Remember the recorder? It's that small plastic instrument — looks kind of like a flute or clarinet — that's often the first instrument children learn to play in school. Or, at least, they used to. But ...

A British music education organization reports that use of recorders are declining in the classroom. We wonder: Why were they there to start with? And why is "Hot Cross Buns" such a banger?

Remember the recorder? It's that small plastic instrument — looks kind of like a flute or clarinet — that's often the first instrument children learn to play in school. Or, at least, they used ...

Remember the recorder? It's that small plastic instrument — looks kind of like a flute or clarinet — that's often the first instrument children learn to play in school. Or, at least, they used ...

Remember the recorder? It’s that small plastic instrument — looks kind of like a flute or clarinet — that’s often the first instrument children learn to play in school. Or, at least, they used to. But ...

That's when a French-born instrument-maker named Arnold Dolmetsch sparked a recorder revival. He began promoting it as an instrument for teaching music in schools. Dolmetsch and Carl Orff, the ...