I never do, not really. Not unless it's like hugely out and I'm playing a major scale, whcih is what gave away my ancient plastic tenor dying - when G major sounded dreadful because the E was practically and F, I think. In any other situation I wouldn't have a clue.
Our musical director at SRP goes on about G# (descant) / C# (treble) fingering all the time. As in, for the right hand - I was taught that you use the first two fingers of your right hand. Musical director always says that we must remember to use one of the double holes for the third finger as well.
I actually bought myself a chromatic tuner to blow at so I had an indicator - turns out that on my treble, I need both double holes covered with the third finger of the right hand to get to C# I was playing scales at it last night and it's astonishing that something that sounds right to me is so not-right according to the little black box.

It is those sorts of things I get terribly confused about/forget on the recorder. One reason why I find it difficult, and compared to clarinet/flute/sax, probably always will.

I was confused about that actully, I was taught to use just the first two fingers on the right hand but I have seen fingering charts with the third finger covering up one of the double holes...

There are other notes with optional fingerings which I hear about at SRP meetings, and rarely, if ever, remember, there seems to be so many...

The added confusion is that it will vary from recorder to recorder, so not only do you need to know the 'general' fingerings, you need to know the 'specifics' for your instruments. So perhaps the Aulos plastic descant I learnt to play on was such that you did on need 01245 for G#, but my Kung cherrywood treble definitely needs 012456 for C#.

http://recorder-fingerings.com/en/index.php has the general fingerings but also you can look for a particular make in case there are known quirks. So for my treble it says I'll need one or both of the double holes covered, which is right for my instrument and also different from the general fingerings (where it says just the one double hole).

thanks Maizie

:here's me, pondering:

Just out of being-nosey, I decided to see if there were any new teachers in my locality on musicteachers.co.uk and similar places. Teacher 1 that I found that way didn't play treble :harumph: and Teacher 2 who I found via fellow SRP-ers hasn't amounted to much (I haven't been able to get to the group she runs except for once, last May!!, and until I manage to get to that regularly I doubt it will go any further). So I still look now and then in the unlikely event a recorder specialist has moved in next door to me, or something.

And today there was a new one listed.
In my town.
Within walking distance of my house (in fact, in one of the roads where we did look at a house to buy!)

:eep:

The only 'but' being that she teaches: Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute, Piano, Recorder (in that order on the listing). Still, I doubt it could be worse than my previous attempts...if only she had an email address and not just a phone number (I'm about to play with Google to see if I can get adverts anywhere else which might have an email contact )

Edited to add: first hit on "her name" and "saxophone" in google led to an advert with an email address...(definitely her, phone contact number is the same...)

I'd be wary of that one then...yes, some can manage to be good at several instruments, and yes, teaching methods will undoubtedly overlap, but very often the recorder ends up being the cinderella of a list like that, and you're right, the order of listing makes it sound more like an afterthought than a serious proposition.

I've just come back from a most enjoyable week playing recorders with ten or eleven others - tuning was taken seriously and the results were wonderful. If the general noise was rough, our conductors would get us to tune up section by section - and once it's in, you sure know it, cos suddenly the tone is smooth and the communal volume much increased .

Well that's why I put it down as a 'but', cos I'm aware that it might be significant. And that's why I'll word my email to her carefully.
And that's why I'll still try to get along to Teacher 2's group if anyone tells me the dates for this term (they tend to give very short notice...), because although she is in fact an oboist first, she's a Serious Recorderist (and prefers recorder to oboe; just does more teaching/work on the oboe...!)

Normally, all my searching finds me is people who have a great big list with recorder at the bottom, but even so they're miles away. Unsuitable and round the corner is an improvement on unsuitable and a long way away
The only other thing searching finds me is proper recorderists who entail getting to London or Cambridge for lessons, which bumps up the cost beyond affordable (as well as me having 'travel issues').


As ever, I go from being rather excited that I might actually have found someone who can teach me; to utterly despondant that there's no way I'm ever going to find a proper recorder teacher...
I wonder if I could persuade my husband to move house to near where I might find tame forumite tuition

it is a problem, isn't it?
I cross Scotland about once a month for a lesson now - my teacher is well worth the upheaval, but upheaval it is, nonetheless. And although my previous teacher still has lots he can teach me, he really was the only one I could find in Edinburgh...we have one of the world's most comprehensive collections of harpsichords here, as well as a big collection of other musical instruments, and yet very little in the way of formal early music or recorder music that I can find.

