching degree we did xylophone. I loved it so much that i even pushed myself to aim for the best mark
@@gadeaiglesiassordo716 Thanks for explaining. It looks like you eventually got the support you needed to help you deal with your autism and be the remarkable person you deserve to be. I'm glad you found an instrument that you can really enjoy. An old friend of my father played the xylophone. It's a beautiful instrument. I play piano, ukulele, guitar and of course the recorder. Where would we be without music in our lives?
Thank you so much for your work Sarah.
I’m 50, I’ve joined in the Conservatoire of Bordeaux (France) as an adult pupil in the recorder section this year and you know what: This is one of the best things I’ve done in my life!!
And this is thanks to you. You helped me to expand my recorder culture and you helped me to feel less self-conscious about it!
Like in the uk, recorder is seen as a torture instrument in France. So much that the education system decided to stop teaching the recorder 15 years ago!!
And the funny thing is that the young generation does not have those prejudices anymore. My sons are 13 and 15, never came across a recorder at school and both are really proud of me. They tell me when they hear progression in my practise. They never complain about the squeaking or any kind of discomfort.
And they are really surprised when they see people making a joke at me playing the recorder.
I learned to play recorder at primary school. It was my introduction to playing and reading music. I turned 50 last year and considering picking up a recorded again after hearing a recorder ensemble playing medieval music at a local museum.
I'm actually glad I was "forced" to play the recorder as a child. I loved it then and still love it now!
As an enthusiastic amateur recorder player I was saying "yes" and "amen" to everything you said! Music enriches human life in so many ways! I'm doing my part in the small town of Escanaba, Michigan. I've helped to organize a new baroque chamber ensemble, "Esky Baroque", and we performed our first concert to a very appreciative audience this spring. I had a the time of my life playing the flute part of Brandenburg 5 on tenor recorder, and I think a lot of people were surprised by what the recorder is capable of. Of course the big star of the evening was our harpsichord player. We are very fortunate in a town of 12,000 to have a talented and versatile keyboard player who owns a harpsichord and reads figured bass comfortably.
I started my love of music with recorder. It was indestructible, portable, washable and CHEAP. It taught me about proper breathing, melody and really listening keenly for pitch in a way that the piano couldn't. It is the most accessible and fun instrument for ANYONE and it's a tragedy that it's being dismissed so easily.
I learned the recorder in primary school, I now play a tenor recorder with a group of seniors. We are called Second Wind, we have 20 players of all the recorders except the contra bass.
I've been a woodwind teacher in the south of England for 33 years. I started on recorder at 6 even though flute was the instrument that got me through college. I've spent most of my career trying to do what you were doing here - trying to convince school teachers, parents and pupils that recorder is so much more than they've been lead to believe. I've had some sucess in some schools at times but it continues to be an uphill battle. I'm now working in one school where I get to start children off on a penny whistle at year 1 and many then move up to recorder when they're older already knowing the basics. The descant was obviously introduced initially because of the size. Understandable in some ways, but I don't think the recorder would have this unfair reputation if children were starting off on the treble. As you also said, beginners learning it seem to have a worse reputation than almost every other instrument (except perhaps violin but that somehow has never quite suffered as much) Anyway, I'll keep doing my bit while there is still some music going on down here and keep trying to showcase just how wonderful the recorder can be.
part of the problem is that outsiders see the recorder as an instrument only played at school. and in those stages that shit is awfull.
I grew up in England in the 1970s. Our dad was head of music at the primary school, and not only did we play recorders at school, but we were also surrounded by music constantly at home: Dad gave guitar lessons and played piano. We all learned to sing, I learned to play piano, double bass, even organ. Christmas was amazing, as we went around a local village singing carols in four part harmony - and being fed mince pies by various well-to-do families (sometimes mulled wine as well). When I finished studying maths at university one of the first things I did was join a band, and I ended up playing in Blues, Jazz, Salsa, Soul, and Prog Rock bands. I loved synthesizers as well and I now make electronic music. I've also been learning ukulele and tin whistle (I might get a recorder soon too, now I've found your video!). Until I became an adult I never fully grasped what a lucky and privileged childhood I had. Music never lets me down, and it's always been there for me and always will. To this day (I'm now 58) I don't know how I could survive without playing my beloved piano every evening, and I want everyone to have that kind of comfort in their lives. Music education MUST be preserved at all costs.
Haha that Bob's burger's episode with the bass recorder was you? Brilliant!
It was! Such a pleasure to record - the whole BobsB team are brilliant!
Is this still available?
I live in the eastern part of the USA, and in the USA we also suffer from diminished funding for the arts - a long-standing problem that has only become worse. However, I am happy to say that the music teacher in the local elementary school where I do regular volunteer work (in eastern WV) is doing an excellent job bringing the recorder to her students, who are very enthusiastic. I am gratified to be increasingly involved with her work and bringing more about recorders and repertory to the students.(I am an amateur, not a professional player, but I too am very enthusiastic about the recorder and always striving for improvement and knowledge)
In the arts desert of a 1969 coal mining town, being given a recorder was like a gift from the gods. I learnt to read music (it’s just another language after all) play in groups and solo, and at 66 pick up and start learning the violin to play in community orchestras. The gift that has bought so much joy and depth to my life. Forever grateful!
You should contact them and tell them you would like time to present an opposing viewpoint.
Sarah, I really enjoy your channel and your playing has inspired me, as a 69 year old, to take up the recorder for the first time. I have now been playing for 3 months and I love it - I love the sound you make, and I love the sound I make (with all its squeaks and mistakes) because it gives me pleasure and I'm making good progress (so my teacher tells me - who, incidentally, was a pupil of mine when I taught English!). I didn't have a musical education and I'd never had the opportunity to learn an instrument, but my playing has now inspired my little granddaughter to continue with her piano lessons. All music making is wonderful. Thank you for flying the flag!
I'm in the US. When I was in elementary school, back in the 70s, we were taught the recorder. I loved it! I wanted to keep playing, but my parents wouldn't buy me the instrument. Life happened. Though I never forgot my love of the recorder, I never picked it back up. Fast-forward 40 years. I was watching something on YT, I don't remember what it was. But, it brought me to your channel and renewed my love for this instrument. It wasn't until the past year that I realized that the instrument I was hearing in some of my favorite music, was actually a recorder. All these years, I thought it was a flute! Now that I'm old enough to buy my own instruments, I've purchased a couple of (less expensive) recorders and I am so happy! I will likely never play on a stage, or be a teacher. But, I am very much enjoying making pretty music.
