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it should be added, that music and marches were more used than supported by the nazis, like all parts of german culture, except early football and wagner-oper, Carl Orff is not the best example. Unter den Linden, writen by a jewish person, was still played by the nazis and claimed to be anonymous and thereby "older" and just "stolen" by this Jewish person. This way of rewriting history is important to highlight, because it is the same faith a lot of good german culture, jewish and christian, suffers in modern time. Orff for example get a lot of mistrust by canadian historian Michael Kater, who tries to ignore his friendship with famous resistence fighter Kurt Hubert, leading member of the anti-war movement "weiße Rose" most famously known for Sophie Scholl. I will add, that Michael Kater was actual born in 1937 and that he lived in Krefeld, a city in germany, that was famously pro-NSDAP already since 1927 and known for its aggression in this more catholic and thereby anti-NSDAP views for this region and his family moved to Canada in 1953. It should be highlighted, that the workers had a longer tradition of music culture and the NSDAP attempted to take these structures over and integrate them into their party-organisation, explicit the political musical organisation of unions of workers, who were socialists .....like 98% of the coalminers were in unions....they were a circle and the nazi-state tried to integrate them by force and kinda failed....so they killed a lot of them or oppressed them or pressured them into the army over these 12 years etc. etc. And these guys used the recorder, because it was cheap/affordable for poor worker families and their kids.
That's exactly how I feel! The whole idea of Answer in Progress and how they see things and just question it is just so wonderful. I just assumed the recorder was a simple instrument just like Alison Melville put it a "stepping stone" instrument but now I have a lot more appreciation for it. Life is truly something amazing
My late wife was a professional recorder player. I play harpsichord. We had wonderful evenings going through Renaissance and Baroque music. Thanks for the flood of memories.
I just wanted to share. I was watching this video and had the volume up, and my dog was thoroughly interested in every song that was being played. He seemingly got concerned at a couple points but ultimately seemed to enjoy them. So you have a fan in at least 1 dog.
As a music teacher, I have taught thousands of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders the recorder. I found your video extremely delightful!!! I'm not kidding I want to hug you so hard, and play a duet with you!!! You are ADORABLE!!! I just retired this year and I sent this video to the new teacher! LOL There is hope!!! Thank you for this extremely delightful video. I actually take my recorder everywhere I go! I play when I camp, at the beach, walking down the sidewalk...My family and extended family laugh at me BUT my nieces and nephews are inspired as I play very cool music. Recently my husband bought me a Native American Spirit Flute...which sounds DIVINE!!! Playing the recorder has been a joy in my life. And clearly now, it's a joy in yours. WELL DONE!
God bless you for your patience... On behalf of all of us old folks who used the Recorder as a start to other instruments.. We owe you a fishing trip...a quiet fishing trip😊
My mom is a professional recorder player and has been a teacher for many years. I learned reading sheet music with her when she taught me the recorder at 5 years old, before I could read books. She still plays almost every day. Your enthusiasm reminds me of her!
Wow, wow, Who knew that 60 years after being a 10 year old ‘flutaphone’ player in school I would finally really learn the wonderful history behind this deceptive little instrument! Thank you for your delightful video.
when I was taught recorder, we were only taught the notes up to D. my teacher said that "there are more notes above that, but we won't be learning them." so, naturally, I went home and looked up the fingerings, learned the rest of the notes, and then taught them to my friends during class. it's a wonder anyone decides willingly to be an elementary school music teacher.
the real lesson there is to never tell a kid "there is more i wont teach you" unless that is exactly what you want to happen. XD Same thing with me learning the clarinet only a grade or 2 later; "that's it for this lesson (#1)", to which i go home, look up more of the fingering charts in the very same books used for the basic lessons, try out some of the highest ones realistically possible, then fiddle around with the new instrument to see what i can learn by ear, even if i am not using the proper fingerings in the end. Even after playing the clarinet through my entire public schooling career, the higher the note, the more difficult it is to play, with the top end practically impossible to make sound good or even balance dynamically in the context of an ensemble like concert or marching band (and the latter is even worse since you have to balance breathing to keep the right oxygen flow while moving around while simultaneously using it to play the proper notes). High notes in marching band? it takes so much reservation to hold back the air that it throws the rest out of balance, all while being so high pitched it both pierces through everything yet fades practically immediately, especially alongside the flute and piccolo that it is encroaching into the territory of.
@@breakfastforpikachu2327im pretty sure someone who had the motivation to look up the notes themselves after school - and then teach them to their friends, would have been practicing all of the notes they were taught by the teacher
my music teacher was one of the best people i ever met. imagine not only being an elementary school music teacher, but also being a middle and high school music teacher, the sole organizer of the school's choir and biyearly concerts, AND the musical director for all theatrical musicals at school, IN ADDITION TO sparing time to give private music lessons to particularly engaged students, AND ALSO currently studying to get a masters in another musical discipline. despite working for a small, one-building school with a dying music & arts program, and having to watch her colleague and friend get bullied out by other teachers, that woman always did everything in her power to make her students feel not only welcome, but as if they were thriving. if i had a different music teacher i would have never realized i loved to sing.
Could I tell you a fun fact? Most professional recorder players practice on plastic instruments! The most reputable plastic brand is a Yamaha, and you can get a decent soprano for $45. All recorder players practice their technique on those, but for concerts they play on their much more expensive wooden ones to prevent them from damage.
Yeah, prevent them from the emotional damage of playing a plastic recorder in front of an audience. No, just kidding, I'm surprised to hear it's a professional instrument, I'm still not fond of the noises it makes but very few people like the music I listen to.
I think a majority of artists accept most mediums. In order to become a master at something it's incredibly valuable to be flexible. It's harder to achieve greatness when you're tunnel visioning. The people who see things as beneath them probably don't progress as far.
...I think I might just go and search some professional recorder/flute music here on yt to prove myself that just like any instrument, just because it sounds grating in the hands of a kindergardener or laymen, it can still produce the most beautiful tunes...
@@AKcess_DniedRecorders were pretty much the standard flute until it started getting replaced by the transverse flute (an early version of the modern flute), which had the advantage of having a wider dynamic range.
You unlocked a childhood memory of my entire class playing ode to joy-and kinda well for 4th graders-while our delightful teacher _danced_ around the room using her recorder as a sword-telling us a story of how our song was helping to slay the dragon-she always wore long floaty colourfull skirts, and she always reminded me of fairie we got to have as our teacher. That woman was so dedicated and determined we find a love for music in her class, I feel lucky all over again I had her as a teacher! I’m so glad you got to redeem yourself! Just fyi by the end you sounded better than any of us did!!
Yeah lol like 20 years later during the lockdown when i had the sudden urge to learn the recorder properly and ordered a new one, I somehow still remembered how to play Ode to Joy lol
@@noonehere6994 often times, musical compositions will end with the center of the key of music, also known as the tonic. This note will be held until the conductor decides to cut it off, which is written as a fermata (looks kinda like an eye on the sheet music) However, a 10 year old would not be doing this and would most likely just say "oops"
As a professional musician myself, I couldn't say I've EVER come across anybody gatekeeping music education - particularly now when so many parts of the world are eliminating arts funding. And if I were to ever come across a professional who did 'gatekeep' music...idk, I'd question their own enjoyment of the art tbh
I mean gatekeeping implies that you consider your instrument to be superior, and don't want those who are unworthy to play it. Pretty hard to have that much arrogance when you're playing the most widely ridiculed instrument in the entire western world.
I am so glad that Alison finally taught her how to how to tongue the notes. I was worried we'd go the whole video with stopping the breath after each note
There’s things I don’t even think about watching another person learn an instrument 😂 However, the recorder made me realize I liked the idea of music, hated the most of everything about the recorder, hated fingerings, and picked up trombone 😂
A bit of a tangent, but this is what bugged me so much about the Ocarina playing in LInk's Awakening. THey not only don't tongue the notes, but there's no gap, either. So there's this one very syncopated song that sounds horrible. It's weird, seeing as they obviously had real musicians involved. Yet the nice ta-ta-ta at the end is just faaaaaaah.
its so lovely to see people get into playing music just for the fun of it, even if they didnt think they were cut out for it. just makes me really happy to see :')
You can tell Alison is an amazing teacher because she knew the tip about tonguing was the perfect advice to give Sabrina when it came to give feedback.
That's the value of learning from someone with real life experience, not just learning from a book. Listening to Sabrina it was obvious that she had not yet learnt to control the note from slurred to staccato. But to be fair, the book she was learning from probably only had a sentence or two discussing tonguing.
@@lynettejwhite if that, it's a 4th grade book after all. such instruction would probably be a note in the teacher's edition. some books to explain it, the method book i use (sweet pipes,) went over it somewhat... well, as much as it goes over anything. the tonguing advice is something i commonly seen explained to adult learners who have not had an instructor. sarah jefferies/ team recorder also tends to mention it every few videos, as well.
@@lynettejwhitefor sure. Funnily enough I learned saxophone in a side programme before my main class did recorder a couple years later, so the teacher basically said “fine; you know all this” to me. But it’s funny that it’s sooo ingrained in me I wasn’t sure what she was even talking about at first - because all that breath control is pure muscle memory just like singing or whistling.
^ THIS!!! Not teaching tonguing and breath control to beginners in 4th grade is what makes everyone think the Recorder sounds like a bunch of short, individual high pitched notes. A bit of legato really does go a long way in making wind instruments sound like... Wind instruments.
My recorder was clear and green. Looking back, it looked like a mix of uranium glass, and snot. Considering how I played it, snot is probably more accurate.
If it was translucent it was probably garbage - the cheap translucent ones not only sound a lot worse than solid-body ones, they're also a lot harder to play. Buying a kid a super cheap recorder when they're first learning to play is a torture worthy of The Good Place. They'll sound bad, and no matter how much they practice they'll never overcome the limitations of the instrument.
What my elementary school would do was that all the 4th graders would have a concert during Xmas time where we played various different Xmas songs on the recorder. We also used kazoos in some of the songs. We also got to keep the kazoos. ..... I don't think the parents liked the fact we got to keep the kazoos.
When Alison started to give you an impromptu lesson on how to play better, my heart nearly burst. Everyone should get to experience kind, understanding instruction like that to improve and get to FEEL the success that you did.
It was such a wholesome moment, yet it made me feel sad that many people feel like they're 'too old' for music lessons like this! I remember a story about someone in her 20s who had decided to take violin classes, but she got some odd looks when they saw her among the violin teacher's other students who were all children. So many of us would get some joy out of experiences like this-- and I can imagine it would be healing to some as well, seeing how it's haunted Sabrina for so long 😄 Hope more feel inspired to take music classes from such a kind teacher like Alison!
And she did that *after* complimenting her and giving her the black belt. And not like "Here's what you did wrong, let's correct" but a very friendly "Let's try this". Very inviting.
The whole time I was watching this video, I wanted her so desperately to just have even one lesson with a professional music teacher! My mom is a music director and a piano teacher, so I grew up just thinking literally everyone has had one-on-one knowledgeable instruction about something and is aware how much quicker and better you can get with that. Turns out, no. That's really not a universal experience, particularly in my economic level - I just happened to kinda luck into it because of my mom.
As an elementary school music teacher who teaches recorder to a bunch of 3rd grade students using the Recorder Karate program, i love seeing your joy in successfully completing and receiving your black belt, and your realization that it can be a really fun instrument if you give it a chance.
