If you want to trill from E top space up a tone just use your thumb for F sharp and trill with finger one. You need to get a trill chart. I expect someone will add a link for a decent one. I am hopeless at adding links, colours, sizes, everything really.

Here you go: http://www.dolmetsch.com/etrillchart.pdf

Thank you!

Moose

And for the most comprehensive sets of recorder fingerings ever, because they're individually set out for different makes and models: Winfried Bauer Oh, and if you listen to the radio bit there's some recorder music playing - not all of it to my taste, but hey.

What sort of angle do you normally hold it at, and what angle are you shifting to?
Does it vary from one size to another?

T.

Have tended to play to my boots somewhat . 45 degrees is better - I find that hard to do with my tenor because I have weedy (though long enough!) arms, and of course it would be impossible with a bass - but my treble has tended to be much more steeply inclined than it should be, and I have found holding it up to at least 45 degrees works wonders.

The method for where to put the thumb rest that was suggested to me was to put the recorder down on the floor with the finger holes down. Slide your fingers onto the holes and put your thumb on the back and pick it up. If your thumb is in the right place the recorder will be quite well balanced in your right hand. For my hands my thumb needs to be quite low - usually between my 2nd and 3rd fingers. If the instrument is balanced you won't be gripping it which will reduce the tension in your hand. Increasing the angle from your body can help with improving the balance.

Another thing to check is your head and shoulder position. I had a tendancy to push my head a little forwards and curl my shoulders round especially if I was worried about what I was playing. This was partially compressing a nerve which initially manifested itself in pain in the back of my right hand.

Dear Moose,
If you check what your right thumb is doing, it should be going where it wants. Twisting, sliding and rolling. Apart from the lips it is the only support for the recorder (with a tickling left little finger), which should inhibit dropping the bell end. Instead of twisting the bell to the right too far, mobilize your hands more laterally and let youir shoulders go. Hope this helps. Wish I had a box in the attic.

Out of idle curiosity, does anyone have an idea about what standard the recorder parts are for Brandenburg 4? I can't tell just by looking/playing. Is it the sort of thing that a grade 8er might be willing to have a stab at as duets? (purely hypothetically!) Or are they not difficult enough?

T.

Surely the music is so good that a player of even a very advanced level would be happy to play it? I first started trying to learn it well pre-grade 7, but couldn't have played it up to any kind of decent speed, and am now learning it for a concert next April, and it's giving me substantial stuff to chew on - it's great fun. I'm still fiddling around trying to get the top F#s to go - have been given an alternative to the tooth-endangering knee-stop, but promptly forgot it . I understand from one teacher that the usual point at which players will tackle this seriously is about grade 8 level; as with so much music though, you could try it before then, as long as it doesn't feel daunting. I know of one grade 5 player who loved it so much that she was determined to learn it no matter what, and even got to perform it...hats off to her!

I would think so! But I wouldn't want to offend anyone unintentionally.



Cool! Sounds just right then. :-)
Tackle-able from grade 5, but meaty enough for 8+ to get stuck into.

The parts look fairly balanced to me. Is one slightly easier than the other overall?

Thanks!
T.

I think they're really pretty similar - the only gremlin for the first recorder player being those top F#s...oh for a treble in G and the ability to play it.....or to have the version in F, which has slightly frillier recorder parts. I was lucky enough to have got to Trevor Pinnock's 60th birthday concert in Birmingham - he had got together a group of musicians to do all the Brandenburgs, and the first recorder played an instrument in G for that performance - the second player had a treble in F. It was a fantastic concert , quite something to try to aspire to .

Has anyone heard of "Lyra" recorders? My mother has borrowed one for the Sunday School "Jingle Bells" performance. It has a slightly fuzzy, but not unpleasant tone and I can't get top E and F out of it at all (not that she needs to play that high).

Hi everyone,

Well, after asking and thinking about thumbrests, I haven't got as far as making one. But I have been focussing more on right hand position, raising my thumb slightly, curving my fingers more and relaxing my shoulders and I am finding that the right hand and arm pain is reducing so yay! I might not need a thumbrest after all. Which would be good.

