Beginning Recorder and Millions of Cats!
Admit it; the combination of words for this article’s title caught your curiosity! And no, I’m not referring to the sound of a beginning recorder player, ha-ha!
Curiosity is not killing the cat,,.. But what role does the recorder fill in your curriculum?
For some, the recorder is the gateway toward a band program. For others, it is a tool for music literacy. Others see it as an extension (not a replacement) of one’s voice, which can be helpful for kids’ changing voices. The recorder is also a great instrument for improvisation and, eventually, student composition.
In the beginning, there are so many things for students to manage, such as holding a new instrument, developing fine motor skills, and learning the concept of a controlled airstream. I have found that students typically experience greater success playing recorder by rote first and then later by reading staff notation.
To begin, our bare essentials checklist for starting the recorder:
- 3 positions: rest position (recorder is on your lap); practice position (recorder is properly in your hands but nowhere near your mouth); play position (recorder is in your mouth, hands in place)
- Left hand on top, right hand supporting the the bottom with RH thumb on the fuzzy.
The “Fuzzy” is a reminder of the
right thumb placement
3. Airstream that imitates fogging up a window on a cold day
4. Tip of the tongue hits the roof of the mouth**
Articulation is a big one for me. It’s important to address the common glottal articulations you may encounter early on by raising students’ awareness of where the tongue DOES hit the roof of their mouths. I often mention, “…the way you say it is the way you play it.” Many have never stopped to think about the tongue’s action concerning articulating just our words, let alone a recorder!
Whether your starting pitches are B-A-G, A-C-G, or E-G, this lesson helps students navigate between different fingerings while maintaining proper articulation.
This lesson begins as an introductory activity for beginning recorder students and later morphs into a warm-up and, eventually, an elemental composition project.
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag.
Cats here, cats there,
Cats and kittens everywhere!
Hundreds of cats,
Thousands of cats,
Millions and billions and trillions of cats!
- Read the story or craft an abbreviated version.
- Students speak the above text, placing it in a compound meter.
- Bringing their attention to the tip of the tongue hitting the roof of the mouth, students play the rhythm of the text on G (I intentionally begin on G because it requires less airstream not to crack. Then, when they ascend through A, and B, it’s not so blaring and sharp)
- Repeat on A, followed by B.
- Using Post-it notes or if you’re projecting onto a whiteboard, assign pitches to specific lines, then to particular words, taking note that the first and last pitches should be G (or whatever your tonic is). For example, maybe together with students, you craft the following:
g g a a
Cats here, cats there,
b b g g g g g
Cats and kittens everywhere!
g g g g
Hundreds of cats,
a a a a
Thousands of cats,
b b b a a a g g g g
Millions and billions and trillions of cats!
- Experiment with students by assigning different pitches and combinations for specific groups of words or phrases, and eventually, decide upon one version you all like.
- Add a bordun on bass xylophone. Have students discover different rhythmic patterns in compound meter for that bordun.
- Highlight special words with unpitched percussion (rhyming words, words with special meaning)
Extensions:
- Create a B section: using different breeds of cats (i.e., British Shorthair, Birman, Bengal, Maine Coon, etc), craft 4-beat word chains.
- Using their newly acquired notes on the recorder, students improvise (or use unpitched percussion!) to play the rhythm of the text.
- Construct a rondo using the original composition and one or both versions of the word chains.
- Consider some type of soundscape or introduction, construct a roadmap, and put it all together into a meowy, engaging piece highlighting, giving sophistication to those initial new notes and using good recorder technique!
- Keep in mind that if this explodes into a great little composition, it can represent music for anything, not just cats!