I want to tell you something. I personally wouldn't use the recorder karate program, because I noiced that many of the songs are wildly inaccurate. I don't know what to recommend, but I think another book that has correct music would be better than recorder karate.
@@ego-lay_atman-bay What do you mean "inaccurate"? Not the way that they were composed by the initial composer who designed them to be played by professional musicians? Of course not. That would be an awful thing to try to give to children. Songs that nobody's ever heard to have an idea what they are supposed to sound like? Harder to get interest. A child who learns to play a modified version of "Ode to Joy" will still recognize it when it is played by a full orchestra and have the feeling of "I know that song!" Or does it give incorrect facts about music like saying something is a C# when it is actually a C in the notation?
@@kg4wwn well, some simple rhythms are changed to something that no one would recognize, such as the last note on the second to last line in ode to joy. And yeah, I did kind of exaggerate a bit .
@@ego-lay_atman-bay The reason for that particular modification (I know which one you mean without even looking at it) is that it's otherwise difficult to fit in a breath before the last line. But regardless, it's a very common "mistake" in arrangements of Ode to Joy. There's something about starting that one phrase on beat 4 that doesn't sound right to modern ears.
@@elbschwartz So, are you telling me that it's that way in the original music? I have also actually played an ode to joy arrangement in a band piece that just had a section of ode to joy (Choose Joy by Randall Standridge), and it didn't have that "mistake" in it, although I can't remember if it even played that section.
I’m from Scotland, and I have vivid memories of only being allowed to play Hot Cross Buns and NOTHING else - we weren’t allowed to experiment and have fun with the sound. I think that’s a big reason behind a lot of people’s “dislike” of the recorder.
@@dmitripogosian5084 "just not having a talent "is bullshit, you got talent from practising, compromising and experementing with any art, no one borns with talent
Wonderful video! As a music educator I always feel a responsibility to dispell those claims that things like class recorders are "fake instruments" and this is just a wonderful journey of discovery for you and I'm so happy you've shared it with us!
i am that music teacher that teaches 4th graders recorder, and the end of the video where you played together with allison made me misty eyed. that's what it's all about! recorders are so important because it's the first instrument that most kids own and are responsible for, and is really something that they take pride in learning and playing together with their peers. so glad you were able to find that feeling, even if it was in 24th grade
haha, same! I mainly teach saxophone and just recently learned how to play recorder. the instrument is such a marvel. it is one of the best parts of teaching to play a nice duet with your student and hear how far they got.
@@FruityPebbles-420I was stubborn and refused to start on clarinet, so they let me start on sax 😅 a few other girls in my year did clarinet for a year or two before getting theirs, but seeing me play mine made them quite jealous at first! However, the teacher was an oboe player so between her one-on-one instruction and the group playing, I’ve actually still never used a twelfth key. Only octave keys.
@@kaitlyn__L I technically started way before band actually started. By the time that time I played clarinet for 3 years before and sax for one year before, so they had no real reason not to let me start on sax in band.
I work at a wooden recorder factory, and the wast spectrum of players that come in for a test selection is mesmerizing. An old lady spending close to 5 figures on a recorder, schredding it to hell, and a young player sounding like a siren calling in sailors, on a base model "school grade" sopran. The big subbass recorder is still funky as hell to look at though, making it sure is a chore.
It had occurred to me that part of why they sound so bad is that the ones the kids learn on are cheap and probably not super-well tuned. On top of that, it's something that we didn't get a choice on and all the kids were learning, not just the ones with any interest in music.
I absolutely adore the look and sound of that monster recorder though, I remember when I first learned it existed I thought it was a very high oboe. I think I agree with Allison that lower-toned recorders tend to sound better. And surprisingly the opposite is true for penny whistles, I really dig how high and clear they can get.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade depends, but generally you'll see yamahas in schools, and yamahas are very good quality for the price. my own was like 10 bucks, and i'd probably have to spend 600 to get something that sounds noticeably better to my ear. generally, the reason schoolkids sound bad is overblowing and not sealing the holes properly. that's how you get the screeching, breaking notes. not saying that some school districts dont cheap out and actually buy super low quality stuff, but it's just not a good savings. like i said, my own recorder was 10 bucks. you can buy them in lots of 100 with a much better price per unit.
That's why I avoided using "don't" phrases in my music classroom if at all possible. Saying don't to a child, especially in elementary school, is a challenge or a dare.
In general, it feels like a lot of things have a way higher skill ceiling than expected; especially those where the average skill floor is particularly abysmal. The recorder is one big example but even a lot of casual party games and stuff can get REALLLLY competitive if you want it to
@@sorrelgilbertthegilbertpri7202 harder to stay in tune definitely. But most people at a beginner level don't have a great concept of "in tune" beyond whether something sounds "bad", which could be tone/timbre too.
@sorrelgilbertthegilbertpri7202 no?? I am a flutist with some experience in recorder I would say the way you blow into a flue is harder and the fingering is also harder Idk about the tuning comment but in pretty much every regard flute is harder then recorder
@@unkownpath9105I think it's more that with a flute when you mess up the breathing, you are more likely to get no sound at all than the shrill ear piercer that you get with a recorder. Unconfidant breath control on a recorder is painful to listen to, on a flute it kinda just turns into a hoarse whisper comparatively. Delivery of air is easier on a recorder for sure (was for me when I was trying instruments out for band), but actual control to get a pleasant sound is less punishing for a flute. I think that's what they meant by "in tune."
I was born and raised in China, and they also mandated the recorder learning in elementary school, in music class. I can remember many students use it to fight each other tho.
I was born and raised in the Philippines. And we also learned how to play the recorder for music class when we were in Grade 4. Where kids are average 10 years old.
The only channel on UA-cam that will have you clicking on something bc it seems mildly interesting, and then will have you glued to your screen and crying by the end
I am SO glad they bring up doing "Too-too-too" instead of the "Hoo-hoo-hoo." At the end! The whole time I wanted to reach into my phone and shout "You gotta make a toot sound each note!"
She didn't say too, she said doo. There is a big difference between too and doo, and doo, and most of the time doo is much better. It's because too is too hard of a start, whereas doo is soft. Too is for accents.
I agree! When i was a child i actually enjoyed playing the recorder. As an adult whenever I hear anyone blowingeven a dog whistle I can tell immediately if they ever played the recorder just from hearing them hooing or dooing.
Alison just shows the value of a good teacher. When you have those breakthrough moments where things click. It just displays her skill and experience. Awesome.
The recorder isn't a bad instrument and while the cheap ones aren't good, they are serviceable. The recorder is generally taught in oversized classes of young children where you aren't going to get any feedback. It sounds awful and unless you're the rare child who has the ability to observe and make adjustments you're just going to lose interest or assume you're bad at music.
I was one of those musical anomalies that figured out how to play the recorder in school and on my own. I even learned and taught tin whistle as an adult. (besides a couple music degrees and a couple other instruments). That being said, this video gave me so much joy. You nailed why learning music matters at the end. Bravo!
In Italy we learn to play the recorder in middle school and I think teaching a bunch of uninterested 11 year olds how to read and play music decently from scratch is one of the greatest feats of humanity. It really was hella fun playing all together tho! Our Pirates of the Caribbean's theme tune was FIRE
Meanwhile my high school art teacher was so bad, I started taking notes with my left hand, because learning to write with it was the most interesting thing I could come up with.
That's why band is better. In beginner band, yeah, most of the kids probably don't want to be there, but a lot probably will find that they love to play the instrument that they chose (which wouldn't be a recorder).
@@ego-lay_atman-bay The whole time watching this I was thinking about my sax and how it's been in my closet collecting dust. I should get some music books and get back to practicing it. Hope the pads are okay still, were when I checked it out a few months ago but who knows.
I never played a recorder. My school started us with regular band instruments at 4th grade, I played trumpet because my uncle had one I could use for free.
No joke, that sounds incredibly fun. My dad and I like to bark at the dog, because once she starts barking back she goes for a few minutes. Drives my mother crazy. Highly recommend.
18:49 This is why it’s so important to have a teacher. If you’d started with a teacher, you would have gotten to the tonguing technique much faster. Always good to have someone listening and giving expert feedback!
true, though this is a problem even in a lot of classes. often teachers will just say “play the instrument,” without explaining tonguing or breathing techniques. i personally didn’t learn much about how to actually play the instrument correctly until i chose to pursue it on my own after my classes
@@paristracy8517 I meant private lessons, I agree that general music or even band/orchestra are not the best ways to learn to play a musical instrument well
I don’t know how I stumbled onto this video, but it was so entertaining and informative!! I loved watching your recorder journey! My favorite part was when you played Twinkle Twinkle for your friend. Her facial expressions were THE BEST! I love how she reacted to every note!! Her eyes were FANTASTIC! And all the history was so interesting! I love that you interviewed the lady at the end. That was so cool to see! Thanks for the great video and creating quality content!
petition to make sabrina run her video ideas by her therapist before filming bc feeling ASHAMED for a DECADE of how you played the recorder as a 4th grader is crazy
she's kinda real for that though. there are a lot of things from my childhood that still give me the runaround even though they _really_ shouldn't. in the words of my therapist, "Why are you letting a 9 year old judge you now?" (Proceeded by, "I don't know!")
@@JoeMazzolaTheFirstPersonCookfelt. flashbacks to when my music teacher made us all sing the star spangled banner (which notoriously calls for a broad vocal range) INDIVIDUALY in front of the entire class. i think this was her way of scoping out kids for the school choir, but honestly that might be a little worse.
@@february4206 Ours literally told us that was the point. It was embedded in the curriculum, though we didn't know it at that age. Extracurriculars weren't a thing the schools did at that age, but those of us who chose to (and whose parents signed off on it) were separated off to woodwinds, strings, and choir versions of the curriculum our classmates were learning with recorder. The other thing we didn't know at that age was that the first seven weeks of weekly music class were dedicated to making us all individually sing what turned out the first five songs of the curriculum so that our instruments could arrive and be tuned after having been ordered. It was supposed to be a head start for band and choir once we hit middle school and extracurriculars were on the table, since that would put those of us whose parents weren't rich enough for private lessons on the back foot in those activities otherwise.
ok but as a music teacher the progress u made in a week is pretty impressive. pat yourself on the back sabrina, if youtube fails you can always become a professional recorder
The one thing that has been affirmed from channels like Answer In Progress is that no matter the subject or activity that is done in this world there are people that take it _very_ seriously. If not for these people a lot of things would be lost to time
great video!! especially appreciate this for how accessible you made music making to your audience, especially genres like medieval and baroque that people tend to overlook for being “boring” or sounding “bad”. it’s so far from that! i’m also sure the recorder player really appreciated your enthusiasm and excitement about playing in your lesson, it was so refreshing to see your attitude after spending so much of my life taking music sometimes a little too seriously as a violinist/music student :) music should be fun and healing, and it is truly for everyone! that’s what it was meant for, and that’s why we have always made it. learned so much from this video about music!
I had the best elementary school music teacher. He could've taught high school band or choir, or teach expensive violin lessons, but he chose to teach at an elementary school. He always emphasized that our recorders were instruments and we could make them sound beautiful with enough practice.
Our elementary school made the choice to have only one year of using the typical recorder, and then moving to an Alto one. As kids, we were actually excited to get the bigger recorder and try to play it because it sounded so much nicer to us.
