Processionals, Carols, Farandoles, Branles, and Pavanes by the ancient ones that prove those folks in ruffles had a good time. So will your students. These lively period pieces will enhance school programs, complement language arts or European history units, and provide music for Renaissance Arts Fairs or Madrigal Dinners. The pieces are set for soprano recorders with optional tenor parts, hand drums, triangles or finger cymbals. Dances are easy to learn line, circle, and partner dances with clear instructions and diagrams. Pieces can be performed without dancers too. You will value the Hand Drum Tutor—4 pages of exercises and “tunes” to help develop the two-tone hand drum technique used in the arrangements. Tunes are from England, France, Hungary, Germany, and Spain. The four carols have Latin, Middle English, and modern English lyrics—perfect for expanding the scope of holiday programs. A student book containing all recorder parts in large print is included.
Isabel McNeill Carley was a published composer, writer, editor and lifelong innovator and creative teacher of music. She grew up in Chicago and Toronto. The first American Honors graduate of the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria, she was a founding member of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association. She established and edited for its first fifteen years AOSA's journal, The Orff Echo, and organized and instructed at Orff certification programs in the US and abroad. She composed works for piano, instrumental and vocal ensembles, performed in chamber-music consorts, and taught music for over fifty years to children and adults.
Carley's three-book Recorder Improvisation and Technique series is a classic, integrating recorder instruction with musicianship, improvisation and the Orff Approach. It is used successfully in Orff certification courses as well as classrooms.
