Recorder Lessons

Learn to play the Recorder. Recorder tutors throughout the UK; more welcome.

The Recorder is a woodwind musical instrument belonging to the internal duct flutes or fipple flutes family. These instruments are whistle-like and include the ocarina and tin whistle.

A recorder is played by blowing from its mouth which is constricted by a wooden plug or fipple. It has seven fingering holes with one or two of these holes often being doubled to allow production of semitones, and the other for the uppermost hand’s thumb. This makes it distinguishable from the other members of the family.

A recorder’s bore is slightly tapered, being wider at the mouthpiece for the Baroque recorders and narrower at the top. For the Renaissance instruments, it is almost flared like a trumpet at its bottom. It was in the past associated with marriages, shepherds, miraculous events, amorous scenes, funerals and birds. Famous musicians like Vivaldi and Bach used the instrument to suggest birds and shepherds in their works.

When playing the recorder, it is held away from the player's lips slightly sideways. When the player blows into the mouthpiece, the air is compressed into an air stream by a channel in the block/fipple, travels along the wind way - the channel duct exiting at a hard edge called the ramp or labium. This causes the air column in the resonator tube to oscillate to the frequency desired. The pitch is altered using finger holes in the front and the thumbhole at the back of the recorder.

When learning to play the recorder, it is important to note that sheet music for the C key normally notates this instrument. This means that a player must know two varying sets of fingerings, one for C recorders and the other for F recorders. Many sizes of recorders do transpose at the octaves though.

A garklein recorder plays two octaves higher than the written pitch - these being known as sopranino and soprano. Tenor and alto sizes do not transpose at all. The bass and the great bass sound are usually one octave above pitch. The sub contrabass and contrabass sound right on pitch. The octo contrabass is as an octave below scored pitch.

The descant recorder is a favourite among many school bands and many amateurs enjoy playing in companies. A four-part arrangement of just recorders is possible with a soprano, an alto a tenor and a bass recorder.

Arrangements that are more complex are possible with multiple parts for every instrument. The recorder is not just for children, it is also a serious instrument played in orchestras, often with more than 60 players with ten different sizes of recorder.

Professional playing requires some extra skills as dynamics are important. Blowing hard does not necessarily mean a louder sound and can often result in getting a shrill note. This screeching, distorted sound is something all beginners have to get past. Young children with their smaller fingers can often find that their thumb does not entirely cover the thumb-hole of a descant recorder and this produces a pinched sound that shifts the frequency up one or two octaves.

That said, the instrument is relatively cheap to buy - available in plastic or wood (the latter producing a better sound but requiring more effort to maintain - particularly in the early stages when their is an excess of saliva). As it is a 'C' instrument, music is readily available and it can play along with a piano or guitar. It also uses very similar fingering to the other members of the woodwind family - flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone etc. That, perhaps, goes a long way to explain the continuing popularity of the recorder.

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