Rooty-Tooty Devil’s Flutes

A couple of weeks ago I put the final nail in the coffin of my sanity. I started a recorder club. Not just Daniel, but two of his friends, accompanied by various younger siblings. 

Let me be clear: this is not learning to use electronic recording devices. We are talking about rooty-tooty devil’s flutes, the small plastic instruments of torture that have been the scourge of primary school parents for generations. 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and admit that I really like the recorder. Lots of people don’t realise that it is actually a ‘proper’ instrument but if you listen to Renaissance and Baroque music (think Bach, Telemann, Corelli) it features heavily. If you don’t believe me, go and YouTube it now! Or to save you the trouble, have a look here. You’re welcome. 

Of course, a beautifully played wooden Baroque recorder is a rather different beastie to the overblown screech whistle most of us are familiar with. But as a beginner instrument, I honestly think it takes some beating. Actually getting a sound out of it to start with is pretty easy so there is an instant result for a small child, and then they can focus on learning fingering and notation and so on. Learning a simple instrument is a good vehicle for tackling early theory (e.g. reading music), which is then transferrable to any other instrument, and many of the techniques used on the recorder are integral to at least the rest of the woodwind and some brass. 

And then, let’s face it, a recorder is the cockroach of the music world - widely detested, largely misunderstood, and absolutely indestructible. No matter how exuberant or heedless the child, or how many ‘accidents’ long-suffering family members are driven to engineer, it is virtually impossible to damage a recorder. How you feel about this will depend on your perspective but I like that it can be left around for the kids to pick up and have a go at frequent intervals rather than having to schedule formal practice sessions. It is also helpful not having to worry that the baby will get his hands (and mouth) on them. 

The only similarly robust instrument I can think of is the piano, which has the downside of being a very lonely experience at the beginner stage. Recorders can be played in groups - although whether they SHOULD is a point heavily contested by attendees of primary school concerts. 

So a few weeks ago I mentioned to the boys that I was thinking of trying them with the recorder (mostly Daniel, of course, but Adam always wants to join in). They weren’t quite sure what I meant so I fetched an innocuous-looking brown box from their shelves. I don’t think they had even noticed it before, sitting innocently under other things on one of the higher shelves. With the air of a conjuror, I opened the box to reveal a whole collection of recorders, tin whistles, and other tooty-blowy things. 

As an aside, because it’s my blog and I can digress if I want to, we also discovered an ancient artifact from my childhood: a battered and tarnished brass car horn with its rubber bulb gone. This came from the Beaulieu Motor Museum at some point in my dim and distant past, and was used to let us know dinner was ready (to save my mum bellowing across two acres of garden and the large field next door). When the bulb expired we took it off and just blew the thing instead, which produced a noice similar to the mating call of a large tanker. Needless to say, the boys were delighted with it and were most disappointed that I limited their time with it lest our garden should be invaded by a fleet of amorous container ships. We may live further inland than I grew up but we’re still not that far from the coast. Also, I like our neighbours and would quite like to maintain our good relationship. 

Back to the recorders. 

We invited a couple of friends to come and learn with us, did a bit of investigation into books and chose Recorder From the Beginning. I also got a couple of grade books for myself to remind me, since I don’t think I had played for about 20 years, and invested in a reasonably decent recorder for myself, the boys having commandeered the Aulos descants that belonged to me and my brother. This is what our sitting room looked like - three adults, three 5/6 year olds, four 2/3 year olds (one was borrowed), and two 6 month olds. 

I will leave you to imagine the noise. But after 20-30 minutes we had actually managed to cover the concept of tonguing (the older three are particularly good at this), how to play a B, where it lives on the stave, and they had all managed to make up a funny phrase and play it (i.e. play different rhythms). Not bad going! Then we sent them off to play, hid the recorders, and drank lots of coffee. 

Session two, over a fortnight later, revealed that all three older children still remembered how to play the B, what it was called, and where it lived on the stave! I was mightily impressed. We have now introduced A, looked at where that lives, and learned to recognise/say/play quaver and crotchet rhythms using the words ‘window’ and ‘door’. Don’t ask, it works. They’ll probably still be using those words when they take Music degrees. 

In the process of trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about, I have got myself completely hooked. Originally I am a violinist but I barely ever play these days because there is never enough time to get it out, and you can’t just drop it onto a table and leave it while you go and sort out World War 3 or a screaming baby. 

It turns out, however, that 3 years of music at university and a brief foray into the clarinet during A Levels (I was working on Grade 8 when I gave up) is a pretty solid foundation for relearning the recorder after a couple of decades. Having said that, it must have been pretty firmly embedded somewhere in my memory because it was the only instrument I played until I was 10 and I seem to remember I was a constant member of my school recorder club from around 6 until I left primary school. Even after I left my recorder teacher persuaded me to go to a couple of adult recorder groups (no, take your minds out of the gutter!), which I really enjoyed. One of them is still running, I have discovered, and I am planning to go after the summer. In the meantime, to keep me busy, I am working on some Grade 5 exam pieces. The descant syllabus only goes up to Grade 5 so I think I might take that next term before I crack out my old treble recorder and continue torturing the family in a lower key.