Well, I've just emailed Teacher2 and asked for the dates for the group for this term. So that's me showing enthusiasm and being proactive, which might make her more inclined to see me as a potential student (she teaches at a school in my town; she could just pop round afterwards and teach me, I'd not be that much bother... ) Perhaps I can nag her in to submission from a distance even if I never make it to her group (the last group session I was really ready for, I had no clashes, was looking forward to it...and then had a migraine for about 3 days either side of it!)

I wonder sometimes if one of these 'and-recorder-too' teachers might be worth it because at my level it would probably mean I was a bit more confident come the time I was ready to approach one of the more distant and More Proper teachers. I know some of it is down to me being difficult about travelling - I just wonder if I would find the travelling easier if I felt more 'worth' bothering one of the proper teachers rather than going to them as a total numpty. Well, maybe not total, but I know I'm a beginner by even grade standards (whereas we all know the real beginning is after G8 ) Besides, even an 'and-recorder-too' teacher should be able to get me feeling more secure about the very basics, and perhaps some aural stuff, and probably most importantly of all teach me how to practice (I'd probably do a lot more practice at home if I felt I had a clue what I was doing...)

At least this one, if I email her (the despondant bit has set in again) is woodwinds + recorder. My next nearest people - apart from the 'clarinet + recorder' teacher I tried first who turned out never to have played the treble - all seem to be violin soloists who teach violin, viola, theory, oh, and recorder...(having said that, there is one violin/violist nearbyish who says she teaches recorder but only treble; which is interesting [because it makes you think potential-proper-recorderist; but then you think that a real-proper-recorderist would do c-instruments])

:pokes through handbag: I've found a list of emails of people who were advertising in Brian Jordan as recorder teachers (most as recorder teachers, one as 'and-recorder-too'). Perhaps I shall craft an email tomorrow and be all brave and send it out to the lot of them and see what they think...who knows, they may have good ideas about the travelling (e.g. perhaps not going every week, to cut down the travelling costs)

It makes me sad, though, that you are thinking in terms of "proper" teachers as only being worth it once you reach whatever level constitutes the beginning (as you've put it !). This is exactly what has blighted the recorder's reputation - the fact that it gets written off as something easy to play, easy to teach, and not worthy of proper input from the start. A clarinettist on here asked not that long ago about tonguing fast, and I was daft enough to assume that what a recorder player might do could be transferrable - I knew that double-tonguing is used sometimes on clarinet, but not that clarinettists playing at speed wouldn't necessarily use it as a matter of course, whereas I do, all the time, when playing fast. In the same way, a clarinettist will only know what is best for the recorder if actually playing the recorder seriously...

I would say a recorder specialist is worth it from the start, if only you can find one, because if you start with a "and that as well" teacher, and move on to a specialist, you might well find you're having to change some of what you've been taught. Good luck though. You're right, travelling is a pain too - I stay with friends overnight and travel on for my lessons in the mornings to get there, and it's nice to see my friends, but somewhat tiresome for my family when I disappear like that...

That's a very good point. I suppose I'm trying to think pragmatically - with Proper Recorder Teachers being so hard to find, I might as well make do with whatever I can get.
However, your point has made me think of a parallel...I just bought a new camera. I went to my local camera shop. I paid more than I would have if I'd gone online - but this way I get customer service and a friendly face and good help if things go wrong and my camera shop will be there when I need them. I'm starting to get the same way about bike shops too. By logical extension of supporting your local friendly retailer, I must therefore support a Proper Recorder Teacher. If I go to an 'and-recorder-teacher', then I'm supporting their trade in 'second class recordering' and the lack of need for specialists - a bit like going to a shop that sells mostly car bits and a few bike things when you want a Decent Proper Bicycle Shop for useful service
All the recorder specialists I've seen notices for do say they take adult beginners...well, that's what I am, and they wouldn't say if if they didn't mean it. Right, watch out local Proper Recorder Teachers, here I come

(It also helps that on Monday I'm getting my letter that tells me the amount of my payrise and my bonus; I'll very likely be in a cheerful confident mood ready to book a consultation lesson with the most Properist Scariest Person I can find )

I'm not going to ignore the 'and-recorder' teachers I've got on my list entirely though - one of them might be a hidden recorder-gem who teaches something else just to get by (because there's no demand for recorder specialists )...we shall see what all of them have to say, given the chance

Interesting, that.

I play both, clari rather better than recorder. I very, very rarely double tongue on clarinet. 99 times out of 100, using very quick single tonguing is quite adequate. Not that I'm good enough on recorder, but I'd imagine double tonguing would be much more common on recorder. I certainly use double tonguing a lot more on flute.

