recorder karate

[kfeusse]

Product Detail: Recorder Karate has anybody here had any expereince with this? Did you like it?? thoughts??

[Dmmetler]

I have it, and really like it for group settings, and have used it as both a school music teacher and for homeschool co-ops. It's a "buy once, copy forever" sort of program, and purchase authorizes you to give your students the code to access the audio online so they can practice with the recordings. The "Belts" are a great incentive. Dexter Dragon's Amazing Recorder Adventure, by the same company, is similar and equally fun, and is a good one for younger students because it starts even slower-the first song only has one note!

 

I do want to give one caveat, though-it's not a complete program, and it's not meant to be a complete program. Rather, it's designed to be an assessment tool for school music teachers to use to evaluate students quickly and easily, while also teaching the skills in class in other ways, and to provide students with written music very, very cheaply. Most teachers use it with a curriculum like Recorder Routes or Tutoring Tooters-something designed for group instruction that doesn't have a student book. For this reason, if you want to teach recorder to your kids at home, it's probably not the best choice for materials-you can buy a full recorder method book with CD which is much more incremental for less than the cost of the RK book, and then pick specific pieces and make them the "belt test" pieces and tie the cute little pieces of embroidery floss or ribbon on the recorder, and get the same effect. And, in fact, if you check the teacher discussion boards on the Music K-8.com site, and look for recorder karate, you'll find that teachers have set up their plans for just about every major recorder method known to man, as well as given a lot of ideas on how to use Recorder Karate-type methods for other instruments.

[kfeusse]

thanks for this. I was wondering about the very things you mentioned.