The amazing recorder

The recorder flute is normally associated with beginning music lessons for young children. It is easy to forget how much wonderful music can be made from this simple instrument. I cannot play as well as these ladies, but they are my musical inspiration.

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Originally posted by bill718
The recorder flute is normally associated with beginning music lessons for young children. It is easy to forget how much wonderful music can be made from this simple instrument. I cannot play as well as these ladies, but they are my musical inspiration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfuBfOzUOWQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQddAE_-CLI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lq2DH0uOy8

I play many woodwind instruments, and what's interesting is that anyone who already knows the saxophone, clarinet, flute or even oboe (or their variants) can easily make the jump to the recorder. The concepts are similar among all of these. I find recorder music soothing, like piano and harp.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I play many woodwind instruments, and what's interesting is that anyone who already knows the saxophone, clarinet, flute or even oboe (or their variants) can easily make the jump to the recorder. The concepts are similar among all of these. I find recorder music soothing, like piano and harp.

As mainly a strings player, I find it very difficult to play recorder. I have big trouble figuring out how much pressure is too much or not enough.

My daughter Heather did it right, got her first degree at Berklee in Boston and MA at Wesleyan and is expert on winds, especially Oboe, a very difficult instrument to learn I hear. I wouldn't even give it a try🙂

She lives and teaches in Natal Brazil at Federal University there.

On a visit from Brazil to Allentown Pa during Father's day, she gave me a nose flute and showed me how to play it. She of course having no problems at all getting notes out of it.

Now for me it just clutters my guitar case🙂

Suzianne, do you have anything recorded, say on myspace or such?

Did I give you my own myspace address? I can if you are interested. I compose folk like melodies for mandolin, guitar, dulcimer and keyboards.

Originally posted by sonhouse
As mainly a strings player, I find it very difficult to play recorder. I have big trouble figuring out how much pressure is too much or not enough.

My daughter Heather did it right, got her first degree at Berklee in Boston and MA at Wesleyan and is expert on winds, especially Oboe, a very difficult instrument to learn I hear. I wouldn't even give it a ...[text shortened]... f you are interested. I compose folk like melodies for mandolin, guitar, dulcimer and keyboards.

I play most woodwinds (except oboe and its variants, the double-reeds are most difficult). Sax, flute, clarinet and I do noodle around on recorder when I just want to play with melodies, or figure out one I heard on TV. The winds were my first music love, even before piano. (and no, I don't have anything recorded, I never really felt the need to record. I'd rather just play.)

Now strings I have a problem with, not sure why. I couldn't even grok the guitar, and it must be the easiest string to play. I mean, I get that each fret is a half-step and the fifth (or sometimes fourth) fret sounds like the open string higher, so with some concentration, I can do scales (because I already know what notes I need to play in what scale), but I have small hands and it's just an ordeal for me to play it. Zero 'muscle memory' I guess.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I play most woodwinds (except oboe and its variants, the double-reeds are most difficult). Sax, flute, clarinet and I do noodle around on recorder when I just want to play with melodies, or figure out one I heard on TV. The winds were my first music love, even before piano. (and no, I don't have anything recorded, I never really felt the need to r ...[text shortened]... but I have small hands and it's just an ordeal for me to play it. Zero 'muscle memory' I guess.

There are two stringed instruments you might give at try, both easier than guitar: 1 is the Ukulele and the other is the lap dulcimer (Appalachian mountain dulcimer, as opposed to the hammer dulcimer). The Uku has only 4 strings, very easy to fret and the dulcimer has usually only 3 strings, tuned usually D, A, D. It has a fretboard diatonic, not chromatic so like the white keys of a piano. There is a surprising amount of music that can be played on that instrument. There was a guy, David Schnaufer who was an award winning dulcimer player much in demand in Nashville, believe it or not, RIP, he died a few years ago.

Here he is on youtube playing Here comes the sun:

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Here are some amateurs learning the instruments, showing the basic finger motions:

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Originally posted by nimzophysh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1GuPhZRR-E

Now that was awesome. I'm not that good at recorder or flute. I could almost keep up with that on clarinet or sax though. It reminds me of the etudes we played for practice. The big joke between us music nerds was "And then I got to the end and saw the repeat sign!"

Originally posted by sonhouse
There are two stringed instruments you might give at try, both easier than guitar: 1 is the Ukulele and the other is the lap dulcimer (Appalachian mountain dulcimer, as opposed to the hammer dulcimer). The Uku has only 4 strings, very easy to fret and the dulcimer has usually only 3 strings, tuned usually D, A, D. It has a fretboard diatonic, not chromatic ...[text shortened]... rs learning the instruments, showing the basic finger motions:

[youtube]SSy8V8_pDNY[/youtube]

The 'Here comes the Sun' was awesome, he's getting a very nice sound out of that.
Very funny when he said he figured out that the birds were in the key of A. I don't suppose it's too strange to think that different species could play in different keys. The key of A would be a good one and probably rather natural.

Cool seeing so many dulcimers playing at once. I can see that sound becoming almost overwhelming played on so many instruments. But yeah, I see your point, the fret board does seem smaller and easier to reach across. What in the heck was that big tub-shaped instrument with the slats? It almost looked like a tunable percussion type of instrument. I've never seen anything like that before.

So if the fretboard is diatonic and not chromatic, then one has to match the instrument to the music key you want to play, no? Meaning each instrument would be only able to play in a few keys, probably depending on tuning, is that right?

Originally posted by Suzianne
The 'Here comes the Sun' was awesome, he's getting a very nice sound out of that.
Very funny when he said he figured out that the birds were in the key of A. I don't suppose it's too strange to think that different species could play in different keys. The key of A would be a good one and probably rather natural.

Cool seeing so many dulcimers playing ...[text shortened]... nstrument would be only able to play in a few keys, probably depending on tuning, is that right?

Yes, only a few keys for each one. My wife has several so she keeps on in D, one in A, another in G and so forth. But there is a trick. There is the device called a capo, guitarists use them a lot, where in that case the bass string is E and putting the capo on the first fret makes it play F and so forth but chromatic up the frets.

There is a capo made specifically for dulcimers and since it is a diatonic instrument, putting on capos can change the mode, say from mixolydian to say, Ionian or aeolian, depending on which fret the capo goes.

That funny looking fat instrument is a bass 'thumb piano' or Kalimba

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This one is a more normal sized one. I saw one dude had glued a version of one to the top of his guitar and made amazing music doing both guitar and kalimba at the same time.

Also called Mrimba, here is a more elaborate one:

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BTW, about the chromatic/diatonic thing, here is one that goes the other way, microtonal guitars:

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The same guy with adjustable and removable frets:

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