Recorder anyone?

LarryS

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Messages
1,171
Reaction score
72
Location
Darlington UK
Recently I decided to reacquaint myself with the instrument that every school kid used to be given to take home and torment their parents, the recorder. Now the type that kids are given to start on is the soprano or descant, which has a fairly high range and yet it is a genuine instrument that dates back over 400 years. If blown carefully it can produce a beautiful sound. The low notes are the trickiest to get. Having played around with it for a while and watched countless youtube videos I decided I prefer the sound of the bigger instruments -the alto or treble and the tenor. Also the soprano requires deft fingering due to the closely spaced small holes.And so I ordered myself a tenor and hopefully it will arrive today.
I will keep you posted.
 
Good luck with your tenor, I found the lower notes a little tricky to hit perfectly. :)

(I used to have a sopranino, soprano, treble, & tenor - always fancied a bass - like that which is played on 'Stairway To Heaven'.)

P.S. Tootler, (find him in the Seasons & Other Instruments threads), plays recorders.
 
I used to work in the Early Music Shop in London - they are beautiful instruments. I can 'play' - insofar as find the notes to make a tune, but never got good enough to make a 'nice' sound.
 
My hands have trouble with the longer reaches on a tenor (the same is true on ukuleles, how consistent!) I've learned to love the alto. Be careful: recorder acquisition syndrome can strike at any moment.
 
The alto/treble has a beautiful sound, I just never got my head round the transposition (after learning on descant)
 
Like most kids in Europe, I also learned recorder in school, and unlike most kids, I really enjoyed it and was good at it. I recall even having a piccolo recorder (I now wonder what happened to it; was an maple one made by Hohner). I love the sound of small woodwinds, and more than once looked at alto and tenor recorders too. It usually ends with me realizing that there is no good way to practice them quietly.
 
I am digging the sound of the alto size recorder.
Uke1950, thanks for the post about Tootler. I PM'ed him and got some good info.
This might be my next instrument purchase, they aren't very expensive.
I have a harmonica background so I think the recorder might be easier to learn for me than someone with no wind instrument background,
Very glad the OP started this thread, thank you.
 
We were forced to have recorder class in grade school here in the USA. As I remember I liked it well enough, but once I took up violin in the school orchestra the recorder became an 'elective' which I continued...and later added piano both in school and at home with a private teacher..

later when I picked up a guitar and started taking lessons, both the violin and recorder were abandoned in favor of the guitar and related instruments...

The guitar and bass stayed with me in various forms for nearly 42 yrs since...but I find I dont care much for recorder nowadays - HOWEVER, the XAPHOON is very interesting to me, it's like a 'pocket sax' - dont have one yet - just wish they were cheaper - and supposedly the XAPHOON uses the same fingering as a recorder (not that I remember it well, or at all, nor the clarinet, flute, sax, nor trumpet fingerings either that I used to know).....
 
The guitar and bass stayed with me in various forms for nearly 42 yrs since...but I find I dont care much for recorder nowadays - HOWEVER, the XAPHOON is very interesting to me, it's like a 'pocket sax' - dont have one yet - just wish they were cheaper - and supposedly the XAPHOON uses the same fingering as a recorder (not that I remember it well, or at all, nor the clarinet, flute, sax, nor trumpet fingerings either that I used to know).....

that has a clarinet style reed doesn't it? I was tempted by the sound, but never played a reed instrument so thought, too much learning curve ... they sound mental tho
 
I gifted a black plastic xaphoon to my beloved husband who plays sax and clarinet. He likes to say it was my attempt to dissuade him from buying a tenor sax, but he and I both know that's a joke (because of course he did buy a tenor sax).

The xaphoon is working out great. DH likes it because it's in C (no transposing) and it's not too loud, which means he can accompany his ukulele-playing wife without buying her an amp and vocal mic. The xaphoon is fully chromatic (with some cross-fingering and half-holeing) and has a range of two octaves (although, as DH insists, you do not want to hear much of that top half octave).

It sounds more like a clarinet than a sax. The plastic ones are pretty much indestructible and weigh nothing. Between his xaphoon and my Blackbird Clara, we're ready to busk anywhere (will play for food -- often do).

Buy the xaphoon. I think you will like it.

ETA: The xaphoon uses a tenor sax reed.

ETA again: As a recorder player and not a xaphoonist, and lest we stray too far off topic, I'll put in a plug for the Yamaha 300 Rottenburgh series, and specifically the simulated rosewood models with the woodgrain finish. These are plastic but they play wonderfully. I have a set of soprano, alto and tenor. The tenor was not available with woodgrain which is unfortunate because while it may or may not affect the sound (opinion online is divided) it does make the thing easier to hold. Great recorders, indestructible and inexpensive (at least compared to ukuleles) and I think everyone who enjoys playing a recorder should have at least one.
 