Today, as well as playing treble for about 45 mins (split into two sessions) and sopranino for about 10 mins, I also had a try at the tenor (just improvising etc, nothing read as I don't want to reconfuse myself having just got the hang of treble!) but found it almost impossible. I could only *just* reach the holes and it was very painful for my fingers (short fingers, small hands). So maybe tenor might not work for me. :s However I am really enjoying the treble so it isn't the end of the world and maybe one day I might come across a keyed tenor... or get a bass.

I also went back and played around with a couple of the other box recorders. One of the trebles is wooden and it has a niceish, warm, strong sound on the middle and low notes. However, nothing above high D will sound at all and anything above A sounds dodgy. But I was surprised at how different the sound was with the wood.

Anyway, rambling over... I'm having fun playing and hope you all are too!

Moose

p.s. Flutecake, we have a tenor Lyra and the top notes won't come out of that either (but that could well just be me!).

Some keyless tenors can be easier to reach than ones with keys, and not all keyless ones have the same spacing as each other. If you want a tenor that's comfortable for you, the best thing is to go someplece where there are lots of different ones available to try. Hopefully you'll find /something/ that's a good match for you.
Tenor is really nice to play. :-)

T.

Yes, I realised that they have different reaches. I tried two different makes - Aulos and Lyra and the main problem was getting fingers 3 and 6 to reach. I play the piano and so am used to stretching but even so it was too difficult and painful. But maybe I will find a solution in the future. For now I am going to stick to the treble and work on that.

Moose

Edited to add: My fingers were also a bit to small for some of the holes and only just about covered them.

I know people who've tried loads before they found one that was a good fit. It can be difficult to find a tenor that suits you, but don't give up hope. With any luck there'll be one out there somewhere that's just right. I've got small hands, but because of the shape of them it just happens that a keyless Aulos is OK for me. Some people (including ones with bigger hands) find it very awkward - different finger lengths, different amount of stretch at different points, etc. all come into it. So it's a very individual thing. Before I got my Aulos I'd assumed that I'd need one with keys, but when I tried them in the shop I found the keyed one harder to reach, especially for hole 3.
I think tenor is my favourite size to play and eventually (long long time in the future, as I need a treble first and I don't have any spare money) I'll be looking to upgrade to a wooden one. /Not/ looking forward to the needle-in-a-haystack quest at all.

Treble has the most repertoire and is definitely the best to learn for solo stuff.
I really enjoy ensemble playing, and that's where tenor comes into its own. :-)

T.

Wooden recorders need to be played in, if they are new or haven't been used ofr a long time, so the fact your wooden one may not play all the notes could be because of this. Recorders can also be retuned by a good technician to cure certain problems. You could try playing it in but it's alot of work.

My ancient Aulos plastic tenor was so uncomfy for me to play I avoided it if at all possible. Its worth trying other makes, the finger placements vary lots.

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. Notmusimum - the wooden recorders are both in bad condition - one won't play anything at all! But the one which does play some notes the windway seems to be twisted and there are various chips on the mouthpiece so that could be affecting it. I am not going to see if playing it in makes it better as the mouthpiece is so big it is very awkward to fit the tip in my mouth! So I'll stick to the plastic Aulos treble for now as that is reliable and comfortable.

Woo glad to know it isn't only me who finds tenor a stretch!

Moose

Probably a wise decision under the circumstances

Yay! I've just had an e-mail from my teacher - I can now officially play the recorder! *grin*
What's a little bit worrying is that, on paper at least, I now play it better than I play the flute, despite having had about 4 recorder lessons compared with about 4 /years/ of flute lessons.

Got what I wanted (with one mark to spare) and, as I had a cough when I took the exam, I'm actually happy with that.

And I've got recorder quartet next week, which I'm looking forward to immensely. So, happy times in the recorder department all round at the moment. :-)

T.

In terms of reaches on Tenors, my recorder teacher tells me that Yamaha have the smallest stretch, and Aulos is particularly difficult for most people. I get on fine with Aulos, but everyone has different fingers!

