To learn recorder as an adult?
January 24, 2020 8:21 AM Subscribe
After the recorder thread, I kind of want to learn to play as an adult. So many choices: which instrument, and what books/videos/channels/whatever will help?
Soprano or alto? Baroque or German? Not looking to spend way too much, but would rather spend a tiny bit more on the recorder itself.
(I've seen the alto recorder askme. It's helpful.)
Soprano or alto? Baroque or German? Not looking to spend way too much, but would rather spend a tiny bit more on the recorder itself.
(I've seen the alto recorder askme. It's helpful.)
I'm actually a big fan of the Yamaha sopranos (and they come in colors!), because they're cheap but sound good. And if you learn on a soprano and have big enough hands, then if you decide you like it you can buy a tenor (which isn't as shrill). You could go with a spendier Yamaha and still be happy and have money left over for music.
(I learned on a soprano, like everyone else. I play alto but not very well (it's tricky to keep track of the mapping between notes and fingerings, and I don't have folks to play with any more. I've got a bass, too, which is super-fun. I'd have a tenor, except my hands are too small.)
It's way more fun if you can find someone else to play duets/trios with. In which case having SA (or possibly AT) is nice---so it might depend on who you have to play with and what they play!
posted by leahwrenn at 12:42 PM on January 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
(I learned on a soprano, like everyone else. I play alto but not very well (it's tricky to keep track of the mapping between notes and fingerings, and I don't have folks to play with any more. I've got a bass, too, which is super-fun. I'd have a tenor, except my hands are too small.)
It's way more fun if you can find someone else to play duets/trios with. In which case having SA (or possibly AT) is nice---so it might depend on who you have to play with and what they play!
posted by leahwrenn at 12:42 PM on January 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I say go for a tenor if your fingers can comfortably cover the holes, and (if you're playing from sheet music) you don't have a problem playing soprano parts on the tenor. A soprano or alto can of course sound magnificent in the hands of a virtuoso, but a tenor, even in beginner's hands, will just sound lovelier from the start (and for a long time thereafter) due to its softer, more rounded timbre. (If there are others within hearing range, they too will be grateful.)
posted by tenderly at 3:07 PM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by tenderly at 3:07 PM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: So when people say that the fingering for a tenor is a stretch, how much is that? I'm a bloke, but I've got quite small hands. Also they seem to be considerably more expensive than altos. The softer tone is quite appealing, though: strident pipes are the worst.
posted by scruss at 5:32 PM on January 24, 2020
posted by scruss at 5:32 PM on January 24, 2020
I've got reasonably small hands for a dude and coped fine with a tenor. If you can stretch to the extra money I think it's a very good decision.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:40 PM on January 24, 2020
posted by ominous_paws at 10:40 PM on January 24, 2020
The alto is the recorder for playing solo. There is a huge repertoire of baroque sonatas by Handel, Teleman, and many others which are within reach of amateurs. Also, the alto has a similar pitch as a flute or violin so you can play fiddle tunes and lots of other instrumental folk music - for this you need the trick of 'reading up' where you play the music an octave highter than written, so you can get down to the flute's low D or the violin's low G - this isn't hard.
The other recorder sizes are for playing in ensembles. There is a huge repertoire of renaissance consort music which is very rewarding to play. Also, consort playing teaches you to play in tune, which is actually the hardest thing.
I started with the Hugh Orr books. Many of the exercises are excerpts from the baroque and renaissance literature, so you start by playing the music the recorder was intended for.
The Orr books come in soparano and alto versions, the same music
but written in different ranges.
The exercise books by Rooda are interesting. Play in any key! Also in soprano and alto versions, like many recorder books.
It's fun to try -- or at least look at -- modern exercises by virtuousos --- they show how far from the familiar baroque renaissance folk repertoire you can go. Hans Marin Linde's Modern Exercises for the Treble Recorder are interesting and sound wonderful if you can bring them off. Hans Ulrich Staeps brings 12-tone music to the recorder. He wrote an exercise book called Der Taglische Pensum (The Daily Lesson). My edition was untranslated German - I thought he intended you play one of the exercises every day. Somebody explained you are supposed to play the entire book every day! Those numbers by the exercises are the number of seconds you are allowed for each exercise!
posted by JonJacky at 7:55 AM on January 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
The other recorder sizes are for playing in ensembles. There is a huge repertoire of renaissance consort music which is very rewarding to play. Also, consort playing teaches you to play in tune, which is actually the hardest thing.
