Tag: Elementary music

Happy New Year!

Did you miss me? 😉 Hopefully you had a fun and somewhat restful winter break! We are starting out 2019 learning a new note, F#, or pronounced, F-sharp. Here is the recorder fingering for F# to get you started:

This week’s episode is pretty straightforward. My biggest advice is for you to pause the episode any time you feel like we are going too fast. For example, if we are practicing the motion from F# to E and you are struggling, pause the video and practice at your own pace until you are ready to move forward! Generally I go through each exercise twice, but PLEASE understand that I do not anticipate everyone mastering a concept after two tries. I simply do that to keep the video moving along!

Also, for this lesson I put the accompaniment as a separate bonus video! Click here if you want to see the ukulele accompaniment!

The Lowdown on Low D

We are so close to getting through all right hand fingerings! For this week’s lesson, we are learning how to play low D. The biggest mistake in playing notes where you cover holes with your right hand is the tendency to overblow. This causes the dreaded squeak, so be sure you are thinking about blowing slow, gentle air! If you’re still squeaking, make sure your fingers are covering the holes! 

The fingering for D is pretty easy to remember since you cover all but one of the holes! Download the PDF version of this fingering chart for free here! 

I am about to be a traveler extraordinaire the next week and a half, so while there won’t be a video next week, the next blog post will be an intro to our next note we are learning, F#… that’s F-SHARP, not F hashtag! I just have to say that to all the younger readers ;-). Stay tuned and stay warm out there! 

Intro to Low E

For TEN episodes, we have only used our left hand. Finally, we get to use our right hand for this week’s episode! We are starting right hand by learning first line E. You can download the visual below, as well as the corresponding visuals from the lesson for free from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. 


For this lesson, I also did a quick review of both fingerings and position on the staff for G, A, B, C, and D. You will notice a portion where we fill in the note names together, just to be sure we’re all on the same page. 

I hope you enjoy this lesson as much as I did! Happy music making!