The recorder is:
- A melody instrument – with the ability to sustain tones. Many of the other Orff instruments don’t hold those half and whole notes.
- Helpful for those students who can’t match pitch or are uncoordinated with mallets.
- A real instrument with a long history and great repertoire
- Helpful for teachers to use – to save your voice and for male teachers to demonstrate in the students’ vocal range
- Portable and personal (everyone has one in their hands)
- Cheap – for those who want to buy them
- Washable – for those who want to borrow a class recorder. I put a piece of electrical tape on the class recorder with the student’s name. That recorder is used the whole year by that one student. At the end of the year, I take those recorders home and put in them in the top rack of the dishwasher