I started with the Hugh Orr books. Many of the exercises are excerpts from the baroque and renaissance literature, so you start by playing the music the recorder was intended for.
The Orr books come in soparano and alto versions, the same music
but written in different ranges.
The exercise books by Rooda are interesting. Play in any key! Also in soprano and alto versions, like many recorder books.
It's fun to try -- or at least look at -- modern exercises by virtuousos --- they show how far from the familiar baroque renaissance folk repertoire you can go. Hans Marin Linde's Modern Exercises for the Treble Recorder are interesting and sound wonderful if you can bring them off. Hans Ulrich Staeps brings 12-tone music to the recorder. He wrote an exercise book called Der Taglische Pensum (The Daily Lesson). My edition was untranslated German - I thought he intended you play one of the exercises every day. Somebody explained you are supposed to play the entire book every day! Those numbers by the exercises are the number of seconds you are allowed for each exercise!
posted by JonJacky at 7:55 AM on January 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
The highest notes and the lowest notes are always the hardest to blow. I find that a wooden recorder has an overall nicer sound than a plastic one and the low notes are easier to blow, but those high notes are hard. A plastic recorder does better high notes but doesn't sound as warm. However when it gets soggy it can be dried with a bullrush and you can go on playing, whereas a wooden recorder is done for the day after a certain point, and is quite easy to destroy if you do something dumb.
I'm going to suggest that you sit down and listen to recorder first and decide if you would find a plastic soprano satisfying enough to stick with for a few months. If you don't actually love the shrill sound, it's time to back down to something easier on your ears.
If you don't actually adore the sound of a plastic recorder, a secondhand wooden soprano school recorder would not set you back much. If you go with Mario Dushcene's book you can study for many weeks without having to try to master the high notes. They are introduced later and there is lots of material to go with that doesn't include them.
Once you have started on the wooden soprano then you'll have a better idea if you are itching to go with those high notes and willing to get a Yamaha plastic soprano in order to save time and make it easier, or if your second recorder should be alto or tenor because you want to add more low note sound to your repertoire.
If you get a tenor look for a short one. Look for a tenor meant to be played by children. Aulos has some. Soprano followed by tenor is the usual progression because the fingering is the same. Be patient while learning to spread your fingers enough, it should be a couple of minutes practice a day for weeks to get comfortable so it's only sort of a place holder commitment, not something you need to do extensively and stress yourself. If you go on with the soprano at the same time you'll still be able to play for fun and fluency while you work on your stretch.
However if soprano recorder music, as listened to on You Tube doesn't sound like the sweet high eldritch piping of fairies, don't go with the soprano at all. Your roommates and the neighbours in the summer will support this decision because there are an awful lot of people who really hate the sound, especially when it is someone learning who is getting those notes just a bit off.
There is less music available for alto than for tenor, because soprano is the same as most female voices so you can find it everywhere, and tenor can play the exact same music as soprano. Alto is the lower female voice and when you are playing in a consort it's the soprano who does the melody line. It's much easier to learn the soprano part than the lower parts. You'll know if you get the top line of "Now is the Month of Maying" correct, but your own ear won't help you while learning the second (Alto) line or the third (tenor) line. Accompaniments often don't sound quite like a song and more like a tuneful fingering exercise.
The price difference between an entry level alto and an entry level tenor is not high. If you possibly can, go somewhere that has a display of recorders, or find someone who owns a few and try out the fingering, instead of buying them on line without ever having held them. You won't want to blow through someone else's recorder, at least not without permission, but what you can do is test the stretch and see if you can handle some of the fingering. If you can handle the tenor size then I would definitely keep the alto in the future as future reward for meeting your practice goals. But if the tenor is going to be beyond you and you literally cannot physically get your fingers on the bottom holes even with a lever, then you'll be on alto and soprano. This happens to a few people, and really it makes life much simpler because they can concentrate on what they are good at without being tempted to spend $$$$ on a Bass.
If you are just learning for your own sake and to understand music and will never ever be playing with anyone else one thing you can do is get an alto recorder and the soprano music book and pretend you are totally unaware that they don't match. They match beautifully. Many people have done this in perfect innocence trying to figure out how to play an alto they got without anyone there to tell them they shouldn't. What you are doing is playing the alto in a different range than you are supposed to. You'll get the deeper, rosier sound, and the simplest playing experience, have access to lots of music and learn the melodic lines - but don't do this if you are at all serious about your long term intentions because if you do you will have to unlearn it. It's not impossible to unlearn. I think it's actually harder to gain the stretch to a tenor that is initially too big for you than it is to unlearn the wrong fingering for the alto. If you are really serious about music you will someday want to learn to transpose - be able to play your music a third higher - and that is what unlearning the wrong fingering on an alto entails.