This is a very important and timely video, extremely well and passionately argued. Thank you, Sarah. I’ve been playing the recorder since the early 1950s in the UK, when we expected to be taken seriously as instrumentalists, and were: baroque concerts with some 4 or 5 of us, recorder jam sessions in the lunch hour, culminating in visits to the Haslemere festival in the summer, where the Dolmetsches, our heroes, reigned supreme. And all this before David Munrow, and his successors, including you, Sarah. So the current state of music in state schools in this country, and especially the attitude of the Government to the arts in general, is more than deplorable - it is a crying and utter shame. So more power to you, and the influence you have had over the past few years. And how good it is that we now have recorder professors in the Colleges and Conservatoires.
I’ll be forever grateful to the recorder because it was an instrument we coukd afford, it was easily transportable, and within a short period of time I could play sings I recognized and liked. From there I took up the flute, and eventually branched into other wind instruments. I used to go and play in my room in the darkness when I was happy, scared, sad, it was a way of expressing my feelings when I didn’t know the words. I’ll be forever grateful to my parents and teacher for putting the recorder in my hands.
Please, don't mistake the recorder for a stepping stone to "the higher" instruments! A common error that will make you miss out one of the sweetest instruments in their own right.
@@jwwebnaut7045 I’m 52 and still own and play recorders, and admire what the professionals can do with it.
I'm embarrassed for those in the media that displayed their ignorance. (US homeschooler that used the recorder for basic music instruction and thankful for it. )
I had the great honour of meeting Carl Dolmetsch, a maestro of the Recorder, who showed how the instrument transformed music and the wind instruments to what we have today. At 68 years old I can still play the recorder but my favorite memory is practicing with my niece for her school concert. Especially as she was playing my recorder, given to me by Mr Dolmetsch.
Great video and very relevant. I play recorder in my comedy and musical shows and after nearly every show someone comes up to me and says “Wow I didn’t know the recorder could sound good, it’s usually appalling”. It’s so engrained in the public consciousness and I strive to be part of reversing that (as you and your channel definitely do).
I've had precisely that same experience a number of times after playing recorders in public. People just don't believe they can sound decent and musical. They're amazed when they hear good recorder playing.
I think one of the major problems is that in schools, people are often given their earliest recorder lessons by someone who is not a recorder player, and, often, not even a music teacher. That was my experience, in the 1960s. My formal tuition was, eventually, on flute. I taught myself to play the recorder decently as an adult, after I returned home from University. It's now a regular part of my music.
I am a violinist, but I found your channel about 4 years ago and I loved all your information and passion for the recorder that now I have multiple recorders in multiple sizes, the newest acquisition being a bassette and I absolutely LOVE learning this instrument. Good work being there and teaching the masses about this super fun and versatile instrument!❤
Funny, how Sarah does that to you, isn’t it!
I was content with my four plastic recorders (sopranino, descant, treble, tenor) until I started watching this channel. I persuaded my hubby that I could hardly be the school’s new recorder teacher with one set of plastic recorders and gradually most of the money I earned from the VMT side of my job went on building up a large collection from garklein to great bass, in modern, baroque and renaissance styles, plus some new plastic instruments. So much more exciting, and what a legacy to pass on to my daughter!
You're absolutely right. Any instrument played by a beginner will be unpleasant to listen to, but I think what sets the recorder apart is that it's virtually unknown today, outside of children's music education. While there are many famous professionals who play the violin, or flute, or trumpet, or any other relatively common instrument, there are very few well-known recorder players in the current musical mainstream. In general, the recorder is so uncommon that many people have probably never heard it in the hands of a skilled musician. This leads the wider public to perceive the recorder as a "kids' toy that cannot possibly sound good".
I think you and other recorder-playing RUclipsrs are doing very important work, showing the world that this is just as valid of an instrument as any other, and it can sound great when played well!
Clarification: when I say "virtually unknown", I mean unknown outside of music enthusiasts, music students, and recorder fans like us. Of course *we* know the recorder is a legit, respectable instrument, but I find that most casual consumers of music just aren't aware of this.
A cowbell played by a beginner will not be particularly bad sounding compared to a practiced musician.
And sume melodies by a beginning piano player may sound awkward, but will lack the shrill timbre of a poorly played violin or recorder.
And one can create interfaces to electronic instruments that allow dynamic and tonal nuance with largely gross motor skills already posessef my the student.
Musicality can be developed in a child that way
Love you Sarah just brought my Grandchildren their recorders
Music teacher in Southern California, USA here. Been teaching music for 15 years, 10 years in my current position. Our district and families are highly supportive of our music program. Given this information... we still hear the jokes about recorder. My 4th graders this year were the first to get back to recorder after covid. Their notes to me at the end of the year talked about how much they loved the recorder and some said it was their favorite thing all year! I can't wait to continue the recorder, drums, xylophone, and ukuleles with my students in the fall. I know my teammates feel the same! Keep fighting the good fight. Our students deserve music education!
Thank you for this video! Always call out the media because they are corrupt. I work at a private Classical school in a low-income area in America. We don't have a big music program, but our teachers and even our principal have worked hard to ensure that music is included in our curriculum. The 5th grade teacher has the students learn the recorder and they lead songs at events throughout the school year. It is a great instrument for students to learn music. And like you said, it helps students to learn so many more things than just music - they learn how to work together with each other! Learning music and the arts really does help to form a well-rounded person!
I am so glad I was taught to play the recorder in school, it has allowed me 40+ years later to buy a bass recorder, pick it up and play it (albeit with practice) on music I am composing for my MA course. Thank you for an insightful and thoughtful video, you have another subscriber!
It's just as bad here in germany. Once the one music teacher we had was broken down by the students (they bullied her and sent her straight to therapy) she never really came back (she came back for one week only to then suffer another break down due to the horrible people called "students" after which she was done for good - I really hope she's better now, she was a nice person) we didn't receive any music education anymore, because we never got another music teacher. We also only had one art teacher at the whole school. It really is bad. Unless you have rich parents who pay for music lessons in your free time or a private school that offers music education, you have almost no chance
same in Italy, so much so that I can also relate about the mental state of my last music professor: I don't remember if he actually had a nervous breakdown, but he was completely frazzled, poor man.