CP

PS, Apparently, I'm running our recorder consort for the next couple of weeks whilst the teacher is away. Eek. I've only been playing recorder for about a month and a half!

Congratulations, Teigr. If I read between the lines correctly, you've done very well indeed.

Yay! Well done Teigr!

Many congratulations Teigr!

Congratulations, Teigr

Are you going to give us any more details, or are you being too modest?

Thanks guys! :-)

Salrec> I got 131 and I'm content with that (it was a single mark higher than the target I was aiming for as a minimum), and at least I didn't let my teacher down, but I know I could've done better. (I measure exam success against what I know I'm capable of, so sometimes a pass in one instrument is actually a better result than a merit or distinction in another.)
I hadn't put enough work in on the scales, so they fell apart a bit in the exam. More preparation would've made them more secure, so that's my own stupid fault. I had to learn the whole bunch from scratch as I hadn't learned recorder officially before this term. I self-taught from School Recorder Books 1&2 when I was in prep school and how many kids do scales when left to their own devices? ;-)
My study wasn't as polished as it should've been either and I stumbled a bit in it on the day.
I don't have the tone production and breath control issues on recorder that I have on flute, so if I'd worked harder I could've got a better mark. Even without the cough I had (in the run-up to the exam and on the day itself) which probably cost me a few marks, I wouldn't have got 140+ with the ammount of work I did as I simply didn't do enough or start far enough in advance. Exam prep was done in what would normally be my flute lessons but which, for most of this term, turned into recorder/piano lessons.

Thinking about trying g7 treble in the summer, but it'll depend on what else I'm doing. No way am I going to try two woodwinds in one exam session - I tried to use recorder fingerings on my flute loads of times in my first flute lesson after the exams and several times at church this morning! My brain just doesn't switch between them very well and I forget what I'm playing. Also depends on my getting a better treble (my Aulos is just not very co-operative, though my Aulos descant was great (before it fell apart) and I've got no problems with my Aulos tenor and bass, so I'm happy with Aulos in general, just not with this particular treble). I wish there was a blue/green Yamaha just like my descants only treble, cos I was /really/ pleased with how they behaved this term. They look a bit like toys, but they were extremely reliable and I had no intonation issues at all with them. Terrific little instruments! :-)
And I need to find a teacher willing to help me with it a bit - my flute teacher would probably do it if I couldn't find someone else but she hasn't done any advanced recorder for years and would be able to help just with things like getting rhythms correct and with accompaniment. Which would be enough, but she thinks I'd do better with someone more specialised in recorder who could advise on things like advanced recorder technique and alternative fingerings. I'm lucky to have a teacher who knows what she can and can't do and knows when it's better to pass things along to someone else like that.
One of my organ teachers also does some recorder stuff and has had pupil success recently at grade 8, but again isn't a recorder specialist. She'd probably be willing to guide me through the upper grades though and she knows how hard I work at organ.
I'd prefer to do it with one of them as they both know my musical strengths and weaknesses already and the logistics would be easier than having to arrange stuff with yet another teacher (I have 4 already for various things!), so it's just a question of how either of them feel about it in the light of my g5 comment sheet (which I havn't seen yet, but will get at my flute lesson on Tuesday).

Plus, biggest issue of all, I need to get much more secure with treble fingering. Ensemble playing and lots of sight-reading should help with that. I've never really learned treble fingering - I tend to approach it with a mix of sight-transposition and use of clarinet as a sort of mental translation guide (as it's similar to descant in one register and treble in another). I didn't get a treble until after I'd been learning clarinet for a couple of years or so, so I've always done it like that.
I need to start to /think/ treble, if that makes any sense.

I wish the AB offered grades 6-8 on descant as well as treble!
But learning treble properly will be good for me as a recorder player, and doing an exam in it will force me to tackle it. If I could do the higher grades on descant it would just enable me to continue to procrastinate about getting to grips with treble.

T.

A super result. Well done.

