--- title: Music lessons and the recorder — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Music lessons and the recorder», a lesson of the arts course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A recorder is a wooden or plastic pipe with holes; your breath splits on a sharp edge near the top, the air inside the pipe shakes, and that s --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Arts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/) / Music lessons and the recorder # Music lessons and the recorder Lesson 1 of the arts course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/0/) — A recorder is a wooden or plastic pipe with holes; your breath splits on a sharp edge near the top, the air inside the pipe shakes, and that shaking is the sound you hear. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/1/) — Covering holes makes the shaking air column longer and the note lower, so every finger matters: one tiny gap and the note squeaks, like a straw that has split along the side. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/2/) — Picture the first recorder lesson: thirty children blow as hard as they can and the room sounds like a flock of angry geese; nothing is broken, the recorder just wants a soft, steady breath, like cooling hot soup. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/3/) — Schools start with the recorder because it is cheap, light and quick to learn, and it teaches breathing, fingers, reading notes and playing together, which carry over to drums, guitar or anything you pick later. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/4/) — People talk about it in their own words: in Ireland a "yoke" is just a thing and an "eejit" a fool, in Scotland "greetin'" is crying, in Wales "tamping" is furious, and in Britain "minging" means disgusting. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/5/) — Blowing too hard makes a recorder jump up to a shrill squeal; a soft, steady breath gives a clear note. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/6/) — Recorder players cover the holes with the soft, flat pads of their fingers, because hard fingertips leave gaps that make squeaks. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/7/) — The recorder is a real instrument: composers such as Bach, Handel and Vivaldi wrote music for it, and professional recorder players still perform today. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/8/) — Posture is the way you hold your body; slumping squashes the chest and belly, so there is less air and less control of the breath. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/10/) — Tonguing means starting each note by touching the tongue behind the teeth, as if quietly saying "doo", so the notes come out clean and separate. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/11/) — Water dripping from a recorder is condensation: warm, wet breath cools inside the pipe and turns back into drops, just like a cold window steaming up; to clear the drops, cover the window (the small gap under the mouthpiece) and blow sharply. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/12/) — On the recorder, B, A and G are played with the left hand alone and need one, two and three fingers, so teachers start with them instead of going in alphabet order. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/13/) — A class of beginners sounds rough at first because everyone is learning breath, fingers and timing at once; after weeks of practice the same class can sound clear and together. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/15/) — Teachers often give a solo to the child most ready for that piece, and many swap solos around during the year. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/1-music-lessons-and-the-recorder/16/) — Many drummers and guitarists started on the recorder at school. - next →: [Reading music: notes, beats and rhythm](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/2-reading-music-notes-beats-and-rhythm/) - ↑ back to [Arts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/)