So true in my school too, in my country (in the middle east) no one ever takes music and art seriously, we didn’t even do anything in class the teachers just gave up and it was this free time we had to do anything we wanted
I think it depends on the part of Germany you are in. Here where I live, the (public) school of my kids offers choir and orchestra. Private music lessons need to be paid, but flute lessons for my kid are not too expensive and are perfectly enough. Same goes for guitar and piano. Not to mention that almost every village has its Blasorchester where kids can get music lessons for free (if they like trumpets). Good instruments are expensive, true, but our teacher rented us a flute for a small price, so that helped until we saved money for an instrument. It is not as good as in some other countries, but it is not that bad either.
@verak.5134 sorry for being so negative then. I guess what else would one expect from saxony-anhalt - unless you're here too, then I really just had extremely bad luck i guess😅
Sorry for being so generalizing before
I'm aware I can't speak for everyone as I attended a school with a focus on music, that partnererd with a local nusic school. We had a concert band, a symphony orchestra, big band, recorder and guitar ensembles and choires. Some of them were very good and took part in national and international competitions and even there you were looked down onto for playing the recorder. That is so sad. Those people should know better and still we received more hate for a single mistake than anybody else. Things only improved a bit when I started mainly playing the basset in ensemble. I guess, because noone recognised a basset as a recorder and one with a crooked head looks like a gun.
I am in Total agreement with your comments..I am of Caribbean Black ethnicity.. brought up in Birmingham UK had a great music teacher with the Recorder played in School ensemble.. Now in my late 70,s trying to promote the Recorder in Church in St Maarten/St Martin Dutch/French West Indies.
Couldn't agree more with your argument. It's much more than an issue about recorders but about the reduction of education to training for financial rewards. What a dismal state we have reached😢
I teach elementary school music in the US, seeing the students only once a week and potluck Friday. I love teaching recorders and ukuleles to my students. Since I have my students only once a week, I make sure to let the kiddos know its like trying to learn their hardest math, but I only get them once a week, not every day like their math teacher. Then, one day, it clicks, and they are in awe of how amazing they sound, and that is absolutely the best moment of the year.
Great work Sarah. I am an Australian flute and recorder player and teacher and here we have a similar depressing state of affairs. Really valuable music education happens mostly in private schools and in public schools where the parents step in and fund it themselves. The NSW Arts Unit does a fantastic amazing job at making sure gifted kids get a high level musical experience but there are many who go through school with the bare minimum. Yet, if anyone posts anything disparaging about recorder in the press, out come inevitably, a band of professional musicians of my vintage who all say their musical journey began with school recorder playing, how much they credit recorder with their subsequent musical journies. We have a vibrant Recorder community here and Zana Clarke from Orpheus Music has done a remarkable job to keep new quality Australian works rolling in. Genevieve Lacey’s incredible concerts are always packed out and she is much loved. So WTF? It’s just so very depressing unless, like me, you are lucky enough to have the job of launching all these beautiful fresh beings on their musical lives. They gain so much which is undefinable. They take risks, they learn to be open and expressive, they learn so much about themselves. Anyway, preaching to the converted I know. Thanks once again.
She’s so brilliant. Really pleased for her.
Growing up in Germany, I had recorder lessons in primary school, which then led to taking Querflöten lessons and piano lessons privately. Nevertheless, I always experimented on the recorder as a child. Improvised, playing two recorders at once, explored extended playing techniques without knowing that such a thing exists. I even saved my pocket money for buying an alto recorder. I still regard these early experiences essential to my musical thinking. Yes, the recorder is way too hard for children, but it's also fun, and one can do lots of interesting things with it.
Huh, we didn’t have any recorder lessons at school. But we did have a recorder group in the basement of the local church which was led by my school music teacher. It’s there I got the spark… at first I didn’t want, but a year later I decided to join the fun so a teenager caught me up to what the others had been learning over the last year… in three weeks. I even continued to F flute (alto).
This is so spot on!!!! Disparaging, dismissing and downgrading the Humanities, disparages, dismisses and downgrades our humanity.
As for my own music education, I'm in my 50's and in elementary school we played a recorder-like thing called a tonette (which is also my youngest sister's nickname by the way 😄) In middle school I learned the clarinet and I kept that up for 5-6 years. A few years ago, I started teaching myself the recorder. I switched to the alto recorder because of your channel--I never even knew there was more than one type of recorder before I found your channel. Now I speak up for the recorder whenever I hear anyone bad mouthing it!
Do you think is should be mandatory for children to learn the recorder, or any instrument in common?
The teacher who introduced us, as 10-11 year olds to reading music and playing the school recorders (wash under tap before using) was named Mrs Porter. She had perfect pitch. Imagine her pain, and that she did it to better us all.
I was very lucky to grow up in a musical family - my Mom plays and teaches piano and my Dad plays saxophone and recorder. We were exposed to classical and early music, so heard recorders played well a lot. I never played recorder in school (US, 1970s). We even had one of Edward Hunt’s books! (I still have it.)
But the internet, morning TV, and even the news, are about eyeballs on ads, not about advocating for anything worthwhile and good for society. Disparaging remarks sell more ad revenue than thoughtful content.
I do my best to advocate for the recorder whenever I hear it disparaged or incorrectly represented!
Thanks so much Sarah. I detested the recorder in primary school but later in life ran a renaissance ensemble for 20+years accompanying a lavish Elizabethan feast and many other events.
I was smiling when you commented on the "disruptive student" sitting on the side covering her ears. When I was teaching high schoolers recorder, they learnt to play but my focus on music was secondary. I took that opportunity to teach discipline and respect. I saw rude students begin to treat others the way they wanted to be treated. I saw shy, timid students blossom and flourish, coming out on top of the class. It was a long time ago and I can still see the little emerging, confident faces even now. Very rewarding... both ways.
