Description

My intention in this new Blown Away series of two books is to make learning to play the recorder fun. They engage the learner with up-to-date child-friendly performance pieces with lively words, tunes and pictures.  I am an experienced primary music teacher who has worked with children and know the kind of music and songs they like. The songs in the books are all specially written to help children learn easily with catchy tunes they will remember. While the books are bright, attractive and funny, they help children to learn to read and play music properly, and help them to make sense of musical notation. And boys like them too!

Each book comes with a CD with accompaniments. These are arranged so that you can hear the tune as it should be played with the accompaniment, and then you can choose another track on the CD with just the accompaniment, so that you can play along – like karaoke! There are two versions:  a slow one to start with and a quicker one for performance.

In BOOK 1 you’ll meet lots of appealing characters: note B is for Biker Ben, A is for Annie and her Animals, G is for Game-Boy George and D for the Disco Dancers. These help you to learn the basic notes: low D to high D.  It starts off very easily with pieces carefully graded so that you progress one note at a time with each new character. The catchy and memorable words are all written to help to learn the rhythm of the tune. There are easy-to-read fingering diagrams which show clearly where the fingers go for each note.  The diagrams are presented from the player’s perspective so it is easy for children to find the notes.

Summary points

• Newly-written bright and lively child-friendly performance songs
• Up-to-date words which appeal to children’s interests
• Lovely illustrations which makes the books attractive to children
• Carefully graded pieces allowing gradual progression with new notes
• Each new note has a different theme
• Fingering diagrams that show the correct orientation for playing
• CD with lively modern accompaniments with strong rhythms
• Choice of accompaniments to play with and without the tune
• Accompaniments are slow for practice and quicker for performance
• Learn to read music as you play along, with a glossary at the back when needed
• Written to appeal to boys as well as girls
• Songs and tunes which are suitable for performance
• Suitable for teachers to work with a whole class, small group or individually