Everyone's school experience is different, but one thing many of us share is having learned to play the flutophone back in elementary school.
"Flutophone" is what we called it, anyway. Officially it's a "recorder."
Either way, it's a simple plastic instrument with tone holes. You blow into it and use various fingerings to produce different notes.
In theory, that is. In practice, whenever we all played our recorders at the same time during music class, it was more of a cacophonous free-for-all than a coordinated wind ensemble.
I don't remember what grade it was in (maybe 5th?), but I recall Ms. Gifford being the one to teach us the basics of the recorder. And what a valiant effort she made.
I had an advantage in that I had been playing the saxophone for a year or two, and recorder fingerings are very much like saxophone fingerings. This experience allowed me to start banging out tunes pretty quickly.
But others, whose talents clearly lay elsewhere, did not. Which is why I think elementary school music teachers who choose to incorporate the recorder/flutophone into their curricula are true heroes.
We learned something simple at first. Probably "Hot Cross Buns" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb." But our big project was mastering a rendition of John Denver's "Fly Away" in which a small section of us who were a bit more skilled on the instrument played a countermelody, over top of which the rest of the class played the main melody.
I don't have a recording of it, but I'm sure it was first rate.
In any case, I think this was a good experience for everyone involved, with the very possible exception of Ms. Gifford. Learning the basics of reading and producing music engages both sides of the brain and is beneficial for anyone.
Interestingly, I met up with Ms. Gifford just a few years ago at a Weight Watchers meeting. It was fun talking to her, and I'm pleased to report that she seems to have overcome any traces of flutophone-induced PTSD.
God bless her.
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