I'm from Germany (Bavaria) and as you go through schooling (at least when I went, born in 1989), you pick a "branch" of education that determines which subjects you will be focusing on. There are branches such as modern languages (less STEM, but you learn an additional foreign language), maths (more STEM, less language focus) or art. My dad was a professional musician (tubist for a state orchestra) and I myself was in choir and orff class as extracurriculars in elementary school but also really enjoyed painting and languages. When it was time for me to decide on my "branch", my dad asked the advisory lady from the school I was going to go to, which branch she could recommend and how much of the curriculum would focus on painting, crafts and music, as well as if there would be any such classes in the linguistic branch. He was informed that the art branch focuses on arts and not music, and so there would be three hours of arts class (painting, art history, etc.) and one hour of crafts a week, as well as one hour of music weekly up until 8th grade, after which the music lesson would be replaced with an additional maths lesson.
BUT, she said, there was a school band that practices once a week after hours and sometimes performs at school functions. This was a group of 6 or 7 students who played instruments in their spare time and two, sometimes three girls who could sing. They would cover two or three pop songs and perform them around Christmas and at the end of the year.
He was stunned and incredibly deflated and while I did pick the arts branch, I ended up studying languages anyway because the actual education in the arts was so incredibly thin, it barely covered basic knowledge of the subject and due to a lack of teachers, we didn't have a single crafting lesson across the entire four years I was in that branch. It was replaced by an additional history lesson. Music lessons were essentially watching a video recording of a musical or opera or some such and then discussing it in a general manner and sometimes music history lessons about composers or pop stars. I also remember we got the option of either singing a pop song or giving a presentation on a band we liked for a mark once in 8th grade which was fun I guess.
As heavy metal RUclipsr Glenn Fricker put it, "You have to suck before you get good."
Also, music education as a child helped my mother recover from a stroke. Music apparently helps a brain develop even more, which meant when my Mom had her stroke, her brain had more pathways to reroute itself.
Hi Sarah! I was brought up in a British primary school in the seventies where the recorder was the staple of music education. We played at every morning assembly (and not just because you got to sit somewhere more comfortable). We also had various instruments loaned to us by the school and peripatetic teachers who would teach us for free (funded by the local education authority). At present I work in Portugal at an international private school and was saddened to see that the auditions for the school music scholarships were for violin, piano and voice (the more lucrative 'instruments') The recorder is much sidelined and badly played as there is no proper teaching of it at present. I enjoy playing various wind and string instruments as a hobby these days and enjoy playing in bands in my area and it has positively enriched my life.I would probably never have been brave enough to venture into music as a hobby without my background at school. Yes, i still love playing the recorder😃
Where I am from, musical education at school is pretty rare. As someone that only found the recorder much later in life, I would definitely have loved to be introduced to it at school.
Thank you for this, Sarah. I have a conservatory degree in recorder and I teach and perform, mostly in the Eastern US. I also play other "weird" woodwinds that are often disparaged (especially historical and folk bagpipes), but like you, this is my full-time job and I love it. Your ability to stay somewhat positive in the face of what's happening is really impressive--thank you for not just giving in to despair/snarkiness/fighting fire with fire. I wish I could face the situation with your equanimity. Everything that's been happening in the UK has been happening here in the USA as well, where it's even harder to get any sort of arts funding and arts education is being completely phased out of entire public school systems, often in favor of bigger budgets for sports programs (and I'm not against sports at all, as I think they also teach valuable life lessons...but too many people see it as a binary choice, just like STEM vs. liberal arts). I think it's true that the entire "ecosystem" is collapsing...when I moved to Boston 20 years ago to go to conservatory, there were many more performance opportunities, and three strong EM conservatory programs. All three have measurably declined now--the conservatory where I did my Master's was sold off lock, stock, and barrel to another institution in another state, who immediately ended their preparatory program, which dated back over 75 years. "Too many generations" indeed...I think the decline in instrument makers on this side of the pond is worrying too. Tom Prescott retired this year, of course (deservedly so), and it makes me sad to realize that once Patrick von Huene hangs up his tools (I've worked on and off for von Huene for the past 20 years and have so much respect for the people there), there will no longer be any professional-quality recorders being made in the United States. Perhaps the worst effect of the financial strangling of the arts is how conservative concert programming has gotten. Boston used to be a hub for both HIP and new music, but the major ensembles here are "running scared" to the point that they program the same warhorses year after year--even French Baroque music is considered too risky, and too likely to alienate the ever-dwindling and ever-aging donor base. On one level I don't blame them, because they're just trying to survive, but it becomes a vicious cycle where everyone is too frightened of financial disaster to take a chance on anything, whether it's new school programs or new concert programs. People here are still making beautiful music, skilled teachers are still inpsiring, and a few amazing kids are still bucking the trend to pursue careers in early music, but the generational disconnect that Tom mentioned is already here. In a country where we can't even seem to keep our school kids from being shot at on a daily basis, I don't know we turn it around.
My husband and I have Masters degrees basically in Baroque Performance Practice (back in 1982), but chose playing for the Army (him) and teaching (me) to be a better way to raise a family. The Baroque Flute Ensemble that he co-started in the Army's Fife and Drum Corps (at Fort Myer, VA) is still performing. The music program I built at my private school is in the capable hands of a new teacher. Orff-Schulwerk is still 'de riguer' in the Washington area (for now) due to dedicated, talented teachers (through George Mason's capable Orff program). Since our 'bread and butter' funds were coming from full-time jobs, we found that performing our Baroque Flute/Bass Viola da gamba Duo (I'm primarily a singer, so we add that in, too) everywhere we can, paid or not, at least brought some bit of Baroque music to kids/people through churches and small recital halls in the DC area. I believe we brought many people to the 'altar' of how wonderful that era of music was, and how these instruments have a fabulous sensitivity that appeals to modern ears in a sad era in our world. I'm also a product of studying cello with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra players--and they are still a vibrant, well-loved orchestra in the Twin Cities. But, it's harder than it used to be...our government is a mess and we are getting poorer as a population. I pray that you'll find a prosperous future in your endeavors, and I hope to one day hear you play...
@@annerolls444 Thanks Anne! It's great to to hear what you've done for the scene in DC, and how you and your husband made it work in terms of the balance between doing what you love and paying the bills. It's never easy... I've met some incredible and inspiring musicians in DC, and I play regularly with the Folger Consort and Hesperus, so perhaps we'll meet up at some point. I hope so!
