Class Selections 2019-2020

During the 2018-2019 season, we are offering the following classes:

First Hour Classes

Use these guidelines from our chapter to help determine what class level fits your needs the best. If you have any questions, please contact the instructors. If you're new, you can contact them through our informational email, rochesterars@gmail.com 

Recorder Basics    

DeeDee Heyer

No experience necessary. We will focus on one instrument in C or F. We’ll cover the basics of Fingering, Scales, Time and Rhythm, Tonguing, Reading notes and playing 2-part ensemble.

Intermediate -- Strengthening Skills

Liz Seely

Building on your basic recorder skills, our goal is to provide opportunities for progress in technique, including breathing, articulation, fingering of high notes and accidentals, plus rhythmic difficulties. A variety of consort music will enable us to apply these techniques in making music. This class is also a chance to learn a recorder of another size. Home practice will be necessary to make progress!

High Intermediate -"Re-workshopping"

Pat Hanley

Open to players of SAT recorders (you need them all) who have no trouble with key signatures with three flats or sharps and are willing to work on chromatics. We will be using music that has come to the chapter through workshops and have almost never been looked at again. We shall bring the pieces out from the drawers, boxes, closets and try them out and, hopefully, enjoy them as much as we did when we last played them.

Basses and Larger instruments are most welcome since I know that some of the music was really best when played "down the octave".

If you have any materials from workshops that are just lying around, bring them to me and I will go over them for the most interesting pieces.

Advanced Technique Class

Marian Henry

For SATB, larger Instruments welcome. This is your opportunity to take your playing to the next level. We will look for ways to transform playing notes into playing music by being aware of the basic structure of the piece. We will look at using articulation to match with the text and placing breaths to delineate phrases. There will be tools to help you understand complex rhythms so that they flow confidently out of your instrument. Pieces can come from any era and will be chosen with consideration of the number and capabilities of class members. We will routinely rotate parts so that all players play all the parts of each piece. Participants are encouraged to bring music they are personally interested in.

Second Hour Classes

Classes offered will depend on interest of the membership.

NAME THAT TUNE 

Marian Henry

Music based on popular tunes of the day. Example: L’homme arme was popular with early crusaders and about a dozen great composers subsequently wrote masses or mass movements based on the tune.

ENSEMBLE SKILLS

Tod Romo

Enjoy playing all kinds of music in a relaxed and friendly non-threatening environment while simultaneously improving your own playing and focusing on skills for directing and conducting this group, your "outside" ensemble or a future class in our Recorder Chapter. Topics will be drawn from Bart Spanhove’s book “The Finishing Touch of Ensemble Playing” and elsewhere and can include (1) tuning, (2) starting, keeping together and stopping, (3) elementary(!) conducting, (4) tackling tricky rhythms, (5) playing musically with appropriate phrasing and articulation, (6) ensemble communication, listening, body language, error recovery and performance etiquette and (7) scoring, i.e., how to select recorder music and decide what instruments play each part. Session requirements include intermediate facility on SATB recorders, ability to play simple rhythms and, most importantly, a willingness and desire to "take the lead”.

MUSIC FOR READING, EXPLORATION AND ENJOYMENT

Liz Seely

Using music of a variety of eras, composers, and styles, we will look at many interesting and possibly challenging pieces. By sight-reading, we can improve in that area, but we will also choose pieces we especially like to spend more time on. They might then even become candidates for a mini! Open to all players, intermediate level and higher.

Additional Playing Opportunities

SIGHT READING CLASS, OUTREACH PLAYERS

Pat Hanley, Liz Seely

We will be offering Sight Reading Class on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, opposite the regular chapter meetings on the second and fourth Tuesdays. Note that there is no Sight Reading class on fifth Tuesdays unless otherwise notified.

The Outreach Players will sometimes rehearse in this time slot to prepare for their community performances at farmer's markets, nursing homes and schools. Please talk with Liz if you are interested in joining this group.

OTHER CONSORTS

Varied

Many of our players have formed consorts and other small groups who play together. If you are looking for more playing opportunities, just ask!