Submitted by Laura Bartolomeo, Indianapolis, Indiana

Idea posted March 29, 2011

I teach recorder to grades 4-6, and each year it is much like starting over because of mobility issues at my urban school. "Peaceful River" (from Recorder Classroom, Vol. 2, No. 1) is a nice BAG song with great repetition. It can be broken down into the four 1/2 phrases, as seen in my picture linked below. I also color-coded the notes. I taught it last week to jaw-dropping success (students' jaws and mine).

  • Step 1: I asked students to look at #1 and #2 and tell me the differences. (All notes are same except last one.) And what is the difference between #3 and #4? (One goes up the other down.)
  • Step 2: I would say the notes/fingerings of one of them, and students would identify. For example, BGABG is #1 (for fingering I'd say 13213). I repeated this several times, mixing up, etc.
  • Step 3: I say it, you play it. I would tap the notes and say the note names or fingerings, and they would play them back.
  • Step 4: I then showed them the order for the composition: phrase 1, then 3, then 1, then 4, phrase 2 twice, then repeat the first sequence. Play #4 softly as the coda.
  • Step 5: Listen to the recording to HEAR the form.
  • Step 6: Play it.

It didn't take more than 10 minutes to go through Steps 1-5, but by the time we got to Step 6, my students knew those notes and played from the notation on the board without my saying letter names or fingerings. Their playing matched the recording, soft and beautiful. My kids can be quite jaded about music that is soft and pretty, but they LOVED it. I absolutely REFUSE to put letter names below notes. Every class period, we play by rote and letter (fingering) with the eventual transition being to full note reading. We had already played "Hot Cross Buns" and "Mary Had A Little Lamb," but I wanted one more BAG songs, and "Peaceful River" really fit the bill as a great transition to note reading.

The steps I took to teach it are common with teachers with an Orff background: breaking down a piece and teaching in this combinatorial way. Some songs have too many variations and so are quite difficult to teach because the students get frustrated.