Pianos and keyboards are very easy to learn how to play a note with. You press the key, a nice sound comes out. It is almost impossible to screw up other than to press the wrong key out to press it at the wrong time. A violin is very hard to learn. It takes weeks, if not months before you can produce a nice sounding note. In exchange, you get almost infinite control over how the note sounds over its entire duration. A recorder is somewhere in between in difficulty. You can make a sound easily enough. It's not that hard to make it the right frequency with a bit of practice. But making it sound good is not trivial, although most people can get there in a few days. This is why it is suitable for schools. Much easier than transverse flutes. Especially for kids.
@@danielch6662 Woodwind and String instruments have the advantage of the entire instruments range being easily attainable. In Brass instruments it takes years to build up range. I played trumpet for 7 years (6th-12th grades) to reliably hit up to C6 (double C) or on a good day up to G6 on a standard Bb trumpet.
Two things: First, Alison Melville is amazing. What a wonderful teacher. I now must listen to more of her music. Second, Melissa being a sound goblin at 13:30 gives me life.
I actually have a friend who plays the recorder, and was accepted into a music conservatorium for it. Even though he eventually decided not to pursue music profesionelly, I’ve heard him play at orchestras and found its such a lovely sound! The first time i heard him I was shocked that it could sound so nice, because my only frame of reference was the third grade music lessons
If you hear someone like Lucie Horsch playing "proper" Classical pieces, you realize just what the recorder can do. It's a shame it has the stigma of being a quacking noise-maker for little kids, when it's an instrument with a centuries-old tradition of serious music-making.
I love this so much! I'm a flute player and love recorders. I have already given my 3 year old a tin whistle, which is very similar to a recorder but usually used in Irish folk music. Keep learning! Music is the best.
This made my music teacher heart happy! I used to teach elementary recorder and I always liked to show my students videos of professionals playing the recorder to show that it's a real instrument. I'm so happy you gave the recorder and yourself a second chance!
love this video. The memories of playing the recorder in elementary school were never about how well I played it, but how fun it was to mess around and play with.
WoW! I didn’t know that this instrument is called ‚a recorder‘ in English. We call it block flute or Blockflöte in German. I chose it as my instrument in first grade and learned how to play it, and after 2 years I switched to flute. A couple of years ago my husband gifted me a student grade recorder which unfortunately has been collecting dust in a drawer. You video encouraged me to find time to re-learn how to play it! Thanks!❤
Yup. Thought it sounded super familiar. I'm an organist and there's a 16' Blockflote stop on my Rodgers that sounds -exactly- like these recorders. Absolutely love this sound
We borrowed from that and just call it "flet" in Poland ...unless we talk about different ones, than it's the "straight/easy flute" (yes, it's a double-meaning word in Polish, how convenient XD ), to differentiate from the transverse flute, pan flute, etc.
Not me only realising now that playing the recorder in school was my stepping stone into the world of music and now it’s one of my biggest joys in life.
Meh, I disliked it. Though, here we got them earlier on than she was talking about. When we were 10 they were handing out actual instruments and it was the clarinet at that point which finally got me in.
In school I had the best music teacher so I actually loved music class. I was one of the best recorder players, loved music, and eventually got upgraded to the Alto recorder and did a concert for the school. I still have my recorder and all my sheet music 20 years later. If you want a woodwind instrument, get something else, though. Like an ocarina, of which I have two.
Weird take when the flute, oboe, sax, and clarinet are probably the most well known instruments and you'll be able to very easily find a teacher for those specific woodwinds. And yes... the sax and flute are woodwinds. Also... don't gatekeep things. If a person enjoys playing a particular instrument and wants to invest time in it, speaking as a musician... that's really all that matters. Unless they are working in a professional orchestra where they are expected to know specific instruments, just let people enjoy things.
I more or less agree with you. The instrument isn't the problem, but people's perception of it is. I play _a bunch_ of instruments, recorder included, and playing it well demands a knowledge that most music teachers do not possess. To a classroom of _at minimum_ 20 children. It's impossible to give each child the attention they need to play it decently, so most get set up for failure and walk away thinking the recorder is a bad instrument when it's really a case of no one in the room knows how to play it, and even if they do, there's not enough time nor manpower to teach it properly. The ocarina has better public perception, even though neither is an inherently better instrument than the other, so the person playing it won't be made fun of for trying. Alto recorders are beautiful, and a little less piercing; I'm glad you got to try one. It's a shame they probably aren't chosen due to the wide finger placement, which makes the instrument impossible for younger age groups. I like them a lot. I think teaching tin whistle to beginning music students makes _a ton_ more sense. Most curriculums won't get past the major scale anyway, and none of the early whistle notes depend on forked fingering. And Clarke's brand are much less piercing than a recorder, and about the same price. ...Thanks for coming to my TED talk!
Ocarina is fun but there aren't many teachers and it's near impossible to join an orchestra. Clarinet and flute are arguably the most accessible woodwind instruments.
The ocarina does have better public perception, however, in terms of how far you can go with the instrument, recorder is much superior. Because the recorder is a period instrument of the Baroque period (mainly) there is quite a lot of classical recorder repertoire. There are many professional recorder players who make a living playing this music (and also new innovative music written for modern recorders with keys, electronic effects etc. but that's another thing). The ocarina does not have this professional environment.
Your joy, excitement, and stepping into silliness to play the black belt duet, but then it actually happening, brought heartwarming tears to my eyes. A welcoming, attentive, and intentional music instructor makes all the difference, and I'm so so so happy you got to experience that!
I literally teach the recorder and this video made my heart so big and happy! Sabrina, the green and purple belt songs are NO JOKE its tricky to change the air to get those low notes out! So proud of your black belt!!!!
I actually found most of the songs pretty easy to play after some practice (This is coming from someone who started in third grade, finish the first 5 belts that year and got the black belt in fourth grade) HOWEVER, I HAVE A VENGEANCE AGAINST THE BLUE BELT SONG BECAUSE OF ONE VERY SPECIFIC SET OF NOTES RIGHT AT THE END OF THAT SONG THAT MADE ME NOT FINISH IT IN 3RD GRADE (I had to finish it the following year). Basically it was tripping my fingers up cause it felt like I was trying to tickle the recorder in order to play the notes in the right order and I had noodle fingers getting tangle up and playing all the notes in the wrong order. Needless to say, blue is my least favorite song, how dare it make me hate my favorite color for a bit :(
Elementary music teacher here! Just want to shine light on why we teach recorder, even though it sounds like laughing hyenas times 25. 😂 It's cheap, easy to teach, helps kids with their breathing, finger coordination, reading notes, memory, musicality, play as a group, disciplines them and makes them feel accomplished. I personally love karate recorder and I decide my own songs for each grade level (Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jingle Bells, Addams Family, Game of Thrones...) and even though most kids will probably throw away the instrument once they go to high school, some pursue music later in life and yes, the recorder acts as a stepping stone to playing a bigger and more difficult instrument. And to finish, my students from grades 3-6 love the challenge of practicing their songs to earn their belts and to have them be motivated to practice out of pleasure and out of their own free will is what makes me as their music teacher feel accomplished! ☺️
In other countries kids learn the Ocarina in place of the recorder. It’s just as cheap, plastic and sounds awful if you try to play anything that resembles a high note just like a recorder! But it is an important part of teaching the kids about music theory and developing their fine motor skills so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
The question is though, why is recorder the instrument of choice as opposed to say a penny whistle which would give all the same benefits, has much simpler mechanics (ergo easier for a young student to get more out of it), and just as cheap to produce?
It seems a far better mass instrument in the US/Can to introduce to 7 year olds is the harmonica. It plays music by scales as a piano or harp does....is actually a pleasant sound when done anywhere close to right....is cheaper than many of these flutaphones (at least good ones)...and might get used by more kids IRL as it is a pocket instrument to pass the time. A 11 yo that pulls out the recorder to whistle on under a tree at best looks like Doctor Who and at worst has Poinextrose posing from every pore. A harmonica might sound a bit cooler and hip to a group of kids.
What a wholesome video. I recently brought out my old recorder because I was playing a bard in a dnd campain, and I wanted to annoy my friends a little, but then I started to learn for real, because it was so much fun. (I did not learn much. But at least I tried xD)
Seeing Sabrina get really into the recorder (playing it and learning its history) and her interactions with Alison felt so wholesome and heartwarming. Thank you, Sabrina for the video, and also ignore Melissa, she's just a hater lol
Pentatonix, the a capella group, was named for the pentatonic scale, a scale with 5 (penta) tones just as Pentatonix has 5 (Penta) singers. If it ends with "c" it's the scale; if it ends with "x" it's the a capella group. There are several varieties of pentatonic scale, but the most common one (at least in the U.S.) can use any of its five notes as the tonic, or root note, of the song. This makes it especially easy for a beginner to compose a melody in it, because any random sequence of notes, as long as they don't wander outside the scale, will sound good.
I just love this channel. You guys ask the questions that I’m curious about, but never sit down to actually think about. It’s so fun getting to know the why behind silly questions like these! :)
Congratulations on achieving your black belt! I love the velvety sounds of the bigger wooden recorders. They are so beautiful. I also am terrible at recorder, but I'm glad to know that if I practiced I might not suck at it so much. It's incredible that the blue clear plastic one sounded so much sharper even when played by a professional who knew what she was doing.
@@adaroben1104 I can understand they might not sound the most pleasant in a novice's hands, but think about what the video pointed out. The range of the instrument is affected by its size; it'd be unreasonable to expect 4th graders to maneuver bigger bass recorders, especially while their tiny hands are still learning fine motor skills in general.
@@adaroben1104 The lower pitched instruments have much larger fingerings, specifically the tenor, so the higher pitched instruments are more suitable for a child's hand size.
I have an alto recorder, the size up from what's used in schools, and the tone hole spacing is somewhat uncomfortable for my hands. There's no way most fourth graders could play one.
@@adaroben1104The larger instruments are more difficult to get air through, therefore more difficult to produce tones for beginners. So that’s why we have to start with the screechy ones 😅
Alison's personality is so sweet. She really does look and sound like a person with a dream, and a lot of drive to play the instrument she loves. I'm glad you chose her! Now, to make a petition to make Alison someone school consult for bettering the curriculum!
i’m so happy to see people gaining an appreciation for the recorder!!! I picked it up again in high school and I now play the supranino through tenor, but I almost never tell people because I always get the same weird looks. thank you so much for taking the time to learn the history of such a beautiful sounding instrument (in the right hands, of course)
The best part of the youtube algorithm is serving up a video from a new channel with tons of new content to watch. I'm glad I found your channel, and I've been binging your videos over the past few days.
I think that one of the mistakes of teaching the recorder is not showing kids that it can sound a lot better. I loved playing music when I was a kid and I went through the equivalent of the recorder black belt really quickly. The response was “well done, that’s nice” and then never playing or taking about it again. I have older relatives on the other hand who had proper recorder programs in school where kids who were keen were given more complex music to learn.
This is an awesome video! When I was in school (homeschooled) my neighbor taught me and my best friend recorder. I played tenor recorder. He played alto, while my friend played soprano. It was so much fun. We played all these songs from like the 15/1600's I'm pretty sure. It really made me love the instrument so much. It has a real special place in my heart now. I no longer remember how to read music but it definitely still helps my music playing to this day. You sounded amazing and it was awesome seeing you play together with the teacher!
THAT WAS DELIGHTFUL! Love Sabrina's face when she's getting the lesson at the end, and playing together. The joy of learning and sharing music! (Even if what you do is slightly shit sometimes)
Haha a friend of mine, who trades with stuff he finds on flee markets and such, brought me one of those (because i kinda collect instruments). I love it so much, it sounds wonderful!
