15th August 2012?

Not much point in the interim syllabus if so...

I've got them pre-ordered on Amazon now, so I'll post here when they arrive. As I have Amazon Prime it should be fairly swiftly after they are available.

Me too, I did this for my music A Level performance, at least I presume it's the same one as I couldn't find a recording or a picture of the sheet music anywhere, but it was on the ABRSM grade 7 list back in 19-ahem-de-dum when I was at school. I didn't care for it at first but grew to like it. I lost my sheet music the night before my exam and had to sit up all night copying the part out by hand from the piano copy - ouch!

In the best tradition of web nonsense, is it the one that goes da DUH da di di da, da DUH da di di da, dah-da-dah-da-dah-da da/ da/ DAAAH di di di, etc. If you know if then hopefully you can either relate that to the music or it won't go at all.

So now we know why
More sillyness here

I don't know if any of you take Recorder magazine, but they've arranged to have a cartoon in - there's one in the October edition....and the cartoonist is now getting ideas....

*dreams of selling mugs and t shirts with her crazy drawings on*

I see that Amazon still have them as available for pre-order (release date 15 August 2011), Musicroom have not available (release date 17 October 2011) but Trinity's online shop has them as In Stock! Just being nosey on a quiet afternoon

I ordered them from Amazon (with Prime) around three weeks ago and have had nothing yet).

Love it! Why does the rest of the stuff have to be so expensive.......

They are on their way at last!!!!!

Hello folks. I am finally getting down more seriously to blowing in my new recorders. This was supposed to be my post-operation-while-I'm-not-allowed-to play-the-oboe project but I've only recently really been up to it.

I've found, to my consternation that I have some slight intonation issues with one of the recorders that is particularly noticeable when playing with the others. I didn't notice it when I bought it at the EMS but then I didn't try the recorders together (the guy on duty that day wasn't a recorder specialist, he told me), though I did borrow a tuner. Or maybe it's adjusting to the tropics that's the problem and I just have to be patient in the blowing in process.

The treble recorder is a new adventure for me. I'm not a very advanced descant/tenor player and finding that my already pathetic recorder playing is even worse after 3 years just on the oboe. I tended to steer clear of the treble because I was too lazy/busy/worried about confusion to learn to cope with a different key but I really do like the treble sound best.

Does anyone have any suggestions for learning to convert from descant/tenor to treble? At the moment I am just teaching myself. I see Brian Bonsor has a book to teach the transition. Would you recommend that? Or any other resources? Or particular approaches to practice?

I'm afraid it's a while since I went through this process, so can't remember what material I used to do it, but I am still doing voice-flutery, so you have my sympathy. My way of coping is this - when playing the new instrument, I don't play the others in the same session, or if I do, I do them afterwards, when my brain is allowed to be a bit shot . At first, I'd avoid others altogether -so in your case, blowing in more than one instrument, I'd do them at a different session through the week, or if you do more than one session during a day, at a different one on the same day, at a pinch. Some advocate announcing, in your head of course, since there is a beak in the way, the name of each note as you go: I'm too impatient and too readily bored to be able to cope with that though. What I do is identify a fingering for a note high up on the stave, another for one low down, and then a middly one. This is where the treble is nice and convenient actually - as the bottom space is your bottom note, and the top line your octave for it, and the former G fingering on your descant or tenor, or oboe, becomes the C. I use those notes as "anchors" for the rest of the music I'm playing - so if the music tells me D, I know where the C is because it's an anchor fingering, and I know the note above it because I already had that learnt on a descant. It's a method which works reasonably well - you then add in other sub-anchors - like Bb, which is forked but this time in the right hand, not the left, for instance. Play pieces in fairly home-orientated keys to begin with, F major, C major, a minor, for instance, and start with slow movements of things.
My voice flute is sooo beautiful, but I can't make the very best of noise on it when doing this laborious note-learning thing, so at the end of the session I usually indulge myself with some doodling around, which both clears my head and lets me listen to the lovely sound it makes . Enjoy . - and I'd forgotten to say, happy playing your way through recovery.....

Glad you're enjoying your voice flute, anacrusis! I saw the photo you posted and it looks pretty too.

Glad to find my instinct has been going in the right direction. I can't play the recorders for very long as I'm early in the blowing in process, so the days when I've been feeling better and eager to play I have played more than one but in different sessions. As you say, going straight from descant to treble is a right brainmasher.

I'd figured out that I needed to "fix" G as C and Bb as Eb even though I hadn't articulated any theory around that. Your idea of "anchors" expresses it very well. I shall proceed as you suggest.

My sound on the recorder is truly pretty horrible. I suppose that's the result of being so oboe-focused. However, I am not really worrying about it - being really self-indulgent at the moment, using post-op recovery as the pretext, and mainly enjoying a good bit of doodling myself.

