My tenor recorder is aged. It was got for me when I was about 9 or 10. I played it all the time until I was about 16 - nobody else at school had a tenor, or they found the tenor parts boring, so for the school consort I was always tenor. I was always teased, too, because I had a manky brown recorder not like everybody else's lovely black and white Aulos's. I assumed I'd been bought a cheap'n'nasty one rather than a proper Aulos like my friends had. After music GCSE, my tenor (and other recorders) went in the loft for 15 years.

Surprisingly, on excavation from the loft everything seemed fine. I discovered that what I owned was a Dolmetsch "Classic" model tenor, and that it was probably more expensive for my parents to get me than the Aulos!
I noticed the occasional odd note. This has worsened over the last couple of months (either that or my ear has improved). The second octave E is now unbearably sharp. I've played it warmed up, I've played it cold, it makes no difference - on the standard fingering, the recorder is no longer in tune with itself.

I have my 'recorder wishlist' but my dream-wooden-tenor is plenty far down the list, as it's most expensive (treble recorder and recorder case come before the tenor!) I can't be without a tenor, so a plastic replacement for my existing plastic seemed sensible. I discovered Dolmetsch's New for Old offer on their Nova recorders - and enquired and it turns out it's open to anyone (you don't have to be a school or similar).

So while I'm sentimentally attached to my old Dolmetsch, from a pragmatic financially-sensible viewpoint, I'm new-for-olding it. It's all wrapped up sitting next to me with it's postage label stuck on, I've got half an hour until the post people come to my department to pick up the outgoing mail.
And I just wanted to write an 'obituary' to my beloved old recorder - You've served me well, and I hope the replacement is as good but without the sharpness.

And, sometime next week I'll get the excitement of a new instrument

I wonder where the returned instruments go. I expect that if you wrote to Dolmetsch and told them that you were missing your old recorder badly and wanted him back and included postage they might oblige. It may have just needed a good clean, poor old thing!

thanks for that link - I'll be sending them my old tenor too

I know Brian Blood very well (MD of Dolmetsch) - ask him and yes, I'm sure he'll be obliging.

One of the most dangerous things Bagpuss and I ever did was to accept his invitation to go and 'just look at a few of our recorders' - bleurgh, a VERY slippery slope - especially when he mentioned the words 'interest free credit' .

Thank you for the warning!! I'm lucky enough to be financially limited to drooling at the Academy range at the moment, but I'm sure one day in the future I shall (i) own some Academy ones but (ii) be drooling over something handmade and if I hear words like 'interest free credit' I'm likely to fall well down that slope.


Poor old thing that she was, she had a very good clean in February which made the burbly low notes much tidier (given that it had been in a loft for 15 years, I thought cleaning it before I ended up surrepticiously sucking it to stop clogging mid-piece was a good idea!). I did try giving an extra small clean but it really didn't seem to help. Knowing my luck, it'll probably arrive there, they'll see if they can work out what's wrong with it, and there'll be something blatantly obvious that I missed. Though why it'd only affect one noted I'm not sure...

Ah, well, all tempered by the excitement of new instrument to arrive soon, plus being at work knowing I should be getting a parcel today with music in


EDITED TO ADD: I too am curious about what they do with the old instruments. I wonder if they do anything philanthropic with any that can be re-used? If my old one did just need an easy fix, I like the thought that it might end up with someone who needs and will appreciate it

Ask Brian - I'm sure he'll tell you (although he does have a brain the size of the universe and finds it hard to use words of less than three syllables ).

Complete the following joke:

"Old intruments never die, they just . . . "

My suggestion is ". . . lose their tone"

Dr Blood is indeed a true Gent and as Cyrilla has stated is incredably knowledgable about just about everything (I believe he has medical qualifications as well as physics qualifications)

I'm sure you will love your new tenor the Nova instruments have a beautiful tone and pretty good intonation.

My old Aulos has been consigned to the for loan pile since I bought the Nova. Ok it is 22 years old but it is out of tune with itself (was it always and I've got picky or has it warped) and I find it painful to play.

Yes, he does!

I believe he wrote all of the wonderful Dolmetsch theory/music history/information on just-about-everything section of their website, too...

And of course he's the bass player in the Dolmetsch ensemble.. (One of the scariest things I have EVER done was play in an (informal) quartet with Bagpuss, Brian Blood and Piers Adams!!!! . It was like a 5 year-old being asked to play a duet with Ashkenazy ).

wow - scary but what an experience

Experience....yes, it was certainly that!!

