Keep it Simple

Simplicity is hard.

We live in a busy world with tons of distractions. I encourage you to eliminate as many distractions as possible when you study this material.

Learning to read music will require you to tune out those distractions and focus on the task in front of you. The recorder will help you with that.

If you’ve ever played an electric piano or synthesizer, you’ve probably been amazed at all the sounds and effects. Cool stuff, for sure… but all those sounds don’t help with reading music. Instead, they are usually a distraction.

And same with playing the guitar. Who doesn’t want to figure out their favorite song or riff to jam along with? But again – how does that help with reading music?

Practicality

There are 3 practical reasons we use the recorder in this course:

1. A recorder is cheap. (about $5.00 – $8.00)
2. The recorder is not physically demanding. (small & lightweight)
3. It is portable. (take it anywhere)

Plus, even though it can’t play bass notes or chords, the limitations actually work in your favor. It helps you focus on what it does best – learning the language of music.

Your goal is NOT to become a professional recorder player, but instead to master the basics of reading music. As I’ll explain in this video lesson, it’s the perfect instrument for everything we need to learn.

Yes, the Pandemic has produced a ton of cheesy YouTube covers, and it’s often thought of as just a “kid’s instrument” used in 5th grade music class. But long before YouTube, there were several artists that dropped the recorder in their songs with great results:

• The Beatles – “The Fool on the Hill”
• The Rollling Stones – “Ruby Tuesday”
• Led Zeppelin – “Stairway to Heaven”

And even Jimi Hendrix, Yes and Mannheim Steamroller used it in recordings.

So get your recorder, strap in, and let’s get busy learning to read music.