Recorders?

[Tim2723]

If I read things right, it looks like this forum was started in January. In all that time no one has mentioned recorders. Hmmm. I don't see them discussed anywhere else, although I admit I haven't read every post.

The only time I mentioned them was when a member was asking about chromatic notes on a whistle. I recommended buying a cheap recorder to see how the fingering scheme compared to the whistle and got the distinct impression that recorders are not welcome around here. Yet I'll bet that the vast majority of folks here have a recorder somewhere in their past. Nearly every musician I've met admits to getting his start with a recorder. It is often the first musical instrument played as a child. I should think there'd be a warm spot in most people's hearts for the little fipple flute with all the holes.

So, what's up with recorders?

[Denny]

recorders are a "running gag" at C&F...a long time running "running gag"

a search on recorders might show that the joke goes back to previous incarnations of this board.

[Tim2723]

Thanks for the honest answer. Shame though.

[Denny]

whistlers...

[sbhikes]

I was looking for info on the recorder, too. I don't understand why it would be joke material.

I currently have a nice wooden soprano, although it might be damaged from poor storage.

When I was a teen I played a tenor in a quartet in church. It was a lot of fun. To make the tenor fit my hands my dad created a key out of aluminum sheet metal so I could reach the low C.

I've been trying to learn Irish music with my recorder. I have a lot of trouble with the high notes. They sound awful. I wish I could figure out how to do it right. I'm really a beginner all over again. Not having played much music since I was a child I had to get a beginner book to relearn how to read music and learn the fingering again. But my beginner book only went up to the second C! No info on how to squeeze out anything above that.

I've ordered an Irish flute because I love the sound of them and the style of music. Researching these flutes is how I found this forum. I'm learning a lot just reading here. I hope I can make making music a part of my life again. But until my flute comes (and who know, maybe even after it comes), I'm enjoying my recorder.

[ceadach]

There is a “back story” to the jokes. The recorder versus whistle battle is not merely an issue of one instrument being better suited to a particular kind of music than another. Not that long ago, there was real hostility towards traditional music from society’s more “proper” quarters, and for many Irish the recorder was perceived as being as much an instrument of social agenda as much as of music. Writing in 1970, Breandan Breathnach in his "Folk Music and Dances of Ireland" pointedly described this situation:

"It is strange that one should have to appeal to a people to become acquainted with its own music, and that folk music should have to fight for a hearing against art music. Admittedly the bias of the urban musician against folk music is not a phenomenon peculiar to Ireland, but for historical reasons the division between the performer of art music and the traditional player runs much deeper here than in many other countries. “

“Institutes of music, whose activities centre largely on the preparation of pupils for examination, use tutors and texts which maintain a silent but effective boycott of the native music, and school authorities take something more than a musically decision in introducing the recorder and Elizabethan music into the classroom."

“The best way to acquire a real knowledge of our folk music is to learn how to play it, and the easiest way to make a start is by taking up the whistle, which is the easiest of all instruments to play. All forms of ornamentation in use rendering songs and dance music can be executed on it, and its costs only a few shillings.” (from pages 120-21)

History and jokes aside, the major issue that inhibits the recorder's use in Irish music is style. Far too many recorder players render Irish music in the same fashion as they would William Byrd, Susato or Praetorius or any other piece of early classical music, not realizing that Irish music is a separate thing unto itself. For an approximate idea of how this sounds to a traditional musician, imagine African American gospel music being sung by a classically trained Wagner specialist. Rarely are the results musically convincing.

Don’t get me wrong, the recorder is a wonderful, versatile instrument in its own right. For long while I was involved in Early music, and still own a set of recorders. Occasionally, I’ll unearth one and give it a good workout. But I believe in using the right tools for the right jobs. It would be a gross understatement to say that I love the sitar. But hey, you wouldn’t want to hear Chopin on a sitar, would you???

All things considered, I feel the whistle and simple system flute are much better suited and more user friendly to traditional music. Yet surely it isn’t impossible to play all Irish music on recorder, certainly much of the older music (like O’Carolan’s compositions) can work nicely on recorder when played with consideration of style and period. Recorder players would do well to listen and learn from whistle and flute players. If you aren't familiar with his work, Ireland's Douglas Gunn is a recorder player worth checking out. In addition to several recordings, he has published many arrangements of early and traditional Irish music for recorder. His site:
http://www.melrosemusic.ie/dgunn.htm

[CHasR]

I think you're right on the money with that post, Ceadach...

Having simply melted for years when hearing recorder consorts , (from contrabass all the way up to ...wot..garklein?...) I would be jarred and oddly repulsed hearing them do ITM; much the same way when hearing a whistle consort performing Schutz. yeech...

Well, I certainly enjoy the recorder still, but seldom play anymore (a Moeck going to waste...not pretty).

now, the piano....there's an instrument I can live without!

