Video transcript
Festival of Instrumental Music 2023 - Recorder repertoire - 04. Singing in the Rain teaching tips

[intro music]

SUSAN SUKKAR: When you teach this piece, the obvious way of teaching the melodies to the children is to actually use the words of the song and to sing it through, and it's a real earworm, and once it gets into your head you can't unhear it. So that will help the children to learn to play the piece. So at letter A with the upbeat, it's-- and excuse my croaky voice.

(SINGING) I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling, I'm happy again.

So again, if you use Gene Kelly's example and put that up on YouTube and help the children learn it that way, it'll just sink into their pores without you having to do very much. And just be aware that when you are playing that melody line, it should be-- sound quite legato with the swung quavers.

[playing notes]

But when you get to the straight quavers where you're playing staccato--

[playing notes]

So you're being raindrops falling down there. Other than that, it's a very straightforward piece for descant 1.

ALEXEI: The descant recorder 2 part has a very repetitive part with the melody.

[playing notes]

But one important thing to watch out for is in section D where the melody comes back.

[playing notes]

And then it actually moves up and starts on a D the second time.

[playing notes]

So that's just one to watch out for when practising.

HANS-DIETER: The treble recorder part seems to be quite easy. But you've got to watch out with all the repetitions that you don't lose track of where you are. And especially at the beginning, be courageous and play your notes clearly when nobody else is playing. Also, it's important to clear them so the notes really bounce back and forth between the parts.

At letter A, it seems easy to just play--

[playing notes]

--but they're tricky notes insofar as if you blow too hard they really sound ugly.

[playing notes]

And the A doesn't come out if you blow it too hard. So it's important to practise them in order to make a really beautiful sound rather than a loud sound. At the end, it says play and fortissimo. Same thing applies. Strength in numbers, don't blow too hard, especially on high D--

[play high D]

--because you won't get it. So loose fingers--

[playing notes]

--and it will come out for you.

TRACY: With the tenor recorder part, we have an octave leap from bottom D to top D, like that. Keep your fingers nice and close, play it nice and lightly so that that bottom D always sounds--

[playing notes]

That's a really fun part to play. Then just right at the end, 4 bars before the end, we have our little tenor solo, it's only the tenor recorder playing here. So have a little practice of this. It has a staccato in the middle of the bar and also a tenuto.

[playing notes]

Have fun with that little solo part.

ALICIA: For the bass recorder part, your part is fairly easy and repetitive for this piece. But one important thing is to listen for your ensemble playing in this, particularly in sections like D where you've got your staccato Ds followed by a rest. Because we're actually supporting the Ds on the tenor. So we want to be articulating the same note and making sure they're in tune with the tenor parts there.