As for going with Baroque or with German fingering, the difference is that just a few notes with German fingering are supposed to be easier than with the standard original fingering. You can try them or not as you like, but generally German fingering is a complication only brought in when someone is struggling with the ordinary fingering. You'll be learning one note at a time, so adding German fingering is not especially difficult. When playing with a recorder consort people will be discussing how to play the different parts - "I'll do that on my tenor but play it up a fifth..." etc. and someone can't remember how to play the E, and someone more experienced will show them, and someone else will mention you can also play it like this and demonstrate the different fingering. It's quite normal to know alternate fingering for some of the notes because it makes for smoother play. In the long run you will learn both. The time to decide if you want to learn German fingering is when you are consistently messing up some three note passage because one of the notes requires a big change in hand position. Your fingering chart will probably have it shown, so then you try it to see if it makes things easier. (Get a fingering chart big enough to see. It should be printed on legal size paper or larger. If your fingering chart is on letter sized paper you will end up squinting a lot.)
Music is a mood alterant. The long term big benefit of learning to play an instrument is that you change your breathing and metabolic rate and ride on those rhythms and sounds you are producing. You'll so look forward to your practice the way you look forward to sitting down with a cup of tea at the end of the day. You just totally relax and go sensory. So to maximize your experience you want an instrument with a sound that blisses you out. The key to choosing between soprano, alto and tenor is to listen to some videos of an alto played solo and a soprano played solo and a tenor played solo and decide which range you like the best. It's not a bad idea to listen to beginners as well as good musicians.
Almost everyone has one note that sounds really good to them, more than any other note. It usually the note you sing if you are asked to sing one note and hold it. So try that yourself. Slide up and down a scale without words just singing "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...." and find what sounds good to your ears. Start high and wander up and down going lower, and then start low and wander up and down going higher. Often you'll know exactly when you hit the right note that you attune with best when you hit it. If you have trouble singing, think about what type of instruments you adore and then consider the range on them. There's a very good chance that if you are asking about recorder you love the higher sounds and instruments like violins transport you too, so your basic soprano will be the best place to start, and may even remain your favourite instrument twenty years from now when you own a bass, three tenors, two altos and five soprano recorders.
(When your recorder is cold compared to your breath condensation will occur and your recorder will start to sound harsh and then drool. This will happen anyway with longer playing sessions even if your recorder is warmed, so it is ordinary for more serious musicians to have more than one instrument in the same range so that they don't have to stop playing after twenty minutes if they want to go on for a whole half hour. This is why recorder players usually end up with a collection. We need all those recorders, honest.)
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:32 AM on January 25, 2020 [5 favorites]
I'm going to suggest that you sit down and listen to recorder first and decide if you would find a plastic soprano satisfying enough to stick with for a few months. If you don't actually love the shrill sound, it's time to back down to something easier on your ears.
If you don't actually adore the sound of a plastic recorder, a secondhand wooden soprano school recorder would not set you back much. If you go with Mario Dushcene's book you can study for many weeks without having to try to master the high notes. They are introduced later and there is lots of material to go with that doesn't include them.
Once you have started on the wooden soprano then you'll have a better idea if you are itching to go with those high notes and willing to get a Yamaha plastic soprano in order to save time and make it easier, or if your second recorder should be alto or tenor because you want to add more low note sound to your repertoire.
If you get a tenor look for a short one. Look for a tenor meant to be played by children. Aulos has some. Soprano followed by tenor is the usual progression because the fingering is the same. Be patient while learning to spread your fingers enough, it should be a couple of minutes practice a day for weeks to get comfortable so it's only sort of a place holder commitment, not something you need to do extensively and stress yourself. If you go on with the soprano at the same time you'll still be able to play for fun and fluency while you work on your stretch.
However if soprano recorder music, as listened to on You Tube doesn't sound like the sweet high eldritch piping of fairies, don't go with the soprano at all. Your roommates and the neighbours in the summer will support this decision because there are an awful lot of people who really hate the sound, especially when it is someone learning who is getting those notes just a bit off.
