History of the Nine-Note Recorder Books

1994: Penny’s oldest child turns 10, so mom decides to learn and teach recorder. She purchases a couple method books from a music store. Penny learns to play recorder easily because she plays flute and has a degree in music education, but realizes that these are not a good choices for a child just learning–low C, high notes, accidentals, challenging rhythms. Penny realizes that she could create a better book.

1995: Penny writes a recorder book. Very homemade, printed and comb bound by author. Color card stock cover.

1997: Penny suffers the loss of her infant child. To keep functioning, Penny needs a major project and decides it is time to revise her homemade book into a marketable product. She purchases a professional music computer program, Finale, and gets to work.

1998: The first edition of the Nine-Note Recorder Method is professionally published with an ISBN, bar code, and a cover designed by a professional–full color with photo. Penny climbs aboard the Internet and develops her ninenote.com website.

2004: Penny incorporates feedback, suggestions, and her further knowledge and experience with teaching recorder to create the 2nd edition of the Nine-Note Recorder Method. It evolves into a much more multi-cultural work.

2005: The 2nd edition is published. It is self-standing and has fold-out fingering charts invented by the author.

2006: Penny adds to the Nine-Note Recorder Series by writing five more books (digital) in the series. First, an intermediate book for soprano/tenor recorder teaching 12 more notes and harder rhythms–Beyond the Nine-Note Method. She revises her two books for C recorders into the Alto edition for those learning alto or sopranino recorder. Easy Consort Music for Recorders and Christmas Duets join the line up. The consort book includes a few lessons for learning bass recorder.

2008: Easy Duets and Trios for Soprano and Alto Recorders and More Consort Music for Recorders, join the series. A member of a group Penny plays with gets a simple harp without levers. It is hard to find music with a line she can play, so Penny writes Consort Music in C.

2011: To compete with skimpy recorder methods on the market, Penny writes a shorter version of her recorder book. The Quick Nine-Note Recorder Method has half the pages of the full edition, covering most of the material but with fewer songs in each lesson.

2013: Penny writes the Nine-Note Recorder Method for Bass Recorder. It is a shortened combination of Nine-Note and Beyond Nine-Note books adapted to bass recorder and in bass clef. Since the Christmas Duets book consists of mostly unfamiliar music, Penny decides to adapt more traditional, well-known carols to be played on recorders with audience singing along.

2014: Penny arranges popular songs from the early 1900’s into Good Old Songs.

late 2017- early 2018: Penny fixes errors in bass method and reissues it. She decides it is time to revised the Nine-Note Method (2005, 2nd edition) into its final evolution. The 3rd edition features student-played accompaniments, several new songs, and improved harmonies of duets.

2018: Penny publishes the 3rd edition of the Nine-Note Recorder Method, 20 years after her first profession-quality edition. She also creates an inexpensive 18-page book, the Five-Note Recorder Method, from the first 4 parts of the full method book. She develops a teacher manual of lesson plans for each of these two books.