Recorder
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- For other uses, see Recorder (disambiguation).
Image:VariousRecorderFlutes.jpg The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple. It is distinguished from other members of the family by having holes for seven fingers (the lower one or two often doubled to facilitate the production of semitones) and one for the thumb of the uppermost hand. The bore of the recorder can be cylindrical or tapered in various ways.
The recorder was popular from mediaeval times but declined in the eighteenth century in favour of orchestral woodwind instruments, such as the flute and possibly the clarinet, which have greater chromatic range and louder volume. During its heyday, the recorder was traditionally associated with birds, shepherds, miraculous events, funerals, marriages and amorous scenes. Images of recorders can be found in literature and artwork associated with all these. Purcell, Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi used the recorder to suggest shepherds and birds, and the pattern continued into the 20th Century.
The recorder was revived in the twentieth century, partly in the pursuit of authentic performance of early music, but also because of its suitability as a simple instrument for teaching music and its appeal to amateur players. Today, it is often thought of as a child's instrument, but there are many excellent virtuostic players who can demonstrate the instrument's full potential as a solo instrument. The sound of the recorder is remarkably clear and sweet, partly because of the lack of upper harmonics in the sound.
In German the recorder is called the Blockflöte (Block Flute), in French the flûte à bec (Beaked Flute), and in Italian the flauto dolce (Sweet Flute). The English name may come from a Middle English use of the word record, meaning, "to practice a piece of music" [1], [2].
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How the instrument is played
Click here to hear a soprano (descant) recorder being played
The recorder is held outwards from the player's lips (rather than to the side, like the "transverse" flute). The player's breath is constrained by a wooden "block" (A), in the mouthpiece of the instrument, so as to travel along a duct (B) called the "windway". Exiting from the windway, the breath is directed against a hard edge (C), called the "labium", which agitates a column of air, the length of which (and the pitch of the note produced) is modified by finger holes in the front and back of the instrument. Because of the fixed position of the windway with respect to the labium, there is no need to form an embouchure with the lips. However, the shape and size of the recorder player's mouth cavity has a discernable effect on the timbre, tone and response of the recorder—indeed, much of the skill of recorder playing is concerned with using the parts of the mouth (as well as the diaphragm) to shape and control the stream of air entering the recorder.
The range of a recorder is about two octaves. A skilled player can extend this and can typically play chromatically over two octaves and a fifth. The note two octaves and one semitone above the lowest note can normally only be played by covering the end of the instrument, typically by using one's upper leg or a special bell key. The note is only occasionally found in pre-20th-century music, but it has become standard in modern music. Use of other notes in the 3rd octave is becoming more common, although the breath support required for the highest notes mean they can only be played loudly.
The lowest chromatic scale degrees—the minor second and minor third above the lowest note—are played by covering only a part of a hole, a technique known as "half-holing." Some instruments are constructed with double holes to facilitate the playing of these notes. Other chromatic scale degrees are played by so-called "fork" fingerings, uncovering one hole and covering one or more of the ones below it. Fork fingerings have a different tonal character from the diatonic notes, giving the recorder its characteristic woody and somewhat uneven sound.
Most of the notes in the second octave and above are produced by partially closing the thumbhole on the back of the recorder, a technique known as 'pinching'. The placement of the thumb is crucial to the sound of these notes, and varies as the notes increase in pitch, making the boring of a double hole for the thumb unviable.
History
Early Recorders
Internal duct-flutes have a long history: an example of an Iron Age specimen, made from a sheep bone, exists in Leeds City Museum.
The true recorders are distinguished from other internal duct flutes by having eightTemplate:Ref finger holes; seven on the front of the instrument and one, for the left hand thumb, on the back, and having a slightly tapered bore, with its widest end at the mouthpiece. It is thought that these instruments evolved in the 14th century, but an earlier origin is a matter of some debate, based on the depiction of various whistles in mediaeval paintings.
One of the earliest surviving instrument was discovered in a castle moat in Dordrecht, the Netherlands in 1940, and has been dated to the 14th century. It is, however, in very poor condition. A second damaged 14th century recorder was found in a latrine in northern Germany (in Göttingen): other 14th-century examples survive from Esslingen (Germany) and Tartu (Estonia). There is an incomplete set of recorders in Nuremberg which date from the 16th century and are still in a playable condition.
The Renaissance
The recorder achieved great popularity in the 16th and 17th centuries. For example, at Henry VIII's death in 1547, an inventory of his possessions included 78 recorders. There are also numerous references to the instrument in contemporary literature (eg Shakespeare, Pepys and Milton).
Renaissance recorders sound somewhat different to the modern recorders we are used to, largely because of a wider bore. The sound is louder, especially in the lower notes, and can be described as "fuller" or "woodier". The wide bore means that greater air pressure is required to play the instrument, but this makes them more responsive.
Baroque Recorders
Several changes in the construction of recorders took place in the seventeenth century, resulting in the type of instrument generally referred to as baroque recorders, as opposed to the earlier renaissance recorders. These innovations allowed baroque recorders to play two full chromatic octaves of notes, and to possess a tone which was regarded as "sweeter" than that of the earlier instruments.
In the 18th century, rather confusingly, the instrument was often referred to simply as Flute (Flauto) — the transverse form was separately referred to as Traverso. It was for the recorder that J.S. Bach wrote the 4th Brandenburg concerto in G major (though Thurston Dart mistakenly suggested that it was intended for flageolets at a higher pitch, and in an excrutiating recording under Neville Marriner using Dart's editions it was played an octave higher than usual on sopranino recorders). In fact Bach scored this work for two "flauti d'echo", or echo flutes, an example of which survives in Leipzig to this day. It consisted of two recorders in f' connected together by leather flanges: one instrument was voiced to play softly, the other loudly. Vivaldi wrote three concertos for the "flautino", an instrument first thought to be the piccolo. It is now generally accepted, however, that the instrument intended was the sopranino recorder.