Very well done, Teigr .
I'm glad though for your sake that there is no grade 6-8 section on descant - there shouldn't be, because by that stage you play recorders, plural, not one kind of recorder - the package has to include F and C instruments because the repertoire demands it; the Trinity exams underline that further by leaving it to the examiner to decide which of the two to choose when it comes to sightreading...I must admit though, I'd be daunted at the next obvious step, that of being able to read music at sight playing a treble in G or a voice flute .

*must think about trying to learn to play that bass standing propped up next to the wardrobe*

Thanks. :-)

That's exactly why it'd be good for me to do an exam on treble. :-) If I could keep going with descant for exams, it would just postpone my getting to grips with treble properly.
I /can/ play treble. I'm just not as secure with it as I am with descant/tenor. And that's because I don't "think treble" - I think clarinet or I think desant and sight-transpose (usually a bit of both). Which leads to occasional drifts into wrong fingerings and occasional moments of going completely blank about how to play a particular note. I also play bass, because I can muddle through on treble and I can read bass clef.

I've had a treble since I was 12 and played bass in recorder ensemble (using a school bass) in 6th form. But I'm more at home with descant or tenor. (Also have sopranino and garklein but fewer opportunities to play them - they're not exactly easy on the ears. In recorder quartet, if we try something scored SSAA we tend to play it TTBB. I think the idea of taking it /up/ an octave instead of down would have us all wincing.)

I'm sometimes surprised by some of the exam requirements.
I found out recently that trumpet requires sight-transposition from grade 6. I don't play trumpet, but it had never occurred to me that it would require that because clarinet doesn't, nor does sax. I'd have expected all transposing instruments to be treated the same way - either have them all sight-transpose, or not expect it of any.
At higher grades on treble you can choose to play one piece on descant or tenor. Don't think there's a similar option for flautists to choose a piccolo or alto flute piece, (though I think TG does allow for that.) On sax you can play your list C piece on either Eb or Bb, regardless of which you use for the accompanied pieces (which I think have to both be on the same size) - not sure if that's at all grades or not.
Higher grades on organ require sight-transposition, but I don't think piano does. Maybe that's because church organists should be able to do it, but they should also be able to play hymns, chants, etc. and that's not covered by the exams.
Lack of grade 1 on organ, 1-3 on harpsichord and grades 6-8 on descant are a bit odd, though I understand the rationale. I don't get why they offer grades 6-8 in bass trombone, but nothing for, as an example, bass clarinet.

If I could do up to grade 8 on descant, I'd still come back and do a high grade on treble later. But I'd do the higher descant stuff first. *grin*

T.

Congratulations! 131 is a fantastic mark, good that you had a particular minimum mark to aim for and did better than that. Even though some parts didn't go as well as you hoped, the examiner was obviously impressed overall.

I agree with Anacrusis about the higher recorder exams. By that stage you are playing recorders not recorder. I'd like AB to insist that for Grades 6 - 8 at least descant and treble are played, in line with Trinity. Trinity's sightreading policy is good, too, it makes you prepare equally on both. (Having said that, my daughter recently took Trinity Grade 6 and the examiner asked her which instrument she'd like to do the sightreading on!)

Are you going to treat yourself to some new music? Treble, perhaps? If you need suggestions, I'm sure there are lots of us here only too happy to supply a shopping list.

Going off-topic but continuing the theme of anomalies in the exams, does anyone know why all three pieces for strings are accompanied while those for woodwind and brass are not? I always thought that the List C piece gave the candidate the opportunity to keep in time and maintain a good pitch without support from the piano. String players - who can often use some practice in keeping in tune - don't get this. I was chatting to a pianist the other day who accompanies exams. He said that the string ones are the hardest to do as not only are there three pieces to learn and rehearse, when there's a lot of exams in a row, there's hardly time after the third piece to get back to the waiting area, warm up with the next candidate and grab a mouthful of coffee!

Well, I cut it a lot closer than I'd have liked, but at least I did it. Especially relieved as that's my last (as well as first) descant exam, so I couldn't just go "ah well, it was only a pass, but I can aim for distinction next time").



Oh, I agree that it's important to play both C and F recorders (and I do play both, I just don't /think/ both).
But if the upper grades existed for descant I'd do them. I'd do one or more upper grades on treble as well, but I'd definitely take descant to 8 if I could.