I'm truly surprised. This video was randomly suggested to me and I'm truly happy it was. It was an incredibly wholesome and happy video and actually informative as well as uplifting. You earned another subscriber today. Thank you for bringing this joy to the world ❤️
I don't know which is the inaccurate naming but in Italy we call recorders flutes, more specifically "flauto dolce" (sweet flute) to distinguish from the traverse flute
The recorder, is a flute, it's more commonly called the 'block flute' or 'sweet flute' around the world, it's only really English speaking countries that call it the recorder.
I am fellow 26 year old who failed to learn the recorder at school and this year I picked up the guitar for the first time. I had pretty much the same experience Sabrina had here, learning ode to joy and twinkle twinkle and omg guys it’s so fun to let yourself be bad at things. Best decision I’ve made this year
I learned both the Marimba and the recorder in elementary school! My school definitely put more emphasis on the marimba and it’s an incredibly fun instrument to learn and play especially in a group and really does teach you much more about music theory and how to play as a group.
this is my favourite AIP video in recent memory. It's really the best of both worlds. The question in the title is satisfyingly answered, and the quest/shenanigan/storytelling element is really effective and intergrated. I often miss the older style that would focus on answering the question with research, but this one hits different. This made me want to pick up my recorder again :)
The music room at my elementary school had racks of ukuleles at the back that no one ever touched. The one time we took them down, we spent the whole class trying to tune them. I think the recorder is definitely a more simple way to go with getting kids to try a musical instrument. 😀
I learned to play the piano as a first instrument at school. The pianos were super small and battery operated. I had a classmate who had a version of a small piano that you had to blow in in order to produce a sound. It was wild!
I'm so glad you made this video!! I fell in love with the recorder as an 18 year old and have put a lot of time into learning and practicing them. No one in my life understands this, and no one seems to believe me when I tell them it's a valid instrument with repertoire and everything! I'm showing this to everyone now!
There's another good example in the beginning of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by The Danish National Symphony Orchestra which you can find here on UA-cam.
Lucie Horsch is definitely someone to look up on UA-cam if you liked what you saw in the video (there are lots of her videos). She is an absolutely amazing recorder player.
I find the marimba connection very interesting, since when I was in elementary school in the late 1980's, we didn't have recorders, but did have a few marimba-like sets of individual note percussive bells (like a deconstructed xylophone). They were used in class and students took turns playing them while everyone else "sang" along, which I guess was to convey we all got it lol.
It's always great getting to see people find joy when they make leaps in their musical learning. Just like watching vocal students every time they make a breakthrough.
So as a kid who learned the transverse flute before I ever learned recorder it always amazed me that no instruction was given on breathing, breath/air flow control, and articulation (tonging/the la la la thing). It MASSIVELY changes the sound of the instrument and might just have left more people not hating recorder.
@@aimeeontheharp Yeah, I was taught this stuff in class too, 20+ years ago. I think there might be some mediocre elementary music teachers around who gloss over it because they also hate recorder but this is one of the first lessons you get. People act like it's normal not to be taught how to breathe. The lesson would've happened when that breath mark was introduced if not before.
Why is this video of someone rediscovering the joys of playing a recorder the most wholesome thing I feel like I've ever seen? The ending was just soooo good with the professional playing along with you! God damn it, where's my recorder? I've got to go earn my black belt!
Your final rendition of Ode t To Joy was the most true performance to its name that I have ever heard. That was pure joy both from the music you were creating together and shown through the music you created and it is genuinely one of the most heartwarming things I've watched/listened to in quite a while. So, congratulations, you have not only achieved your black belt but you've unironically created my favourite performance of Ode To Joy I've ever head 💖
After being introduced to the recorder in 4th grade, and then picking up guitar in my early 20s, I revisited the recorder in my mid 20s, like yourself. I learned some songs, including a Bach piece, and I then joined a recorder orchestra, maybe 30 pieces with every type of recorder represented, piccolo through bass. I only stuck around for one concert, but it kind of blew my mind, the sound of 30 recorders and playing with them. This was in the 90s, and I had forgotten about it until seeing your video. Thanks for the memories.
I relate to your 10+ year struggle with learning recorder so much. I have Dyspraxia (AKA Developmental co-ordination disorder AKA Clumsy Child Syndrome, that used to be a real name for it) and learning recorder was so hard. The easy songs were still easy for me, but once we started learning complex songs like the Titanic theme, I could only play them at like half speed. Then when we started learning ode to joy I just couldn't do it at all. The way you feel about playing recorder is like the same way I feel about it, as well as riding a bike, handwriting, tying shoes quickly, etc. Nice to see someone going through something similar.
I never thought about what it would be like for someone to try to learn music as an adult since a lot of this stuff has been ingrained in me. I felt immensely proud of you for trying this out.
I took piano lessons as a child. Hated it. Took piano lessons as an adult (from 1975 to 1983) and absolutely loved it. I had a fantastic teacher who allowed me to play music I liked, as well as classical music.
Omg, when you figured out the different techniques that the professional was teaching you, the pure joy of learning was so adorable! Thanks for sharing your joy! 😊
not a professional musician, but as someone who does spends a lot of time playing and learning and working on music...I know, right?! it's so easy to get caught up in practicing and polishing and forget *why* we do all this, and videos like this can bring us back to earth
I actually got myself a decent recorder so I could help my daughter learn how to play when she got to that part in school and I NEVER played it because my daughter spent all of 3rd grade schooling from home during lockdown. They skipped right past that whole section of the curriculum and jumped straight to actual band/orchestra and she picked violin. Timing!
I loved learning and playing recorder. Had a race to finish the belts with one other kid in my class and we ended up being the only ones to complete the program (both very quickly), and we got new special fancy recorders (translucent and fancier shaped) as a reward :]
What a WONDERFUL, UPLIFTING, LIBERATING video!!!! Thank you. I'm a LOT older than you are, so I remember a Beatle's song, 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", a song that ends with a flute playing the most beautiful melody I had ever heard. I wanted so much to learn it, I went to the music teacher in my school to ask if she could teach me how to play it on a recorder. She laughed at me and told me that music was being played on a flute, a real musical instrument that cost hundreds of dollars, not a dime store plastic toy. So that ended my musical career. Your video has inspired me. I want to find someone who can tell me what key recorder to buy and teach me the basics so I can learn to play "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" almost 60 years later. I want to be just a little musical before I die. Thank you for that.
I’m learning to play the recorder and having so much fun! I found this through the Team Recorder channel and I’m glad to be introduced to this channel! I love how thorough you were in your research. I hope you continue to play!
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ITS BEEN AGES SINCE IVE SEEN A GRAMMARLY AD 😟😟
This channel is so good!
Congrats on the black belt Sabrina!
it should be added, that music and marches were more used than supported by the nazis, like all parts of german culture, except early football and wagner-oper,
Carl Orff is not the best example. Unter den Linden, writen by a jewish person, was still played by the nazis and claimed to be anonymous and thereby "older" and just "stolen" by this Jewish person. This way of rewriting history is important to highlight, because it is the same faith a lot of good german culture, jewish and christian, suffers in modern time. Orff for example get a lot of mistrust by canadian historian Michael Kater, who tries to ignore his friendship with famous resistence fighter Kurt Hubert, leading member of the anti-war movement "weiße Rose" most famously known for Sophie Scholl.
I will add, that Michael Kater was actual born in 1937 and that he lived in Krefeld, a city in germany, that was famously pro-NSDAP already since 1927 and known for its aggression in this more catholic and thereby anti-NSDAP views for this region and his family moved to Canada in 1953.
It should be highlighted, that the workers had a longer tradition of music culture and the NSDAP attempted to take these structures over and integrate them into their party-organisation, explicit the political musical organisation of unions of workers, who were socialists .....like 98% of the coalminers were in unions....they were a circle and the nazi-state tried to integrate them by force and kinda failed....so they killed a lot of them or oppressed them or pressured them into the army over these 12 years etc. etc. And these guys used the recorder, because it was cheap/affordable for poor worker families and their kids.
Michala Petri is the ultimate recorder superhero !
this channel will make me watch the most random videos and somehow change how I see the world in the span of 20 minutes
I'm about to look up the karate program and bust out my old plastic recorder. I feel inspired
Actually, 19 minutes and 33 seconds. 🤣
natsis made us play the recorder, and are also the reason for the note B getting renamed to H in most European countries
Nah I already knew the recorder was like that, except the Nazi part, and Carl orff being one, but I'll forget
That's exactly how I feel! The whole idea of Answer in Progress and how they see things and just question it is just so wonderful. I just assumed the recorder was a simple instrument just like Alison Melville put it a "stepping stone" instrument but now I have a lot more appreciation for it. Life is truly something amazing
My late wife was a professional recorder player. I play harpsichord. We had wonderful evenings going through Renaissance and Baroque music. Thanks for the flood of memories.
I'm sorry for the loss of your wife. Those sound like wonderful, beautiful memories.
I'm sorry. My mom was in a recorder group and enjoyed making music with friends.
for a few seconds i thought you were a time traveler
Oh my god that's so badass, I bet you both had a blast.
i LOVE THE HARPSICHORD
I just wanted to share.
I was watching this video and had the volume up, and my dog was thoroughly interested in every song that was being played.
He seemingly got concerned at a couple points but ultimately seemed to enjoy them.
So you have a fan in at least 1 dog.
You need to get a recorder and teach him when to bark to it.
I play the recorder regularly and every time i sit to play my cats come curl up to listen too 💖
@@felixhenson9926 That is so sweet.
cray331 - How sweet ❤️🐶
Which is funny because my dog does not react to music at all.
As a music teacher, I have taught thousands of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders the recorder. I found your video extremely delightful!!! I'm not kidding I want to hug you so hard, and play a duet with you!!! You are ADORABLE!!! I just retired this year and I sent this video to the new teacher! LOL There is hope!!! Thank you for this extremely delightful video. I actually take my recorder everywhere I go! I play when I camp, at the beach, walking down the sidewalk...My family and extended family laugh at me BUT my nieces and nephews are inspired as I play very cool music. Recently my husband bought me a Native American Spirit Flute...which sounds DIVINE!!! Playing the recorder has been a joy in my life. And clearly now, it's a joy in yours. WELL DONE!
God bless you for your patience... On behalf of all of us old folks who used the Recorder as a start to other instruments.. We owe you a fishing trip...a quiet fishing trip😊
I've just had my first class teaching 3rd and 4th graders recorder
It's my first time teaching, EVER
My mom is a professional recorder player and has been a teacher for many years. I learned reading sheet music with her when she taught me the recorder at 5 years old, before I could read books. She still plays almost every day.
Your enthusiasm reminds me of her!
