OK, first of all, I'm totally aware of the anti-recorder sentiment common in trad circles and I'm not trying to open a can of worms here. I'm just curious.
I played Baroque music on recorder a bit as a teenager. My dad was into recorders and gave me some very nice ones, so I learned to play a bit.
Anywhoo, I've finally gotten around to learning the whistle, something I'd been thinking about doing for a while. I'm just getting started on it really.
Then the other day I fished out my old recorders and had a go at them. They're vintage Koch soprano and alto in cocobolo, and sound amazingly good. So I decided to try and learn a few trad tunes on the recorder and found out just how different whistles and recorders are.
Anyway, now I'm curious as to why recorders never caught on in trad. Is it the fingering? Is it just that there's no reason for them with whistles and flutes already established? Is it the lack of famous trad players on recorder?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sticking to whistle (and maybe later flute) for playing trad. I'll stick to Baroque music with the recorders, but I think that they're great instruments and I'm curious about why they didn't make it into trad, when the Baroque violins and flutes did.
I can't answer most of the questions, but I'm glad to find more recorder players on here! I personally think it's probably a combination of the sound, and a lot of people don't like how recorders have a more pure tone to them, and maybe that the fingerings are different (not that most people pay much attention to that, but instead hit a bunch of off notes). I think whistle and simple-system flute work the best for ITM, but every now and then I'll try something on one of my recorders. Some tunes are a lot easier to play on recorder than flute or whistle.
I'm a recorder player too, with no inherited or "received" anti-recorder bias. Renaissance recorders with their rougher tone and bigger single holes work better than baroque recorders but whistles just "work" far better - the tone is less tiring in this music, they are physically better suited to the playing style, you use the same fingering for a tune no matter what key or mode. I would also find it easier to learn to play whistle with the right playing style from the start than try picking up my recorders and mentally turning off recorder technique. Maybe other people can think whistle while they play recorder but I don't think I could, they just respond so differently. And anyway recorders simply weren't around to be played for at least two hundred years - AFAIK Dolmetsch and people like him were the first to actually make any after the recorder faded out after the Baroque period.
the fingering is difficult, for one, and they were unavailable in ireland. the old clarkes cost a penny or two, and a recorder would have certainly cost more.
i can play some irish music on the recorder (i can play all types of recorders), but it just feels sort of dead.
I played church hymns on the recorder for over 30 years before I picked up a whistle. The transition, for me, was pretty difficult.
But now I don't play trad on the recorder and I don't play hymns on the whistle (unless the hymns were lifted from trad). It helps me to be able to play both instruments.
I love my recorders but I stick to French and Breton with them. I yearn for the days when Bb and G# were so easy to finger, and you could hear a clear difference between C# and C natural. *mourns*
I love recorders! They have a really wonderful sound and play trad tunes brilliantly. In fact I'm about to upload some videos to Youtube of me performing some Celtic tunes on my alto recorder. I'll post a link when I have.
I am surprised it hasn't been embraced as a trad instrument. I should like to help it gain some standing as a Celtic instrument. Especially the tenor recorder - that's my favourite... its deep sound feels so natural and gives some tunes a really haunting quality.
As for fingering, well its not that different. Have you noticed how recorder and the bagpipe chanter share the same set of holes? Pipe tunes transpose beautifully to recorder!
I've never seen a recorder being played effectively in Irish trad, which doesn't mean there might not be people doing it. It's been played by some on the Northumbrian trad scene - and of course, like every instrument on Earth or Mars, it can be accommodated by English trad.
A fellow student at the London College of Furniture (musical instrument making department) an Irishman in his late 60s from North County Dublin, who played the pipes, also played traditional tunes on recorder. (Funnily enough, although we passed many a lunch hour in conversation, about music, instruments and everything else, I never got to hear him play.) On enquiring as to whether he found recorder fingering to be an obstacle to executing traditional ornaments, he replied that he actually found them much easier on recorder than on whistle.
He told a story of how he went to see Galician piper/recorder player Carlos Nunez in concert in Dublin. At one point during the concert, he threw a sackload of plastic recorders out into the audience, as if to say, "Stop messing around with your silly 6-hole whistles and try a proper instrument." Presumably this was meant to be taken with a substantial quantity of salt, as a musician of Nunez's calibre would surely understand that the whistle is an instrument in its own right, not merely a poor man's recorder - even if that is what it was origianlly conceived as.