It was you who put me right, barry .

...which shows how much I remember anacrusis!

*is eminently forgettable*

oops...

I've just been given a ticket for a Pamela Thorby gig tonight.

Still can't believe my luck - one of my colleagues said "I've no idea what you're on about, but you're very excited - yay!" and joined me in doing my happy dance

Aaahh - a nice end to a rubbishy week!

YAY Fibi, that's really great


Totally caught up in my own sudden reawakened enthusiasm:

Eeeeeeep 1: I got in touch with the lady who runs the group-I-never-manage-to-get-to, and their next meeting is tomorrow so I can't go yet again as I have an OU tutorial. But their next meeting after that is their concert on March 21st, "if you're free" So I said I am free that day, and I'll come along as audience rather than attempt to sight-read my way through a performance...unless I can get the music beforehand. Said half tongue-in-cheek, half seriously. No response yet, but I think I may have just volunteered to perform, albeit sensibly hidden in a group (mind you, the day I went to my first-and-only session with them, they asked me if I was free the next Saturday to play with the group in a music festival; before we'd even started playing!)

Eeeeeep 2: Llast month I had to go to a meeting at work on a different site which is a long way away and somewhere I've never driven. Actually, it turned out it wasn't that far, was close to a different place I used to work, and it was an easy drive even at 8am on a weekday morning.
Having had a Really Good Poke Around online this morning , not even as far as the work site, but on the same route, I've found a recorder specialist. Who according to his listing currently has a few spaces on weekday afternoons and evenings. Who isn't available to teach at weekends because he's teaching recorders to TCM Juniors. Who is a professional on recorder, baroque flute and shawm. Who specialises in baroque recordering. Now I just need to work out what to say when I fill in the contact form on his website...

When are you spaces and can I have one please as I'm really keen to learn Recorder.

Worst that can happen is he'll say no, but I'm sure he won't.

Make that call!

Wow! - that sounds ideal! Bset of luck with it

Well, eeeep 3: I've sent a message via his website. I was very good and didn't go all grovelly and say 'please please please please please be a nice person and have a space and teach me to be a recorderist'. I just said I was an adult returner - well, more like beginner after 15 years away - and could he fit anyone in who works full-time. Though I then said the town I work in and that I finish at 4pm, so from that I hope he can infer that I could, for example, be able to do 5pm lessons...

Hmm, probably ought to warn my husband...

Good luck Maizie

Fibi - a challenge for you. Wait til Pamela Thorby is playing a piece you've heard before, and see if you can still find the notes she'd have had in the score . It's harder than you think. Last time I saw her she'd got to the first repeat before I could work out which Handel sonata it was, so amazingly florid was her ornamentation...

I'll let you know how it goes - really looking forward to it now

Sharp.

I have a recorder lesson at 5pm on Friday with Mr. Recorder Specialist.

(who is a first study recorderist "that's what all my qualifications are in" but most of his private pupils these days are other woodwind which he also teaches, and he said he was looking forward to teaching recorder to an adult )

I think that deserves a whole string of



excellent - ENJOY YOURSELF!

I told you he wouldn't be scary

Make the most of it and have a great time, he should be pleased to be teaching you.

Fantastic! (in place of recordering smilie)

Maizie, that's wonderful news, and all the best for the first lesson .

Fibi, how did the concert go?

It was absolutely amazing! It was Pamela Thorby with Andrew Lawrence-King on the harp and they were playing most of the programme from their "Garden of Earthly Delights" cd (don't have a copy of it, but will be running out to find one somewhere!)

I hadn't previously heard most of what they played, so I didn't have any basis for comparison, but you could definitely tell that there was a lot of her own improvisation or elaboration involved. At one point, Pamela's playing sounded closer to maybe modern jazz (I suppose) than anything else and the audience were oohing and aahing at it - sort of "ooh" at the surprising sounds coming from the instrument and "aah" at the blinding skill and speed.

It was a really entertaining concert the whole way through. One of the nicest things about it was that, while everything they played was completely brilliant and dazzling, the atmosphere was just very relaxed and everyone seemed to be having a good time, including the perfomers.

Sounds fantastic, Fibi . And wonderful too to hear musicians who can communicate a sense of relaxed ease with what they're doing, even in a concert performance, isn't it? Pamela Thorby doesn't half take some risks with her ornaments, sometimes, but it pays off all the same...