Wow, wow, Who knew that 60 years after being a 10 year old ‘flutaphone’ player in school I would finally really learn the wonderful history behind this deceptive little instrument! Thank you for your delightful video.
when I was taught recorder, we were only taught the notes up to D. my teacher said that "there are more notes above that, but we won't be learning them." so, naturally, I went home and looked up the fingerings, learned the rest of the notes, and then taught them to my friends during class.
it's a wonder anyone decides willingly to be an elementary school music teacher.
the real lesson there is to never tell a kid "there is more i wont teach you" unless that is exactly what you want to happen. XD
Same thing with me learning the clarinet only a grade or 2 later; "that's it for this lesson (#1)", to which i go home, look up more of the fingering charts in the very same books used for the basic lessons, try out some of the highest ones realistically possible, then fiddle around with the new instrument to see what i can learn by ear, even if i am not using the proper fingerings in the end. Even after playing the clarinet through my entire public schooling career, the higher the note, the more difficult it is to play, with the top end practically impossible to make sound good or even balance dynamically in the context of an ensemble like concert or marching band (and the latter is even worse since you have to balance breathing to keep the right oxygen flow while moving around while simultaneously using it to play the proper notes). High notes in marching band? it takes so much reservation to hold back the air that it throws the rest out of balance, all while being so high pitched it both pierces through everything yet fades practically immediately, especially alongside the flute and piccolo that it is encroaching into the territory of.
but you wouldn't have had the motivation to learn and teach on your own, if the teacher had taught you all the notes themselves
@@breakfastforpikachu2327im pretty sure someone who had the motivation to look up the notes themselves after school - and then teach them to their friends, would have been practicing all of the notes they were taught by the teacher
at my elementary school, my music teacher actually got this huge set of used marimbas from somewhere
my music teacher was one of the best people i ever met. imagine not only being an elementary school music teacher, but also being a middle and high school music teacher, the sole organizer of the school's choir and biyearly concerts, AND the musical director for all theatrical musicals at school, IN ADDITION TO sparing time to give private music lessons to particularly engaged students, AND ALSO currently studying to get a masters in another musical discipline.
despite working for a small, one-building school with a dying music & arts program, and having to watch her colleague and friend get bullied out by other teachers, that woman always did everything in her power to make her students feel not only welcome, but as if they were thriving. if i had a different music teacher i would have never realized i loved to sing.
I love Allison being so wholesome and not treating the children's recorder as beneath her despite being so skilled beyond it.
Could I tell you a fun fact? Most professional recorder players practice on plastic instruments! The most reputable plastic brand is a Yamaha, and you can get a decent soprano for $45. All recorder players practice their technique on those, but for concerts they play on their much more expensive wooden ones to prevent them from damage.
Yeah, prevent them from the emotional damage of playing a plastic recorder in front of an audience.
No, just kidding, I'm surprised to hear it's a professional instrument, I'm still not fond of the noises it makes but very few people like the music I listen to.
I think a majority of artists accept most mediums. In order to become a master at something it's incredibly valuable to be flexible. It's harder to achieve greatness when you're tunnel visioning. The people who see things as beneath them probably don't progress as far.
...I think I might just go and search some professional recorder/flute music here on yt to prove myself that just like any instrument, just because it sounds grating in the hands of a kindergardener or laymen, it can still produce the most beautiful tunes...
@@AKcess_DniedRecorders were pretty much the standard flute until it started getting replaced by the transverse flute (an early version of the modern flute), which had the advantage of having a wider dynamic range.
You unlocked a childhood memory of my entire class playing ode to joy-and kinda well for 4th graders-while our delightful teacher _danced_ around the room using her recorder as a sword-telling us a story of how our song was helping to slay the dragon-she always wore long floaty colourfull skirts, and she always reminded me of fairie we got to have as our teacher. That woman was so dedicated and determined we find a love for music in her class, I feel lucky all over again I had her as a teacher! I’m so glad you got to redeem yourself! Just fyi by the end you sounded better than any of us did!!
Well, did you succeed in slaying the dragon?
Jesus fucking Christ, your teacher was doing way too much
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721they're here to tell the tale, so I'd assume yes
Yeah lol like 20 years later during the lockdown when i had the sudden urge to learn the recorder properly and ordered a new one, I somehow still remembered how to play Ode to Joy lol
wtf thats a story
I am in awe that a UA-camr exists who footnotes everything. Much admiration for that as well as the thoroughness of the presentation.
As is tradition; the recorder player announces that they are finished not with a fermata over the tonic, but with an “oops” 19:30
Just like Bach used to do it
wait can you explain the joke like I'm 5
@@noonehere6994 often times, musical compositions will end with the center of the key of music, also known as the tonic. This note will be held until the conductor decides to cut it off, which is written as a fermata (looks kinda like an eye on the sheet music)
However, a 10 year old would not be doing this and would most likely just say "oops"
@@plexquared1877 oh that's what that symbol wss for? Also, so is forgoing that just an intentional reference/in joke among recorder players?
I never thought I would see the phrase "in joke among recorder players", and yet here it is.
The fact that the professional wasn’t gatekeeping is a great representation of encouraging the next generation. Super video!
It's a sign of someone who truly appreciates the art for what it is and wants to share it with others
I am a trumpet playing, and I have never met anyone that tried to gatekeep learning an instrument.
As a professional musician myself, I couldn't say I've EVER come across anybody gatekeeping music education - particularly now when so many parts of the world are eliminating arts funding. And if I were to ever come across a professional who did 'gatekeep' music...idk, I'd question their own enjoyment of the art tbh
I mean gatekeeping implies that you consider your instrument to be superior, and don't want those who are unworthy to play it. Pretty hard to have that much arrogance when you're playing the most widely ridiculed instrument in the entire western world.
I am so glad that Alison finally taught her how to how to tongue the notes. I was worried we'd go the whole video with stopping the breath after each note
There’s things I don’t even think about watching another person learn an instrument 😂
However, the recorder made me realize I liked the idea of music, hated the most of everything about the recorder, hated fingerings, and picked up trombone 😂
But the way she bobs her head with each breath/note is kind of adorable!
Yeah, that was my fear also - Foo foo foo foo foo foo foo foo....
A bit of a tangent, but this is what bugged me so much about the Ocarina playing in LInk's Awakening. THey not only don't tongue the notes, but there's no gap, either. So there's this one very syncopated song that sounds horrible.
It's weird, seeing as they obviously had real musicians involved. Yet the nice ta-ta-ta at the end is just faaaaaaah.
@@alylight1899 excuse you, it's called headbanging.
its so lovely to see people get into playing music just for the fun of it, even if they didnt think they were cut out for it. just makes me really happy to see :')
You can tell Alison is an amazing teacher because she knew the tip about tonguing was the perfect advice to give Sabrina when it came to give feedback.
what's the ONE piece of feedback you can give to broaden their horizons as much as possible? such an insanely hard thing to do
That's the value of learning from someone with real life experience, not just learning from a book. Listening to Sabrina it was obvious that she had not yet learnt to control the note from slurred to staccato. But to be fair, the book she was learning from probably only had a sentence or two discussing tonguing.
@@lynettejwhite if that, it's a 4th grade book after all. such instruction would probably be a note in the teacher's edition.
some books to explain it, the method book i use (sweet pipes,) went over it somewhat... well, as much as it goes over anything.
the tonguing advice is something i commonly seen explained to adult learners who have not had an instructor. sarah jefferies/ team recorder also tends to mention it every few videos, as well.
@@lynettejwhitefor sure. Funnily enough I learned saxophone in a side programme before my main class did recorder a couple years later, so the teacher basically said “fine; you know all this” to me. But it’s funny that it’s sooo ingrained in me I wasn’t sure what she was even talking about at first - because all that breath control is pure muscle memory just like singing or whistling.
^ THIS!!!
Not teaching tonguing and breath control to beginners in 4th grade is what makes everyone think the Recorder sounds like a bunch of short, individual high pitched notes.
A bit of legato really does go a long way in making wind instruments sound like... Wind instruments.
My recorder was clear and green. Looking back, it looked like a mix of uranium glass, and snot. Considering how I played it, snot is probably more accurate.
If it was translucent it was probably garbage - the cheap translucent ones not only sound a lot worse than solid-body ones, they're also a lot harder to play. Buying a kid a super cheap recorder when they're first learning to play is a torture worthy of The Good Place. They'll sound bad, and no matter how much they practice they'll never overcome the limitations of the instrument.
THATS THE ONE I HAD
had the same one lol
i had the exact blue one she showed in the video lol
wait, my recorder was also clear and green
“Im as far from my my neighbours as i could possibly be” this is too relatable to almost ALL instruments
My neighbor wouldn't lend me a cup of sugar, so as revenge I started studying the bagpipes.
@@bartz0rt928 evil
Why is your profile picture the Fabulous App icon lol
@@mxwitcher oh it is! i did not know that
Distances vary. The next county over is considered appropriate for beginner oboe players.
What my elementary school would do was that all the 4th graders would have a concert during Xmas time where we played various different Xmas songs on the recorder.
We also used kazoos in some of the songs.
We also got to keep the kazoos.
.....
I don't think the parents liked the fact we got to keep the kazoos.
The same thing happened to us, too. I still remember the song.
When Alison started to give you an impromptu lesson on how to play better, my heart nearly burst. Everyone should get to experience kind, understanding instruction like that to improve and get to FEEL the success that you did.
It was such a wholesome moment, yet it made me feel sad that many people feel like they're 'too old' for music lessons like this! I remember a story about someone in her 20s who had decided to take violin classes, but she got some odd looks when they saw her among the violin teacher's other students who were all children. So many of us would get some joy out of experiences like this-- and I can imagine it would be healing to some as well, seeing how it's haunted Sabrina for so long 😄 Hope more feel inspired to take music classes from such a kind teacher like Alison!
Yes! This gave me such joy!
And she did that *after* complimenting her and giving her the black belt. And not like "Here's what you did wrong, let's correct" but a very friendly "Let's try this". Very inviting.
The whole time I was watching this video, I wanted her so desperately to just have even one lesson with a professional music teacher!
My mom is a music director and a piano teacher, so I grew up just thinking literally everyone has had one-on-one knowledgeable instruction about something and is aware how much quicker and better you can get with that.
Turns out, no. That's really not a universal experience, particularly in my economic level - I just happened to kinda luck into it because of my mom.
As an elementary school music teacher who teaches recorder to a bunch of 3rd grade students using the Recorder Karate program, i love seeing your joy in successfully completing and receiving your black belt, and your realization that it can be a really fun instrument if you give it a chance.
I want to tell you something. I personally wouldn't use the recorder karate program, because I noiced that many of the songs are wildly inaccurate. I don't know what to recommend, but I think another book that has correct music would be better than recorder karate.
@@ego-lay_atman-bay What do you mean "inaccurate"? Not the way that they were composed by the initial composer who designed them to be played by professional musicians? Of course not. That would be an awful thing to try to give to children. Songs that nobody's ever heard to have an idea what they are supposed to sound like? Harder to get interest. A child who learns to play a modified version of "Ode to Joy" will still recognize it when it is played by a full orchestra and have the feeling of "I know that song!"
Or does it give incorrect facts about music like saying something is a C# when it is actually a C in the notation?
@@kg4wwn well, some simple rhythms are changed to something that no one would recognize, such as the last note on the second to last line in ode to joy. And yeah, I did kind of exaggerate a bit .
@@ego-lay_atman-bay The reason for that particular modification (I know which one you mean without even looking at it) is that it's otherwise difficult to fit in a breath before the last line. But regardless, it's a very common "mistake" in arrangements of Ode to Joy. There's something about starting that one phrase on beat 4 that doesn't sound right to modern ears.
@@elbschwartz So, are you telling me that it's that way in the original music?
I have also actually played an ode to joy arrangement in a band piece that just had a section of ode to joy (Choose Joy by Randall Standridge), and it didn't have that "mistake" in it, although I can't remember if it even played that section.
I’m from Scotland, and I have vivid memories of only being allowed to play Hot Cross Buns and NOTHING else - we weren’t allowed to experiment and have fun with the sound. I think that’s a big reason behind a lot of people’s “dislike” of the recorder.
