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

Like Recorder Improvisation and Technique Book One, Book Two is designed to parallel and supplement the basic material in the Orff Schulwerk publications, and to spell out in detail how the sequence can best be applied to learning and teaching the recorder.

Book Two concentrates on the alto recorder, with improvisations, exercises, and appropriate repertoire. Part I begins with lessons transferring pentatonic fingering patterns to the alto instrument until the notation is thoroughly familiar. Then the major scales in F, C, G and Bb are elucidated by filling in the holes in the familiar pentatonic scales, through improvisation, exercises and repertoire in hexatonic and diatonic versions.

By Lesson 6, the student is improvising variations by ear. Starting with Lesson 7, the student begins a comprehensive understanding of the diatonic modes. The final two lessons on shifting-chord accompaniments and paraphony (parallel melodic progressions using fourths and fifths), are an open doorway to a musical life that embraces improvisation and composition.