It certainly does and she was well matched by Andrew Lawrence-King - he played an Italian triple harp and on occasion, a psaltery, both of which were really interesting to see and hear. They both chatted a lot to the audience about what they were playing, which was also very entertaining (and educational too)

Well Mr Recorder Specialist is absolutely great, I had a fantastic first lesson. I won't witter too much about it here as you can read that on another thread.

But lots and lots of recorder enthusiasm here now, and someone to help me do something good with it. Thank you all for your encouragement last week when I ran the risk of non-specialist-ness once again.

Right, off to Recorder Music Mail now to purchase what few of his suggestions I don't already own

Glad it went well! Enjoy your lessons!

Oh no...you can now buy Red Priest merchandise online (and CDs too, in the even you didn't already have all of them, from the main Red Priest page).
Wonder if I can get a T-shirt in time to be a total fangirl to wear it to the concert in two weeks?

I must remember to get tickets for that one...!! I keep on forgetting

After getting my G7 recorder, I'm now teaching beginners, and I know of a recorder specialist who can teach me. However, I hope people won't think of me as an "and recorders" person, I'm a "Recorders are proper musical instruments person" my aim in time is to bring the recorder up the pecking order of instruments I play, but somehow singing will always be at the top.

Back to the really diddy recorders. I love playing them, and have developed a method of blowing them to keep the tone dolce even though the frequency is somewhat on the high side. Just because the notes are high does not mean one can't find a dolce tone.

That's the Red Priest tickets sorted for the end of March.

Sarah and Maizie. PM Me and I'll give you hubby and my seat numbers so we can sort out meeting for drinks.

Saw them last night and they were fantastic!! Piers Adams has a new fan (not me) Emsoboe insisted on staying to get autographs at the end and they were lovely with her.

I think the speed Piers plays Recorder at is amazing!! It's a wonderful show enjoy it!

*looking forward to the end of the month even more*

Is anyone else going to the Cadogan Hall Red Priest performance (I'm guessing Jod et al are going to Cambridge)?

I've seen this 'show' before and am really looking forward to seeing how it develops

Yes, I'll be there. As will katyjay and MisterJay. We'll look out for you.

The Corn Exchange is indeed in Cambridge. RevdDrD, JoD Sarah123 (if she buys her ticket) I think Maizie is going to Cambridge too. Would make sense given where she lives as its an easy journey.

Piers is ALWAYS unfailingly lovely to people - I've even seen him unflinchingly teach real 'BAG' beginner recorder players !!

He is a very special musician and person. Bagpuss was lucky enough to be taught by him..

Enjoy the show, all! Sadly I can't get along to any of the gigs this time *goes off to play shiny new 'Pirates of the Baroque' CD*..

And me

How lucky you were to be taught by him. Emsoboe will be quite jealous

She hasn't heard her teacher play as a soloist yet but I think she would be similarly suprised by him. This is something we'll have to put right

Friday was a very strange day and I doubt there will ever be another one quite like it

Ooooh, I see to have won a sopranino on eBay So now I don't have that yawning gap between garklein and descant...

Oh, and yes, I am going to see RP in Cambridge I'll be easily recognised as the person carrying either a massive recorder case or a roll-bag of recorders - Friday after work is my recorder lesson and then I'm coming straight up to Cambridge, and regardless of temperature and/or security nothing could persuade me to leave them in the car. (Which is an all of its own, seeing as I normally only drive as far as the Park'n'Ride but the buses to Trumpington stop too soon for me to do that, so I will be driving in to the city centre. Not that I'm worrying or overplanning any of this already )

*waves* me again!

Van Eyck...currently I have the pokey little Schott version with like a dozen pieces in it. I feel the need to upgrade.
I was in Cambridge today and Brian Jordan had voume 3 of the Amadeus publication in stock. I know that XYZ and Amadeus both produce a three-volume version.
I now know the volumes aren't congruent, i.e. something you find in V1 of Amadeus might be in V2 of XYZ. So obviously I need to get the same publisher for all three - I didn't buy the V3 in the shop as I wasn't sure whether the publications were mix'n'match-able and I didn't want to buy V3 to discover V1&2 of that publication weren't available (I was really hoping they would have all three, especially as I had birthday-book-tokens to spend!)

Now, musicroom have all three XYZ editions on their website, but listed as 10-14 days, so not actually in stock; they only list V1 of the Amadeus.
Recorder music mail have all three of the Amadeus editions on their site, with XYZ V1&2 only.

Just wondered if anybody knew for definite if (a) all three editions were in print by one, other or both publishers; and/or (b) if either of these publications is preferable...