I once met a German bagpiper (As a child in Germany, he happened to have a neighbour who played the bagpipes and, showing an interest, took lessons from him) at a session in London (where he was a member of a pipe band). he brought with him to the session a set of Scottish smallpipes and a *garkleine* recorder (pitched an octave above the descant, all of 6"long. Not many adults have slender enough fingers to play one and not many children have the dexterity), on which he played pipe tunes very nicely.
I've yet to actually hear the recorder used effectively in irish traditional music, but then, I've yet to hear anyone try - anyon who is an experienced trad player, that is.
I have played garkleins and I would also add that finding a garklein that can be played even remotely in tune with the rest of the ensemble is a bit of a challenge, let's just say most of them, unless you order one from a good maker, are cheap and nasty. Tha Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet have a couple of nice ones though and they make a joke out of the tallest ensemble member (who is about seven feet tall) being the one to play it in their 2' pitch ensemble.
But they do give rise to a really good line about "eine kleine garkleine" ...
Daiv hit it on the head with his remarks that tin whistles were cheap and available.
Besides, recorders have aristocratic associations for a lot of people...I can't listen to recorder music without picturing a bunch of toffs prancing about the harpsichord in their heavy makeup and powdered wigs in the salon while a mob of peasants stares angrily at the gilt iron and marble gates outside the palace. The recorder is inextricably linked with monarchy and aristocratic privilege and I can't stand to listen to it because those things are not a part of any folk music. I think a lot of trad musicians share similar feelings but don't necessarily articulate them in that way.
Playing the recorder back when in my Church alter-ego made the transition to the whistle pretty easy actually.
Fingering is simpler. A good whistle (see the many threads on that one) is a very 'fast', responsive instrument. The recorder can be if you put in the time to get the technique. But the whistle is what it is for a reason. The basic technique is very straight forward so you can get the tune out and make the ornament feel like it is part and parcel to what you are playing.
The closest experience I have had is my off and on exercise-in- frustration with the low D whistle. I fell like I did 25 years ago coming to terms with the recorder. Even though, I found the low C recorder much easier to play than the D whistle.
I have a good friend down here who has played recorder her whole life. She's been coming to our sessions for years now and plays beautifully and is one of the 'family'. She brings a selection with her, and uses different ones for different tunes. I don't know all the technical terms, but she has a wee one that sounds like a whistle, one that sounds like a flute, and one that sounds like a low whistle.
The "wee" one is probably a sopranino, the one that sounds like a flute is probably an alto, and the one that sounds like a low whistle is probably a tenor. I'm not sure how people would find whistle ornaments easier on recorder, as some you simply can't do, like the crann, except on the second octave e.
Back when all those baroque flutes came on the cheap market, were there also cheap recorders available? Were they available, but rejected in favor of flutes and whilstles or were they not even in the competition?
To most of us, recorders just don’t sound right for this music, but couldn’t that be largely because the flute and whistle arrived first and established the traditional sound for tootlers? If Tony McManus and Dick Gaughan had been playing ninety years ago, would the guitar have beaten the banjo to the primary plectrum niche? I personally think not, but my sensibility is definitely biased by decades of exposure to banjo dominance.
I’ve long been a fan of early music, but, in my youth, recordings and performances were much rarer than today, so my first significant exposure to recorders was through the likes of Pete Seeger and an elder friend who played folksy tunes on an old alto. Maybe as a result, I don’t associate the recorder with any particular type or era of music. I think it could have been (and maybe still could be) great in this music, but today might sound so much like not-quite-whistle and not-quite-flute as to be not-quite-acceptable.
I'm guessing that the transverse flute won out in the Classical period due to sheer volume. I mean, it would be pretty hard to hear a recorder in a concert hall.
Baroque flutes are not much louder than treble recorders (the main recorder used in Baroque music), some are actually quieter, and they can be quite "shy" even in very small period instrument ensembles. Even later Classical wooden flutes are nowhere near as loud as many of the wooden flutes used in Irish trad.
Early flutes are capable of some level of dynamics, though and a recorder (aside from a few alternative fingerings for odd notes here and there) is not. Neither are a lot of other instruments, which is why there's a whole body of "historical" performance practices that gave music expression before the "birth" of dynamics, just as there is in Irish trad. The concert hall and the admission-ticket performance is a relatively new phenomenon and early concert halls certainly weren't the size of modern halls. The flute had the potential to adapt to changing performance styles and preferences and the recorder didn't, and it's that rather than volume. There are plenty of Baroque works for flute and recorder together and at the time they were both 'current", volume was not a reason for the flute to displace the recorder.
