Play recorder

Video collection

Devised and created alongside a team of recorder specialists, Sing Up's Play recorder resource comprises 3 original pieces, each with a 12-week unit of work for Year 3 and 4. All three pieces are suitable for classroom teaching with generalist and specialist music teachers, each with 3 differentiated playing parts for pupils. The lessons begin with children as absolute beginners – learning to hold the instrument; to make and control sounds; to play three notes on simple rhythms - adding notes and advancing to more complex rhythms as they progress.

On this page, we’ve collected all the resources you’ll need to run a lunchtime or after school recorder club – videos, pieces, print-able resources and inspiration. If you are planning to incorporate the recorder into your curriculum provision, you will find a 12-lesson unit of work on each piece's page as part of Sing Up Music.

Get organised and inspired

 

Meet the recorder family

From garklein to contrabass
 

Recorder inspiration

Videos to spark the imagination
 

Resource management

Essential advice
 

Shop instruments

Recorders and more

Get playing

 

First things first

How to hold the recorder and produce a sound
 

Notes and techniques

Fingering charts, extended techniques
 

Warm-ups

Breath, tongue, fingers, hands and body
 

Articulation

Legato, staccato and slurs

Listen to the pieces

Enchanted forest
Enchanted forest
Enter a magical environment that will stimulate the creative imagination. Introducing the notes B A G.
Monsters, monsters!
Monsters, monsters!
Embark on a ‘dream quest’ to defeat the monsters under the bed. Introducing the notes C, high D and low E.
Earthlight
Earthlight
Take off on a voyage through space with only the Earthlight to guide us home. Introducing the notes low D, F# and C#.

Play recorder was devised and created by:
Alison Walker, Emma Coulthard, Jill Kemp, and Miriam Monaghan,
alongside Shelly Ambury, Beth Millett and Jenny Lascelles of Sing Up.

Illustrations - Ella Watson
Video capture - Max Bandicoot
Video editing - William Howarth

Back to top