I am ECSTATIC that you were the one in Bob’s burgers! My favourite show and such a moving episode, which was heightened by your beautiful playing ❤️❤️
I live in the Netherlands and was very blessed by primary school teachers who loved music. I learned how to play the recorder, from a teacher, after school hours. And we had a few teachers who loved to sing. We sang in class allmost every day, and in the last 2 groups - children who wanted to, could play along on the recorder. We also had a school choir and I loved it all. This was 20-25 years ago.
My daughter is now 2 years and we sing, clapp, make 'music' every day. It brings joy and is a great way to express yourself and be creative ❤
I very fondly remember my recorder playing experience in the United States during my 4th grade year in elementary school. Playing the recorder was my life line and escape during some difficult times at home. It was extremely helpful and influential in my musical career. I am now playing the Native American flute, and just bought a EWI. Thank you for your insights!!
As a teenager (into rawdy music - metal & punk) i randomly purchased a cd of recorder quartets from a car boot sale.
So soothing and otherworldly.
Think i am going to dig out my old recorder tomorow!
Interesting. In Nigeria, the recorder is still a staple of primary school. Not so much in mainstream music, but I'm working on changing that.
I found you on RUclips about a year or so ago.
You made me want to pick up a recorder and learn to play properly. I have always had a cheepy one but splashed out on a yamaha. That was great but I struggled with the high notes. So determined not to be defeated I found a new youtuber demonstrating the aulos. Got one. My playing started to improve, but now I feel I've hit a brick wall.
A recorder was always my go to instrument to tinker out a tune by ear. So it has been nice to try and learn to play by reading the music.
I always tell people to check out your RUclips tutorials. You've taught me so much. Thank you.
I'm in Wales uk.
Recorder players unite! Beautiful, powerful video, Sarah. Thank you. I am self taught. Recorder is my third instrument. I'm classically trained on piano, but no instrument has challenged, frustrated and absolutely delighted me like the recorder. I practice outside. People hear Bach being played on a "strange flute" wafting through the neighborhood or park and often they come to ask me about it. They are always surprised when I tell them that my Alto is a recorder. They say, wait... Like that plastic thing we played in school? They tend to leave the conversation with a new appreciation for the instrument. It's my way of supporting recorder visibility and education. The best experience was when my 9 year old neighbor heard me play and raced inside to get his school recorder so we could play together!
The recorder is the most difficult instrument I have ever played and I love it a way I haven't loved other instruments that I'm far better at. There's just something magical about it and I hope people start to realize what musicians have known for hundreds of years.. The recorder is a beautiful, sublime instrument that takes great mastery.
I grew up (and still live) in rural Colombia and I would have adored having music education when I was a kid
Well said, Sarah. You're right on the money. I am a maker and player of English bagpipes which have been enjoying a revival somewhat analoguous to the trajectory of the early music movement. My instruments are played professionally and otherwise in the early music and folk worlds. We tend to suffer the same 'marmite' problem as recorders. A colleague recently had the opportunity to appear on a Radio 2 breakfast show invited by a presenter who had heard of an upcoming bagpipe event in the midlands. The colleague agreed to an interview on condition that they did not take the piss. They took the piss.
Sarah! I resonate with everything you said about the importance of instrumental music education in early childhood.
And blowing air through recorders in a group setting during the pandemic was ill-advised… and I had just started teaching when the shutdown happened.
But that’s not what I want to talk about.
Funding for the arts in the US is suffering as badly as it is in Europe. In Baltimore for just 5 years, I learned that there was almost no instrumental music available in the public schools. I decided to design my program with the recorder! And earlier this month, after the pandemic emergency was ended, we restarted!
This video has energized and inspired me.
Now, I must go start playing music from your book that just arrived in the mail!
The same situation with music education is happening here in the USA. Unfortunately, the recorder is taught generally badly in grades 3-4 (because music teachers don't have any recorder training) and is definitely considered a stepping stone to playing a "real" instrument. Even many professional musicians here in the USA have never heard professionally played recorder. Thanks for your video. I entirely agree with everything you say, and THANK YOU for your excellent channel!
Dear Sarah "...I am a recorder Player"
Your Videos are such a motivation and an inspiration for me to begin at the age of 60 recorder playing. This videomix of different topics like old techniques the "didl" at Quantz or your variations on the WELLERMAN or the storical topics like the works of Jakob van Eyck I really enjoed. You are also really talented to make very good inspirational videos. I am sure that you can inspire other people for the flute, as you can see in the other comments.
... a small criticism i can sometimes hardly understand you acoustically
Having failed miserably to learn the guitar throughout my life, but always loving live music, I stumbled upon your YT channel. What an inspiration. At 65yrs and recently retired I have finally found an instrument I feel able to learn, enjoy, and surprisingly feel proud to brag about. I'm taking the alto (treble) route to unsqueakingly preserve my marriage. Keep it up Sarah, and many thanks.
I've been a hobbyist guitar player for my whole life, and I actually picked up the recorder last year to challenge my musical ability and take myself to the next level, not to become a recorder player necessarily but to give my brain a different way to explore music. Love this channel, keep it up!
As a 6-year-old kid I was offered the recorder at school, but scornfully declined, having heard schoolmates play, and declared I wanted nothing to do with that disgusting dog whistle. I wanted the piano and eventually got it. Some years later I heard Michala Petri on TV and was flabbergasted, bowled over! THAT can be got out of a recorder? Needless to say, my opinion of this beautiful instrument changed by 180 degrees. Now I play semi-professionally and compose for recorder combinations. I have played several instruments since then, but the recorder remains my preferred instrument - all sizes of it.
Your assessment is spot-on, Sarah! Thank you so much! I'm an enthusiastic amateur, but also old enough to have gone to primary school (in the US) before recorder became ubiquitous. So I was naive when started (around age 50!), oblivious to all the baggage. Didn't take long to catch on!
Here across the pond, I was introduced to an aulos recorder 50 years ago. My dad played the harmonica and accordion. He also made a copper fife that I still have. Although my limited attention span has made it challenging to master any instrument, the recorder was the gateway to my harmonica (7), recorders (3), Armstrong flute, aulto sax, clarinet (2), Mountain ocarina (2), thumb piano, Melody Harp, Autoharp, keyboard, mandolin, Seagull Merlin, slide whistle, Irish whistle (4), walking stick flute and most recently a Ukulele. I don't believe that early exposure to the recorder impeded my development, but it has kept me out of trouble. Oh, did I mention I like to make my own simple system flutes?