And there are wooden whistles in the old traditions, too. They look a bit like recorders, so the look is not a real problem for the trad police.
Also I think these wooden whistle have a sound somehow between whistle and recorder as well as certain whistles made nowadays, i.e. my Dixon plastic alto whistle in F. BTW the latter has much more dynamics than ordinary whistles or recorders and the harder it's blown the more recorder like it sounds!
There are several good folk recorder players in Norwich/Norfolk who play in some of the sessions there, and a renaissance recorder is one of the instruments played for Golden Star Morris of that city.
The recorder was actually called the flute in England in the 16th-18th century (French 'flute a bec', German 'Blockfloete), and the transverse flute was known as the German Flute, and a few tutor books from around 1690 survive which are full of folky sounding Playford-type tunes.
Then there is the 'flageolet', which is the direct ancestor of the modern whistle. This was a loose-ish term for an instrument that was very similar to a recorder, but wasn't one. The earlier ones had fewer fingerholes. Samuel Pepys mentions playing the flageolet in his famous diary. The later versions, the English flageolets, developed c.1805 by William Bainbridge, resembled a bagpipe chanter, as there is an air chamber at the top of the instrument. He also patented the double flageolet, which allowed drones/harmonies to be played as well as melody. The flageolet became popular as the recorder fell out of use, and was cheaper and thus had less of the classical, aristocratic air about it. [ http://www.flageolets.com/ ]
However they fell out of general use in the late 19th century, and I have never heard one.
There's your history lesson
Allright we've had our little recorder encounter group now. Does everyone feel validated? Want to take any pot shots at the so called trad police while you're at it? How about a group hug?
Bach composed his set of six Brandenburg concertos in 1721, for a royal personage the Margrave of Brandenburg (hence the name). Brandenburgs 2 and 4 specifically call for the "flute à bec" (the recorder), one in the case of Brandenburg 2 and two of them for Brandenburg 4; but in Brandenburg 5 the requirement is for "Flauto traverso" (the keyless flute). The standard required for performance of these works can fairly be described as "virtuoso".
BTW, what has happened to the trad police? I haven't seen them around in sessions lately sussing out the banjos, bouzoukis, bodhrans and harmonicas.
It would be different if the recorder truly offered some quality that made it superior to the whistle for playing irish music, but it doesn't, so why the discussion?
Seosamh, the question was more about the history of it rather than why we don't play recorders in trad now. If you don't want to discuss it, don't read or post in the thread.
You know, most instruments you see at a session were not traditional at one time. The tradition picks up instruments when it finds a reason to do so; there's no stone tablet inscribed with the names of the instruments acceptible in Irish trad. It's a living tradition, it changes. But only for a good reason, and there's no good reason for recorders in trad, and there never will be. So don't worry about the local recorder ensemble showing up at your session.
I think it's good that there are people who try to keep the tradition the way it is; it should be conservative and not changing all the time for no good reason. There are certain instruments that are used in trad that give trad music its sound, and it's important to preserve that sound. But people are allowed to discuss and experiment with other instruments as well. It's rarely a good idea but once in a blue moon a new instrument "fits" in with trad (if banjos can make it...).
Recorders in Trad?
Recorders in Trad?
OK, first of all, I'm totally aware of the anti-recorder sentiment common in trad circles and I'm not trying to open a can of worms here. I'm just curious.
I played Baroque music on recorder a bit as a teenager. My dad was into recorders and gave me some very nice ones, so I learned to play a bit.
Anywhoo, I've finally gotten around to learning the whistle, something I'd been thinking about doing for a while. I'm just getting started on it really.
Then the other day I fished out my old recorders and had a go at them. They're vintage Koch soprano and alto in cocobolo, and sound amazingly good. So I decided to try and learn a few trad tunes on the recorder and found out just how different whistles and recorders are.
Anyway, now I'm curious as to why recorders never caught on in trad. Is it the fingering? Is it just that there's no reason for them with whistles and flutes already established? Is it the lack of famous trad players on recorder?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sticking to whistle (and maybe later flute) for playing trad. I'll stick to Baroque music with the recorders, but I think that they're great instruments and I'm curious about why they didn't make it into trad, when the Baroque violins and flutes did.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I can't answer most of the questions, but I'm glad to find more recorder players on here! I personally think it's probably a combination of the sound, and a lot of people don't like how recorders have a more pure tone to them, and maybe that the fingerings are different (not that most people pay much attention to that, but instead hit a bunch of off notes). I think whistle and simple-system flute work the best for ITM, but every now and then I'll try something on one of my recorders. Some tunes are a lot easier to play on recorder than flute or whistle.
