Learn to Play Recorder

Lesson 28: Playing in G Major

  • Move freely through G major up to F#5, recognising F# and avoiding F natural.
  • Move freely through C major on your alto staff (alto's home key) up to the upper B, recognising B natural and avoiding Bb.
  • Play three contrasting pieces in G major and feel them as one key.
  • Play three contrasting pieces (in C major on your alto staff) and feel them as one key.

You don't fully know a key until you have played a slow piece, a fast piece, and a sad piece in it.

Spend a whole session in G major — warm-up, scales, three pieces — so the key signature becomes a feeling, not a sign at the top of the page. By the end the F# should arrive without thought.

On your alto staff this whole lesson reads in C major, the alto's home key. Spend a whole session in it — warm-up, scales, three pieces — so the home position becomes a feeling, not a fact you recall. By the end the cross-fingered B (soprano's F#) should arrive without thought.

Warm-up in G

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Tonic, mediant, dominant, octave — repeated.

Tonic, mediant, dominant, octave — on your alto staff this is C–E–G–C, the C major broken chord.

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Now play these

Three pieces in G — fast, slow, moderate — in one session.

Three pieces (C major on your alto staff) — fast, slow, moderate — in one session.

Fast — a country dance

Sellenger's Round
The G major tune par excellence.
Gathering Peascods
Short phrases, energetic.

Slow — a courtly air

Daphne
A much-varied English melody.
All in a Garden Green
Graceful and sustained.

Moderate — a Bach minuet

Bach: Minuet in G (BWV Anh. 114)
G major in its most dignified form.

When every F# in all three pieces sounds in tune without a hesitation before it, move on to Lesson 29.

When every cross-fingered B (soprano's F#) in all three pieces sounds in tune without a hesitation before it, move on to Lesson 29.