Off topic, I know, but I have a clarinet version of that on a T-shirt. I'll wear it at a forum event or similar one day

I first started learning the recorder after my oboe broke - and I thought my sound hideous too, to start with. But.....with time, learning to control my tone on a recorder actually ended up having a beneficial effect on my oboe sound! I'd been relying a bit too much on brute strength on the oboe, and with time learned a form of controlled support which really made my tone improve massively .

That's encouraging. Actually, I generally don't use enough brute strength on the oboe (according to my teacher and flatmate) so it shouldn't take too long to tone it down on the recorder.

I wasn't sure whether to start a new topic but it kind of fits in here so I'll give it a go.

My bass is sick. If I hold it normally I can play all of about 4 notes before it clogs so badly that it makes no sound at all, regardless how well I warm it through before starting, how well I clean it afterwards, how much I blow it out, it just won't work properly. It's a crook-blown Aulos ABS (plastic) bass, and it's always been a bit dodgy but used to respond well to a generous spraying of the stuff you put on swimming goggles to renew the anti-fog coating. I played in ensemble last week and the only way it will make a sound is if I hold it pointing out sideways almost parallell to the floor. Obviously, that hurts! I have no idea why that makes a difference but then again I'm not very technical like that, I play instruments, I don't investigate their insides. It is just as unplayable if I take off the crook and top and direct-blow it (nice face full of cork grease ), so it's not just the crook and cap gumming up either. I've had a look down the inside and can't see a piece of cleaning cloth/fluff/hamster/child's toy in it anywhere, I don't know what to do with it next. Not so sure that most wind places get very many bass recorders through the repair shop, but could be surprised. Any suggestions?

Wash the headjoint in hot water with a tiny drop of washing up liquid in it, and then let it dry?

That normally works for my plastic base, although I put more than a drop of washing up liquid in.

I have a question which is going to show great ignorance on my part. Can anyone explain what the little plus sign above notes in recorder music actually means? I know, of course that it is an ornament but since I seem to have come across them in different rhythmical and melodic contexts I would be glad to know if there is any guiding light to follow.

I have read up bits and pieces about baroque ornamentation but I haven't found the answer to the little cross. I have a pupil playing around Grade 6 level (treble) and am just beginning to feel a bit out of my depth. So far we have just done what feels natural, but should she want to do the exam I feel I need to be a bit more academic and actually get it right.

It is usually played as a trill, though it in effect means "an ornament".
You would usually do a trill but if due to any reason a different ornament is used, that wouldn't be 'wrong' (unless you are playing someone like Hotteterre, who has very specific meanings for each of his squiggles and provides a table of them [note that in French baroque music, it will be annotated in to oblivion; in contrast, the Italian's put no ornaments on the music, but that doesn't mean they didn't play any...])

The cross as a sign for a trill predates the squiggle of modern notation, or the tr. It is likely that it is simply a letter t that got truncated even smaller by measly engravers and ended up as a cross

Thank you Maizie - so I suppose I am correct in starting the trill on either the upper or lower note according to the melodic context? Would it also be acceptable to reduce to a mordent in very fast pieices?

Hmm, I've always been taught to start trills on the upper note only (for baroque music).
And I reckon a mordant would be fine, it's just a mini-trill really

yes, the exception in that though being the very early baroque music, where it is justifiable to put the trills t'other way up - so for van Eyck and other music with divisions for instance, and some of the Castello/Cima/Fontana sort of music, where you get that somewhat wild feel of extemporisation, with florid ornamental lines - there you'd have the trills starting on the written note. But more mainstream baroque music, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Corelli, Rameau, Loeillet, Telemann etc, yes, upper note first. It's even arguable on into the very early classical era, with some now also trilling very early Haydn the baroque way now.

Ooooh, thank you for reminding me, I have some Fontana trills and I knew there was something to remember about them but had forgotten what it was (I'm still at the ignoring stage for ornaments in it, at the mo )

Thanks again Maizie and also anacrusis. I feel more enlightened now!

Think I should have come here earlier, but anyway, for next time:

I have an Aulos treble recorder which is quite bright sounding, well in tune, responsive, but on which I cannot get above a high C. D just splits. Never been able to get high notes out of it.

I have an old Moeck Tuju treble on which I can happily get up to high f or even g. However the notes just over the break are a quarter tone sharp, and the bottom F and F# barely speak at all.

Difficult choice this afternoon with two possible treble recorder parts and two possible instruments. In the end went for Aulos and lower part as more reliable.

But any thoughts on how to get more out of either instrument?