Hi Sarah, what a brilliant video. I started playing recorder in my 58th year, it’s a fantastic instrument, very complex, very rich. The repertoire is stunning and has something for everyone. I was fortunate to find a recorder first study (Nigel Martin) from the very first, and although I have to travel two hours a week to lessons, and another hour to play in a consort, it’s absolutely worth it. I recently played to a group of my friends, who kept ribbing me about Londons Burning, and they were open mouthed with astonishment at the music. With Nigel’s encouragement and some help from another recorder first study this year Im starting a BMus with University of Sheffield, to be a first recorder study myself and to teach this stunningly beautiful instrument. It has brought me so much joy and happiness. As a child my mother forbade me to play any instrument in the house, so this is my childhood dream come true. Go Sarah, you’re a hero!
My brother now plays the guitar, sometimes gigs, but he is not a professional, he thought about college education in music but he didn't pass the audition. I'm convinced he would be now working as a musician had he been thought music in his childhood but instead he's working at something he doesn't enjoy as much as music and that's just sad. I envy people who gets music education
2:15 Also, in the U.S.. They always want to cut the arts budget first! However, we go to school to learn how to live A good life, not THE good life. Music education is as essential as Reading, writing, and arithmetic!
I always tell people that the Arts are NOT a luxury!
Sarah, like yourself, I first learned to play at a lunchtime school club, except this was in the late 60's - early 70's. The school's head master was a massive music fan and regularly played records in our morning assemblies (I remember Mendelson's Fingal's Cave, Fleetwood Mac's Albatross and Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World (played on the day that he died)).
Sometimes he invited talented pupils to play the piano or cello for us.
His interest in music (and his ability to connect music to our everyday lives and to our emotions) is definitely one of the reasons that I fell in love with all types of music and is the reason why, even today (at the age of 61) I never go a day without listening and/or playing/singing music.
I agree with so much you are saying. In school it’s so important for children who are still developing and learning their strengths to have the opportunity to try different options. I did music for my leaving certificate in the 1980s and even though science & maths were always my strength (and my career) I am so glad that I learned how to follow scores, learnt some history and learned and trusted what I do and do not like as far as music is concerned. My main regret is that I never played in an orchestra as it was the piano I learned. Governments seems so focussed on STEM subjects to the exclusion of arts and humanities. Keep up the great work!
Excellent video! My only experience of playing the recorder at school was one or two sessions in secondary school in the 1960s. (Note: not one or two sessions per week, or even per year, but one or two sessions all together!) And the main thing I remember about the use of the recorder was dipping the mouthpiece in some sterilising liquid that had an interesting taste - probably meths (methylated spirits). Some boys liked the taste and did multiple dips!
In primary school we learnt a bit of reading music. I wish I had learnt more.
In adulthood I took up tin whistle playing.
Sarah! I just had time to watch the video, and I am from Perú, I am a recorder teacher on the National University of Music and have been also teaching at schools, and much people just see recorder like an transition instrument. We are more and more professionals being the career quite recent, and we are working hard here and in all Latin America to show the possibilities of the instrument so the students know the options if they choose to continue with the recorder. But it is not easy because not just authorities but also other musicians have really bad comments about the instrument. Also here is much more difficult to get wooden instruments, but there are great movements in different cities, also working with the Suzuki Method where children love the instrument. Renata Pereira and her quartet are great referents, and also the virtual project of "Flautistas dulces de Latinoamérica" that gather latin american professional recorder players to show the things that are happening. We have a lot to do, but is great to see how many professionals are working really great on this, recorder players are an incredibly community!
I am 60 and learnt when I was ten and loved it. I fell out of playing until my husband joined a Morris Dancing Team to dance with them, about 5 years ago, and I wanted to join the musicians. Thankfully they were very accepting of my descant recorder and I loved every minute of picking up playing again. I now go to a folk music 'Steady' session (little slower) once a month at a local pub and join all the melodians, violins, penny whistles AND a couple of fellow recorder players to play lots of folk music. I have also joined a more 'classical' group and have started learning the Treble Recorder. I had only heard about the controversy - not seen the BBC article, until I saw your video, Sarah. Watching the behaviour of the BBC presenters made my blood boil too!!
I've seen many of your videos, Sarah....keep it up! They are brilliant!
Private music teacher going on 40 years now. Also taught wind band pre-college. Piano primary, bassoon primary woodwind, also clarinet/recorders/flute/sax. Only ever one or two recorder students at once. I'm in the USA Midwest.
My favorite band concert of the year is the first beginning band concert. Many parents and staff hated having to come to that concert. And I always say that it's my favorite concert because six months ago, the kids barely knew the names of the instruments, let alone how to put them together or to make a sound on them. Now, just a few months later, they're making music together. Pretty awesome in my book! Of course, many of the adults were the same that would go to an elementary school basketball game, where half the kids couldn't dribble or shoot the ball high enough to reach the rim, and the adults hoot and holler for them the whole game...
There's a pretty infamous Lexus auto commercial here, where they have a bunch of kids playing very poorly (I think it was discovered that the kids could actually play and the company dubbed intentionally poor playing over them), and the parent sitting in the car, closing the window and shutting out the sound. Yeah, great image thanks... The denigration of student musicians on all instruments seems to be somewhat universal, unfortunately.
But to recorders, one of the impediments, unfortunately, is the elementary classroom teachers themselves. There are many who well understand that they're teaching an instrument and ensemble playing, and that for many students, this could be their only opportunity to play in such a group. They also understand a good musical foundation can give students an excellent start in other instrumental music programs. Rarely and sadly here in the States do you see young recorder groups. But anyway, there are more than a fair share of classroom music teachers who look down on recorders, would prefer not to have to teach them at all, and if they can get away with not, remove recorders from the curriculum.