There is less music available for alto than for tenor, because soprano is the same as most female voices so you can find it everywhere, and tenor can play the exact same music as soprano. Alto is the lower female voice and when you are playing in a consort it's the soprano who does the melody line. It's much easier to learn the soprano part than the lower parts. You'll know if you get the top line of "Now is the Month of Maying" correct, but your own ear won't help you while learning the second (Alto) line or the third (tenor) line. Accompaniments often don't sound quite like a song and more like a tuneful fingering exercise.
The price difference between an entry level alto and an entry level tenor is not high. If you possibly can, go somewhere that has a display of recorders, or find someone who owns a few and try out the fingering, instead of buying them on line without ever having held them. You won't want to blow through someone else's recorder, at least not without permission, but what you can do is test the stretch and see if you can handle some of the fingering. If you can handle the tenor size then I would definitely keep the alto in the future as future reward for meeting your practice goals. But if the tenor is going to be beyond you and you literally cannot physically get your fingers on the bottom holes even with a lever, then you'll be on alto and soprano. This happens to a few people, and really it makes life much simpler because they can concentrate on what they are good at without being tempted to spend $$$$ on a Bass.
If you are just learning for your own sake and to understand music and will never ever be playing with anyone else one thing you can do is get an alto recorder and the soprano music book and pretend you are totally unaware that they don't match. They match beautifully. Many people have done this in perfect innocence trying to figure out how to play an alto they got without anyone there to tell them they shouldn't. What you are doing is playing the alto in a different range than you are supposed to. You'll get the deeper, rosier sound, and the simplest playing experience, have access to lots of music and learn the melodic lines - but don't do this if you are at all serious about your long term intentions because if you do you will have to unlearn it. It's not impossible to unlearn. I think it's actually harder to gain the stretch to a tenor that is initially too big for you than it is to unlearn the wrong fingering for the alto. If you are really serious about music you will someday want to learn to transpose - be able to play your music a third higher - and that is what unlearning the wrong fingering on an alto entails.
As for going with Baroque or with German fingering, the difference is that just a few notes with German fingering are supposed to be easier than with the standard original fingering. You can try them or not as you like, but generally German fingering is a complication only brought in when someone is struggling with the ordinary fingering. You'll be learning one note at a time, so adding German fingering is not especially difficult. When playing with a recorder consort people will be discussing how to play the different parts - "I'll do that on my tenor but play it up a fifth..." etc. and someone can't remember how to play the E, and someone more experienced will show them, and someone else will mention you can also play it like this and demonstrate the different fingering. It's quite normal to know alternate fingering for some of the notes because it makes for smoother play. In the long run you will learn both. The time to decide if you want to learn German fingering is when you are consistently messing up some three note passage because one of the notes requires a big change in hand position. Your fingering chart will probably have it shown, so then you try it to see if it makes things easier. (Get a fingering chart big enough to see. It should be printed on legal size paper or larger. If your fingering chart is on letter sized paper you will end up squinting a lot.)
Music is a mood alterant. The long term big benefit of learning to play an instrument is that you change your breathing and metabolic rate and ride on those rhythms and sounds you are producing. You'll so look forward to your practice the way you look forward to sitting down with a cup of tea at the end of the day. You just totally relax and go sensory. So to maximize your experience you want an instrument with a sound that blisses you out. The key to choosing between soprano, alto and tenor is to listen to some videos of an alto played solo and a soprano played solo and a tenor played solo and decide which range you like the best. It's not a bad idea to listen to beginners as well as good musicians.
Almost everyone has one note that sounds really good to them, more than any other note. It usually the note you sing if you are asked to sing one note and hold it. So try that yourself. Slide up and down a scale without words just singing "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...." and find what sounds good to your ears. Start high and wander up and down going lower, and then start low and wander up and down going higher. Often you'll know exactly when you hit the right note that you attune with best when you hit it. If you have trouble singing, think about what type of instruments you adore and then consider the range on them. There's a very good chance that if you are asking about recorder you love the higher sounds and instruments like violins transport you too, so your basic soprano will be the best place to start, and may even remain your favourite instrument twenty years from now when you own a bass, three tenors, two altos and five soprano recorders.
(When your recorder is cold compared to your breath condensation will occur and your recorder will start to sound harsh and then drool. This will happen anyway with longer playing sessions even if your recorder is warmed, so it is ordinary for more serious musicians to have more than one instrument in the same range so that they don't have to stop playing after twenty minutes if they want to go on for a whole half hour. This is why recorder players usually end up with a collection. We need all those recorders, honest.)
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:32 AM on January 25, 2020 [5 favorites]
Wow, great summation of everything one needs to know before choosing a recorder, J t B!