Anyways, enough from this inexperienced young 'un
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by JosephofCK
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I'm a recorder player too, with no inherited or "received" anti-recorder bias. Renaissance recorders with their rougher tone and bigger single holes work better than baroque recorders but whistles just "work" far better - the tone is less tiring in this music, they are physically better suited to the playing style, you use the same fingering for a tune no matter what key or mode. I would also find it easier to learn to play whistle with the right playing style from the start than try picking up my recorders and mentally turning off recorder technique. Maybe other people can think whistle while they play recorder but I don't think I could, they just respond so differently. And anyway recorders simply weren't around to be played for at least two hundred years - AFAIK Dolmetsch and people like him were the first to actually make any after the recorder faded out after the Baroque period.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Tish
Re: Recorders in Trad?
the fingering is difficult, for one, and they were unavailable in ireland. the old clarkes cost a penny or two, and a recorder would have certainly cost more.
i can play some irish music on the recorder (i can play all types of recorders), but it just feels sort of dead.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by daiv
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I played church hymns on the recorder for over 30 years before I picked up a whistle. The transition, for me, was pretty difficult.
But now I don't play trad on the recorder and I don't play hymns on the whistle (unless the hymns were lifted from trad). It helps me to be able to play both instruments.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by feardearg
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I love my recorders but I stick to French and Breton with them. I yearn for the days when Bb and G# were so easy to finger, and you could hear a clear difference between C# and C natural. *mourns*
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by mehitabel23
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I love recorders! They have a really wonderful sound and play trad tunes brilliantly. In fact I'm about to upload some videos to Youtube of me performing some Celtic tunes on my alto recorder. I'll post a link when I have.
I am surprised it hasn't been embraced as a trad instrument. I should like to help it gain some standing as a Celtic instrument. Especially the tenor recorder - that's my favourite... its deep sound feels so natural and gives some tunes a really haunting quality.
As for fingering, well its not that different. Have you noticed how recorder and the bagpipe chanter share the same set of holes? Pipe tunes transpose beautifully to recorder!
Flag Baroque, my recorders only play celtic!
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Picopanpipe
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I've never seen a recorder being played effectively in Irish trad, which doesn't mean there might not be people doing it. It's been played by some on the Northumbrian trad scene - and of course, like every instrument on Earth or Mars, it can be accommodated by English trad.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Recorders in Trad?
A fellow student at the London College of Furniture (musical instrument making department) an Irishman in his late 60s from North County Dublin, who played the pipes, also played traditional tunes on recorder. (Funnily enough, although we passed many a lunch hour in conversation, about music, instruments and everything else, I never got to hear him play.) On enquiring as to whether he found recorder fingering to be an obstacle to executing traditional ornaments, he replied that he actually found them much easier on recorder than on whistle.
He told a story of how he went to see Galician piper/recorder player Carlos Nunez in concert in Dublin. At one point during the concert, he threw a sackload of plastic recorders out into the audience, as if to say, "Stop messing around with your silly 6-hole whistles and try a proper instrument." Presumably this was meant to be taken with a substantial quantity of salt, as a musician of Nunez's calibre would surely understand that the whistle is an instrument in its own right, not merely a poor man's recorder - even if that is what it was origianlly conceived as.
I once met a German bagpiper (As a child in Germany, he happened to have a neighbour who played the bagpipes and, showing an interest, took lessons from him) at a session in London (where he was a member of a pipe band). he brought with him to the session a set of Scottish smallpipes and a *garkleine* recorder (pitched an octave above the descant, all of 6"long. Not many adults have slender enough fingers to play one and not many children have the dexterity), on which he played pipe tunes very nicely.
I've yet to actually hear the recorder used effectively in irish traditional music, but then, I've yet to hear anyone try - anyon who is an experienced trad player, that is.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by granama
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I have played garkleins and I would also add that finding a garklein that can be played even remotely in tune with the rest of the ensemble is a bit of a challenge, let's just say most of them, unless you order one from a good maker, are cheap and nasty. Tha Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet have a couple of nice ones though and they make a joke out of the tallest ensemble member (who is about seven feet tall) being the one to play it in their 2' pitch ensemble.
But they do give rise to a really good line about "eine kleine garkleine" ...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Tish
Re: Recorders in Trad?