I've been doing this long enough that I've got a couple former students who are now general music teachers in schools themselves. I'll be contacting them to see about doing a recorder demonstration in their classes - bring the batch of recorders I have from garklein to great bass, play some things, show videos of things I can't do, like Medhat Mamdouh's music or there's a Royal Winds music of a Trombetti piece with all low recorders - even two subcontras (This is my go-to show how cool recorders are video). If time and energy ever come back for me, I'd see about trying to start a youth ensemble. Someday soon I might pick your brain on that. It'd be helpful to have those groups for kids, though.
Thanks for all you do and all your amazing videos!
We (some of us, anyway) learned to play to play the recorder a little in 5th grade in my public school. I loved it! But is was only for a time during that school year. I received my 1st recorder as a gift from my parents when I was 20, played and annoyed my family often. When I moved from home, I couldn't play for decades because I lived in apartments. I pulled it (soprano) out decades later when I bought a home, but by then I had a soprano-recorder-intolerant dog. So I bought an alto. Better. Then I bought a tenor. Even more tolerable, although I find the size difficult for the reach of my fingers. I'm hooked. Wish I could find a teacher nearby. Importantly, recorders are very affordable and plastic ones have good sound and are easy to care for.
As far as the noise a beginner makes on the recorder... Beginning musicians are difficult to listen to no matter what instrument they study.. Violin? Ouch. Clarinet? Ewww. Recorder? So, what do people expect? With PRACTICE, accuracy and beauty come.
I hope loads of ‘important’ people hear your voice. I can only speak for myself but, as a child growing up in a working class home in a north UK industrial town in the 1960s, I am indebted to ‘Miss’ Dunn, music teacher at my state primary school, and to Mr Shaw at my state grammar school. Between them they encouraged me to have a life long passion for music in all its guises. I am sure that, without their skill and intervention, my experience of life would have been the poorer. No one, hearing me play the piano, the recorder or singing, would ever think that I was any good 😂 but it does not matter as the joy and pleasure I get from music making and experiencing music is incalculable. The state paid lots of money teaching me stuff I have long forgotten or discarded, but what they spent on teaching me music still enriches my life. Thank you all music teachers and thank you Sarah for your musical passion.
Hello Sarah, I live in the Netherlands in the province Zeeland, I was looking after a recorder teacher at the 'miziekschool Zeeland', but the last teacher is retired and now there is no teacher on recorder anymore , such a shame. I play in a baroque ensemble, which is very nice, but I want to improve my playing on the recorder itself. I'm very happy with your RUclips channel, I already learn so much from you.
Thank you for all your lessons and promoting the recorder.
Nice greetings, Petra
😊
I advocate for music education in our schools. In your list of benefits, I'd like to add the element of neuroplastic growth in the human brain. Neuro-pathways forged through music education, like those of foreign language learning, provide measurable enrichment to a person's quality of life in the long run. Thank you for your RUclips channel & your enthusiasm!
Thank you for such an inspiring and important video. Although I am now a dedicated amateur flutist in Rio de Janeiro, I will never forget the huge emotion I felt when I played my first tune on the recorder at the age of ten. Thank`s to that beautiful instrument I can make music everyday, and it’s a big part of my life.
I was so fortunate to have a dedicated and incredible teacher in upper primary/junior school. She later left primary teaching to become a full-time music teacher, but she put time and effort into music at our school that was above and beyond. We had three choirs, a full string based orchestra, and...a recorder ensemble! I had the chance to learn Tenor, treble, descant and sopranino from the age of 8, and it gave me a lifelong love of the recorder and Early Music. One teacher, one voice can make such a big difference. Keep up the amazing work you are doing here, Sarah! :)
I live in Japan. Music education here starts with the melodica, where all kids learn harmony as well as melody and rhythm, and when they get older they all learn the recorder as well.
Japan is one of the only countries where record sales are still huge, and people still regularly attend live concerts across many genres.
I just wanted to say thanks for playing on Bob's Burgers episode: Amelia. That was a really powerful and beautiful episode and learning that you were part of this is really wonderful - it was just a wonderful part of the episode too.
You’re so welcome- I loved recording this episode and it was an honour to briefly join the Bobs Burgers team!
Terrific and insightful piece here. Yes, the usual cheap/obvious jokes about youngsters learning music and I've joined in on these at times BUT any conversation will conclude that from small acorns we get mighty oaks. Much like sport, it doesn't matter if you are too good to begin, but you learn the teamwork, collaboration, invention and the old classic, just have fun. Strong foundations. Anyway, your philosophy here is bang on and you rightly highlight the risk of future generations missing out.
For me, the introduction of a recorder at a critical point during a jazz funk piece can produce an incredible soaring effect. Love it.
I have a happy story about changing someone's mind on what the recorder can do.
My wife teaches music and Latin at a local parochial school, and in April she brought me and our oldest son in to demonstrate consort playing for her students. I was on basset, son was on tenor, wife was on alto, and she picked one of her students to play soprano. We played a stanza of "O Sacred Head Surrounded," which went off pretty well given that our soprano player was sight-reading.
Two weeks ago, at the end-of-school party/cookout, one of the moms came up to us and told us how much she enjoyed sitting in on that particular class, and how she was blown away by the beautiful sound of the four-part consort. She'd always thought of the recorder as something for playing "Hot Cross Buns" badly, and what we did, imperfect though it was, was a complete revelation for her.
We're already thinking about consort pieces for next year. 🙂
IN a different life (twenty years ago) I was a music teacher teaching class music in primary schools in the UK. One of these schools where the head teacher was also a musician, every infant child (5 year old's to 7 year old's) learnt the recorder. It was this head's inspiration that every child could read standard music notation, play together, listen in a group and respond, understand rhythm, timing, even dynamics. In these lessons I then had to put the recorders away and teach the music on the National Curriculum. Then there was an Ofsted inspection. The inspector watched the first part of my lessons - the recorder bit- and then left. Her comments on my lesson after showed no comprehension of what she had seen and I would put money on it that she was not entering other schools where the school was employing a music specialist and seeing 5 year olds reading music and playing together. Says it all really. The inspection system doesn't value a proper music education but prefer the dumbed down. You are right, the arts are not valued. What we need is another Renaissance.
I first learnt to play the descant recorder when I was five years old. I still have the descant my uncle and aunt bought me when I was around 8 years old. I have a vast collection of recorders, descants, trebles and tenors. I have plastic as well as wood recorders. Yes, I still play...I class it as my main instrument. Guess what? I turned SIXTY YEARS OLD A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO!!! The recorder started me on a life of music, I own lots of other musical instruments and play them all.