Not sure what to advise about the Aulos - though the D is notoriously tricky at times, I've not come across instruments for which the C would also be dodgy. If you're able to make other instruments speak up there then it's also unlikely to be a problem to do with how you manage the half hole. My Moeck Rotty refused to let me do top F, and I poked around for years trying various adjustments of half holing, thumbnail dug in, thumb drawn back, with varying breath pressures too, and couldn't get it to be reliable at all - then when I sent it for servicing, the workshop inserted a sleeve into the head joint and the note started speaking like a dream. If only I'd known. However, I'm not sure whether the same wheeze would work for the lower notes too, and in a plastic instrument would not be worth the cost of adding that sleeve in any case.

The Tuju - I've forgotten if this one has a separate foot joint? It can be worth trying to adjust how the holes sit in case it's a leaky seal problem, with fingers not fitting over snugly enough: the other thought would be to look at the cork in the joint and make sure that isn't crumbling or leaking air. If the rest of the instrument is as sharp as all that, then obviously pulling the head joint out a bit will help, but again, that can lead to leaks if the cork in the tenon is at all fragile looking. I have now rebound a few joints with waxed linen packing thread, and been very pleased with the results - my tenor is much happier since the cork fell off, and my teacher's great bass also became rather more reliable down at the bottom end after I replaced the crumbling cork on there.

Good luck with choices - am guessing you'll take both along in any case and try out a bit to see where the best compromises lie...

My cello teacher is a professional baroque specialist and we covered this in my last lesson: baroque trills/mordants start on the upper note.

I have in the past got notes above D occasionally but I can count on my thumbs the number of times I've managed a decent D! In the end I decided that a bold sound was needed and played the 2nd part which only had one semiquaver passage with two high C#s in.



The tuju does have a separate foot joint for the treble. I find that I have to adjust the angle of my head on the mouthpiece for those low notes. I really don't know why the upper octave is so sharp, but the London Recorder Workshop said it was past it... a bad ebay bargain I now know! It also gets bunged up and muffled very quickly. Oh well, you live and learn...

I'm looking at Staeps' Sonata in E flat. Looks like it's going to be my G7 list B piece - first movement only.

I never studied German at school (I was one of about three people who when offered it as an extra language, declined it to do stuff like home econmics instead ). The G5 theory German terms fell out of my head almost immediately after the exam.
So, I have dutifully sat down and translated all the terms on the music in to English equivalents. There are two terms that have left me slightly baffled though - teacher has been unable to help as his search like mine went to Google

einleiten - I could only find this as meaning to start, initiate, or possibly prelude. But as a verb. And it occurs in bar 40 so it's rather confusing.

Ganze Takte, leicht (intermezzo) - which I managed to translate word-by-word to "whole bar, light", and it is at a point where the reocrder is just palying sustained notes while the piano does twiddly bits. So I kind of get it but just wanted to check my words here


Found a recording on Spotify...Google is convinced I'm actually looking for Steps

I bought a new recorder. My first wooden descant. It's not a virtuoso model or anything, it was one I bought as something of a punt from China. I thought there was a reasonable chance it might be dodgy because that combination of Chinese and cheap is usually a disaster, but it's actually very nice. Very carrying tone, secure and sturdy case, best dynamic range I've ever known on a recorder without going sharp and flat. There are some alternative fingerings, notably on the F in both octaves, but anyway just thought I'd share.

Interesting. What make is it? Where did you get it? ebay?

First the sheet music addition thread made me feel inadequate - I have nowhere near enough music to count as an addict

Now, it's instruments. There is a Facebook group called Recorder Players'n'Enthusiasts (here). Two picutres have just been posted, which I shall reproduce below for those who don't FB (these are from different posters/households). The upper picutre has 112 instruments in it...

I think I'll bookmark those pictures for next time MrCJB suggests I have too many instruments. I can't imagine how anyone would have time to keep that many instruments played in, or the memory needed to know all the individual quirks of each one.

Maizie - you have plenty of time to develop your addiction

Musicians in general and early musicians especially seem to be prone to acquiring instruments. Even I have three recorders... includng a nice Moeck pear wood alto. If anyone knows the lutenist Martin Eastwell (based in the north east) he has an unbelievable number of instruments. I think he turned up to one course I was on with something like 22 different instruments of the plucked variety (lutes, archlutes, theorbo, cittern, bandora, vihuela, Renaissance guitar etc.....

The bank balance has given out so I can't buy any more at the moment. I'd like to commission a tenor viol, something like this would be nice (he demo'd a couple of years ago at Greenwich). Or this he's the nearest viol maker to me that I know of - I visited his workshop last summer and he rehaired one of my bows. He also makes violins, violas, and cellos....

....and I thought we had a lot of instruments

As a wit said to my offspring earlier in the week when she took her sax to be tweaked. "Four mouthpieces! Why do you need four mouthpieces? Have you got four mouths?"

Wonders if the person knows 120 other recorderists so all their recorders can be played at the same time

I have heard a recording of someone playing two oboes at the same time - so you don't necessarily need four mouths (Although admittedly the sax mouthpiece is bigger than an oboe reed )

Judging what I know of sax players, 4 mouthpieces is quite restrained....

