Recorder in 3rd Grade: A Long Held Tradition

Three Blind Mice, Hot Cross Buns, Mary Had a Little Lamb. These are the songs third graders across the country are playing on the recorder in music class. 

Elementary students have been learning how to play the recorder, a simple, open-holed woodwind instrument, since the 1950s. Recorders are the perfect instrument for first time musicians because they are inexpensive and it is easy to produce sound using one. In fact, third graders at C.V. Starr Intermediate School are continuing the long-held tradition.

“Recorders are great for learning to read music, lots of the woodwind instruments follow the same finder placement, the instruments are cheap and indestructible, and every kid can succeed with the recorder,” said music teacher Danielle Ortiz-Welsh.

Students learned the notes last month–the line notes or every-good-boy-does-fine and the space notes or f-a-c-e. This week, they are learning finger placement and reading rhythm and notation.

“Is every hole on the recorder a note,” asked Beatrix Lasko.

“Beatrix is one step ahead,” said Ortiz. “That’s right–every hole is a line or a space note.”

The class gets in the ready position–good posture, with the thumb  covering the hole underneath the recorder and the left hand pointer finger covering the first hole for the note B.

“Ready and one, two, three,” said Ortiz.

Ta-ta-ta-rest-ta-ta-ta-rest

“That sounded a little squeaky,” said Ava Ava Billar, “we need to play a little softer.”

By the end of class, students who had struggled with the squeaks and figuring out the rest notation had mastered the first line of Hot Cross Buns. By the next class “Gently Sleep” or “When the Saints Go Marching In.” After that, who knows… Carnegie Hall!