Hey everyone,

I have a Hohner pearwood Tenor recorder coming to me soon, this model:

http://www.folkharp.com/product_info.php/c...roducts_id/2528

I'm excited, and look forward to getting many years of play through it. For certain purposes I may still get a plastic Yamaha for on-the-side/training.

However, I need to know how to take proper care of this thing! There are a few things that have been pointed out that I know, like:

-Try not to drool into it when playing
-Play it in, limiting time per day until a certain period has passed (I can find the specifics somewhere)
-Handle it carefully! Don't touch the labium, etc.
-Dry after use

What else do I need to know? I'm sure there's more.

One thing which I haven't seen addressed is the long term storage of recorders, and ambient temperature. I think I've read to let a recorder warm up if it's cold before playing. Will a failure to do so damage it, or just cause the notes to sound off?

Also, later this year I may be spending a rural working-vacation on a farm somewhere for some months, living in my RV Trailer. I would of course like to take something with me to make music with (like my new recorder!), but am concerned and need to know about if this is a good idea. RVs are, of course, scantly insulated - if it's hot and humid outside, you can expect much the same inside, and when it gets chilly outdoors, those thin metal walls turn mighty cold.

I have a furnace in there, but it's completely unaffordable to run all the time when it gets cold (uses propane).

So I'm wondering if having a wood recorder in such an environment (fluctuates the same as outdoors with slightly less extremity) would damage it? A risk of swelling, splitting, cracking or any other God-forbid disasters?
Or would some kind of insulated case to keep it in be okay?

Or, perhaps I should bring a plastic one with me and leave the wooden one in the house...?

As far as long term storage of a wood recorder goes - let's say I left it in the house for 5 months while I was away on the farm, and it sat, un-played (oh the horror, I know). Could anything happen to it during that time due to un-use? What are the ideal conditions to store a wood recorder under?

I don't want to be all paranoid about it all of a sudden, but I don't want to wreck a good instrument, either!

Thanking you for your help,

R.ticle One

What the recorder will mind more than anything is huge swings in its environmental conditions - and more so if they are sudden. I do always warm up my recorders to my body temperature before playing them, simply because if I don't, they get condensation more quickly and fug up. I do that by sticking my recorders down my top, which some players find odd - they will stick theirs under their armpits, which would make me giggle .

Playing in instructions vary, but typical advice might include ten minutes a day for about three or four days, then twenty, and build it up like that. I try not to play after eating if possible, because I'm still making more saliva then, and after brushing teeth seem to have the same problem for about ten minutes. (And I would brush teeth before playing if I've had something to eat which would in anyway make the recorder unpleasant to play, like curry, or crumbly biscuits).

For your conditions, I'd have thought that as long as the instrument can be warmed slowly, and allowed to cool and dry out slowly, it'll be okay - just avoid sudden severe swings in temperature and humidity if you can. Yes, I'd keep it in a case rather than outside, but whilst it is drying it really needs to be disassembled and in the open case.

If you have to leave the recorder unloved for any length of time, then it's a good idea to limit playing at first when you return to it, and do a gentle sort of playing in again - maybe not quite as carefully as the first time, but certainly not subjecting it to an hour's playing after a five month wait .

Dolmetsch have a wonderful pdf file called Complete Recorder Care which is a great intro to what you should and shouldn't do. Very little of the advice is "Dolmetsch-specific"


Would you believe it, the link above even has stuff about what to do after period of extended non-use! There's nothing those Dolmetsch-people don't think of

Thanks guys,

for the advice you posted, and also that Dolmetsch link, which I'll be printing out.

anacrusis, when you say "What the recorder will mind more than anything is huge swings in its environmental conditions - and more so if they are sudden." do you refer to the recorder in daily un-use (just sitting there for hours in the day or overnight before of after I play it? Or do you mean that it minds most if I play it without letting it warm to body temperature first?

If it's the latter, I'm a bit concerned about taking it farming with me, because late in the season the temperature can go near to freezing or below in the night and up to five, ten or fifteen degrees in the day, day after day. And there's the unavoidable condensation around the windows of the trailer which can add to the overall humidity a lot. Could this damage it? And what would be worse, the ever present humidity (which can flip to dryness in the matter of a day if the weather gets arid), or the daily fluctuation in temperature?

Regarding warming it up, according to Dolmetsch, "Before playing, warm the head by wrapping it in thick toweling and placing it next to a warm (not hot!) hot-water bottle in a bag or case for 10-15 minutes." I guess this is the same as sticking it in your armpit (lol) or down your shirt? Is warming it up something that must be performed before every playing no matter how long you've had it? If the air of the room/building the recorder has been sitting in is already warm and dry, I guess there would be no need?

If the air in the room/trailer is already very humid (peak of summer), would playing the recorder add too much moisture to it?

So, I've read what you guys have said; I'm just not sure of how extreme the fluctuations in environment have to be to be *too* extreme for the health of the instrument.

What is the ideal ambient range of temperature/humidity for a recorder? I know that you can buy humidifiers for guitars and some other wooden instruments to keep the wood from drying out too much. Is it feasible to design some kind of enclosure to keep the recorder in while it's in a harsher environment (the trailer) with insulation and either a passive humidity regulator (there are certain silica beads which keep the RH at a certain percentage within an enclosed space, adding or pulling humidity as needed).

Again, I'm sorry for all these unusual questions; it would be a simpler matter if I was going to be in an insulated, heated house.

Thanking you again!

R.ticle One

It would be the combination of extreme humidity and extreme cold which would be most damaging, I think - when flying last week I opted to have my recorders all in my hand luggage, rather than entrusting any of them to the hold, because I knew that they would have to go from room temperature, to not very much above freezing to well below freezing and back, in the space of an hour and a half. That means not blowing warm moist air into a recorder which has been sitting at freezing cold temperatures - better to be sure the environment you bring the recorder into is warmish first, and then to warm it further against your skin before playing it. If the instrument is sitting in a cool or cold environment but has gradually got like that, it's less of a problem, though the air does dry out at sub zero temperatures. When the air is very dry or very humid, cracking is the main risk. I'd need to ask my museum curator husband for the ideal figures for humidity for you - we have a very cheap little device sitting in our living room on the piano, which indicates the humidity, though doesn't record it. Machines to take records are rather more expensive.

So in summary - it's playing from cold without any preparation which would stress your recorder the most, and extremes of temperature might make it suffer too. It is of pearwood, which is at least not one of the woods most prone to cracking, but my feeling is that you might be better with a plastic one for the trailer, at least to begin with.

How long to warm a recorder for? I will turn mine under my top until I stop squeaking with discomfort when a new cold bit gets next to my skin .

Thank you for the further clarification, anacrusis.

If you get the chance to find out about the humidity from your husband I would most appreciate it.

Cheers,

R.ticle One

The harpsichords in the museum he looks after are kept at 40-50% humidity: there is also a stone-flagged foyer in the building where a modern instrument lives, without the benefits of climate control, and monitoring in that area suggests that the environment is fine for it, with that sort of humidity, and coolness, but not perishing cold. The galleries in which the antique collection lives are also generally on the cool side, certainly not up to 20-25 degrees C, (sorry if you use Fahrenheit, I'm afraid it's a scale I have no understanding of) but nearer to 15-18 degrees C.

Cheers,

and don't worry, I don't speak Fahrenheit either!

R.ticle One