Every year I go through my recorder resources to find songs that my 3rd graders would like to learn to play. My criteria is music that has at most 3 notes and simplistic rhythms, since my 3rd graders are novice recorder players. I have numerous recorder resources to choose from and I have tried many of them. My students enjoy them all, however, I have to state that they tend to enjoy Don Muro’s music the most. My students will beg to play the songs “Rocket,” Queen B,” and “Land’s End” from Introducing BAG. We have also peformed songs from his “Easy 8″ which adds a note per song and again, they beg to play “All Alone” and “Get Ready.” If you know of his music, then you know that the students like to play his music because of his amazing accompaniments. I have never seen students adore playing a song with the note B over and over again, unless it is one of his songs.
When I began planning for this upcoming year, I was thrilled to read in West Catalog that he just wrote an additional book of songs for beginner recorder players. It is titled “In The Beginning” and it involves six songs: one song for the note B, three songs for the notes B and A, and two songs for the notes B A and G. If you go to this website, you can hear excerpts from three of the six songs.
The songs contain Don’s talent for composing accompaniments that are unique, assist the students in feeling the steady beat, and represent various styles, meters, and eras of music. I look forward to using this new resource in my classroom. If you have never heard of his recorder music, I highly recommend checking out this new resource, or one of his many recorder songs. My students just love his music!
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