Lesson 10: Review and First Performance

• Play three contrasting pieces from the absolute-beginner repertoire end-to-end.
• Record one of them and listen back without flinching.

• Lessons 0–9 — the absolute-beginner arc.

• Performance assembly.
• Self-recording.
• Level review.

The level is not finished when the lessons are. It is finished when the playing is.

There is no new note and no new technique in this lesson. The work is to consolidate everything by performing — for yourself, with a recording running — three pieces that together use every skill the level has introduced. Then to listen back to the recording, calmly, once.

The three pieces

Pick one from each category. Practise each for a week before the final recording session.

A simple folk tune — for tone and breath

Au Clair de la Lune

Slow, sustained. Your tone is the whole performance.

Go Tell Aunt Rhody

Long values, low register. Tests breath support and steadiness.

A rhythmic piece — for tonguing and meter

When the Saints Go Marching In

4/4 march. Tongued, forward, in tempo.

Bingo

Short, repetitive, fun. A test of clean articulation under repetition.

A piece with shape — for dynamics

Amazing Grace

3/4 hymn. Each verse with its own arc of breath.

Ode to Joy

Beethoven's tune. The four phrases ascend in intensity.

Warm-up before recording

The full C major scale and a long-tone arch — the same scale you played in Lesson 5. Make sure the recorder is warm and the moisture is clear.

How to record yourself

A phone propped against a book is enough. Sit or stand the way you normally practise. Play each piece once, all the way through, without stopping for mistakes. Then stop the recording.

Listen back the next day, not the same evening — perspective matters. Note one thing you liked and one thing to work on. Do not catalogue every flaw; that is a way of avoiding the next session.

When you have a recording of three pieces — the folk tune, the rhythmic piece, the shaped piece — played end-to-end, you have completed the absolute beginner level. Move on to Early Beginner.

For more on preparing and listening back to performances, see preparing to perform.