Is The Recorder Easy To Learn?

Is The Recorder Flute Easy To Learn?

You may wonder: Is the recorder easy to learn? Playing the recorder is already one of the learnings that are practiced in schools, doing it well can be easy with the advice that we provide you.

Playing the flute can be a goal that we can achieve. Like all musical instruments, it has a learning curve, but in the case of the flute, it is not very steep. But you have to have the perseverance to learn to play this instrument well.

A recorder has eight holes and for it to sound, you have to cover the precise holes with your fingers. Each of the holes represents a musical note, so you have to know which note sounds in each case. Its shape is elongated, it has a nozzle at one end and a hole at the other.

When it is blown, the air will filter in different ways as we cover holes. To learn to play the flute, it is best to start with the simplest model. You are probably familiar with the bone-colored flutes that have been used in schools for years. This flute is known as a recorder, we must start learning to play this type of flute, and then move on to more complicated ones.

Learn The Notes And Know The Staff

Without it, there will be no basis on which to base the knowledge to be able to play the flute.

The staff is the canvas where the musical notes that we must learn go. The first thing you will see is the clef of the score. It can be in treble clef, re, mi, or any of the rest of the musical notes. In this case, the flute generally uses the treble clef.

The compass will be expressed as a fraction and indicates the duration that the percussions must have. We will also find the notes, which are placed in a drawing of five lines and four spaces. You need to learn where the treble clef notes are and place them on the lines and spaces of the staff.

At the top, we will find the sustained notes. In this case, you have to draw additional lines so that they can be represented. Later we must look at how a particular note is because they have its meaning. If it’s a quarter note, it’s a measure; if it is a half note, it is two measures and if it is the eighth note, it is a half note, for example.

Learning to read notes is not something that can be done in an hour, it requires patience, passion, and a lot of testing. Just by trying and trying, we will acquire the necessary knowledge. In time, we will be able to read the notes in a relatively simple way. If we keep practicing, we will be able to interpret them faster and faster.

Express Notes

In the upper part of the recorder, we will find seven holes, and in the lower part with one. The bottom one must always be covered and the rest of the holes represent the musical notes. The holes go from top to bottom in the same order as the notes.

To get the standard notes, we will have to progressively cover the holes. For the do, we will only cover the first one, but to sound the note fa, we will have to cover the hole of the do, re, mi and fa. Following this rule of three, we will already know how to make each musical note sound on the flute when we play it. The sharps are carried out by uncovering the bottom hole a little, but it is more complex.

Learning Should Always Be Done From The Beginning

When you know how to interpret the staff, recognize the notes and play them, it’s time to start playing. Experts insist on the importance of carrying out these steps before launching into practice. They recognize that starting by playing first is a big mistake that can lead to flaws and mana.

In addition, seeing that it is not done well (due to lack of knowledge) it is easy for frustration to appear and lower our self-esteem. Modern psychology warns us that we should not demand too much of ourselves.

The best advice is to start with the easiest, with simple themes, basic notes, and no sharps as the different self-help treatises indicate. The music themes for flute that we can find in children’s music books are a good start. They are beginner level and will be of great help when we are taking our first steps. We should not feel bad if we use this kind of book, because we too will learn like children. In this way, we will do it more easily.

Practice Is The Secret Of Success

Who knows if one day we will be able to play in the presence of an audience, as speaking in an auditorium can be a fearsome exercise, but we can achieve it by practicing.

It is of little use to practice only once a week or every ten days. If you want to learn to play the flute, remember everything you have learned so far and work hard. It doesn’t have to be every day for hours on end, but an hour or two a day will suffice. In this way, you will learn more quickly and progressively.

Easy topics will give way to more complex ones, being the correct way to learn. Finger placement should be practiced well to avoid notes being out of tune. In addition, it also serves to be able to play the correct measure that we can read in the score.

Another aspect of great importance is to listen to the original theme that you are interpreting. This way you will have a reference to guide you. An important recommendation is to play only the same song until it is completely learned. When it’s played without a problem, with all the correct notes, you can move on to another song.

Five Tips To Learn To Play The Recorder

The recorder is one of the instruments chosen to teach music by most music teachers, it is very simple when it comes to knowing the musical notes and learning new melodies.

  1. Consider the position of the body

    It is recommended to hold the instrument with your arms raised high to facilitate deep breathing. Head high, trunk and neck straight. Thus the air flows unhindered. If you are sitting in a chair, make sure that it has a straight back so that your back can be supported comfortably and relaxed.

  2. How to hold the recorder

    The left-hand presses the holes above and the right hand those below. Try not to touch the mouthpiece with your teeth.

  3. Pay attention to the placement of the fingers

    The hands and fingers have to be relaxed, it is not necessary to apply a lot of pressure to make it sound good, but you must make sure that the fingertips cover the holes well so that the notes sound. Above all, the thumb of the left hand must be placed correctly, otherwise, the other notes will not sound.

  4. First practice with the fingers of the left hand

    You can start playing simple melodies, with few notes and as you improve the sound you add the other fingers

  5. Learn to control your breathing

    This is key because through good air management you can achieve different nuances and sound articulations that will improve the interpretive quality of the melodies. So we will gently support the flute on our lips and as the sounds of the flute become more serious we have to emit the air more smoothly because if we emit too much air the sound will be excessively distorted.

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