Yes. No so much as a treat, as because I need some stuff to play. Will probably choose some stuff off the g7 syllabus, hopefully including books that have more than just exam stuff in them. Shopping list welcome!
I've also downloaded Brandenberg 4 to have a stab at.
Going to get Davis 'Treble Recorder Technique' for one thing.

Might also be getting a new treble as a Christmas present. (I've explained that if that's what it's going to be, I need to go choose for myself as they vary lots and I need one that fits my hands.) If there was a treble version of the blue/green translucent Yamaha, I'd get that (assumign I could reach everything) as it'd be inexpensive and I've been hugely impressed by the blue/green descants. They behaved wonderfully. It took a /lot/ of playing to clog them up (avoided in the exam by using two and swapping for each section) and the tuning was spot on. It would be nice to have wood, but plastic suits my practice routine (or lack thereof), as I can just pick up and play for a bit, do a few scales maybe, in odd moments without having to faff around mopping out every time. Also cheaper and doesn't require playing in.
I could get wood for the new one and use the temperamental Aulos for scale practice though.


I've never done an exam on strings, but I've read somewhere that some of the string pieces are unaccompanied, but they can be on any list.

T.

Here's a curious thing: I can read bass clef, but only to play the piano to my not exactly wonderful standard....why is it so difficult to translate that to a bass recorder? I'm assuming it's because I do "think treble" or "think descant/tenor" to such an extent that my fingers bypass the note name when reading music - I can't do that short-cut for the bass clef yet. Wonder how long it'll take to learn...

Don't know. But when you find out, please could you let me know too?

I'm OK as long as I am playing along one system, but when I have to move to a new line, that's when the reading gets a bit hit and miss. Or if it's a big interval it sometimes goes adrift.

My problem with bass is the combination of F fingerings and bass clef. I'm sure I would be happier on a C bass. When I play treble I go straight from dot to fingers - if I think of the note name I get confused. And this is despite playing the treble for 40 years!

I'm sure it's partly to do with playing the flute such a lot, but I'm sure a lot of it is to do with learning C fingerings first.

I get confuzzled too! But that's no surprise, I'm easily confuzzled...

When I play tenor or descant, I don't tend to think - dot on page turns in to fingers on recorder, no probs. If I think of a note name, then it is the right note name.

When I play the treble, I am thinking less and less than I used to, but I sometimes think a bit with a brand new piece of music. What I will usually think is the note-name that goes with the C-fingering of that note. It's confusing to explain - say the note on the page is the G just above the stave, so just finger 2 on the instrument. If I'm thinking about what I'm doing, I'll be thinking 'D'
I'm not sure if this actually matters too much - as I said, the amount of thinking I'm doing is decreasing, so my fingers are increasingly automatically reacting to dot-on-page. But equally, providing my fingers find the right place, does it matter if in my head I call it the wrong thing? I could call it G, D, Alice, Bob, whatever I wanted, as long as the right note comes out at the right time.
I think that the problem with having to think - whatever you are thinking - is that it slows down playing. It's read->think->fingers-move, rather than just read->fingers move. However, if I am playing a piece I have played a couple of times before, then I will be getting the 'feel' of it and I won't be thinking, I'll just be doing - more and more practice seems to be the only way to get out of the habit of thinking.
The only place I can see it causing confusion for me is with scales, because if I'm playing the treble and asked for a G major scale - it depends, actually, but I'd probably need just a moment to think 'this is a treble and G is 0123456' whereas with a C instrument I'd probably not even need that tiny moment.

I remember when I took my first treble recorder exam - G2, 1989, I think - and it was Trinity and I was doing the musical knowledge option. I had a note pointed to me and I had to name it - it was B above the stave. I knew I mustn't think descant and call it F, but I ended up confusing myself thoroughly and calling it D (as it would be on a bass clef!!)

Treble I can do OK to C above the stave (that's actual C, you know, two ledger lines); once it goes above that my reading isn't very fluent; it's something I know I need to practice but the pieces I am playing at the moment don't tend to go that high...

