I've (very) recently rediscovered my recorders and joined my local SRP branch. I'm really enjoying it, but I don't own much in the way of music. I've got the scales book, a few pdfs downloaded of the internet (Canon in D, anyone?), and the Hugh Orr method books (vols 1 & 2, in both soprano and alto - they were recommended on a website as good for adult learners, i.e. not full of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star type stuff).
I'm in London on Saturday, and as it is my birthday weekend, I can drag my husband around Foyles music department and over the road to Argentus and MusicRoom, etc. I've printed off the grade lists for AB and Trinity to look for book names. But I thought I'd ask here for any particular favourites people have that I should look out for.
I don't really know what level I am at, although I was G4ish back in the day (I've had a 14.5 year break, but can still sight read well enough to play at the SRP, at least descant/tenor).

Which reminds me of my second question. I've played the descant since for ever, though I only had lessons from secondary school onwards (at my first lesson, my teacher was horrified when I answered her question with "what's tounging?", as at my primary school group lessons, nobody had ever mentioned it, as far as I knew you just blew down the thing and wiggled your fingers).
When I took up the treble, I was very bad in the way I learned it. I would see a note on the middle line of the stave, and of course that's B. Only I would think of it as F, on the grounds that B played on the treble is the same as F (well F#) on the descant. So, basically, I renamed the stave so I thought of the notes associated with the descant fingering, not with the actual notes. I did trip up in one of my early treble exams, incorrectly naming a note in the viva voce section because I said B (i.e. 01------) instead of E!!
Fortunately(?), while my descant/tenor skills were sufficiently intact that I can sight read, I seem to have lost my treble abilities. I've decided this is actually a good thing, as it is going to give me the chance to re-learn properly - to call a G a G, rather than thinking of it as D!
So, other people - did you get confused in the early days of transitioning between C and F recorders? How did you get round it? Does everybody out there think properly, or has anyone snuck around it with a cheat like I did?

Hi fellow recorder player. It would be a good idea to start on the alto (treble) as well as the other C instruments. What I would suggest is that you play your alto in a different room from the other two and treat it as a separate instrument. This might sound daft but it works well.
As it is your birthday treat had you thought of getting new instruments too? I don't know what recorders you have but they might be fairly well-used and none too good when new. Yamaha 300 series instruments are good value and very easy to play too. They produce a sound that will last you through several exams if you choose to go down that route.
As to music there is so much around! I would perhaps look at "Music of Shakespeare's Time" or "Music of the Elizabethan Age" and I should know who edited these but cannot remember at the moment. I am off to my studio now but will add some more ideas later.
Good luck with your playing.
Petra

I've found buying collections or sets of sonatas to be very helpful - you seem to get more music for your money that way....I also use grade lists for inspiration, as you are doing. There are four nice Marcello sonatas which would be in reach for the most part, and might stretch you in some sections - always useful to have something to aspire to as well!; they're published in two sets of two. My pupil (who would also describe herself as about grade 4 - ish) has bought a collected edition of Handel sonatas too - some of them have movements which are grade 7 plus, but again there are sections which would be useful and fun even now. Other composers would perhaps include Schickhardt and Loeillet - the London one. Very French music like Dieupart or de Lavigne isn't everyone's cup of tea, as it is rather frilly and can sound mannered (I love the stuff myself, though, I must admit...).

Definitely learn the treble as well - there is a much bigger repertoire, and it is easier on the ears than a descant, and easier on the hands than a tenor . I love petrat's idea of the separate room for learning it. I will confess, though I can read music well, I find it very difficult to think about a given fingering for a given note, and tend just to connect dot to fingers without consciously going via a note name.... , having learned descant and then another C instrument, the oboe, before learning the treble.

Thanks for the responses - it gives me a few names to look out for on Saturday.

It's only just occurred to me that I am effectively starting the treble from scratch, so I can re-learn properly and treat it as a new instrument. And annoy my husband with C-C-Ccccc, C-C-Ccccc, C-C-C-C-Ccccccccccc all afternoon long!!


I've already done my brithday-treat-to-self - the descant!!
My mother was clearing her loft and found the treble and the tenor, so I went to my first SRP meeting with just the tenor. I enjoyed it so much that it's what has made me determined to re-learn the treble, and decided me to treat myself to a decent wooden descant (Dolmetsch) despite previously describing them to my husband as the "shrill squeaky ones"

The treble I have is an Aulos, and I don't think it has suffered all that much from 14 years in the loft

The tenor is a Dolmetsch 'classic' tenor with the C/C# double keys. It has sentimental value in that I've had it for 20+ yeras, and I now adore it despite hating it in secondary school because I perpetually got the mick taken out of it (because it wasn't an Aulos, so I didn't match everyone else in our group [when I moved to treble, I was told very firmly that I MUST get an Aulos to blend in]; I assumed then that my parents had bought me a cheaper "not proper" recorder, and only recently discovered that they had bought me a more expensive one).
I think it has suffered from it's time out of use - the bottom D and C I can only describe as 'burbulling' in tone

I've noticed on the Dolmetsch web page that they do a new-for-old deal - send in any recorder (any make, any age, any material, any condition) and you can buy a Dolmetsch Nova plastic in that size for about half retail price! So I am tempted to get a new treble and a new tenor that way, as it would be a bargain £38 for both! End of March sees my annual bonus paid, and while I need that for mundane things (like MOT failure and maybe towards a new car, grrr), I think I might be able to snaffle a little bit for updated instruments...

