I have a really nice Mollenhauer Denner alto recorder. I'm flying up to see my brother and assumed that I would take a plastic Yamaha alto that I have. But I just took it out to play and realized that I never actually broke it in, or at least never learned to speak the upper registers. I learned all of that on my Denner. So the Yamaha was squawking. Now I'm thinking, why not take the Denner in my carry on, carefully wrapped. (I don't have a wooden case, just the cloth case it came in.) I mean, it's not that fragile.

But what say ye more experienced players? I don't want to torment my brother and his family learning how to speak the upper registers of the Yamaha. But maybe it wouldn't take that long? I only played a few moments on the Yamaha in order to spare my landlord upstairs.

Plastic recorders don't need breaking in, so you just need a little familiarity with the Yamaha. But the playing characteristics won't be that different from your Mollenhauer; if you can play one, you can quickly learn to adjust for the other. That said, it won't harm your Mollenhauer to carry it in a soft case in your hand luggage.

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Master of nine?

I never had any problems with my Yamaha recorders, they played well straight off, so it probably just needs a very slight adjustment on your part.

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Trying to do justice to my various musical instruments.

As Peter and fatmac said. The Yamaha should be easy enough to adjust to (I have one, and it plays easily over two octaves) and the Mollenhauer should travel just fine when packaged well (you are not going to throw your carry-on luggage around, are you?). The recorder might be more at risk at your brother's (climate, children, animals?) but that's for you to decide. If you want to play on a sandy beach, or at a camp fire while mountain trecking, I'd recommend plastic.

Thanks all for your insight. I'll try to find time tomorrow to go down to the nearby outdoor park and see what's what with the Yamaha; doubtless I just need to adjust my breathing or other technique a bit. If I can get it to match the octaves I can play on the Denner, then I'll take it. Um, as a matter of fact I WILL be going into a mountainous wilderness in Washington state, but we'll be staying in a cabin and not having any outdoor fires. To be honest, I really like the idea of -practicing out in the woods with a river nearby, the breeze, the views...the mosquitoes...

and I have access to bubble wrap!

Actually, I just read in another forum lots of praise for Mollenhauer Denner recorders, so your "problem" might not be a difficult plastic recorder, but an above-average easily played wooden one How did your park practice go?

I just now pulled it out and it's the high E and F that aren't sounding. Well, close enough! I really love my Denner and will probably not risk it on this trip. I'll play for a half hour now and see what's what. Maybe I can solve this before I leave in two weeks. If it was a car trip, the Denner would come.

the Yamaha sounds pretty good otherwise!

edit later: well the finger holes are just slightly differently placed on the Yamaha and I sometimes get a leak because of that; I imagine a little time will solve that. And the breath is different for some notes. I never play this recorder since I got the Denner! The e and f remain a mystery.