Musical program hits a high note

Children’s fingers fluttered along the body of the musical instrument known as the recorder at Valley View Elementary School on Wednesday morning, forming the notes to play songs like “Skip to My Lou” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Third-graders at the school started learning the instrument through weekly classes about six months ago, and now they’re reading notes and preparing for a spring music concert.

The recorder class is being taught at the school for the second year in a row by Valley View parent Lara Calvo, a credentialed teacher who used to work in the Glendale Unified School District before she left to have children. The classes, which are funded through the school’s foundation, are offered to third-graders to expose them to a musical instrument and to prepare them to join the orchestra in the fourth grade if they’re interested, Calvo said.

“Recorder is considered a preband or preorchestra instrument,” she said. “It’s a good introduction to wind [instruments].”

Students began the class in October by learning how to hold the instrument, how to clean it, and what the various parts are called. They began playing by learning which letters of the alphabet correspond with which holes on the instrument. Since then, many have learned to read music.

“Most of them can read musical notation,” she said.

During their weekly session on Wednesday, two third-grade classes practiced songs they will perform for their families at a concert at the end of May.

Calvo helped them keep time by snapping her fingers, and coached them on the quality of the notes.

“Starting on a G, blowing softly or that high E is going to squeak,” she said as the students commenced playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

While rehearsing a song called “Mexican Hat Dance,” Calvo helped students familiarize themselves with the rhythm by clapping out the notes of the song first, and stomping their feet to mark the rests.

“Why am I making you stomp?” Calvo asked the group.

“Because you want us to remember to do the rests,” said student Rachel Abboud.

“When the Saints Go Marching In” is 9-year-old Alex Sato’s favorite recorder song. Alex plays the piano outside of school, but the recorder is her first wind instrument.

“I like the music and I learn new notes,” she said about the class.

While orchestra is an optional program for fourth-graders, the recorder class gives students a taste of what it’s like to learn an instrument, Calvo said.

“The program is basically built into the third-grade curriculum,” she said.