Those recorders sound good enough to me. I think that they might benefit from a clean though. If they are both plastic then you can give them a bath in the washing up bowl! Never bath wooden recorders of course! Take them to bits and place them in hand hot water with some Milton solution or something similar. (The stuff used to sterilize babies' bottles). Then find a feather and work it gently around the playing areas. The fluffy end of the feather, not the quill end. You may be surprised at what comes out! Place the parts on a towel to dry, away from too much heat. When they are dried out re-grease the joints, re-assemble and play. They will almost certainly sound far better.
James Hook wrote some lovely sonatas and sonatinas for recorders. Have a look at some of those too. Then find a friendly pianist to duets with you.

I picked up the recorder again last year after having my last lesson in primary school (over 40 years ago). I started with the descant and found I could remember most of the notes I needed to do Grade 1, so I bought the pieces, entered myself for the exam and took it. I'm now looking at Grade 2 - the TG syllabus, which allows me to do some pieces on descant and one on treble. The treble I've started more or less from the beginning, bought myself a little book called Treble Recorder from the Beginning which also has some pieces in that have been set for the TG exam. Am really enjoying playing - better than slouched in front of the TV. I've got a couple of other books - Fun club treble recorder by Alan Haughton whicn has jazzy pieces in and has a CD to play along with, and The Really Easy Recorder Book by Brian Bonsor - also jazzy pieces. They might be too easy for you if you're Grade 4 level, but if you're not sure then they are fun to play.

Even if you're learning the treble from the beginning, if your fingers were doing grade 4 before, it really won't be long before you can do grade 4 music again, even on the treble. The hardest thing is etching into your brain what to do if playing an F recorder, and to change over to the C one when you're playing that. I've learned rather fitfully, so despite having a diploma now, I still get it wrong sometimes, and start doing F fingerings on a C instrument....

I've played treble since I was 11, and I still make mistakes sometimes (and I have a rather big birthday coming up soon - sort of golden in colour).

What I have real trouble with is switching from bass back to treble, but that's another story.

I too see blobs and put my fingers in the right place - to the extent that I sometimes cannot name notes in a piece of treble recorder music. I have to imagine it's a piece of flute music, and then I can do it.

I think I do that with C-recorders, I don't have to think, it's just "a dot there" = "these fingers". I think because I started thinking with the F-recorders, I got myself confused! Hopefully I can make it automatic.

With reference to cleaning my plastic recorders - can all the bits go in the water, including the top part? I don't know why but I just want it confirmed I can immerse that before I do it.
And while I know to absolutely never wash my wooden recorder, it makes me shudder to think that some people do need telling and to imagine the horrors that have been wrought in the past

Thank you all - it's fab to find "real recorderists"

Bung the head joint in too. Then get busy with the feather around the windway. Have fun. Come to my party in the forum cafe too. I am very old today.

Still very much a project in progress, in my case.
there are a couple of recordings on the recordings site, if you have broadband and are interested (files take forever to download on dial-up, unfortunately...)
here
when are some of the other recorder players going to put some on? Recorderzrule has, I know...

I will when I have found some recordings of concerts and worked out how to do it! Watch this space.

I have to share this...
You know, I've been keeping my eyes open for a feather and wondering just where I'd find one.
I looked round our garden, and briefly in the park area next to where I live. I kept my eyes open at work. Nothing. And I got the feeling if I did find one, it'd be a little tiny sparrow feather.

We just went out to lunch, a big group of us to celebrate two birthdays this week. So we're walking out to the car, and there, in the middle of the road in the site where I work, is a huge bunch of pigeon feathers. Not attached to a bird So I go running off in to the middle of the road, pick up the half a pigeon wing (no bone bits involved), and exclaimed how excellent it was as I needed a feather or two. My friend is at this point somewhat disturb. And then I start pulling the thing apart to get just the one or two, rather than the half a wing's worth. My friend is now extremely disturbed. She asks what I need it for, and I decline to say on the grounds that "you'll be even more disturbed" (I was tempted to say 'for cleaning my windway, of course" but that would be open to misinterpretation, I'm sure).

In consideration of hygeine and my disturbed friend, I did wash my hands before lunch And, yes, I'll wash and dry the feather before I put it near any bit that goes near my mouth...

That was very lucky. I forgot to add that i put feathers into the microwave oven for a few seconds before using them to kill off anything nasty. Let us know if you find any spiders or dead baked beans inside those recorders! And if they sound better afterwards too.