Little Winter Duets
I’m excited to share my “Little Winter Duets” series, a charming collection of three short tunes for beginning recorder players. These melodies are easily approachable for late third or early fourth-grade students, depending on which grade level you start recording with, and they are undoubtedly enjoyable at any age. They also introduce beginner students to the joy of playing in harmony with one another. Which notes sound the same? Which sound a little “clashy,” and which sounds like they are in harmony? These are great questions as you go through these tunes with your students.
I start recorder playing with G and E, then progress up to A and B after a few weeks. My third graders won’t be ready for this year, but my 4th graders will. I may even have my 5th graders play this as a warm-up activity.
When exploring these tunes, you could have students first learn the melodies on their own if they are at the point where they can read notation, or you could teach them by rote. To get students to own their learning, I suggest pairing them up into groups of about four students, having them teach themselves the melody and harmony, and then working as a group to play the song together. You could also have students in pairs, though I would suggest that for beginner players, each part has two students playing it so that they can have each other's support. Depending on class size, each duet could be assigned to specific groups. Once each group can play independently, have the class come back together and play along with the video. As much as I love using YouTube videos, I always value having my students perform music independently without any support from a video or background track.
If you would like, you can purchase a score, slideshow, and MP3s of the duets to support your teaching.
This Google slideshow contains:
Slides for each of the three duets
Fingering charts for the notes used in the activity
Recordings for each duet
Links to the MP3 files, video download, and score
