# Recorder anyone?



## LarryShone

Normally mention of thos instrument sends people cringing, mainly due to the fact that years ago schoolkids were given them and sent home to drive their parents mad with the screech of an overblown devil's flute! 
And yet of course the recorder is a true orchestral instrument, or rather a chamber or consortium instrument. The thing is, should it be wood, or plastic? Wooden ones can be very expensive (Mollenhauer etc) while you can get a decent plastic one from Yamaha or Aulos for under £30!

I don't have one yet and my partner is not keen on the sound it makes. Bad memories I supppose...


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## satoru

Hi,

I have whole set in plastic (bass to sopranino) and I can say that for bass, a plastic one is easier to handle/maintain than wood. Decent plastic recorders sound better than cheap/abused wood recorders, but nothing can match nice, well maintained wooden recorders. My recommendation is to have a set in plastic while look for particular wood recorder (soprano or alto is a good candidate). No two wood recorders sound the same, so you have to take time for the search of the one you'll fall in love with. Oh, while you look, be careful for the fingerings! 

Recorder ensemble is fun, so good luck finding other recorder players! (Alas, at this moment, I don't have any. My kids refused to play with me for a reason I totally don't understand.)


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## LarryShone

Thanks satoru. I'm hoping one of my kids bring one home soon, but it seems unlikely.


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## Krummhorn

I love the sound of the wooden recorders ... those that are used by professional ensembles. I have always wanted to learn to play them ... favorite range is Tenor recorder.


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## LarryShone

Interestingly I watched some youtube videos from a guy on selecting a recorder, and he was dead against wooden recorders. Kept saying Dont buy wooden ones. Original ones were made of bone he said and plastic is close to that original material. Said that they swell when wet, you cant touch the end without it deforming if it gets damp. Mind you he declared that he hated baroque music!


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## satoru

LarryShone said:


> Interestingly I watched some youtube videos from a guy on selecting a recorder, and he was dead against wooden recorders. Kept saying Dont buy wooden ones. Original ones were made of bone he said and plastic is close to that original material. Said that they swell when wet, you cant touch the end without it deforming if it gets damp. Mind you he declared that he hated baroque music!


Yeah, this is pretty much the reason why it is tough to maintain a wooden recorder, especially a bass (contrabass, too). Plastic recorders evolved quite a lot from the days I played them in a classroom. This is THE reason I recommended a plastic set over cheap/poorly maintained wooden recorders!

Off the topic but a bone flute reminds me of Patricia McKillip's fantasy "Song for the Basilisk", a nice story with full of music and it's magic.









Furhter off topic, but why you don't like sushi???


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## Morimur

Never learned how to play it -- pathetic, I know. In grade school, I nearly drove my music teacher crazy due my incompetence on the instrument.


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## Alypius

I played recorder for many years, from the tenor to sopranino, and used to perform works ranging from the 12th-century troubadours to the late 15th-century (Josquin Desprez) to the 18th-century Baroque masters (Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, many others). I have some good instruments, mostly the Moeck Rottenburg series (modeled on the instruments of Jean Hyacinth-Joseph Rottenburg, 1672-1756). I haven't played much in recent years and am pretty rusty now.

Just a few days ago, we lost one of the great virtuoso recorder players, Frans Brüggen. He was among the very first classical performers whose career I followed. I collected all his recorder performances from the 60s and 70s. Many were remarkable, but the astounding one was his performance of Bach's cello suites on recorder (he published the score of it -- it was the score that forced me to learn how to sightread the bass clef). A brilliant and innovative performer (and interpreter) from day one. Now he is now best known for his conducting--and what was revolutionary at the time, taking HIP into the classical era. Here's his performance from 1967 (in black-and-white, probably from Dutch television) playing solo Telemann's Fantasie #3. It is a fascinating glimpse of his virtuoso abilities.


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## Bex

Recorder player here!

I studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of music, as a kid I learnt from a smaller regional Conseravtorium, where there was at least 30 of us on recorder. We had all sorts of ensembles and sounded fantastic. I always loved the instrument, and then when I went to high school I was accepted to a performing arts high school and everyone laughed at me.. until I played for them. 

Its a beautiful instrument when played well... however it is very difficult to keep face in the music world as a recorder player. I took up some brass and woodwind instruments, then more rock instruments, mainly due to the embarrassment of having to explain myself all the time.


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## pianolearnerstride

I used to play the recorder in school. It was a soprano recorder. I think I will get an alto soon. I was very much inspired by this performance:


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## brianvds

LarryShone said:


> Interestingly I watched some youtube videos from a guy on selecting a recorder, and he was dead against wooden recorders. Kept saying Dont buy wooden ones. Original ones were made of bone he said and plastic is close to that original material. Said that they swell when wet, you cant touch the end without it deforming if it gets damp. Mind you he declared that he hated baroque music!


I don't know whether what he says about those original recorders is necessarily true, but I am inclined to agree that one should start with a plastic instrument. Wooden ones are hideously expensive and require a lot of maintenance, and I am not convinced their sound is really all that much better - I have seen good players getting lovely sound out of plastic instruments.