Last edited:
I gifted a black plastic xaphoon to my beloved husband who plays sax and clarinet. He likes to say it was my attempt to dissuade him from buying a tenor sax, but he and I both know that's a joke (because of course he did buy a tenor sax).

The xaphoon is working out great. DH likes it because it's in C (no transposing) and it's not too loud, which means he can accompany his ukulele-playing wife without buying her an amp and vocal mic. The xaphoon is fully chromatic (with some cross-fingering and half-holeing) and has a range of two octaves (although, as DH insists, you do not want to hear much of that top half octave).

It sounds more like a clarinet than a sax. The plastic ones are pretty much indestructible and weigh nothing. Between his xaphoon and my Blackbird Clara, we're ready to busk anywhere (will play for food -- often do).

Buy the xaphoon. I think you will like it.

ETA: The xaphoon uses a tenor sax reed.


This is a great story and thanks for sharing it...

Been thinking to add a wind/reed instrument and it's been a toss-up between a decent Melodica which can do chords, or a Xaphoon-type thing, and how much breath is required is an issue - I need to start with something that will let me play a measure or two of notes in a single breath at T=110bpm, and I think that a Melodica will need MORE air than I can muster, and for that, a Xaphoon would be easier to play...

Many years ago I picked up a 'melody-C' sax at an estate sale, completely refurbished it myself, and then got some books and taught myself to play it, but that was a short-lived experiment since my cheeks were always burning and my lungs always hurt after I played --- maybe I was doing it wrong, but being lazy, I dont want to have to work that hard to make a nice sound...
 
Love the sound of xaphoons, and have suggested one to my partner (she used to play saxophone). I think she's still pondering it! Myself, I was traumatized by an encounter with a vicious clarinet in my teenage years; couldn't get a darn sound out of the thing.
 
I gifted a black plastic xaphoon to my beloved husband who plays sax and clarinet. He likes to say it was my attempt to dissuade him from buying a tenor sax, but he and I both know that's a joke (because of course he did buy a tenor sax).

The xaphoon is working out great. DH likes it because it's in C (no transposing) and it's not too loud, which means he can accompany his ukulele-playing wife without buying her an amp and vocal mic. The xaphoon is fully chromatic (with some cross-fingering and half-holeing) and has a range of two octaves (although, as DH insists, you do not want to hear much of that top half octave).

It sounds more like a clarinet than a sax. The plastic ones are pretty much indestructible and weigh nothing. Between his xaphoon and my Blackbird Clara, we're ready to busk anywhere (will play for food -- often do).

Buy the xaphoon. I think you will like it.

ETA: The xaphoon uses a tenor sax reed.



awesome :cheers:
 
Ugh the xaphoon was brought up in this thread. First I'll plug this yamaha recorder which seems to be a good value:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0134BIH1K

I've sort of gotten into XAS or xaphoon acquisition syndrome, mostly just the plastic ones. There's the original plastic xaphoon which runs ~70usd or so, Then there's exact chinese copies for ~30usd from aliexpress (don't have one of these.

There's an "andoer/anself" copy that uses an alto sax reed, ~30usd that plays well.

There's a pocket sax that plays a C major scale, same manuf has a Bb xaphoon that sadly doesn't have a left index finger hole (meaning no chromatic way into the upper register).

I'm liking the nuvo stuff at the moment. I bought a dood last year that is actually decent. The jsax looks to be the most promising of the bunch:



go to 7:30 mark to get a sample.

and a channel with a few demos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJI-eTjfl5RZAf-W_5I3CyQ
 
Last edited:
I used to be a lot more active with recorders and had fairly decent soprano, alto, and tenor. The tenor may have had the nicest sound, a keyless "ergonomic" model from Huber. It was designed to have easier finger reaches but even then, they got to be a little more than I wanted to deal with. I sold it and the soprano leaving just a Kung Superio alto and even that I haven't played much in years.

I tried a xaphoon but could not get used to the breath pressure required and especially the lip pressure. It was literally painful to play.

My favorite wind instrument by far is the Akai EWI4000s. It's so versatile between the onboard synth and being a MIDI controller. It appears in almost all my compositions.
 
My problem with wind instruments is that the kids always seem to give me some upper respiratory illness whenever I start getting into some practice routine. I've been out of playing the past few weeks due to the last one.

Tonight I decided to play through the whole set of them. All of the ones I have use alto sax mouthpieces and/or reeds except the xaphoon. After playing through all the alto sax reeded ones I was really having problems trying to get a sound out of the tenor reeded xaphoon. It really requires a very different embrouchure from the others, which is probably why it frustrates normal sax players so much. For them the andoer/anself is possibly a better choice.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom