... Could anyone help me? As an extension to my coursework I would like to look at how the material used in the construction of an instrument affects the tone. So, if any recorderists could record themselves playing an A440 (Or some other A if that one isn't available on your recorder) and email it to me along with what type of wood and what size the recorder is, I would be very very grateful My email address is on my profile under my MSN address, and if possible can recordings be in an uncompressed format (.wav or .aiff) although other formats are fine too
Thank you all very very much!
Rosemary

I don't know how soon you need it, Rosemary, but several of the Forums recorderites are at the Early Music course this week. Katyjay and I are day girls on the course, so we might be able to do something, and I might see if I can find some volunteers on the course with different sorts of recorder for you. Do you want an 'A' on as many different sizes and types of wood as possible?

All my recorders are plastic, so maybe that's not what your after. It wasnt completely clear what you wanted - do you want a recording of music played on a A=440Hz recorder, or a recording of just the A?

Just a recording of the A

andante - if you could that would be great! I pretty much want as many types of wood and sizes as possible, so I can compare the sounds. I've only got plastic recorders, sopranino, descant and treble, so any help would be greatly appreciated Sometime this week would be fine.

Thanks!

That sounds interesting. How are you going to analyse the tones?

We had a practical in my first year at Uni where we looked at the harmonics present in different sounds. I took my flute and recorders in for it. I think what surprised my lab partner was that he had always thought of the flute as having a "pure" tone, but there were a lot more harmonics in the notes played by the flute than those on the recorder.

Rosemary, some organ pipes are made of wood, I guess theyre just like very large recorders but of fixed pitch. You might seek help form a local organist.

Hmm... interesting coursework.

Is it possible you could get hold of the computer program Logic Pro, and someone who knows how to use it? I believe (I have a housemate who uses it) there is a section of it, where you can simulate various instruments in all kinds of strange materials (glass violins sound very odd).

Might be an interesting way to compare your finding with a piece of software that has apparently been created by combining the characteristic waves of a shape of instrument, with the characteristics of different materials.

Should emphasise, I don't know very much about it, but it could be worth while tracking down someone who does.

I'm not sure you will get much in the way of meaningful results out of this. There are far too many variables other than the material of the recorder – the player, make and quality of the recorder, conditions under which it’s being played, the equipment used to record it, etc. could all affect the results apart from the material. To be scientific about it you would have to eliminate all variables other than the material of the instrument. You would need identical recorders (other than material), played under the same conditions, by the same person (or preferably a machine), to get comparable results.

Regardless of other external factors, the material the instrument is made from will have an inherent effect on the tonal qualities of the instrument.

As a starting point, research and make a list of all the woods used to make recorders. Next do a Wiki/Google search for all those woods - NB. some woods are know by more than one name. If you use Wikipedia, it should have some information about the densities of the wood and the density does have an effect on how the recorder will sound. Your next job is to find out how these denisities will affect the tone, but I'll leave that for you to research. Write up and present your information in a clear and factual way.

As Jon S has said, there are many other factors which can affect the tonal characteristics, but I would say that these are very much beyond the scope of GCSE(?).

Thanks for all the suggestions It is A level coursework. I know there are other variables to consider but I don't have the resources to get several recorders and record them in the same way. I will consider other variables when I'm writing it up though.

I'm using audacity to analyze which harmonics are present in each note and also the shape of the wave. Its quite a useful program! I can't use LogicPro because I don't have access to a windows computer (I'm guessing its for windows?) but it sounds really interesting!

AmandaL - thanks for the advice - I shall look into that!

Could you get recordings of the same type of recorder recorded in deifferent ways? It could even be e.g. a plastic Yamaha descant if that makes things easier. Then you could ty looking for differences between the recordings of different materials that are distinct to the differences that are due to different recording conditions.

I would think that for A level it should be fine, though I agree that there are far too many variables to be confident that material alone has much effect on sound. The bore and voicing of the instruments will be much more of an issue (you might see if it's possible to fit a standard headjoint to several different lower joints...)

There is a long running dispute on the saxophone discussion groups about whether mouthpiece material or the finish of the instrument (lacquer, bare metal, plate etc) makes much difference to sound - informed consensus, no it doesn't, but then the player and mpc has far more effect on saxes than on recorders (though changes in the body material of the sax might have an effect - certainly acryllic Grafton saxes generally sound 'orrible, but then they were also cheap horns).

Fluters, similarly, debate whether the metal the instrument is made of makes much difference; the most convincing view I've heard is that it doesn't on its own, but that precious metal flutes tend to have more careful manufacture, and more hand finishing, and THIS certainly makes a difference.

(I'll now duck out of the way of all the owners of solid silver/gold/aurumite flutes!) ;-)


nick