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For nearly half an hour, the fourth-grade students in Cara Furness’s music class have played their plastic recorders more or less in unison, an enthusiastic ensemble squeaking and squawking to their hearts’ content.

And to their teacher’s ears’ discontent.

They’ve found safety in numbers, satisfied that no matter how loudly they play — or how far off-key they stray — their terrible toots will remain anonymous, buried in a sea of equally disharmonious efforts. With so many clinkers clinking at once, they reason, not even Furness — who’s been teaching the instrument for more than two decades — can detect individual culprits.

But now, even though it’s only the students’ first day of recorder lessons at Morehead Elementary School in Greensboro, Furness wants them to perform solo, so she can better gauge how they’re doing individually. Are their fingers fully covering the holes on their instruments, producing a clean, melodic tone? Are they blowing too hard? As Furness well knows, a mighty blast from a fourth grader’s lungs can turn the simplest note into a shriek.

At Morehead Elementary School in Greensboro, Cara Furness leads a little symphony of students through what for many of them is a first foray into musicianship. photograph by Joey Seawell

“This is not to embarrass you,” she reassures the class. “I just want to hear you play by yourself. And if you squeak, who cares?”

Um, the whole class — that’s who. Each student’s musicianship — or lack thereof — is about to be laid bare for the other kids to hear, judge, and snicker at.

One by one, the students take turns playing the three notes they’ve learned so far — B, A, and G. Not a song or even a rhythm — just the individual notes. The results are exactly what Furness expects: A scant few kids play their notes perfectly, while the other 20-plus wannabe musicians struggle, unleashing a string of squeaks, squawks, and squeals.

Predictably, a few of their classmates giggle, until Furness shushes them with that stern look teachers are born with. Then, time after time, she patiently points out what her young musicians are doing wrong, gently transforming their sour notes into sweeter ones.

“Yes, dude!” she exclaims when a student gets it right. “Way to go!”

Finally, only one soloist remains — one last opportunity for either musical mastery or misery — and 25 students eagerly turn to gawk at the biggest kid in the class.

Me.

• • •

You remember the recorder, right? It’s the flute-like instrument that so many North Carolina children learned to play in elementary school.

While it has been around since the Middle Ages, it wasn’t until the 20th century that the instrument became an institution in our state’s classrooms. Music historians say the growth of plastic injection molding in the ’40s and ’50s allowed for the mass production of plastic recorders, and companies began selling them by the truckload to school districts all over the country, sometimes for as little as a dollar apiece. By the early ’60s, they were commonplace in classrooms.

It’s not clear exactly when recorders first reached North Carolina schools, but countless Tar Heels have memories of excitedly producing their first notes in third, fourth, or fifth grade. For many of them, it was the first — and perhaps only — musical instrument they ever learned to play.

My initial go-round with the recorder was in the early ’70s, as a fourth grader at N.B. Mills Elementary School in Statesville.

I remember the thrill, be it ever so shrill, of my first note. I remember practicing in my bedroom — with the door closed, at my parents’ insistence. As I improved, they attended several of my impromptu living room concerts and managed not to roll their eyes when I performed “Hot Cross Buns” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” ad nauseam.

Unlike a concert flute, which you blow across, a recorder has a built-in channel that directs the air for you, making it easier for beginners to produce a sound. photograph by Tim Robison

I dreamed of stardom. In retrospect, teenage girls were never going to shell out their hard-earned babysitting bucks to hear me play “Born Free” or “When the Saints Go Marching In” at a sold-out arena, but I didn’t know that at the time.

My only public performance was a fourth-grade concert in the school auditorium. Not sure what we played, but I’m guessing it wasn’t a banger. Maybe “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” Another school across town, Northview Elementary, had its own recorder consort that performed at local churches and nursing homes, but not us.

In more recent years, the instrument has lost some of its prominence in elementary classrooms, according to Brandon Roeder, who oversees music standards for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Although some schools still teach the humble recorder, many have replaced it with the ukulele or lap dulcimer, he explains.

“In my first six years of teaching, I taught recorder, but then I was done with the squeaking and squawking, and I switched to the ukulele,” Roeder says.

“I taught music because I wanted students to be able to enjoy music as adults. I was trying to foster that lifelong independent musicianship. So, the question becomes, how many adults do you know that play the recorder on a regular basis, versus playing the ukulele or the guitar for fun?”