Although my son's party piece (one of many, sadly!) is to play two saxes at once. Gives quite an interesting sound, though not one I want to listen to often.

I've seen three recorders being played by one player, and four saxes by one as well - the latter was sidesplittingly funny, though musically a bit...erm....limited.

The top shot of amassed recorders is the one I envy more - it was taken at a course in Lyme Regis, and I've been there for a couple myself too - what a lot of lovely quality in one place . (I know some of the people attending and just how good their playing is, as well....). Oh botherations and double drat, why do roofs have to do annoying things like leaking? I just soooo need another 415Hz treble, and a transitional tenor or descant......

Hello lovely recorder thread forumites. I have popped over to this thread because I was invited to join a recorder group last night by a violin player in my string group. She heard I used to be a guitarist and asked if I would be interested playing at our local medieval castle....I've retired my guitar so declined, then we got talking about her recorder group and she invited me to that instead. I haven't played recorder since school and am now in my 40s....I said, if I was to have a go, what one would be most useful, and she said "bass, as we've been told we can sound a bit shrieky...."
Any advice? I'm rather excited at the prospect. I've not got piles of cash to spend though.
My dad's an early music nut, he's got hundreds of instruments and I grew up to the background noise of renaissance lute, bombard, voice and wood recorders, sometimes all at once!

Hello katemorrisviolin and welcome to recorder world!

Practicalities for getting started again: I wouldn't go straight in at bass. I'd suggest getting yourself a good plastic alto (treble) recorder as a starter - you can get a Yamaha 302B model for around 30 pounds. Get hold of the Time Pieces books to give yourself some suitably straightforward repertoire, and have a go.

Alto is a good size to enable you to familiarise yourself with recorder music as it's the size the greater part of the repertoire was written for, plus its fingerings will match the fingerings you'd need when you do progress to bass.

When you're more familiar with the fingerings and decide you want to go for the low notes, the Yamaha equivalent of the treble will set you back around 300 quid. There are cheaper alternatives, though. Elidatrading (who is a long-standing member of the forums) sells Woodnote bass recorders which start at about 100 quid. I have a Woodnote as my spare bass recorder - it looks very similar to the Yamaha model, but has less projection.

Hope this helps, do ask if you've got any queries.

Any chance your dad might let you rootle about in his collection and borrow something, assuming he might have a recorder or two?

Bass recorder is generally played from bass clef, so yes, I agree with KJ about where it's best to start, with the treble: it is however also true that in a top-heavy recorder group (and it only takes a very few small recorders to make a group top-heavy) the sound will be rather shrieky. To give you an idea, the Scottish Recorder Orchestra rehearsals boast between thirty five and sixty players, at a guess: there'll be one sopranino player, and he's one of the most advanced there, one or two descants, also very secure players, six or at most eight trebles, and the rest tenor or lower. We usually manage to field at least three contrabasses, sometimes as many as five: those are the sorts of proportions needed to balance the sound.

So - yes, treble first would be good, it's in F, same as the bass, so each fingering will be for the same note name, comparing one with the other. It takes me a good few months to learn to get round the music of each member of the family, but it was nice to learn in ensemble playing because there were others to cover for me when I was fumbling for notes: so if you do learn treble and then extend to bass, let us know, and we can give you recommendations for music for it later.

thankyou both for your replies, plenty food for thought there and I shall take your advice about starting on the treble. I got a bit carried away with the fantasy of playing one of those huge floor to ceiling things! Dad lives a plane ride away unfortunately.......

The huge floor to ceiling things are contrabasses . You can add together the Yammy and Woodnote prices and stick another nought on and you'll be nearer to the price of one of those.

(It's on my want list......)

Aren't they the most glorious and joyful objects of beauty though? want want want!

They are indeed, though even if you only play the smaller, square sectioned ugly beast, the Paetzold contrabass, which is made of plywood and leftover bits from IKEA, you quickly find out that they're a plague to drag around. The much prettier Kung trees are heavier still. Either way - learn the bass and you can play contra too: the music looks the same for both .

KJ - I clearly need to come along to Greenwich with you again. Next time before the contra on display gets sold, instead of after ...

You need one of these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VcoV37kRFc...ayer_detailpage

Anyone need a viol player?

Absolutely. Who knows what I would miss if I went round the exhibition unsupervised.....

Well I have my ?22.00 alto recorder and have spent a blissful afternoon with it and a beginner book. I am stunned and slightly emotional about how it has all come flooding back to me after 30 years....it's still there in my brain, how to play! I am so happy!
just spent a fortune online on music for my new toy, to celebrate....

thanks for the link, tenorviol, my kids thought it was very funny!
thanks for the tip, anacrusis!