REASONS WHY MUSIC TEACHERS PREFER “RECORDER” OR “MELODICA” AS A CLASSROOM INSTRUMENT
Music teachers are generally trained in “recorder”, “guitar”, “bağlama”, and “orff” during their undergraduate education. It has been found out through preliminary interview with music teachers that despite the training they received, the use of melodica in class has recently risen. This situation has led to the question “why do music teachers prefer melodica as the classroom instrument?”. In this research, it is aimed to determine the preference and reasons why music teachers prefer recorder or melodica as their classroom instrument. In the research, to identify the recorder or melodica preferences of music teachers, survey method has been used. In total, 131 music teachers from 43 different cities of Turkey and Nicosia have taken part in the survey. While the statistical data of the study has been analyzed with SPSS-22 program, descriptive analysis has been used to analyze the qualitative data. The number of teachers who prefer recorder and the teachers who prefer melodica have been found very approximate at the end of the study. It has been found out that there is no meaningful difference among their preferences in terms of gender, experience, the level of institution, having taken a recorder education or having taken melodica education; but a meaningful difference in terms of the institution. It has been found out that there is a correlation between the institutions which music teachers work and those teachers’ preference of classroom instrument; and that while the number of teachers who prefer melodica and recorder as classroom instrument is very approximate in state schools, the number of ones who prefer melodica is more than those who prefer recorder in private schools.

Keywords
Recorder, melodica, class instrument, instrument education.music education.