Re: this: Your roommates and the neighbors in the summer will support this decision because there are an awful lot of people who really hate the sound, especially when it is someone learning who is getting those notes just a bit off
I have a neighbor across the lane who is obviously a highly-skilled flautist. It's always a pleasure to hear them playing when the windows are open in the summer. Occasionally, I hear someone not so skilled (a child?) practicing the recorder through the open window, and it isn't quite so pleasurable (the soprano, as you know, is very piercing, whether the player is accomplished or not!)
If you think you have quite small hands that might make playing a tenor uncomfortable (if nevertheless doable), definitely check out one of those Aulos tenors made-for-children suggested by Jane, or go for the alto.
posted by tenderly at 4:27 PM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Re: this: Your roommates and the neighbors in the summer will support this decision because there are an awful lot of people who really hate the sound, especially when it is someone learning who is getting those notes just a bit off
I have a neighbor across the lane who is obviously a highly-skilled flautist. It's always a pleasure to hear them playing when the windows are open in the summer. Occasionally, I hear someone not so skilled (a child?) practicing the recorder through the open window, and it isn't quite so pleasurable (the soprano, as you know, is very piercing, whether the player is accomplished or not!)
If you think you have quite small hands that might make playing a tenor uncomfortable (if nevertheless doable), definitely check out one of those Aulos tenors made-for-children suggested by Jane, or go for the alto.
posted by tenderly at 4:27 PM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
That Aulos tenor is US $82 plus $25 shipping/fees to Canada from US amazon:
Aulos 511
The fingering can be a bit of a stretch with tenor recorders but this Aulos 511B features an easy-reach C/C# key and small to medium-spaced holes; both of which really help to improve the playability. The quality of the Aulos 511B is much better than cheaper models. The intonation is extremely accurate and the arched windway allows for more controlled breathing and hence more expressive playing. The sound is deep and rich, especially in the lower registers, making it ideal for ensemble playing.
...or $145 from Long & McQuade (would need to be ordered with partial deposit, but can be returned if you're not happy with it). I don't think it's listed in their catalogue online, but can definitely be ordered.
Yamaha recorders at L&M
A Yamaha tenor, OTOH, will only set you back CDN$85, while a Yamaha alto can be had for under $20. If cost is an issue, maybe start with an inexpensive alto, see how dedicated you are, and then upgrade to a tenor later if you prefer the deeper sound?
posted by tenderly at 5:44 PM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Aulos 511
The fingering can be a bit of a stretch with tenor recorders but this Aulos 511B features an easy-reach C/C# key and small to medium-spaced holes; both of which really help to improve the playability. The quality of the Aulos 511B is much better than cheaper models. The intonation is extremely accurate and the arched windway allows for more controlled breathing and hence more expressive playing. The sound is deep and rich, especially in the lower registers, making it ideal for ensemble playing.
...or $145 from Long & McQuade (would need to be ordered with partial deposit, but can be returned if you're not happy with it). I don't think it's listed in their catalogue online, but can definitely be ordered.
Yamaha recorders at L&M
A Yamaha tenor, OTOH, will only set you back CDN$85, while a Yamaha alto can be had for under $20. If cost is an issue, maybe start with an inexpensive alto, see how dedicated you are, and then upgrade to a tenor later if you prefer the deeper sound?
posted by tenderly at 5:44 PM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
You can also look for second hand recorders. Don't spend a lot on a wooden one without a guarantee or free shipping on returns, but plastic ones with a good brand name and no lever are generally quite safe. If the joint is loose you can put some vaseline in it to make the seal better. I keep a pot of vaseline in my practice area for everyone's use when the consort comes over for our weekly practice. A little dab in the joint is a common trick to improve the sound and make adjusting the joint easier.
If you want to pick up an absolute cheapie soprano at the dollar store to play with until the good one comes in, do it! It will sound pretty bad but for the first two weeks you will sound pretty bad anyway, and when the good one arrives you will be delighted by the instant improvement in sound, which is an excellent motivator.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:16 AM on January 28, 2020
If you want to pick up an absolute cheapie soprano at the dollar store to play with until the good one comes in, do it! It will sound pretty bad but for the first two weeks you will sound pretty bad anyway, and when the good one arrives you will be delighted by the instant improvement in sound, which is an excellent motivator.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:16 AM on January 28, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
Baroque fingering.
I would start with a Yamaha 302B, but often brands of instruments are very location dependent so something around that price point in plastic.
posted by plonkee at 8:34 AM on January 24, 2020