[Tweeto]

My iAudio G3 makes fairly good recordings. For acoustic music, at least, as long as I'm within like 25 feet of it. Deepends on the volume of those being recorded, I guess. Why would you post about recorders in the "world folk winds" forum, if you don't mind me asking. I use mine to record music regardless of the genre.

[coupedefleur]

All cultural and historical arguments aside, most recorders you'll see are "baroque" style, and most of those are sopranos.

For the most part, that style of recorder was designed as a solo instrument- not meant to be used in consort. The plummy sound they produce is doesn't work well for Renaissance music, and sounds wrong for ITM as well, probably for most of the same reasons. The smaller size recorders are the worst in this respect.

You might be able to get away with playing a good Renaissance recorder, but they're expensive and would tend to be tuned in a 1/4 or 1/6 comma meantone. And they're pretty loud, and most of them would produce too much of a chiff at the beginning of each note.

In addition to all that, there are a lot, lot, lot of really terrible recorder players out there. Besides the ones that can't count and the ones that can't play in tune, there seem to be a large number that decide since the instrument is "incapable of expression" the only thing to do is play as fast as possible without a trace of style. Even people that specialize in Baroque music dread playing with these folks!

You might be able to produce a whistle with holes for your thumb and little finger that would sound right, and if nobody got a close look at it you probably wouldn't get any complaints. Would such an instrument be a recorder or a whistle? But would you really need a fully-chromatic instrument for an Ariadne Musica session?

[sbhikes]

I did not know anything of the history of snootiness against Irish traditional music, and living in California, it makes no sense to me to have that kind of attitude. I'm used to hearing all sorts of traditional styles, and all kinds of unique blends of genres. I like all kinds of traditional music, the only exception being Balinese gamelan music.

Nice thing about the recorder is it is quiet. Nice thing about the whistle is it's easy to get the notes out. I thought that Irish music was all about the rhythm anyway. Many whistle players have no rhythm, either, or are so clunky with the ornaments they forget to keep time and lose the tune.

[ceadach]

I did not know anything of the history of snootiness against Irish traditional music, and living in California, it makes no sense to me to have that kind of attitude. I'm used to hearing all sorts of traditional styles, and all kinds of unique blends of genres. I like all kinds of traditional music, the only exception being Balinese gamelan music.

Nice thing about the recorder is it is quiet. Nice thing about the whistle is it's easy to get the notes out. I thought that Irish music was all about the rhythm anyway. Many whistle players have no rhythm, either, or are so clunky with the ornaments they forget to keep time and lose the tune.

You're right, that sort of attitude doesn't make any sense; many things people believe are flawed. Although the times have changed things, in Ireland to this day one will occasionally meet with profound bigotry (and classism) toward traditional music. The same thing is visible in present day California in the racism and hostility hurled toward Latinos, their language and their art traditions, the roots of which predate the formation of the United States as a nation. But I digress...

While rhythm is certainly an important part of Irish dance music, it's primacy has been vastly overstated. And yes, there are hosts of poor whistle players...and recorder players and musicians of every stripe. But this doesn't mean the recorder or the whistle are less of an instrument for it.

[walrii]

I have a lot of trouble with the high notes.

You must half-hole the thumb hole to get the second octave on a recorder. The best book I've seen on the recorder is "Basic Recorder Technique, Vol. 1 & 2" by Hugh Orr. The books have many excellent pictures illustrating all aspects of recorder playing, including two techniques for the thumb-hole. The tunes and exercises are mostly old tunes that most of us have never heard (I'm a Beatles/Stones man, myself) but they get your fingers going. There's a CD that goes with the books and has all the tunes and exercises.

There is a thread somewhere on the whistle board where MTGuru points out that one handicap of playing Irish music on the recorder and vice versa is that the octave break on the recorder and D whistle are in different places (C# to D on the whistle, D to E on the recorder). The music for each instrument tends to place this octave break in a convenient place for that particular instrument. When I first stated learning Irish music, I used a recorder and found it difficult. "Roisin Dubh" was particularly hard until I got a whistle then things became much easier.

As far as the propriety of playing various genres of music with various instruments (i.e. ITM on a recorder) the easy answer is "play both." I took up the whistle while still learning the recorder. Yes, I had some mis-fingerings early on from one instrument to the other but that sorted itself out fairly quickly. Now, it's like getting out of a stick shift VW into an automatic van - the hands and feet recognize the vehicle and naturally drop into the right places. The fingers now know the difference between a recorder and a whistle and just naturally go the right place.

[James_Alto]

[ Thread revival - Mod ]

It's nice to see how this forum has evolved over the past 2 years.

Naughty Denny! I don't get that joke though. Or maybe I grew out of it, playing recorder in school concert.

Recorders are superb instruments!

From its origin, it is a gentle flute - 'flauto dolce' - rather than a fippled flute!

Anyhow, just trawling the archives and found this thread.

[Corgicrazed]

Recorders are superb instruments!

From its origin, it is a gentle flute - 'flauto dolce' - rather than a fippled flute!

Too true, too true....