The No-Television Experiment, Day 13

The children have four good-quality recorders in their toy box, and for at least a year I've been meaning to start teaching Sebastian and Serena how to play, but since I haven't played myself since my ninth-grade year in Istanbul, I've kept putting it off.  Well, this Monday, after several hours of playing with some cardboard boxes in the back yard with Serena, Sebastian came into the living room looking for something to do.  This is the time of day when I used to say he could put on a DVD--when he seemed to have exhausted his creativity for the day and we were all a bit tired an impatient.  Since there was no TV this time (he hasn't even asked this week), he went over to the basket of books that we keep in a corner of the living-room floor and picked out a recorder book that I'd picked up at a garage sale or a thrift store on some long-forgotten weekend, brought it over to me, and said happily, "Let's play recorder!"

I've been wanting to start him on an instrument since he turned three last summer.  He's loved violin music since he was a baby, and just after this third birthday my friend Francie gave him a few lessons during a week-long visit (and again when we visited her for her wedding celebration in Newfoundland), which he adored, so last fall I embarked on a several-month-long journey to find him a teacher.  

I finally found someone who was willing to teach violin to such a young child, but Sebastian didn't respond to her like he did to Francie.  He found her intimidating and refused to try anything she suggested, hiding behind my legs and making funny faces until we decided to call it off until he was older (or, I thought to myself, until I could find him a teacher with whom he'd feel more comfortable).  I grew up playing piano and would like to teach him to play piano, too, but I don't currently have one in the house.  For now, I am happy that, because of the No-Television Experiment, we have finally started learning to play the recorder together.  

I was pretty good at the recorder as a child, by the admittedly low standards of school recorder-playing.  In my school in Istanbul, all we did in music class all year long was play the flûte à bec, and the teacher (who once got hit in the forehead by a flying piece of recorder belonging to one of my classmates) used to have me demonstrate every new piece to the class before they attempted to play in a cacophony of squeaks and squeals (I guess that says something for the quality of Canadian music education).  Okay, the competition was basically nil, but, still, I was a decent recorder player and enjoyed playing.

I found out only much later that the recorder is not just a toy instrument invented for the purpose of helping children to make lots of noise at school but a serious instrument with a long history and the capability to produce beautiful music (see Jim Phypers's recorder website for a brief historical overview and some nice recordings of recorder music to start out with).  It remains an excellent first instrument for a child because the basics are uncomplicated and because it's practically indestructible and very inexpensive to buy or replace; a high-quality instrument can be had online for $20 or less. 

Our first three days of "lessons" (all initiated by Sebastian) have been a lot of fun.  Sebastian has learned the proper method for "tongueing" and knows how to play the notes "B" and "A."  The only problem is that his hands are a bit small to cover all the holes simultaneously; perhaps a sopranino recorder (the smallest type) would work better for him until he gets a little bigger, but if I try that I will have to find a sopranino method since the notes are not the same as on a regular (soprano) recorder.  

There are six basic types of recorder: in addition to the sopranino (or descant) and soprano, which are the smallest and highest-pitched, there exist alto (or treble), tenor, bass, and contra-bass varieties.  Others, including the 8-to-9-foot-tall sub-contrabass, are less commonly played (not to mention expensive).  

I have, of course, already taught my children to say "flûte à bec."  Now that we've gotten over our first recorder-playing hurdle--getting started--I figure I might as well make this another opportunity to learn some French, which shouldn't be too hard since I had that entire year of French scholastic recorder-playing in Istanbul.  I've been trying to refresh my memory as to the relevant vocabulary, and I can already see that learning to play the recorder in French will be rich in new vocabulary for the kids.  

First there are the names of the musical notes, which do not go by the letters of the alphabet (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C) as in English but use the solfège system (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do).  There will be the names of the individual fingers and of the note and rest lengths (my favourite is the quarter rest, called the "soupir," or sigh, in French).  And of course there will be lots of verbs, such as "hold," "play," "cover," "uncover," "move," "wait," "start," "repeat," and so on, most of which will be useful in other everyday conversations, too.  I am especially anxious to add more verbs to the kids' French vocabulary, since they currently know mostly nouns and set phrases.

I have found some helpful websites by searching on Google.fr (France) and Google.ca (Canada).  My favourite so far is a site called: Flûtalors from Quebec, which is nicely organized with audio demonstrations and traditional French children's songs to play with each new note that is introduced.  If anyone finds something even better (in French or another language), please feel free to post the link(s) here!

There are also a large number of recorder-method books available in French for those who would like to combine their children's musical education with a French-immersion experience (the amount of text is probably small enough to be manageable even to parents who aren't fluent speakers/readers of the language).  These vary from compilations of the same old pieces that you played on the recorder in elementary school to international compilations; methods based on African, Middle Eastern, or Celtic folk tunes; and rock and jazz methods.  Actually, I think recorder methods are one area in which there are a greater variety of books available in French than in English, although we English speakers do have Harry Potter for Recorder. 

I'm off to play some more flûte à bec.  More no-television and recorder-playing updates coming soon!