Some people just have not talents and playing instrument is a torture for them regardless of teaching.
Fun fact: every new piece of information I learn about Scotland's school system back in the day has been the opposite of a "fun fact."
@@baronvonsatan “back in the day” good grief I left primary school in 2012 😭😭 /lh
From the USA, I had the exact same experience!
@@dmitripogosian5084 "just not having a talent "is bullshit, you got talent from practising, compromising and experementing with any art, no one borns with talent
Wonderful video! As a music educator I always feel a responsibility to dispell those claims that things like class recorders are "fake instruments" and this is just a wonderful journey of discovery for you and I'm so happy you've shared it with us!
"You werent one of them" you didnt have to say it like that.
The burn, it was real 🔥
Yeah, she’s gonna need some aloe vera for that one
That was so savage 😮😅
fr i'm lowkey in love with melissa, she's just so savage
Apply cold water to the affected area.
i am that music teacher that teaches 4th graders recorder, and the end of the video where you played together with allison made me misty eyed. that's what it's all about! recorders are so important because it's the first instrument that most kids own and are responsible for, and is really something that they take pride in learning and playing together with their peers. so glad you were able to find that feeling, even if it was in 24th grade
I had a saxophone in 4th grade and clarinet in second.
haha, same! I mainly teach saxophone and just recently learned how to play recorder. the instrument is such a marvel. it is one of the best parts of teaching to play a nice duet with your student and hear how far they got.
@@FruityPebbles-420I was stubborn and refused to start on clarinet, so they let me start on sax 😅 a few other girls in my year did clarinet for a year or two before getting theirs, but seeing me play mine made them quite jealous at first! However, the teacher was an oboe player so between her one-on-one instruction and the group playing, I’ve actually still never used a twelfth key. Only octave keys.
@@kaitlyn__L I technically started way before band actually started. By the time that time I played clarinet for 3 years before and sax for one year before, so they had no real reason not to let me start on sax in band.
I didn’t care about it but I was deaf with a cochlear implant so couldn’t even really hear the different notes and the class just gave me a headache
I work at a wooden recorder factory, and the wast spectrum of players that come in for a test selection is mesmerizing. An old lady spending close to 5 figures on a recorder, schredding it to hell, and a young player sounding like a siren calling in sailors, on a base model "school grade" sopran.
The big subbass recorder is still funky as hell to look at though, making it sure is a chore.
Working making instruments is so cool tbh. Even if it is something as ‘simple’ as a recorder
It had occurred to me that part of why they sound so bad is that the ones the kids learn on are cheap and probably not super-well tuned. On top of that, it's something that we didn't get a choice on and all the kids were learning, not just the ones with any interest in music.
I absolutely adore the look and sound of that monster recorder though, I remember when I first learned it existed I thought it was a very high oboe. I think I agree with Allison that lower-toned recorders tend to sound better. And surprisingly the opposite is true for penny whistles, I really dig how high and clear they can get.
this is SO COOL what the heck!!! thank you for sharing dude
@@SmallSpoonBrigade depends, but generally you'll see yamahas in schools, and yamahas are very good quality for the price. my own was like 10 bucks, and i'd probably have to spend 600 to get something that sounds noticeably better to my ear.
generally, the reason schoolkids sound bad is overblowing and not sealing the holes properly. that's how you get the screeching, breaking notes.
not saying that some school districts dont cheap out and actually buy super low quality stuff, but it's just not a good savings. like i said, my own recorder was 10 bucks. you can buy them in lots of 100 with a much better price per unit.
When Alison came out swinging that giant recorder, I knew she about to lay some heat!!!
all i remember is them telling me "don't blow into it without pressing anything because it sounds awful" and then proceeding to do exactly that
Even when you do cover the holes it sounds awful
Me too
That's why I avoided using "don't" phrases in my music classroom if at all possible. Saying don't to a child, especially in elementary school, is a challenge or a dare.
Covering the rectangular shaped hole and then blowing really hard makes the MOST earpeircing sound ever. I was a bad child in music class
What does that mean. I tried that now and it just sounds like a slightly sharp D
In general, it feels like a lot of things have a way higher skill ceiling than expected; especially those where the average skill floor is particularly abysmal. The recorder is one big example but even a lot of casual party games and stuff can get REALLLLY competitive if you want it to
my experience of the recorder is that it's harder than the flute - which is sort of why the flute became more popular. it's harder to stay in tune.
@@sorrelgilbertthegilbertpri7202 harder to stay in tune definitely. But most people at a beginner level don't have a great concept of "in tune" beyond whether something sounds "bad", which could be tone/timbre too.
@sorrelgilbertthegilbertpri7202 no??
I am a flutist with some experience in recorder I would say the way you blow into a flue is harder and the fingering is also harder
Idk about the tuning comment but in pretty much every regard flute is harder then recorder
@@unkownpath9105I think it's more that with a flute when you mess up the breathing, you are more likely to get no sound at all than the shrill ear piercer that you get with a recorder. Unconfidant breath control on a recorder is painful to listen to, on a flute it kinda just turns into a hoarse whisper comparatively.
Delivery of air is easier on a recorder for sure (was for me when I was trying instruments out for band), but actual control to get a pleasant sound is less punishing for a flute. I think that's what they meant by "in tune."
@Xanthelei that's fair, BUT that's more PUNISHING that has nothing to do with difficulty
I was born and raised in China, and they also mandated the recorder learning in elementary school, in music class. I can remember many students use it to fight each other tho.
I was born and raised in the Philippines. And we also learned how to play the recorder for music class when we were in Grade 4. Where kids are average 10 years old.
the wrong type of karate lol
no matter where you are children are still children lol
I see this is an universal experience because I'm french and we had to learn how to play it too, but we call it flute, a bad translation haha
Real recorder karate
The only channel on UA-cam that will have you clicking on something bc it seems mildly interesting, and then will have you glued to your screen and crying by the end
I am SO glad they bring up doing "Too-too-too" instead of the "Hoo-hoo-hoo." At the end! The whole time I wanted to reach into my phone and shout "You gotta make a toot sound each note!"
She didn't say too, she said doo. There is a big difference between too and doo, and doo, and most of the time doo is much better. It's because too is too hard of a start, whereas doo is soft. Too is for accents.
I agree! When i was a child i actually enjoyed playing the recorder. As an adult whenever I hear anyone blowingeven a dog whistle I can tell immediately if they ever played the recorder just from hearing them hooing or dooing.
This also bugged me the whole time! Glad I checked the comments.
You can tell she’s a professional by how calmly she teaches her and her wide knowledge on the subject.
No... Really?....
Alison just shows the value of a good teacher. When you have those breakthrough moments where things click. It just displays her skill and experience. Awesome.
The recorder isn't a bad instrument and while the cheap ones aren't good, they are serviceable. The recorder is generally taught in oversized classes of young children where you aren't going to get any feedback. It sounds awful and unless you're the rare child who has the ability to observe and make adjustments you're just going to lose interest or assume you're bad at music.
I was one of those musical anomalies that figured out how to play the recorder in school and on my own. I even learned and taught tin whistle as an adult. (besides a couple music degrees and a couple other instruments). That being said, this video gave me so much joy. You nailed why learning music matters at the end. Bravo!
In Italy we learn to play the recorder in middle school and I think teaching a bunch of uninterested 11 year olds how to read and play music decently from scratch is one of the greatest feats of humanity.
It really was hella fun playing all together tho! Our Pirates of the Caribbean's theme tune was FIRE
Meanwhile my high school art teacher was so bad, I started taking notes with my left hand, because learning to write with it was the most interesting thing I could come up with.
That's why band is better. In beginner band, yeah, most of the kids probably don't want to be there, but a lot probably will find that they love to play the instrument that they chose (which wouldn't be a recorder).
@@ego-lay_atman-bay The whole time watching this I was thinking about my sax and how it's been in my closet collecting dust. I should get some music books and get back to practicing it. Hope the pads are okay still, were when I checked it out a few months ago but who knows.
I never played a recorder.
My school started us with regular band instruments at 4th grade, I played trumpet because my uncle had one I could use for free.
Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the most fun pieces we ever played in band. I was the drummer, it was amazing
Me and my stepdad are OBSESSED with playing hot cross buns to pester my mother. Familial love is so strange
Lmfao 💀
Its not even hard tho.
So i pester my friends with the goddamn muffin man. (Which is also easy)
No joke, that sounds incredibly fun. My dad and I like to bark at the dog, because once she starts barking back she goes for a few minutes. Drives my mother crazy. Highly recommend.
Hot Cross Buns is a verifiable banger tho
@@FreyaCatherineMusicand i know bangers, i know bangers
18:49 This is why it’s so important to have a teacher. If you’d started with a teacher, you would have gotten to the tonguing technique much faster. Always good to have someone listening and giving expert feedback!
true, though this is a problem even in a lot of classes. often teachers will just say “play the instrument,” without explaining tonguing or breathing techniques. i personally didn’t learn much about how to actually play the instrument correctly until i chose to pursue it on my own after my classes
@@paristracy8517 I meant private lessons, I agree that general music or even band/orchestra are not the best ways to learn to play a musical instrument well
I don’t know how I stumbled onto this video, but it was so entertaining and informative!! I loved watching your recorder journey! My favorite part was when you played Twinkle Twinkle for your friend. Her facial expressions were THE BEST! I love how she reacted to every note!! Her eyes were FANTASTIC! And all the history was so interesting! I love that you interviewed the lady at the end. That was so cool to see! Thanks for the great video and creating quality content!
petition to make sabrina run her video ideas by her therapist before filming bc feeling ASHAMED for a DECADE of how you played the recorder as a 4th grader is crazy
Im so ashamed of my elementary school music performance at 35 I, who have no fear of public speaking, physically can't bring myself to sing
she's kinda real for that though. there are a lot of things from my childhood that still give me the runaround even though they _really_ shouldn't. in the words of my therapist, "Why are you letting a 9 year old judge you now?" (Proceeded by, "I don't know!")
@@JoeMazzolaTheFirstPersonCookfelt. flashbacks to when my music teacher made us all sing the star spangled banner (which notoriously calls for a broad vocal range) INDIVIDUALY in front of the entire class. i think this was her way of scoping out kids for the school choir, but honestly that might be a little worse.
She kept saying a decade but then said she is 26 years old so unless she was 16 in 4th grade it was actually 16 years
@@february4206 Ours literally told us that was the point. It was embedded in the curriculum, though we didn't know it at that age. Extracurriculars weren't a thing the schools did at that age, but those of us who chose to (and whose parents signed off on it) were separated off to woodwinds, strings, and choir versions of the curriculum our classmates were learning with recorder. The other thing we didn't know at that age was that the first seven weeks of weekly music class were dedicated to making us all individually sing what turned out the first five songs of the curriculum so that our instruments could arrive and be tuned after having been ordered. It was supposed to be a head start for band and choir once we hit middle school and extracurriculars were on the table, since that would put those of us whose parents weren't rich enough for private lessons on the back foot in those activities otherwise.
ok but as a music teacher the progress u made in a week is pretty impressive. pat yourself on the back sabrina, if youtube fails you can always become a professional recorder
You are a teacher? I know you teach music but where is your punctuation and capitalisation? Not to mention writing u instead of you!
