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tourmalineDid anyone else on my f-list play the recorder at school? I don't know how or why, but recorders suddenly popped into my head a few days ago and I found myself looking at them on Amazon. You may have seen a few tweets, I ended up having a conversation on twitter with a space-tweep friend about the recorder - which sizes we played, favourite music, and why are recorders brown?
I started learning the descant (aka soprano) recorder at 6, then at 10 I started learning the treble (aka alto) recorder, and continued playing both until I was about 12. I don't know why recorders have these alternate size names, I guess descant is used so that little children don't get confused between soprano and sopranino, but I used to mix up treble and tenor, so I think using the name alto would've been more sensible there. Both my recorders - bought via school - were Dolmetsch, like most schoolchildren's recorders seemed to be then. Sometimes you saw kids with more expensive-looking Aulos recorders, which seemed to have more of a flourish in their curves and had more parts highlighted in cream, the Dolmetsch recorders being dark brown all over except for the mouthpieces.
I loved playing the descant best at the time, most of our year-group who took recorder lessons were a big group of most of my friends. I wanted to learn the treble for a long time, at first I wasn't able to (maybe we couldn't afford it at the time, or because I was also having guitar lessons, which I wasn't interested in, but I had a guitar left from when our cousins emigrated so I was going to learn to play it whether I wanted to or not) but eventually I was allowed to, I loved how different it sounded. My cousin, three years older than me, was learning descant and treble recorders, and her teacher brought in a tenor recorder to one lesson and said each girl in the class would be able to take it home for a week to play it. Luckily, we visited on the weekend she had it, and she let me play it - a bit of a stretch for my seven-year-old fingers, but I thought the key for the bottom C was so cool.
I don't know where my recorders have got to, they're probably buried under piles of stuff in a cupboard or in the loft somewhere. The good brands of recorder on Amazon - Aulos & Yamaha mostly - sell for around £10-£15 for trebles, descants & sopraninos, so don't be too surprised if I decide to buy one. Tenor recorders are more expensive, £60 or so, and there are keyless models available - but I'd want a one with a key. There are more expensive recorders made from applewood for a few hundred pounds, and professional ebony-wood recorders for near to £1000, which probably explains why dark brown is the colour for cheaper recorders. I'm pretty sure I won't be buying a bass recorder, due both to expense and the fact that they all seem to be bent-neck models rather than with a curved pipe mouthpiece like a bassoon. But the thing that surprised me most is that the recorder book I started out with in the final year of infants' school is available on Amazon, still in print.
I started learning the descant (aka soprano) recorder at 6, then at 10 I started learning the treble (aka alto) recorder, and continued playing both until I was about 12. I don't know why recorders have these alternate size names, I guess descant is used so that little children don't get confused between soprano and sopranino, but I used to mix up treble and tenor, so I think using the name alto would've been more sensible there. Both my recorders - bought via school - were Dolmetsch, like most schoolchildren's recorders seemed to be then. Sometimes you saw kids with more expensive-looking Aulos recorders, which seemed to have more of a flourish in their curves and had more parts highlighted in cream, the Dolmetsch recorders being dark brown all over except for the mouthpieces.
I loved playing the descant best at the time, most of our year-group who took recorder lessons were a big group of most of my friends. I wanted to learn the treble for a long time, at first I wasn't able to (maybe we couldn't afford it at the time, or because I was also having guitar lessons, which I wasn't interested in, but I had a guitar left from when our cousins emigrated so I was going to learn to play it whether I wanted to or not) but eventually I was allowed to, I loved how different it sounded. My cousin, three years older than me, was learning descant and treble recorders, and her teacher brought in a tenor recorder to one lesson and said each girl in the class would be able to take it home for a week to play it. Luckily, we visited on the weekend she had it, and she let me play it - a bit of a stretch for my seven-year-old fingers, but I thought the key for the bottom C was so cool.
I don't know where my recorders have got to, they're probably buried under piles of stuff in a cupboard or in the loft somewhere. The good brands of recorder on Amazon - Aulos & Yamaha mostly - sell for around £10-£15 for trebles, descants & sopraninos, so don't be too surprised if I decide to buy one. Tenor recorders are more expensive, £60 or so, and there are keyless models available - but I'd want a one with a key. There are more expensive recorders made from applewood for a few hundred pounds, and professional ebony-wood recorders for near to £1000, which probably explains why dark brown is the colour for cheaper recorders. I'm pretty sure I won't be buying a bass recorder, due both to expense and the fact that they all seem to be bent-neck models rather than with a curved pipe mouthpiece like a bassoon. But the thing that surprised me most is that the recorder book I started out with in the final year of infants' school is available on Amazon, still in print.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 06:19 pm (UTC)We started recorders in Grade 3, IIRC, and played until Grade 6 (so, 8-12 years old). Every year our recorder classes would enter the local music festival. We started band studies proper in Grade 7, so I took clarinet because it was closest to the recorder.
Thanks to the Doctor Who MIDI file archive I've worked out a few pieces that seem to play well on both recorders. I should maybe list them sometime.