The decline of the recorder
The instrument went into decline after the 18th century, being used for about the last time as an other-worldly sound by Gluck in his opera Orfeo ed Euridice.
By the Romantic era, the recorder had been almost entirely superceded by the flute and clarinet. Nonetheless there were probably more works (ca 800) written for the recorder during the 19th century than in all the preceding centuries: the instrument simply sprouted keys and changed its name, being known as the csakan or "flute douce".
Modern revival
The recorder was revived around the turn of the 20th Century by early music enthusiasts, but used almost exclusively for this purpose. It was considered a mainly historical instrument. Even in the early 20th century it was uncommon enough that Stravinsky thought it to be a kind of clarinet, which is not surprising since the early clarinet was, in a sense, derived from the recorder, at least in its outward appearance.
The eventual success of the recorder in the modern era is often attributed to Arnold Dolmetsch in the UK and various German scholar/performers. Although Dolmetsch was not solely responsible for the recorder's revival, he was responsible for broadening interest beyond that of the early music specialist.
In the mid 20th Century, manufacturers were able to make recorders out of bakelite and (more successfully) plastics which made them cheap and quick to produce. Because of this, recorders became very popular in schools, as they are one of the cheapest instruments to bulk buy. They are also relatively easy to play at a basic level as they are pre-tuned, and are not too strident in even the most musically-inept hands. It is, however, incorrect to assume that mastery is similarly easy — like other instruments, it requires talent and study to play it at an advanced level.
The success of the recorder in schools is partly responsible for its poor reputation as a "child's instrument". Although the recorder is ready-tuned, it is very easy to warp the pitch by over or under blowing, which often results in an unpleasant sound from beginners.
An influential figure in the revival of the recorder, as a serious concert instrument, in the latter part of the twentieth century was David Munrow, and his 1975 double album The Art of the Recorder remains as an important anthology of recorder music through the ages.
Modern composers of great stature have written for the recorder, including Paul Hindemith, Luciano Berio, John Tavener, Michael Tippett, Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Gordon Jacob, and Edmund Rubbra. It is also occasionally used in popular music, including that of groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix.
Some modern music calls for the recorder to produce unusual noises, rhythms and effects, by such techniques as flutter-tongueing and overblowing to produce chords. David Murphy's 2002 composition Bavardage is an example, as is Hans Martin Linde's Music for a Bird.
Types of Recorder
Recorders are most often tuned in C and F, though instruments in D, G, and Eb were not uncommon historically and are still found today, especially the tenor in D, known as a voice flute. The size most frequently used in classroom instruction is the soprano in C (in Britain also known as the descant) which has a lowest note of c'. Above this are the sopranino in F and the gar klein Flötlein ("really small flute") or "garklein" in C, with a lowest note of c". An experimental 'piccolino' has also been produced in f", but the garklein is already too small for adult-sized fingers to play easily. Below the soprano are the alto in F (in Britain also known as the treble), tenor in C, and bass in F. Lower instruments in C and F also exist: bass in C (in Britain also known as the great bass), contrabass in F, subcontrabass in C, and sub-subcontrabass or octo-contrabass in F, but these are more rare. They are also difficult to handle: the contrabass in F is about 2 meters tall. The soprano and the alto are the most common solo instruments in the recorder family.
Today, high-quality recorders are made from a range of different hardwoods, such as oiled pear wood, rosewood or boxwood with a fipple of redcedar wood. However, many recorders are made of plastic, which is cheaper, is resistant to damage from condensation, and does not require re-oiling. While higher-end professional instruments are almost always wooden, many plastic recorders currently being produced are equal to or better than lower-end wooden instruments. Beginners' instruments, the sort usually found in children's ensembles, are also made of plastic and can be purchased quite cheaply.
Most modern recorders are based on instruments from the baroque period, although some specialist makers produce replicas of the earlier renaissance style of instrument. These latter instruments have a wider, less tapered bore and typically possess a loud and strident tone.
Some newer designs of recorder are now being produced. One area are square section larger instruments which are cheaper than the normal designs if, perhaps, not so elegant. Another area is the development of instruments with a greater dynamic range and more powerful bottom notes. These modern designs make it easier to be heard when playing concerti.
The Social Recorder
The recorder is a very social instrument. Many amateurs prefer to play in large groups or in one-to-a-part chamber groups, and there is a wide variety of music for such groupings including many modern works. Groups of different sized instruments help to compensate for the limited note range of the individual instruments.
One of the most interesting developments over the last 30 years has been the development of recorder orchestras. They can have 60 or more players and use up to eight or nine sizes of instrument. In addition to arrangements a lot of new music, including symphonies, has been written. There are recorder orchestras in Germany, Holland, Japan, The United States, Canada, and the UK.
See also
References
- Percy Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music, 10th edition, 1970
- Gudrun Heyens, Advanced Recorder Technique, Vols. I & II, Schott, ISBN 3795705169 and ISBN 3795705177
External links
- "Instrument of Torture or Instrument of Music?" - an extensive overview of the instrument.
- "Recorder Home Page" - a comprehensive website devoted to the recorder.
- "Recorder Fingerings" - recorder fingering charts and trill charts.
- "Dolmetsch method" - a free and comprehensive but still in progress online recorder method.
- American Recorder Society - ARS homepage
Notes
- Template:NoteOn later models the lower two holes are usually split in order to help with tuning, as described in the section on "How the instrument is played". In these cases, the number of holes is greater than eight, as some fingers cover a double hole.
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