The 'new for old' scheme looks and sounds great. Very tempted by this.

hillyb

I think that even for not-very-recorderish people it's a good opportunity to clear out the duff ones from the pile. I'm not at all inclined to play the recorder but have managed to collect two tenors, a treble, four descants and two sopraninos. I sent my worst tenor off a couple of days ago (a terrible early 1970s thing) - I might be inspired when the new one comes.

Anyone got their 'new for old' recorder yet?

If so, what's the verdict?

hillyb

I did - it came on Tuesday and is staggeringly good value.

It came in a posh carry bag with a cleaning rod, and a pot of grease, and a scales chart, and a neck cord with clip, and spare pins, springs and screws and spare pads for the C and C# keys. Oh yeh, and a beautiful tenor recorder too - carefully wrapped in three little bags.

As for how it sounds, - well, good to me and way better than my old one which was basically a piece of junk.

That sounds great. Me thinks I'll have to sort one for myself!!

Gosh, what a moving story about one girl's love for her Recorder! I am getting very teary... especially as I know I'll have to update my Treble Recorder in the next year or so. I could never ever afford a set of wooden recorders, my friends at music school all had them but I had plastic for ages. The I applied for a grant from a music charity and I bought my first wooden descant and treble recorders! I was so happy!

My descant recorder still sounds as sweet as the day I got it, but my treble one is more the worse for ware. It is serving me well, but I can hear that soon it will be on its way out and there are only a certain number of times I can get it fixed because I'm not made of money. Everytime I practice on it I feel like it is a part of me and it will be so strange to have to let it go........


I'm planning on taking my Diploma on it, and it took me through my Grade 8 and got me a distinction. The I think I will have to put it down for the final time....

Hi Maizie, what's the verdict on the new tenor recorder?

hillyb

It plays in tune with itself Which is top notch
Seriously, I like it. It's taken a bit of getting used to as the C/C# keys are in the 'wrong' place - slightly less of a stretch than I'm used to from the old one. The case it comes in is lovely and it's just an all-round improvement from my old one. I've not played it an awful lot yet, but what I have played has been great.
It's supposed to come with an adjustable thumb rest (which is great, as my old one had a fixed thumb rest that I don't think was in quite the right place for me), but I don't appear to have got one (you get a little bag of spare springs, pads, etc and I thought it was in there at first but it isn't). I know Dolmetsch would send one out as quick as a flash if I asked, but so far I'm not doing too badly without a thumb rest. I'm not using the sling that comes with it either. All good practice for the far-distant day when I have a wooden tenor that I won't have the heart to attach a thumb rest to!

Glad you like your Nova, Maisie. My Nova is my "spare" tenor, and I'm really pleased with it. It fitted my hands (especially the right one) better than the Aulos or Yamaha models did. But I do find the thumb rest to be a bit of a nuisance, and can't find a small enough screwdriver to adjust it or just plain take it off.

One thing to think about when you do finally acquire a wooden tenor, the finger spacings won't necessarily be the same on that. I certainly found that I didn't get on with any of the keyed wooden tenors I tried, and ended up with a keyless one - a Kung Studio

Well it's a long way off, I'm sure, and I will have plenty of opportunity to try out various recorders before then (London Recorder Centre is on my schedule for July...iI've told my husband to make sure I do NO INSTRUMENT BUYING, though a nice case may be on the agenda!)
I have to say I would be likely to go for unkeyed myself - there's a lady at my SRP branch who plays an unkeyed tenor (that she got secondhand, because it was a case of trying it at the shop, and then not being able to leave it behind). But we shall see when I get round to trying things...
Dolmetsch have a chart on their website listing all the finger spacings on their recorders, so I did spend some time a couple of months ago measuring my recorders to see how they compared to the various Dolmetsch wooden models. Evidently I do have too much time on my hands

Sounds similar to my tenor experience my backup tenor is a Nova, the Aulos and Yamaha are painful for my hand size/shape....the Kung was my 2nd choice behind the gorgeous Fehr Bubbinga wood that transformed tenor from my least favorite to my most favorite size for quite a while. (ok definition of quite a while was until I bought a Kung Studio Treble in Bubbinga)

I have a Dolmetsch handmade maple tenor - it's so light that I can manage it without keys .

Thanks for the infomation, Maizie. It sounds very good value for money. A good stop gap until a beautiful wooden tenor comes your way!!!