@@MargaretUK YT standards are very different from school standards 😅
@MargaretUK it's almost like there are different modes of writing, and a youtuve comment section doesn't need to be a formal academic treatise
@@MargaretUK Maybe Engish is their second language? But if not, you're right: no educator should be writing like that in public. (Or anywhere.)
@@SO-ym3zsThis is the adult version of "Teachers aren't people, and yes they live at school"
The one thing that has been affirmed from channels like Answer In Progress is that no matter the subject or activity that is done in this world there are people that take it _very_ seriously. If not for these people a lot of things would be lost to time
great video!! especially appreciate this for how accessible you made music making to your audience, especially genres like medieval and baroque that people tend to overlook for being “boring” or sounding “bad”. it’s so far from that! i’m also sure the recorder player really appreciated your enthusiasm and excitement about playing in your lesson, it was so refreshing to see your attitude after spending so much of my life taking music sometimes a little too seriously as a violinist/music student :) music should be fun and healing, and it is truly for everyone! that’s what it was meant for, and that’s why we have always made it. learned so much from this video about music!
I had the best elementary school music teacher. He could've taught high school band or choir, or teach expensive violin lessons, but he chose to teach at an elementary school. He always emphasized that our recorders were instruments and we could make them sound beautiful with enough practice.
Our elementary school made the choice to have only one year of using the typical recorder, and then moving to an Alto one. As kids, we were actually excited to get the bigger recorder and try to play it because it sounded so much nicer to us.
Pianos and keyboards are very easy to learn how to play a note with. You press the key, a nice sound comes out. It is almost impossible to screw up other than to press the wrong key out to press it at the wrong time.
A violin is very hard to learn. It takes weeks, if not months before you can produce a nice sounding note. In exchange, you get almost infinite control over how the note sounds over its entire duration.
A recorder is somewhere in between in difficulty. You can make a sound easily enough. It's not that hard to make it the right frequency with a bit of practice. But making it sound good is not trivial, although most people can get there in a few days. This is why it is suitable for schools. Much easier than transverse flutes. Especially for kids.
@@danielch6662 Woodwind and String instruments have the advantage of the entire instruments range being easily attainable. In Brass instruments it takes years to build up range. I played trumpet for 7 years (6th-12th grades) to reliably hit up to C6 (double C) or on a good day up to G6 on a standard Bb trumpet.
Two things: First, Alison Melville is amazing. What a wonderful teacher. I now must listen to more of her music. Second, Melissa being a sound goblin at 13:30 gives me life.
I actually have a friend who plays the recorder, and was accepted into a music conservatorium for it. Even though he eventually decided not to pursue music profesionelly, I’ve heard him play at orchestras and found its such a lovely sound! The first time i heard him I was shocked that it could sound so nice, because my only frame of reference was the third grade music lessons
If you hear someone like Lucie Horsch playing "proper" Classical pieces, you realize just what the recorder can do. It's a shame it has the stigma of being a quacking noise-maker for little kids, when it's an instrument with a centuries-old tradition of serious music-making.
I love this so much! I'm a flute player and love recorders. I have already given my 3 year old a tin whistle, which is very similar to a recorder but usually used in Irish folk music. Keep learning! Music is the best.
This made my music teacher heart happy! I used to teach elementary recorder and I always liked to show my students videos of professionals playing the recorder to show that it's a real instrument. I'm so happy you gave the recorder and yourself a second chance!
love this video. The memories of playing the recorder in elementary school were never about how well I played it, but how fun it was to mess around and play with.
Playing the recorder through your nose is peak entertainment to an 8 year old.
$8 USD! The miracles of cost reduction!
WoW! I didn’t know that this instrument is called ‚a recorder‘ in English. We call it block flute or Blockflöte in German. I chose it as my instrument in first grade and learned how to play it, and after 2 years I switched to flute. A couple of years ago my husband gifted me a student grade recorder which unfortunately has been collecting dust in a drawer. You video encouraged me to find time to re-learn how to play it! Thanks!❤
Yup. Thought it sounded super familiar. I'm an organist and there's a 16' Blockflote stop on my Rodgers that sounds -exactly- like these recorders. Absolutely love this sound
We call it flute à bec in french beak flute haha
We borrowed from that and just call it "flet" in Poland ...unless we talk about different ones, than it's the "straight/easy flute" (yes, it's a double-meaning word in Polish, how convenient XD ), to differentiate from the transverse flute, pan flute, etc.
We call it the sweet flute over here ("flauta dolça") and in Spanish it's called that as well ("flauta dulce")
@@wydx120 that's cute XD
Alison was everything you needed in the end. What a great lady and kind enough to teach you mor about the recorder.
Not me only realising now that playing the recorder in school was my stepping stone into the world of music and now it’s one of my biggest joys in life.
Meh, I disliked it.
Though, here we got them earlier on than she was talking about.
When we were 10 they were handing out actual instruments and it was the clarinet at that point which finally got me in.
Music is terrific. I can't imagine life without it. It is one of the three greatest things on earth.
In school I had the best music teacher so I actually loved music class. I was one of the best recorder players, loved music, and eventually got upgraded to the Alto recorder and did a concert for the school. I still have my recorder and all my sheet music 20 years later.
If you want a woodwind instrument, get something else, though. Like an ocarina, of which I have two.
Weird take when the flute, oboe, sax, and clarinet are probably the most well known instruments and you'll be able to very easily find a teacher for those specific woodwinds. And yes... the sax and flute are woodwinds. Also... don't gatekeep things. If a person enjoys playing a particular instrument and wants to invest time in it, speaking as a musician... that's really all that matters. Unless they are working in a professional orchestra where they are expected to know specific instruments, just let people enjoy things.
I more or less agree with you. The instrument isn't the problem, but people's perception of it is.
I play _a bunch_ of instruments, recorder included, and playing it well demands a knowledge that most music teachers do not possess. To a classroom of _at minimum_ 20 children. It's impossible to give each child the attention they need to play it decently, so most get set up for failure and walk away thinking the recorder is a bad instrument when it's really a case of no one in the room knows how to play it, and even if they do, there's not enough time nor manpower to teach it properly.
The ocarina has better public perception, even though neither is an inherently better instrument than the other, so the person playing it won't be made fun of for trying.
Alto recorders are beautiful, and a little less piercing; I'm glad you got to try one. It's a shame they probably aren't chosen due to the wide finger placement, which makes the instrument impossible for younger age groups. I like them a lot.
I think teaching tin whistle to beginning music students makes _a ton_ more sense. Most curriculums won't get past the major scale anyway, and none of the early whistle notes depend on forked fingering. And Clarke's brand are much less piercing than a recorder, and about the same price.
...Thanks for coming to my TED talk!
Why not play the recorder?
Ocarina is fun but there aren't many teachers and it's near impossible to join an orchestra. Clarinet and flute are arguably the most accessible woodwind instruments.
The ocarina does have better public perception, however, in terms of how far you can go with the instrument, recorder is much superior. Because the recorder is a period instrument of the Baroque period (mainly) there is quite a lot of classical recorder repertoire. There are many professional recorder players who make a living playing this music (and also new innovative music written for modern recorders with keys, electronic effects etc. but that's another thing). The ocarina does not have this professional environment.
I completed a music education degree two decades ago and I’m suddenly inspired to try my recorder again! Bravo!!
Your joy, excitement, and stepping into silliness to play the black belt duet, but then it actually happening, brought heartwarming tears to my eyes. A welcoming, attentive, and intentional music instructor makes all the difference, and I'm so so so happy you got to experience that!
Elementary school music teacher here. I love your video! I learned some things I didn’t know! Thanks for the vicarious musical joy!
I don't play any instrument, but I was moved by this video just the same 😊👍
I literally teach the recorder and this video made my heart so big and happy! Sabrina, the green and purple belt songs are NO JOKE its tricky to change the air to get those low notes out! So proud of your black belt!!!!
for some reason this comment clicked something in my brain, and suddenly i remembered the small rubber bands we would collect for passing each song
I actually found most of the songs pretty easy to play after some practice (This is coming from someone who started in third grade, finish the first 5 belts that year and got the black belt in fourth grade)
HOWEVER, I HAVE A VENGEANCE AGAINST THE BLUE BELT SONG BECAUSE OF ONE VERY SPECIFIC SET OF NOTES RIGHT AT THE END OF THAT SONG THAT MADE ME NOT FINISH IT IN 3RD GRADE (I had to finish it the following year). Basically it was tripping my fingers up cause it felt like I was trying to tickle the recorder in order to play the notes in the right order and I had noodle fingers getting tangle up and playing all the notes in the wrong order.
Needless to say, blue is my least favorite song, how dare it make me hate my favorite color for a bit :(
Elementary music teacher here! Just want to shine light on why we teach recorder, even though it sounds like laughing hyenas times 25. 😂 It's cheap, easy to teach, helps kids with their breathing, finger coordination, reading notes, memory, musicality, play as a group, disciplines them and makes them feel accomplished. I personally love karate recorder and I decide my own songs for each grade level (Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jingle Bells, Addams Family, Game of Thrones...) and even though most kids will probably throw away the instrument once they go to high school, some pursue music later in life and yes, the recorder acts as a stepping stone to playing a bigger and more difficult instrument. And to finish, my students from grades 3-6 love the challenge of practicing their songs to earn their belts and to have them be motivated to practice out of pleasure and out of their own free will is what makes me as their music teacher feel accomplished! ☺️
Comment to boost for the algorithm! Thank-you for your work
I loved all of my teachers. They helped raise me. Sounds like you are doing the same with your classes. you are EXCELLENT.
In other countries kids learn the Ocarina in place of the recorder. It’s just as cheap, plastic and sounds awful if you try to play anything that resembles a high note just like a recorder! But it is an important part of teaching the kids about music theory and developing their fine motor skills so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
The question is though, why is recorder the instrument of choice as opposed to say a penny whistle which would give all the same benefits, has much simpler mechanics (ergo easier for a young student to get more out of it), and just as cheap to produce?
It seems a far better mass instrument in the US/Can to introduce to 7 year olds is the harmonica. It plays music by scales as a piano or harp does....is actually a pleasant sound when done anywhere close to right....is cheaper than many of these flutaphones (at least good ones)...and might get used by more kids IRL as it is a pocket instrument to pass the time.
A 11 yo that pulls out the recorder to whistle on under a tree at best looks like Doctor Who and at worst has Poinextrose posing from every pore.
A harmonica might sound a bit cooler and hip to a group of kids.
What a wholesome video. I recently brought out my old recorder because I was playing a bard in a dnd campain, and I wanted to annoy my friends a little, but then I started to learn for real, because it was so much fun. (I did not learn much. But at least I tried xD)
Seeing Sabrina get really into the recorder (playing it and learning its history) and her interactions with Alison felt so wholesome and heartwarming. Thank you, Sabrina for the video, and also ignore Melissa, she's just a hater lol
Pentatonix, the a capella group, was named for the pentatonic scale, a scale with 5 (penta) tones just as Pentatonix has 5 (Penta) singers. If it ends with "c" it's the scale; if it ends with "x" it's the a capella group.
There are several varieties of pentatonic scale, but the most common one (at least in the U.S.) can use any of its five notes as the tonic, or root note, of the song. This makes it especially easy for a beginner to compose a melody in it, because any random sequence of notes, as long as they don't wander outside the scale, will sound good.
The pentatonic scale is responsible for a large proportion of the character of the blues.
A lot of heavy metal guitar solo's are based on the pentatonic scale.