That said, one should not go for the very cheapest of plastic instruments - those are often just toys. And I would also avoid the soprano. It is the instrument primarily responsible for the general prejudice against the recorder, and for everyone's memories of hideous squeaking noises emerging from primary school music classes. Even when well played, it is still rather on the shrill side, and you might find your neighbours less than impressed. ;-)

Not that I am an expert. I blow the occasional tune on my plastic alto, mostly with a homemade mute to keep the peace. But I have to say, in my humble opinion, there is not another woodwind with a sound as lovely as that of the recorder, and its initial relatively easy learning curve makes it an almost automatic choice for amateurs with relatively little time to practice.


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## LarryShone

Well a lot has changed since I started this. I got a recorder, of course an Aulos soprano (the only size my local shop has). I am not overly keen on the sound and after watching numerous videos and with no chance to try the different sizes I bought an Aulos keyless tenor. Very hard to play but the sound is fantastic. Then recently someone sent me a Yamaha Alto and its lovely. So now I have 3 plastic recorders which I have to remove myself from the room to learn to play!


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## brianvds

LarryShone said:


> Well a lot has changed since I started this. I got a recorder, of course an Aulos soprano (the only size my local shop has). I am not overly keen on the sound and after watching numerous videos and with no chance to try the different sizes I bought an Aulos keyless tenor. Very hard to play but the sound is fantastic. Then recently someone sent me a Yamaha Alto and its lovely. So now I have 3 plastic recorders which I have to remove myself from the room to learn to play!


One day I want to blow a few tunes on a tenor. Can't afford one at the moment, not even a plastic one, and keyless ones are actually difficult to get hold of around here.

In some ways the tenor is really the one to go for: it isn't as shrill, has a lovely, mellow sound, and what's more, almost the entire Classical (with a capital C) era flute repertoire is also playable on it.


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## LarryShone

brianvds said:


> One day I want to blow a few tunes on a tenor. Can't afford one at the moment, not even a plastic one, and keyless ones are actually difficult to get hold of around here.
> 
> In some ways the tenor is really the one to go for: it isn't as shrill, has a lovely, mellow sound, and what's more, almost the entire Classical (with a capital C) era flute repertoire is also playable on it.


It is a beautiful instrument but it takes some getting used to, and it needs big hands. I should maybe have paid a bit more and got one with keys but money is really tight here.


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## LarryShone

This is Ode to Joy on the Alto. No sheet music I just guessed the notes (I've played it on piano countless times)


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## brianvds

LarryShone said:


> This is Ode to Joy on the Alto. No sheet music I just guessed the notes (I've played it on piano countless times)


One of the nice things about the recorder is that it is pretty easy to play things by ear. I am currently trying to do it on guitar, and even simple tunes are a nightmare compared to doing them on recorder. ;-)


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## 76Trombones

LarryShone said:


> The thing is, should it be wood, or plastic?


I have both plastic and wood recorders, but greatly prefer to play the plastic ones.


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## Pugg

76Trombones said:


> I have both plastic and wood recorders, but greatly prefer to play the plastic ones.


I do hope Larry read this, welcome to Talk Classical .


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## LarryShone

Pugg said:


> I do hope Larry read this, welcome to Talk Classical .


Yes I'm here. A lot has happened since I began recorder. Ive realised a good plastic recorder is better than a cheap wooden one. A good wooden recorder, especially an alto or tenor, can cost hundreds of pounds/dollars. But I was gifted a Yamaha alto which retails around about £40/$70. And its is a superb instrument. So easy to play and much easier to handle than a soprano/descant. I think that any adult taking up recorderfor the first time should start with the alto. It fits adult's finger much better and its easier to half hole/cross finger.


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## eugeneonagain

LarryShone said:


> This is Ode to Joy on the Alto. No sheet music I just guessed the notes (I've played it on piano countless times)


I was waiting for a snake to come out a of a basket...

Just kidding. The recorder is a great sounding instrument. I used to play it at school. It's very popular here in the Netherlands with children and adults alike; the charity shops are heaving with old recorder sheet music and even instruments. They always turn up during the 'Festival Oudmuziek' in the summer.

There is a recorder maker/retailer very close to me here called AAFAB (catchy name!) and they make all kinds of sizes. Sometimes I've wandered in and people are trying them out. I saw a young Chinese lad playing a wooden keyed one which had a lovely tone. I don't know the benefits of wood vs plastic, but I've never heard a bad wooden one.


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## Autocrat

My favourite thing about recorders is playing a top F# on a treble/alto using the right knee to partially close the pipe. At least you can do that; on a descant or tenor top C# is pretty much impossible. 

That, and in high school I was a member of a recorder group called All Wind and Bliss. There were 5 of us, we borrowed wooden instruments from somewhere or other, and won a competition playing Handel's Fireworks music, the score of which I had shoplifted from Theo's. 

True story.


