4th Grade Recorder Recital, no Earplugs Necessary

The last two Tuesday nights have been spent at Plano Elementary watching my children perform music-related numbers.  Miles had his performance last week (see post below), and Karson had her 4th grade performance this week.  I didn't have the opportunity to play the recorder as a 4th grader, but apparently, every other child on the planet did.  When I told people about the recorder recital, they would always begin with...I remember doing that in 4th grade.  Thanks a lot Ms. Flowers--I totally feel slighted not having that experience!  

When Karson started school this year, she was asked to purchase her own recorder for music class.  The first semester of school the students worked on what the teacher called "Recorder Karate".   This method of teaching is a reward system where children earn different colored belts to tie on their recorders for each progressively harder tune they master.  I know this is shocking, but Karson was on the fast-track to getting all her belts and practiced all the time.  At Plano, however, students don't have their "specials" classes each week.  They have them for an entire week during each rotation so teachers can teach concepts to the children.  SO, Karson couldn't take her recorder tests until the week she had music as her special.  I believe it only took her a month or two to receive all her belts. She has thoroughly enjoyed playing the recorder (but quite honestly it is much more pleasant hearing her play the piano).

I didn't know what to expect the night of the performance.  Karson had received little information about  it.  I know musical instruments aren't for everyone so I'm thinking Ms. Cothran wasn't wanting to make the recital mandatory for everyone.  I noticed there were only a handful of children in attendance.  I had no idea what to expect.  I'd heard Karson practice enough that I was dreading attending a performance where 60+ kids would be blowing on those suckers.  However, the delivery Ms. C took was beautiful.  The classes played a few songs together with musical accompaniment.  Then, each individual class played two songs a piece.  The concert ended with two duets.  Karson was bummed that she wasn't in a duet although they literally lasted less than a minute total.

Here is a sample of the performance.  I'm looking forward to more recorder recitals.