You mean you guys don't know about CCE's recorder ensemble competition?
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by pbassnote
Re: Recorders in Trad?
"finding a garklein that can be played even remotely in tune...is a bit of a challenge."
Being so small, it must be that much more difficult to make them accurately in tune - tiniest fraction of a mm would make a big difference.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by granama
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Daiv hit it on the head with his remarks that tin whistles were cheap and available.
Besides, recorders have aristocratic associations for a lot of people...I can't listen to recorder music without picturing a bunch of toffs prancing about the harpsichord in their heavy makeup and powdered wigs in the salon while a mob of peasants stares angrily at the gilt iron and marble gates outside the palace. The recorder is inextricably linked with monarchy and aristocratic privilege and I can't stand to listen to it because those things are not a part of any folk music. I think a lot of trad musicians share similar feelings but don't necessarily articulate them in that way.
How's that for an answer?
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Playing the recorder back when in my Church alter-ego made the transition to the whistle pretty easy actually.
Fingering is simpler. A good whistle (see the many threads on that one) is a very 'fast', responsive instrument. The recorder can be if you put in the time to get the technique. But the whistle is what it is for a reason. The basic technique is very straight forward so you can get the tune out and make the ornament feel like it is part and parcel to what you are playing.
The closest experience I have had is my off and on exercise-in- frustration with the low D whistle. I fell like I did 25 years ago coming to terms with the recorder. Even though, I found the low C recorder much easier to play than the D whistle.
Oh well.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by zippydw
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I have a good friend down here who has played recorder her whole life. She's been coming to our sessions for years now and plays beautifully and is one of the 'family'. She brings a selection with her, and uses different ones for different tunes. I don't know all the technical terms, but she has a wee one that sounds like a whistle, one that sounds like a flute, and one that sounds like a low whistle.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Recorders in Trad?
The "wee" one is probably a sopranino, the one that sounds like a flute is probably an alto, and the one that sounds like a low whistle is probably a tenor. I'm not sure how people would find whistle ornaments easier on recorder, as some you simply can't do, like the crann, except on the second octave e.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by JosephofCK
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Interesting Joseph! At her house, she has a few monster ones that take up a while corner, like 5 and 6 feet tall? Recorders are her thing, no doubt.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Yeah, SWFL, there are some big recorders out there:
http://members.tripod.com/~Goddess_Isis/audio.htm
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Recorders in Trad?
WHAT THE...?!?
Wow! She doesn't have one quite that big, that's impressive.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Recorders in Trad?
She's one of the Little People. She and it go to gigs in a carriage pulled by earwigs.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Back when all those baroque flutes came on the cheap market, were there also cheap recorders available? Were they available, but rejected in favor of flutes and whilstles or were they not even in the competition?
To most of us, recorders just don’t sound right for this music, but couldn’t that be largely because the flute and whistle arrived first and established the traditional sound for tootlers? If Tony McManus and Dick Gaughan had been playing ninety years ago, would the guitar have beaten the banjo to the primary plectrum niche? I personally think not, but my sensibility is definitely biased by decades of exposure to banjo dominance.
I’ve long been a fan of early music, but, in my youth, recordings and performances were much rarer than today, so my first significant exposure to recorders was through the likes of Pete Seeger and an elder friend who played folksy tunes on an old alto. Maybe as a result, I don’t associate the recorder with any particular type or era of music. I think it could have been (and maybe still could be) great in this music, but today might sound so much like not-quite-whistle and not-quite-flute as to be not-quite-acceptable.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Did the Baroque Flute supersede the recorder? Just wondering.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I believe they coexisted for a goodly period.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I'm guessing that the transverse flute won out in the Classical period due to sheer volume. I mean, it would be pretty hard to hear a recorder in a concert hall.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I'm glad to say I know some excellent players of traditional music on recorders.
For those who wish to avoid anti-recorder prejudice, Susato make some that look much more like whistles! "Wide bore" here
http://www.susato.com/susatorecorders.html
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by TomB-R
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Baroque flutes are not much louder than treble recorders (the main recorder used in Baroque music), some are actually quieter, and they can be quite "shy" even in very small period instrument ensembles. Even later Classical wooden flutes are nowhere near as loud as many of the wooden flutes used in Irish trad.