Hi Sarah! Such a nice correction of attitude you are offering here, firm but kind. It is true that some people, upon learning one plays the recorder, will say „I used to do that too, in third grade.“ Not so a friend of mine, who plays viola in a world-renowned string quartet. He said „Respect! I am sure that instrument is quite demanding!“ Goes to show that whatever someone says mainly reveals something about the speaker…
As an flautist who can also play passable recorder (which I learned in school AFTER having started flute) I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea that it isn’t the instrument that is squeaky, it is that any non percussion instrument is going to sound squeaky when played by a beginner.
In my area many of the schools have switched to teaching school kids violin. Which makes me a bit sad. Most of those kids won’t be able to continue outside of school because even an inexpensive violin is outside their families budgets. Where a decent but inexpensive recorder is very affordable. It can also be taken to and from school without serious worry of damage or loss which allows kids to be able to practice. I was talking to a neighbor whose kid was learning violin at school. They get a half hour group lesson a week but can’t use the violins outside that time because the same violins are used for all the students in the school as a cost savings. I was aghast. How are you going to become even remotely capable of playing in a half hour a week? I fear a lot of kids are going to decide they’re no good at it because they weren’t given a chance to make as much progress as they could. I also worry that a lot of what music can teach about persistence and progress is being lost.
This video resonates with me so much since I am a recorder player and fan and a musician that started playing music at 10 in an elementary school tambura orchestra (tambura is a plucked string instrument), and I still play in it 30+ years later. EDIT: I still remember my awe and enthusiasm when I found out that recorder is not only the soprano recorder, but a whole family of instruments and now I'm a proud owner and player of a tenor, alto, soprano and sopranino recorders, the tenor has a special place in my heart ❤.
Sarah, you have ignited a love for recorders in so many people, I am sure of it! The good work you do with Team Recorder cannot be overstated.
As a young child, I and the rest of my schoolmates played the recorder for only a year before heading off to secondary school, never to pick it up again. In my school, there were band classes and string classes, neither of which included the recorder (I myself went on to play the clarinet for a little while, before scheduling conflicts sadly forced me to drop music as a whole.) I, as I am sure many others, saw the recorder in such negative lights as espoused by British media last summer, as a simple child's instrument used to facilitate the introduction to reading music, playing notes, and practicing rhythm, to be discarded in favour of a "real instrument" later on.
It was only seeing your (and Lucie Horsch's) presence in the recorder video TwoSet Violin made in 2020 that really made me look at my ignorant thoughts quite foolishly, and opened my eyes to the wider world of the beautiful recorder. It's charming that so many languages refer to it as a sweet flute, and I most wholeheartedly agree! You have done SO much for the recorder's reputation and appreciation on RUclips, and spread musical education to so many. It is such a beautiful, charming, pleasant, and enchanting instrument, and I cannot thank you enough for making videos about it ❤
I have been a profesional musician since the age of 16, and lessons on a basic flute, a cousin of the recorder, and these lessons were a help in getting me started. As a teacher I started many very young woodwind students with the recorder. I always introduced them, and their parents to professional performances to stress that the recorder is a complete instrument and not a toy.
Hi Sarah and hello from Atlantic Canada! There was a wonderful kids show that aired on the CBC in Canada from 1958-1985 called the Friendly Giant. As a kid in the 70s and 80s this was a show you would watch when you were home sick from school. There was a lot of recorder playing including puppets playing baroque music among others. I read Bob Homme’s biography and he said they pressured him to play kids music, but he believed children should have their horizons expanded and could appreciate more than adults gave them credit for. My daydream of wanting to learn recorder to play like the Friendly Giant is why I’m on your channel. (If you don’t know the show, there are clips on RUclips).
The recorder is a "tool of torture"? No! I love the sound of the recorder. My late brother, James, loved to play his, especially during children's theatre. It is just as much an instrument as any other. Keep on playing!
in my middle school, we had music class on tuesday and thursday each week, where we would sing, learn music history, and play the recorder. seven years later, i am a clarinet performance major at my university. this year, our school started the first early music collegium group, where we have a class dedicated to historical performance practice in both solo, and chamber settings. living in texas, music is definitely a little bit more popular for marching band, but the arts are still being cut and and music programs at the public school level aren’t as strong as before.
Great response, Sarah.I've been teaching recorder for about 70 years, informally, then in schools (full classes, no auditioning out), and for the past 28 years to retired adults.All are left in no doubt about the beauty and difficulty of recorder playing.Big problem in schools is a lack of dedicated and trained teachers who know what recorders can sound like, once the initial learning pangs are dealt with.They don't have to be virtuosic players, but reasonable, and aware that the recorder is a beautiful instrument, and that children are discerning enough to know when they are playing well.I played recorder CDs each day so they heard what to aim for.They should not be patronised into thinking their bad playing is good; they know the difference. The public perception of our instrument is something I've been dealing with all my life, even when I received a Churchill Fellowship to study the teaching of recorders in UK. I found only one child at Chetham's in 1991 doing recorder as a first instrument.My answer to disparaging comments from people who 'know' how awful recorders are, is that they have heard only young beginners, and how do clarinet and violin beginners sound? The difference is that recorders are dropped before the skills to play Vivaldi are reached.People'know' that violins are serious instruments that play in orchestras.Oh, I could go on....
Wow! That is a long career!
@@AnnFBug Thanks, Ann. I began in my teens, teaching neighbourhood children, then as a classroom teacher, and haven't really stopped! Now we are all retired in my recorder ensembles and recorder orchestra. We have all ten sizes of recorders.
I totally love the recorder and every other musical instrument out there , I took up the violin about 6 mo this ago and totally sucked at it in the early stages teaching myself using the internet for help. The rest was up to me , practice practice and practice , I’m playing not to bad now and loving it even more , every one around me hated it , but now their heads are turning and they are impressed , recorder players stick with it no matter what , you can and do play. Beautiful music , I myself love British music , jigs really is something I love , but even all other aspects of music I grew up with , music lights up our souls , love this lady video she’s spot on , liked and subscribed 💐