# easy beginner recorder pieces



## obwan

Hello all. 

I recently agreed to give lessons on the recorder to a neighbor and need some ideas of music to teach. Actually I have no idea what level he plays at so it doesn't have to be easy, but I already have a fair amount of intermediate and advanced pieces. I was thinking of maybe something like Jesu joy of bach's desiring, which I already have the music for, would be great for teaching arpegios etc but would there be any counterpart that I could use that utilizes scales etc or some other book or treatiese etc that has pieces or sonatina etc in some sort of organized fashion to acompany certain topics etc? what excercizes do you reccomend/did you all study when you were learning to play recorder?

Thanks all for your help.


----------



## obwan

bump ☺


----------



## Head_case

Sorry - can't help much. I have little recollection of basic recorder pieces.

How about some of the more familiar folk or pop tunes (reduced) on www.flutetunes.com? This is open source, so you can reproduce them as the copyright expired several centuries ago :lol:

Bring a range of repertoire; some sheet music, some notation, in case he can't read music; both pop, classical, or simple stuff; maybe follow the ABRSM Grades I-VIII catalogue which prints the grade repertoire on line, so that you can roughly work out where he is at. Most learners like to go away from a lesson mastering the rudiments of 1 piece. Some teachers, inanely insist on perfect timing for each bar or phrase, before proceeding to the next. This drives away some students.

Guess I'm saying, that if you arm yourself with a flexible and adaptable response, to manoeuvre around his learning ability, you will find he is more rewarded and you are too.

When I started taking up my flute again, my tutor tried to get me to play a piece by the Beatles within the first 5 minutes of meeting me. I had never heard of it; the music made no rhythm sense to me, and it just seemed like a tedious exercise. I told him I don't listen to pop pop (I do however like sub-pop; alt-pop, or underground pop) and prefer classical.

He really pissed the hell out of me with that piece. We wasted a whole £40/hour on it and he gave me a CD karaoke recording to practice to afterwards which I binned immediately.

The one thing he never did ... was check my flute. After 15 years, it was failing to seal, and the reason I couldn't play it, was because it hadn't been serviced, and he didn't even look. I figured this out myself, after huffing and puffing, and then slowly it came back to me.

Good luck teaching - it should be fun whatever you teach - for both of you.


----------



## obwan

geez I hadn't even thought about the possibility of him not being able to read music. it turns out he is just learning to read music. he can read the lines but not the spaces of the treble clef. he had the names in fixed solfegio written above the staff. i told him he ought to practice without the solfegio names if he wishes to improve his sight reading. I was impressed however by his learning method.... he had asked me to play along with him, and i noticed he was copying my fingering. I can't even do that, whenever someone trys to show me something, whether its fingering or anything for that matter like how to tie a knot or something I have to ask him to repeat it like 10 times in slow motion. guess I have much learning to do on how to be a good teacher. I gave him some scales and excercizes that I think will help him improve and next week i'm gonna bring an irish folk tune. not bad for my first time ever teaching music i guess.


----------

