Recorder for seniors
When older people learn an instrument, the lessons need to be adapted. However, they don't need to be overly sedate.
There are recorder schools for every target group from toddlers to adults; what was missing until now was a textbook specifically geared towards the needs of senior citizens aged 70 and over. For them Seniors make music: Recorderwith the aim of enabling beginners or late returners to make music in a group and on the various instruments of the recorder family within a short period of time. However, as the title and subtitle suggest ("Music for Mind & Soul - A Careful Course for Beginners and Returners"), the starting point does not seem to be sprightly golden agers, but people whose advanced age has brought with it a variety of limitations that need to be taken into account.
The large notation and the absence of poppy songs or a graphic presentation geared towards children's world of experience are praiseworthy. However, the fact that just one five-note range is worked out on around eighty pages - something that can usually be digested by adults in a single lesson - and that the parts in the four-part pieces, for example, are not arranged in score form so as not to confuse the players, or that on each page the range of notes already learned is repeated in a fingering diagram to save having to turn back if a note from the previous pages has already been forgotten, inevitably leaves the feeling that we are dealing with people who have lost their cognitive abilities along with their natural loss of sight. Consequently, the fingerings are only given as C-fingerings throughout, regardless of which instrument is actually required. The alto and bass flutes are therefore notated transposed, which is unusual for the recorder and makes it impossible to take up further literature. The accompanying CD with all the pieces in the course also leaves the listener rather perplexed in terms of phrasing, sound or articulation, even though the piano accompaniments notated in an accompanying booklet have been composed in attractive movements.
Today, older people are actively continuing their education in a wide variety of areas. Seniors make music: Recorder is missing the opportunity to teach them how to play an instrument in appropriate learning steps. For people with learning disabilities or mild cognitive deficits, on the other hand, it could be a suitable teaching aid - something that has been missing from the flute school market until now.
Barbara Hintermeier and Birgit Baude, Senioren musizieren: Recorder 1: A gentle course for beginners and late returners, for tenor or alto recorders, ED 21595, with CD, € 19.99, Schott, Mainz 2014
id., piano part and scores, booklet for volume 1, ED 21595-01, € 19.99