The recorder may be mercilessly mocked, but despite the bad rap, it’s a great precursor to band.

Retired Guilford and Moore counties teacher Bernie Hall, who taught music full-time and still teaches as a substitute, says he hears that sentiment often: “The recorder has been mercilessly mocked on social media. It gets mentioned on posts like ‘Things I Learned in School That I Have Never Used in Real Life.’ It gets a bad rap, but in reality, it is for some kids a great precursor to band.”

In fact, many of our state’s students got an early taste of the band experience when groups like the North Carolina Symphony put on educational concerts and invited the young musicians to perform a piece or two with the orchestra.

“The kids would practice and practice, and then play with the orchestra at their concert,” Hall says. “It was a really big deal.”

Of course, before students were allowed to play with the orchestra, they had to advance beyond “Hot Cross Buns.” That’s where those brave music teachers come into play, risking their ears and sanity to teach the recorder.

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” Hall acknowledges. “It can be very hard on the ears.”

Elementary Music Specialist Jeannine DuMond, who has taught recorder at Northern Elementary in Greensboro for 19 years, agrees.

“Playing the recorder is a rite of passage at our school, but it’s very messy and loud,” she says. “Parents don’t even want to hear it at first — they’ll send me videos of their kids out on the back porch practicing.”

The neighbors must love that.

• • •

Ironically, Cara Furness — whose class I have chosen to sit in on — does essentially the same thing to her neighbors, leaving her room door open so nearby classes can hear every note.

“It’s fun for them to hear it,” Furness claims. “They don’t complain, but sometimes they’ll come and quietly shut my door.”

Furness, who began teaching the instrument in 2004, may be North Carolina’s biggest recorder fan, enthusiastically praising it as a fun, useful tool for teaching children music. She has recorder-themed T-shirts — one of them reads “Peace. Love. Recorder.” — and even recorder-shaped earrings. During the pandemic, she sent videos of herself playing the instrument to inspire her students — everything from “Yellow Submarine” and “Y.M.C.A.” to “Meet the Flintstones.”

This spring, students in New Hanover County enjoyed the North Carolina Symphony’s Education Concert series. photograph by Tim Robison

Every year when new students take up the recorder, Furness relishes the first day of lessons almost as much as the students do. After 22 years of teaching, though, she knows to brace herself for those first notes she’s going to hear.

“Kids think you have to blow as hard as you can to make a sound,” she says, “so the first sound they make will be loud and squeaky.”

And, frankly, the sounds may get worse before they get better — but they will get better, she promises. In the meantime, the kids have a blast.

“It’s so awesome to look out and see them having a good time,” she says. “There’s so much about school that’s hard for kids, and music gives them a chance to be successful, and that’s great. Some of them might struggle elsewhere, but they come in my class and thrive.”

Which brings us back to this fourth-grade introductory class, where I’ve volunteered to humiliate myself. The moment has finally arrived for me to show what I’ve learned — or what I haven’t learned — in a solo performance.

“There’s so much about school that’s hard for kids, and music gives them a chance to be successful.”

In half an hour, Furness has shown us how to hold the recorder when we’re playing and when we’re not. She has pointed out the thumbhole on the back and the seven other holes on the front, explaining that we have to cover them fully to avoid producing “a wacko sound.” She has also shown us how to blow gently into the instrument, so our notes sound more like melodic bird calls than shrieking factory whistles.

I’ll admit, I’m a tad nervous when Furness asks “Mr. Jimmy” to play the notes for her. A longtime church choir member, I’ve sung solos in front of hundreds without passing out, but somehow this feels different. My hands have begun to sweat ever so slightly, and the recorder feels like a slippery eel.

With the eyes of 25 students watching me intently — eager to unleash their sneeriest snickers — I timidly play the three notes, holding each a tad longer than I should:

Beeeeeee.
Aaaaaaaa.
Geeeeeee.

No squeaks, squawks, or squeals.

The little girl to my left offers a polite golf clap, and a few other students join in.

Furness grins and says, “They’re proud of you, Mr. Jimmy.”

They’re not the only ones. Suddenly I’m in fourth grade again, dreaming of the possibilities.

“Hot Cross Buns,” anyone?