I just love this channel. You guys ask the questions that I’m curious about, but never sit down to actually think about. It’s so fun getting to know the why behind silly questions like these! :)
Congratulations on achieving your black belt! I love the velvety sounds of the bigger wooden recorders. They are so beautiful. I also am terrible at recorder, but I'm glad to know that if I practiced I might not suck at it so much. It's incredible that the blue clear plastic one sounded so much sharper even when played by a professional who knew what she was doing.
It's always nice to see somebody openly humor a request like this, simply for the love of the art. And no heavy judgement either.
The Mandalorian theme prominently features a bass recorder and ever since I learned that, I've basically been waiting for this video to come out.
Then high pitch ones are criminal to introduce people to music with.
@@adaroben1104 I can understand they might not sound the most pleasant in a novice's hands, but think about what the video pointed out. The range of the instrument is affected by its size; it'd be unreasonable to expect 4th graders to maneuver bigger bass recorders, especially while their tiny hands are still learning fine motor skills in general.
@@adaroben1104 The lower pitched instruments have much larger fingerings, specifically the tenor, so the higher pitched instruments are more suitable for a child's hand size.
I have an alto recorder, the size up from what's used in schools, and the tone hole spacing is somewhat uncomfortable for my hands. There's no way most fourth graders could play one.
@@adaroben1104The larger instruments are more difficult to get air through, therefore more difficult to produce tones for beginners. So that’s why we have to start with the screechy ones 😅
Alison's personality is so sweet. She really does look and sound like a person with a dream, and a lot of drive to play the instrument she loves. I'm glad you chose her!
Now, to make a petition to make Alison someone school consult for bettering the curriculum!
i’m so happy to see people gaining an appreciation for the recorder!!! I picked it up again in high school and I now play the supranino through tenor, but I almost never tell people because I always get the same weird looks. thank you so much for taking the time to learn the history of such a beautiful sounding instrument (in the right hands, of course)
The best part of the youtube algorithm is serving up a video from a new channel with tons of new content to watch. I'm glad I found your channel, and I've been binging your videos over the past few days.
“It was the nazis” caught me off guard
Those guys were into everything though.
Volkswagen, Adidas, Hugo Boss, certain mental disorders, and now the recorder. The Nazis really had a hand in a lot of things, didn't they?
I accidentally bursted out laughing once hearing that
Volkswagen
Same. Why the heck did the Nazis even need that many recorders?
I think that one of the mistakes of teaching the recorder is not showing kids that it can sound a lot better. I loved playing music when I was a kid and I went through the equivalent of the recorder black belt really quickly. The response was “well done, that’s nice” and then never playing or taking about it again. I have older relatives on the other hand who had proper recorder programs in school where kids who were keen were given more complex music to learn.
This is an awesome video! When I was in school (homeschooled) my neighbor taught me and my best friend recorder. I played tenor recorder. He played alto, while my friend played soprano. It was so much fun. We played all these songs from like the 15/1600's I'm pretty sure. It really made me love the instrument so much. It has a real special place in my heart now. I no longer remember how to read music but it definitely still helps my music playing to this day.
You sounded amazing and it was awesome seeing you play together with the teacher!
THAT WAS DELIGHTFUL! Love Sabrina's face when she's getting the lesson at the end, and playing together. The joy of learning and sharing music! (Even if what you do is slightly shit sometimes)
Sabrina bouncing to keep the beat is absolutely adorable. I used to play recorder in an ensemble in school and we were actually pretty good!
15:11 *pulls out comically large recorder*
Haha a friend of mine, who trades with stuff he finds on flee markets and such, brought me one of those (because i kinda collect instruments). I love it so much, it sounds wonderful!
You know they get a lot larger than that, right?
I'm truly surprised. This video was randomly suggested to me and I'm truly happy it was. It was an incredibly wholesome and happy video and actually informative as well as uplifting. You earned another subscriber today. Thank you for bringing this joy to the world ❤️
I love hearing Allison play the recorder, it sounds so lively and energetic. It makes it feel like the recorder is just a different type of flute
Or the flute is a different type of recorder! The recorder was much more commonly used before the modern concert flute evolved :)
I don't know which is the inaccurate naming but in Italy we call recorders flutes, more specifically "flauto dolce" (sweet flute) to distinguish from the traverse flute
@@hamcha that’s very interesting!
Well I think it is. In German it’s also called a “block flute” and not a completely different name that does not contain the word “flute”.
The recorder, is a flute, it's more commonly called the 'block flute' or 'sweet flute' around the world, it's only really English speaking countries that call it the recorder.
I am fellow 26 year old who failed to learn the recorder at school and this year I picked up the guitar for the first time. I had pretty much the same experience Sabrina had here, learning ode to joy and twinkle twinkle and omg guys it’s so fun to let yourself be bad at things. Best decision I’ve made this year
I learned both the Marimba and the recorder in elementary school! My school definitely put more emphasis on the marimba and it’s an incredibly fun instrument to learn and play especially in a group and really does teach you much more about music theory and how to play as a group.
Allison was so lovely and kind! I appreciate her taking the time to educate all of us!
this is my favourite AIP video in recent memory. It's really the best of both worlds. The question in the title is satisfyingly answered, and the quest/shenanigan/storytelling element is really effective and intergrated. I often miss the older style that would focus on answering the question with research, but this one hits different. This made me want to pick up my recorder again :)
The music room at my elementary school had racks of ukuleles at the back that no one ever touched. The one time we took them down, we spent the whole class trying to tune them. I think the recorder is definitely a more simple way to go with getting kids to try a musical instrument. 😀
BTW - our school had an excellent music program - it just didn't include the ukuleles
I learned to play the piano as a first instrument at school. The pianos were super small and battery operated. I had a classmate who had a version of a small piano that you had to blow in in order to produce a sound. It was wild!
@@Morwenait’s called a melodica
I'm so glad you made this video!! I fell in love with the recorder as an 18 year old and have put a lot of time into learning and practicing them. No one in my life understands this, and no one seems to believe me when I tell them it's a valid instrument with repertoire and everything! I'm showing this to everyone now!
7:15 Queen, I felt EVERY MINUTE of your facial expressions hahahahahaha
Omg those clips of professional recorder players sounded very good, my immediate thought was that it sounds like the flute but more Fae like.
There's another good example in the beginning of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by The Danish National Symphony Orchestra which you can find here on UA-cam.
Lucie Horsch is definitely someone to look up on UA-cam if you liked what you saw in the video (there are lots of her videos). She is an absolutely amazing recorder player.
I find the marimba connection very interesting, since when I was in elementary school in the late 1980's, we didn't have recorders, but did have a few marimba-like sets of individual note percussive bells (like a deconstructed xylophone). They were used in class and students took turns playing them while everyone else "sang" along, which I guess was to convey we all got it lol.
Man this was one of your best videos I've seen, tagged all the nostalgia, curiosity, learning omg
It's always great getting to see people find joy when they make leaps in their musical learning. Just like watching vocal students every time they make a breakthrough.
So as a kid who learned the transverse flute before I ever learned recorder it always amazed me that no instruction was given on breathing, breath/air flow control, and articulation (tonging/the la la la thing). It MASSIVELY changes the sound of the instrument and might just have left more people not hating recorder.
My teachers taught about breathing and tonguing... and I'm a teacher who also taught these things when sharing recorder with my students.
@@aimeeontheharp Yeah, I was taught this stuff in class too, 20+ years ago. I think there might be some mediocre elementary music teachers around who gloss over it because they also hate recorder but this is one of the first lessons you get.
People act like it's normal not to be taught how to breathe. The lesson would've happened when that breath mark was introduced if not before.
as a recorder player, this was very charming to watch!
keep going, it gets better once you have to use your knee to play the notes 😂
Why is this video of someone rediscovering the joys of playing a recorder the most wholesome thing I feel like I've ever seen? The ending was just soooo good with the professional playing along with you! God damn it, where's my recorder? I've got to go earn my black belt!
Your final rendition of Ode t
To Joy was the most true performance to its name that I have ever heard.
That was pure joy both from the music you were creating together and shown through the music you created and it is genuinely one of the most heartwarming things I've watched/listened to in quite a while.
So, congratulations, you have not only achieved your black belt but you've unironically created my favourite performance of Ode To Joy I've ever head 💖
After being introduced to the recorder in 4th grade, and then picking up guitar in my early 20s, I revisited the recorder in my mid 20s, like yourself. I learned some songs, including a Bach piece, and I then joined a recorder orchestra, maybe 30 pieces with every type of recorder represented, piccolo through bass. I only stuck around for one concert, but it kind of blew my mind, the sound of 30 recorders and playing with them. This was in the 90s, and I had forgotten about it until seeing your video. Thanks for the memories.
I relate to your 10+ year struggle with learning recorder so much. I have Dyspraxia (AKA Developmental co-ordination disorder AKA Clumsy Child Syndrome, that used to be a real name for it) and learning recorder was so hard. The easy songs were still easy for me, but once we started learning complex songs like the Titanic theme, I could only play them at like half speed. Then when we started learning ode to joy I just couldn't do it at all. The way you feel about playing recorder is like the same way I feel about it, as well as riding a bike, handwriting, tying shoes quickly, etc. Nice to see someone going through something similar.
I never thought about what it would be like for someone to try to learn music as an adult since a lot of this stuff has been ingrained in me.
I felt immensely proud of you for trying this out.
I took piano lessons as a child. Hated it. Took piano lessons as an adult (from 1975 to 1983) and absolutely loved it. I had a fantastic teacher who allowed me to play music I liked, as well as classical music.
Omg, when you figured out the different techniques that the professional was teaching you, the pure joy of learning was so adorable! Thanks for sharing your joy! 😊
As a professional musician I find this so wholesome :D
not a professional musician, but as someone who does spends a lot of time playing and learning and working on music...I know, right?!
it's so easy to get caught up in practicing and polishing and forget *why* we do all this, and videos like this can bring us back to earth
I actually got myself a decent recorder so I could help my daughter learn how to play when she got to that part in school and I NEVER played it because my daughter spent all of 3rd grade schooling from home during lockdown. They skipped right past that whole section of the curriculum and jumped straight to actual band/orchestra and she picked violin. Timing!
well, you can always play it anyways..
Give it a try, you might enjoy it 🙂
I loved learning and playing recorder. Had a race to finish the belts with one other kid in my class and we ended up being the only ones to complete the program (both very quickly), and we got new special fancy recorders (translucent and fancier shaped) as a reward :]
What a WONDERFUL, UPLIFTING, LIBERATING video!!!! Thank you.
I'm a LOT older than you are, so I remember a Beatle's song, 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", a song that ends with a flute playing the most beautiful melody I had ever heard. I wanted so much to learn it, I went to the music teacher in my school to ask if she could teach me how to play it on a recorder. She laughed at me and told me that music was being played on a flute, a real musical instrument that cost hundreds of dollars, not a dime store plastic toy. So that ended my musical career.
Your video has inspired me. I want to find someone who can tell me what key recorder to buy and teach me the basics so I can learn to play "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" almost 60 years later. I want to be just a little musical before I die. Thank you for that.
I’m learning to play the recorder and having so much fun! I found this through the Team Recorder channel and I’m glad to be introduced to this channel! I love how thorough you were in your research. I hope you continue to play!
Yes! Going back to relearn the recorder as an adult was eye opening. I think we need to show kids and teachers what it CAN sound like.
seeing Sabrina get progressively better at recorder is so wonderful and delightful to me. It just makes me so sparkly and happy~