Early flutes are capable of some level of dynamics, though and a recorder (aside from a few alternative fingerings for odd notes here and there) is not. Neither are a lot of other instruments, which is why there's a whole body of "historical" performance practices that gave music expression before the "birth" of dynamics, just as there is in Irish trad. The concert hall and the admission-ticket performance is a relatively new phenomenon and early concert halls certainly weren't the size of modern halls. The flute had the potential to adapt to changing performance styles and preferences and the recorder didn't, and it's that rather than volume. There are plenty of Baroque works for flute and recorder together and at the time they were both 'current", volume was not a reason for the flute to displace the recorder.
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by Tish
Re: Recorders in Trad?
And there are wooden whistles in the old traditions, too. They look a bit like recorders, so the look is not a real problem for the trad police.
Also I think these wooden whistle have a sound somehow between whistle and recorder as well as certain whistles made nowadays, i.e. my Dixon plastic alto whistle in F. BTW the latter has much more dynamics than ordinary whistles or recorders and the harder it's blown the more recorder like it sounds!
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by swisspiper
Re: Recorders in Trad?
There are several good folk recorder players in Norwich/Norfolk who play in some of the sessions there, and a renaissance recorder is one of the instruments played for Golden Star Morris of that city.
The recorder was actually called the flute in England in the 16th-18th century (French 'flute a bec', German 'Blockfloete), and the transverse flute was known as the German Flute, and a few tutor books from around 1690 survive which are full of folky sounding Playford-type tunes.
Then there is the 'flageolet', which is the direct ancestor of the modern whistle. This was a loose-ish term for an instrument that was very similar to a recorder, but wasn't one. The earlier ones had fewer fingerholes. Samuel Pepys mentions playing the flageolet in his famous diary. The later versions, the English flageolets, developed c.1805 by William Bainbridge, resembled a bagpipe chanter, as there is an air chamber at the top of the instrument. He also patented the double flageolet, which allowed drones/harmonies to be played as well as melody. The flageolet became popular as the recorder fell out of use, and was cheaper and thus had less of the classical, aristocratic air about it. [ http://www.flageolets.com/ ]
However they fell out of general use in the late 19th century, and I have never heard one.
There's your history lesson
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by fynnjamin
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Allright we've had our little recorder encounter group now. Does everyone feel validated? Want to take any pot shots at the so called trad police while you're at it? How about a group hug?
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Hey, relax Seosamh. I don't think that anyone is arguing that recorders *should* be accepted in trad. At best, it would be unnecessary.
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Recorders in Trad?
I've played the great bass and the contra bass.
My fingers bled, bro, and I still have to write the notes underneath for bass clef (ohhh the shame)
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by mehitabel23
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Bach composed his set of six Brandenburg concertos in 1721, for a royal personage the Margrave of Brandenburg (hence the name). Brandenburgs 2 and 4 specifically call for the "flute à bec" (the recorder), one in the case of Brandenburg 2 and two of them for Brandenburg 4; but in Brandenburg 5 the requirement is for "Flauto traverso" (the keyless flute). The standard required for performance of these works can fairly be described as "virtuoso".
BTW, what has happened to the trad police? I haven't seen them around in sessions lately sussing out the banjos, bouzoukis, bodhrans and harmonicas.
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Seriously, where are they? Was there a sale at the donut shop or something?
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Why? Why try to fit an unsuitable instrument into Irish music?
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Björn
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Got me. I'm fed up with this nonsense.
It would be different if the recorder truly offered some quality that made it superior to the whistle for playing irish music, but it doesn't, so why the discussion?
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Speak of the devil...
Seosamh, the question was more about the history of it rather than why we don't play recorders in trad now. If you don't want to discuss it, don't read or post in the thread.
You know, most instruments you see at a session were not traditional at one time. The tradition picks up instruments when it finds a reason to do so; there's no stone tablet inscribed with the names of the instruments acceptible in Irish trad. It's a living tradition, it changes. But only for a good reason, and there's no good reason for recorders in trad, and there never will be. So don't worry about the local recorder ensemble showing up at your session.
I think it's good that there are people who try to keep the tradition the way it is; it should be conservative and not changing all the time for no good reason. There are certain instruments that are used in trad that give trad music its sound, and it's important to preserve that sound. But people are allowed to discuss and experiment with other instruments as well. It's rarely a good idea but once in a blue moon a new instrument "fits" in with trad (if banjos can make it...).
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Hey, where were you slackers? This thread was started on the 9th!
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Recorders in Trad?
*YAWN* thanks for the lecture.
SWFL: I was trying to avoid looking at this thread again but it's like a bad road accident, I can't help myself.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Recorders in Trad?
Rubber necker!
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler