Recorder Improvisation and Technique Book Two: Intermediate for Alto and Soprano Recorder

Recorder Improvisation and Technique Book Two

Reviewers Rave

"Book Two builds directly on skills introduced in Book One, also introducing the alto recorder and F fingerings. On both soprano and alto recorder, 13 lessons review pentatonic keys, then explore the diatonic modes, and finally briefly introduce improvisation over chord changes." ~Leslie Timmons in American Recorder, the magazine of the American Recorder Society

"Clear, well developed teaching activities beautifully set out in a way that makes them accessible to both experienced and inexperienced teachers….It is very clear that [Carley] is a master teacher."~ Kim Kendrick in Ostinato, the National Journal of Orff Canada

“Your recorder books are excellent ... completely in the spirit of the Schulwerk.”~ Gunild Keetman, co-creator with Carl Orff of the Orff Schulwerk

What's Inside?

"Book Two continues [masterfully], introducing the alto recorder. This is an excellent resource for experienced teachers of the upper grades, 6, 7 and 8.

• The repertoire continues with folk music, largely English language, and also brings in a fine selection of composed music written for recorders.
• Part l of Book Two begins by reviewing the familiar pentatonic scales, but introducing the F fingerings of the alto recorder.
• Parts ll, lll, and lV deal with hexatonic, and diatonic scales, then we move on to shifting chords and paraphony.
• There are plenty of lovely ideas for student improvisation, and the emphasis on doing first, then applying literacy, is still evident.
• Students are encouraged to move back and forth between soprano and alto fingerings, at their own pace, of course.
• They are also challenged to build a repertoire of songs, in both fingerings, that they can play by memory.
• Integration of two or more other Orff media is included in every lesson.

~Kim Kendrick in Ostinato the National Journal of Orff Canada

Isabel McNeill Carley was a published composer, writer, editor and lifelong innovator and creative teacher of music. The first American Honors graduate of the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria, she was a founding member of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association. She established and edited for its first fifteen years AOSA's journal, The Orff Echo, and organized and instructed at Orff certification programs in the US and abroad. She composed works for piano, instrumental and vocal ensembles, performed in chamber-music consorts, and taught music for over fifty years to children and adults.

Carley's three-book Recorder Improvisation and Technique series is a classic, integrating recorder instruction with musicianship, improvisation and the Orff Approach. It is used successfully in Orff certification courses as well as classrooms.