The bass is really hard. I have to think a lot with the bass. I have a tutor book and a book of bass music but at the moment it's the recorder I'll pick up last - i.e. often not at all - so I'm not helping myself there
I do take my bass to SRP and sight-read on it which is probably helping but it's not often enough. Sometimes people playing the bass are doubling the treble line, so we are playing the bass recorder but reading off of the treble clef, just like we are playing a 'big treble'. A lot of the more experienced bass players have trouble with it but I manage much better with that than trying to play bass-clef bass

When I first started playing bass I sat for a few evenings with a tutor book and basically kept playing about three notes - suddenly it 'clicked' and after that I've not had problems reading. The only time I fall apart is when I'm playing tenor but the music is quite high - it LOOKS like treble music and I'm playing a BIG instrument so therefore my small brain says, 'I must be playing a treble' and I start using the wrong fingering...

Don't know how long it take, cos I havn't got there yet. I bypass the note name most of the time on descant/tenor. But not on treble, let alone bass. My bass clef reading isn't as fluent as my treble clef. I've been reading treble clef the whole time since I was 5. Reading bass clef from 5-9, then a gap until 6th form. (I still dabbled a little with piano and could handle it for theory purposes, but I wasn't playing from it much, let along sight-reading.) 6th form brought bass recorder in recorder ensemble and brief forays into double bass and bass guitar, so bass clef made an abrupt and rather scary return to active use.
Even now I'm doing organ (two staves of bass!), my bass clef reading can be a bit flakey. I can't imagine ever being as happy about it as I am about treble clef.




That's been my justification for how I currently play treble. Does it really matter if I'm sight-transposing or thinking clarinet, as long as I play the right note? And I think, as I start to tackle more advanced repertory and do more ensemble playing, that it /does/ matter a bit. Because the stuff that's going on inside my head makes me respond more slowly than I do when I playing descant/tenor. As I approach the upper grades I need the automatic jump from page to fingers. I'm not going to have time to think about it the way I do now.

If what's going on in your head has no impact on your playing, it probably doesn't matter. But if it slows you down or makes your playing more accident prone, or you have brief moments of uncertainty, then it matters. Eventually you'll hit a point where playing the right notes isn't enough - you need fast, accurate sight-reading. If you can do that still, regardless of what you're thinking, then it doesn't matter at all. Only you can really decide what's going on and how much impact, if any, it has on your playing.

For me, speed and accuracy aren't where they could/should be, so it's clear that the thinking is a problem.



I'd think "that's the same as D on descant" then play /that/. ;-)



Fluency in reading ledger lines comes with practice. So as you gradually play more pieces that use them, you'll get quicker at reading them. With descant it all fits quite neatly onto the stave (or close to it), so that makes it a lot easier. I'd prefer it if treble was written so it goes off the bottom of the stave that the top, just because it's lower than descant so that would seem more intuitive to me. Ledger lines themselves don't worry me so much, because flute uses loads of the little pests, as the idea that the lower pitched instrument goes further up the stave! (If it was the other way around, there'd be a similar conflict with tenor, so I know it's completely illogical to be bothered by it.)



I've been known to write bass music out in treble clef and transposed, so I could play it as if it were a descant. Teigr drwg!
(I don't make a habit of doing that though!)

T.

:nod nod nod: At the moment, it slows me down occasionally - mostly on completely brand-new sight reading. Once I've found out where the tricky bits are, have practiced them a little, then thinking doesn't get in my way, in part because the bit that confused my head is no longer brand new, both my head and fingers know where to go next.
I think that it's not a problem for me, at the moment, at my level; it's something that I hope will disappear with practice/experience as my level advances.
The biggest falling over spot for me is when I'm playing something completely new and rather than do anything sensible like read through the piece beforehand, I'll just go for it - and fall over when I get to the end of the line and the next line befuddles me (unexpected interval, sudden appearance of semi-quavers, etc).

Which is a thought - I'm sure one for the sight-reading thread - but hasn't it been mentioned that people who sight-read well tend to read ahead? I know when I'm playing, I'm often looking at the next bar to see what's coming next, but perhaps I don't do that at the end of lines...I just jump and hope!

