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How We Started
 Almost
20 years ago, I volunteered to teach recorder to fifth grade students in a
Los Angeles public magnet school.
►The majority of my students came from
lower-income families.
►Many were first-generation Americans.
►Most of them
had never had music lessons or even touched a musical instrument.
►Quite a
few of them had significant learning and attention disorders.
►As a group,
they knew little about music, other than what they’d heard on car radios or
television commercials.
They all were eager to learn,
but many of them had difficulty following the traditional
music book we were using.
►The songs and exercises were unfamiliar and uninspiring.
►The sound of thirty
recorders playing without accompaniment in the classroom wasn't particularly
beautiful.
►All of us were getting a little discouraged.
There had to be a better way to
teach these children... more ...
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