Recorder Karate serves as one of the most beloved and effective ways to teach students how to play the recorder.
If you’re looking to learn more about this tried-and-tested method of teaching the recorder, you’ve come to the right place!
In this all-encompassing guide, our awesome team of musos (and former Recorder Karate masters) have compiled everything you need to know about Recorder Karate, including its history, how it works, why kids love it, and some useful tips & resources for teaching it.
You’ll also find details about the skills students will need to master before earning each colored belt, as well as some practical advice on motivating and assisting students at each level.
Table of Contents
Recorder Karate is a method of teaching students how to play the recorder; a woodwind instrument similar to a flute. The method uses nine sequential lessons that become increasingly more difficult, and with each passed lesson, the student earns a colored belt to wrap around their instrument.
The colored belts are meant to mimic the belts given in Karate, and each color corresponds to a new song mastered. Each lesson prepares the student with the skills necessary to move on to learning the next song. The songs that make up the Recorder Karate system are mostly well-known folk songs & nursery rhymes.
The method uses a reward system that helps motivate the students to proceed to the next level. It doesn’t hurt that they can show off their skills through the colored belts that decorate their recorder!
Teachers rave about the belts and the ability to propel students forward with a system that appeals to their intrinsic motivation. It’s also a fairly simple course to teach, and you can purchase the complete Recorder Karate lesson plan , including instructions for teaching it, sheet music, award certificates, tests, and performance recordings online.
The book is reproducible, so your students won’t need to purchase it in addition to your purchase. Recorder Karate can be carried out as a standalone system, or it can accompany other music lessons and classes.
The history of Recorder Karate begins in 2002, when Barb Philipak published her method through Plank Road Publishing. The entire system is now owned by Music K-8 .
When Philipak started teaching fourth and fifth grade, she knew she’d have to teach students how to play the recorder. The musical instrument is almost a right of passage in elementary school these days, but when Philipak was in school, she never had to learn it. So, she was baffled at how to teach her students.
She knew she’d need a way to keep them motivated and focused, so she developed Recorder Karate. She found different folk songs that she knew would help her teach the musical concepts to young students, and she put the songs in order from least to most complex. With each song, new concepts and techniques would be introduced to the students.
With each song that the students mastered, she’d award a belt of a different color and tie it around the student’s recorder so they could proudly show off their award. The belts reminded her of Karate belts, though the colors don’t exactly correspond, hence the name Recorder Karate.
The sequence begins with a few songs that allow students to master the simple B, A, G notes, then gets progressively more difficult. Students really need to hone their skills in order to progress all the way to a Black Belt.
But Philipak also wanted to have the ability to differentiate the plan to allow students to learn at their own pace, understanding that some students would work well on their own, and some might need more hands-on help. By earning a belt, they’d stay engaged.
Fast forward to today, and the method is now classroom-tested and student/teacher approved across the breadth of the United States. For classrooms that master the Black Belt level, there are new achievements to earn, including another sequence of songs in the book Recorder Karate 2 , and The Recorder Karate Repertoire Book.
The benefits of Recorder Karate are many, and you don’t have to take our word for it: teachers and parents rave about the musical method just about anywhere you can find a review.
Across the country, parents have praised the program for allowing their children to progress quickly on the recorder by engaging their sense of motivation and instilling a strong work ethic. Teachers often report that the program is organized and easy to use, serving as one of the most effective methods for teaching the recorder.
Here are just a few of the innumerable benefits of Recorder Karate:
The positive reward system inherently present in Recorder Karate works wonders on children to teach them something new. Students will learn that by working hard, being diligent, and sticking to their studies, they get something to show off: a fancy, colorful new belt that they can display proudly on their recorder.
Positive reward systems are proven to make students work harder and change their behavior over punitive actions or graded tests. If they learn this young, they’re more likely to build these systems into their disciplines when they’re older. We’ve seen this play out in simply giving a child a gold star when they complete certain tasks, according to Very Well Family .
It’s no accident that the first song students must learn in Recorder Karate is “Hot Cross Buns.” This folk song is easily recognized, even to very young kids, and has a very simple three-note melody.
This means that students will almost immediately master level one of Recorder Karate, the White Belt. This quick win quickly rewards students and gets them engaged in the method from the get-go. They’ll soon want to learn more and advance, and their confidence will grow with each passing level.
Even when your students struggle, they’ll only need to look toward the end of their recorder at their colored belts to remind them that they’ve come this far, and they can certainly advance to their next belt with a stick-to-it attitude.
Students love when it’s time for music class when their teacher uses Recorder Karate. Not only are musical instruments generally fun, but the system motivates students to work on earning their next belt each class to show off to their friends and family.
Music also excites kids because it activates the right side of their brain, which is commonly referred to as the more creative side of the brain.
Recorder Karate is a self-paced program, meaning not every student needs to advance at the same rate.
This makes managing students that much easier: the more advanced students can move on to a seemingly endless number of folk songs to learn, and the students who are less musically inclined can take the time they need to master their musical skills while not falling behind.
It’s also a self-paced program for the teacher, meaning you don’t need to stick to a specific timeline to successfully instruct your students since the skills build upon one another. Philipak recommends a minimum of 12 weeks to get through the entirety of the course, but if you’re using it as a supplement to other music lessons, it can easily go longer than the recommended three months.
Remember, Philipak created the Recorder Karate method because she didn’t know how to play – let alone teach – the recorder herself. The program is inherently simple, and Philipak’s accompanying book makes it even more so.
Owned by K-8 Music, the book includes instructions on how to teach proper technique when it comes to playing the recorder, as well as:
The plan is packaged up nicely into a kit and is ready to go for teachers and parents alike. But even without the purchased kit, you can use guides such as this one to teach the program if you know a thing or two about recorders. It’s really that simple!
There are nine songs that correspond to nine colored belts in the Record Karate method.
Below, you’ll learn more about the notes and skills students will need to master for each song in order to move on to the next belt.
If you want to use the Recorder Karate system in your own classroom or home, plan for it to take around three months (or 12 weeks) of study time for your students:
Though Hot Cross Buns originated as a way for the English to sell their bread in open-air marketplaces, it was later adopted as a song that could aid in music education. As one of the simplest songs that can possibly be played on the recorder, it serves as the perfect track to kick off the Recorder Karate system.
For students to learn their first song on the recorder, you’re going to want to first teach them proper posture and air control. Then, it’s time to learn the notes; B, A, and G.
This song uses only those three notes, and has a stepwise melody that’s easy for kids to pick up. Even better, most of the melody consists of just one repeated descending phrase.
First, practice the note B with your students; Then, move on to A and G. Finally, combine the notes and melody.