Just a thought, but how comfortable are you with the concept of sight-transposition?
I'm absolutely fine on bass when I actually remember that I can read it as descant music and sight-transpose down a tone.
Unfortunately I tend to forget that when a bass part appears in front of me...

But if you're OK with doing it and can manage to remember that it's an option, it's a very very easy way to play bass.

T.

Transposition at sight is a tough one too - presumably very handy for organists, who may have to shift hymn settings to a level at which a congregation can actually sing them. I once decided I'd try to learn how to play using the French violin clef, with G on the bottom stave, because being able to do that opens up a lot of early flute repertoire to a recorder player - if you read the bottom stave note as a G, then you are transposing up a minor third (assuming you remember to adjust the key signature) - which is exactly what gets done to baroque flute music when we want to nick it to play. I failed miserably - a pity, because if I could do that, I would also have learned how to play the bass clef, sort of....instead I ended up writing out the transposition myself - Bach's flute partita - and then bought a printed recorder version many years later .

That's what I tend to do with the bass - rather than see a note on the middle line and think 'ooh, bass clef, OK, urm, that's a D, but this is an F recorder, so that's like an A'...I think 'one note down from that is A'. It's OK, but I think my thoughts are still running a bit slower than my fingers need to be going

You're not the only one, daughter has similar problems too.

Which I think is why it's required for organ in the higher grades. Also required for all RCO exams.

But it's also useful for clarinet players for when you want to play stuff and there isn't a Bb/Eb part available and they need to play from a concert pitch copy. And for Bb sax players when they need to play off an Eb part. And for guitarists when the pianist in their youth fellowship decides to take the last verse of something up a tone.

And for flautists when the guitar player in their church music group decides to use the capo chords but no capo, which means things are going to be a minor 3rd below what's written. (Happenned to me yesterday and not for the first time.) *wry grin*

It's something that you just get used to doing, though some intervals/directions are way easier than others.
In general, people who play a transposing instrument probably end up getting rather more practice at it than people who play concert pitch instruments.




I hadn't thought about that before. What's the compass of baroque flute?

T.

I don't know how high it goes, though I've a feeling higher than is comfortable for a recorder transposing upwards...if I remember correctly, the bottom note on earlier flutes was D, but the extension to get C as well will have happened before the multiple-keyed flutes of today were developed. I can't find my history of woodwind instruments book at the moment to look it up, maybe someone else knows.

Top A, I believe is the highest. (The four leger line one)

Please try to work with the real pitches of the notes on the score when you swap from one recorder to another. Tricks are OK as quick fixes sometimes but there is no substitute for doing it properly. Learn a few key notes and use their correct names. Then you will find it far easier when there are more accidentals or keyt signatures to work with. Lots of consort playing is the answer I think.

I think that's one of the reasons I fall over with the bass. Because I know the 'trick' but I'm sitting there thinking "No, must do this properly, don't cheat, argh, which bar am I supposed to be in by now then?"

Last night, I played the treble first and while I wasn't thinking very much (which is a good thing!), I was "thinking in F". I also found that if I have a more challenging rhythm to deal with, the fingers take care of themselves while my head worries about the rhythm (challenging rhythm = 'it's got semiquavers'. Even if it's reeeeeaaaaaallllllllly slow, semiquavers [and shorter] panic me!)
When I switched over to the tenor then I was thinking even less, and definitely thinking in C. So I can do the switch from F to C, but when I go C to F it takes my head a while to catch up.
It's one of the things I like best about the SRP though - we do five pieces in our meeting, and I go along with four recorders, and I aim to play all of them. One gets played twice, obviously, but I try not to make that consecutive pieces, just for the challenge.

It's definitely best not to 'cheat'!

This is one reason why I still haven't got to grips totally with singing from tenor, alto, baritone clefs etc (they inflict these tortures on Kodály students). I tend to cheat - think, 'ah, it's like reading in G doh' which works OK until they ask you to sing it with letter names and then I'm stuffed .

So I should do what I've done with recorders and NOT CHEAT!!!