It's Recorder Time

I bought this for my son (7 years old) and I to learn the recorder together. This is a BEGINNER book, and when I say beginner I really mean it. Although I’d never played the recorder before, I used to play trumpet and I blew through this thing faster than you can say “soprano.” That said, for my son, it’s been absolutely great. The pacing is perfect for the typical total beginner, maybe a little fast for my 7 year old son who had zero musical experience. It never gets complicated and I think it only goes up to D and I think only one sharp and one flat if I recall correctly. It does a good job of introducing new concepts and musical markings. You literally don’t need to know ANYTHING about music and you will do fine with this book. The song selection is very good and all the pieces are very short. For an adult they might get boring, but for a child the short song lengths are great because your kid won’t get bored. There are a good number of duets you can play with your child as well which always sparks excitement for my son. Again, this is best for someone with no musical experience or is a child. If you have any experience playing a music instrument, you’ll plow through this book pretty quickly and I’d recommend a book with a faster pace for the first octave and more in-depth songs. But if you have a kid you just bought a recorder for, this book is PERFECT.

This book is a great introduction to playing the recorder. It has a very useful explanation of the different types of recorders and their keys (Sopranino, Soprano/Descant, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Big Bass). The music is written for the most well known type of recorder beginners learn first (the Soprano or Descant pitched in C rather than F) and is a good introduction to any type of recorder. The fingering is baroque and a handy 2 octave, chromatic chart for the Descant recorder is at the back of the book which serves as a great reference. The content covers basic music theory for beginners and the notes learned span the first lower octave (including Bb and F#). A great book to get started with. Has some well known easy tunes and they are a nice selection that won't annoy the neighbors. Well worth the price.

Clear simple directions for playing. Shows where the fingers go, shows which holes to cover to make which note. Basic directions for learning music. Each lesson has familiar music. Really nice chart of all of the notes that the recorder is in the back. Only thing I didn't like is that the lessons don't extend to covering most of the upper register notes nor most of the of accidentals. You have the chart to show this to you and you end up either getting another book (don't know which yet), or learning those on your own using other music you have available. (I play other instruments, I do have other music to use in figuring this out, so I'm going that route.)

Ah, the hill I died on. I ended up homeschooling our daughter for slightly less then 8 months of her 3rd grade school year. I wanted to maintain a music curriculum. They had started with recorder that year in the school we pulled her from, but I have had limited experience with it. I gave her the choice of continuing with Soprano recorder or I could start working with her on piano, which I do know how to play. I was seriously hoping she'd pick piano...but she said she wanted to stick with recorder if I wasn't going to teach her guitar. Which isn't an instrument I play and definitely didn't have time to figure out with everything else we had going on, so I told she was out of luck on that one and recorder it was. So I bought this book because it is solidly reviewed. Having gone through the entire thing myself to brush up and improve upon my own recorder skills when she decided that was what she wanted to go with, I can say I think it does a great job of teaching the basics for recorder and the treble clef. Since I already read music, I didn't really need that part of it, but it allows me to evaluate the quality better. I also tried to use this to support my daughter in learning recorder...but it just. wasn't. guitar. About a third of the way through the book I said "to heck with it!" It isn't something they are going to test her on upon admission to her new school in the fall, it isn't required learning under the standardized testing, and it just wasn't worth the battle. It's the only curriculum area I failed to complete with her. I think for her, she may have found the book more engaging if it had cutesy pictures in it, or some of her favorite Disney songs. So younger children may be less motivated by the lack of illustrations and the song choices, and this may not be the best support for them. But I think for any kiddo middle school or up (where there is the discipline of mind to put up with song choices that aren't their favorites and who might view cutesy illustrations as not what they need), this is very well done and will adequately teach them what they need to know to get started.

I took recorder lessons in first and second grade, and wanted to offer my kids a similar intro to music experience. (I later studied flute, cornet, piano, and guitar--and feel early exposure was key.) We can't afford violin or piano right now, and the schools don't offer much...so I decided to seek out recorders. I found these great Yamaha YRS24B Soprano Recorder s on Amazon and chose this book to go with them. It's a great book for young kids (8, 6, and 4)--as well as adults. I usually go through the lesson myself alone...and then work with the kids on it. They'll be playing recognizable songs by the third lesson! I'm so happy with my purchase. For under 25 bucks, I have a beginning music program. I also highly recommend Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies and Story of the Orchestra : Listen While You Learn About the Instruments, the Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music! for an early introduction to music for kids. Classical Baby 3-Pack - Music, Art & Dance is wonderful too!

I used this book to teach my daughter to play recorder. It was a fun experience full of progress with every new song or exercise. After completing every song I'm proud to call her a real recorder player! She started a bit shy, not believing much on herself, but now she is asking for more advanced stuff! It was great to start with this book!

I thought I ordered the actual songbook. Maybe I didn't, but the covers look the same on both books.

When I purchased this book, I also purchased the book titled, "Recorder Fun! Teach Yourself the Easy Way!". I like both books for different reasons. This book shows music exactly as it would appear in other actual sheet music that one would use to perform with. The other book shows the name of the notes on each individual note, which helps one to memorize them. This book shows the picture of the recorder from the top to the bottom, and the other book shows the picture of the recorder from bottom to top. Each book contains different songs from the other (which is nice), and each book contains songs with only the notes that have been learned up to that point (which again, is great). Both books also contain lyrics, where appropriate, which are nice for those who want to do duets, trios, etc. This book also gives a 1 page illustration and descriptions of the entire family of recorders, which the other book does not offer. The other book does, however, come with a CD that properly demonstrates how all of the songs in the book should be played, which is a wonderful bonus for those who plan to play the recorder as more than a hobby. Overall I am happy that I decided to purchase both books together. It seems that what one book leaves out, the other one includes - which is why I recommend purchasing both books together.