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## LarryShone

eugeneonagain said:


> I was waiting for a snake to come out a of a basket...
> 
> Just kidding. The recorder is a great sounding instrument. I used to play it at school. It's very popular here in the Netherlands with children and adults alike; the charity shops are heaving with old recorder sheet music and even instruments. They always turn up during the 'Festival Oudmuziek' in the summer.
> 
> There is a recorder maker/retailer very close to me here called AAFAB (catchy name!) and they make all kinds of sizes. Sometimes I've wandered in and people are trying them out. I saw a young Chinese lad playing a wooden keyed one which had a lovely tone. I don't know the benefits of wood vs plastic, but I've never heard a bad wooden one.


From what I've heard from a recorder group a plastic recorder is better than a cheap wooden one. And I can understand that.


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## JAS

LarryShone said:


> From what I've heard from a recorder group a plastic recorder is better than a cheap wooden one. And I can understand that.


What about a cheap plastic recorder versus a cheap wooden one?


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## LarryShone

Well plastic ones are very cheap anyway, especially the descant size! A £10 recorder would I imagine be way way better than a £10 wooden one!


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## JeffD

My favorite (these days) is Lucie Horsch. I love her "furioso" style of playing! She is all in every note every phrase every time.


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## brianvds

JeffD said:


> My favorite (these days) is Lucie Horsch. I love her "furioso" style of playing! She is all in every note every phrase every time.


Is that a soprano she's using there? The piece is usually played on sopranino, which gets simply unbearably shrill after a minute or two. Better on the soprano, though I would actually prefer an alto.


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## BobBrines

*Not many recorder enthusiasts on TC?*

I am new here and a first look seems to indicate interest in the baroque lies primarily in 17th century choral music.

I am a modestly gifted septuagenarian with primary interest in the post Corelli era. I can do the Vivaldi concertos (except RV441), the Handel and Telemann sonatas, etc. My instruments are a Johann Adler maple alto, a Dolmetsch ABS soprano and a no-name wood sopranino which is too small for my hands to play. I recently bought an Aulos alto just because, and it will pretty much stay in the box. Sounds just fine, but the technique with the thumb hole is vastly different from the Adler making it hard to move from one to the other.

Bob


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## BobBrines

Ms Hosch is indeed very good. She is playing that concerto in G. I believe Dan Laurin also plays it in G on a soprano. Problem is that the last two flourishes in the last movement are in G and go up to D6. But we all know that C#6 is impossible on an C soprano. Perhaps the notes go by so fast that no one notices that C6 is played instead of the correct C#6?


Bob


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## Harmonie

I am very ashamed to admit I, too, once was a mocker of the recorder, saying it wasn't a "true" wind instrument. I have no clue how I came to such a mindset since I have always been fascinated with the history of woodwind instruments and should have known how important the recorder was in earlier eras (apparently I didn't). However, in recent years that finally set in. When I really started listening to Early Music was when that change happened, although it was only even more recently that I recognized the instruments I was hearing were recorders instead of some kind of early flute. That's also embarrassing for me to admit. >.< I can say I fell in love with the sound of recorders in early music and wanted to find out what kind of 'flute' was making that sound and then I was like "Oh!".

I think part of what made the connection was discovering this lovely recorder ensemble recording of Thomas Tallis' 'O Sacrum Convivium' (a piece I have loved for many years now):






It was then that the connection was made, it was the recorder making that gorgeous 'flute' sound I love in early music.

Last month with my college graduation money I ended up buying me a tenor recorder, and I'm very happy and proud to have it in my collection and my arsenal of sounds. It is a surprisingly cheap instrument for such a beautiful, deep sound. I am in love. The tenor recorder really hurts my hands, though. Not used to not having keys, I suppose!

I'm especially happy that it is the recorder I fell in love with and not a flute because I can not get a sound of a flute for the life of me. lol


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## BobBrines

*Opinions on a purchase*

I own an Adler Magnamusic maple alto. Had if for nearly 40 years -- box says made in East Germany. Reading on the net, Adler seems to be considered no-name trash, but I like it. Nice sweet sound, is not chirpy like so many professional players, plays well to G6 and easily hits that C7 in the Telemann GTM C Sonata. But....

I bought an Aulos tenor on a whim and primarily to play transverso music. Meh! Dull sounding, very touchy on thumb hole technique, Takes 10-15 minutes to warm up, wets up quickly and at importune moments. Yada, yada.

I have a line on an Adler tenor for $85. Well used, but looks good in the pictures. Is it worth the risk? I really don't want to spend several 100's on a good name instrument. Probably won't


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## John S

When I was MUCH younger there was an older German couple who lived up the street and almost every weekend they'd have a gathering of recorder players at their house. No matter how many showed up, they would always play the most amazing pieces. I thought it was grand fun, and so early in my music education (Middle School) I didn't know I was supposed to hate on recorders! Of course, I was run through the recorder pipeline in school, too, so I got tired of screeching sopranos like everyone else. Today I'm not opposed to picking it up again, but if I did it would have to be at least a tenor or lower


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