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Post by Zi on Jan 16, 2023 16:10:14 GMT
Since reading Lasocki's book - The Recorder, I've become very interested in recorder history. I'm currently reading Edgar Hunt's book which is likewise fascinating. It's really interesting to find out how the modern recorder developed partly because so many of the instruments today as based on historical models so that when you look at them, you're staring at a resin or wooden copy of an historical recorder.
Some experts have been able to reproduce the historical models and have played them trying out the fingering recommended in the past for their various instruments. Dolmetsch retuned some historical instruments because he wasn't satisfied with the tone. To me, it's a bit like restoring pictures - most often I wish they'd just leave them be!
Is anyone else similarly fascinated?
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Post by pavane on Jan 17, 2023 13:48:02 GMT
I do think it's interesting. It's funny to think that it's not so long since you could go into a museum and they would let you measure and maybe even try out their historical recorders - no chance now. I can't think of his name but there was one person in particular who measured a lot and published a book of them.
To be a bit argumentative though, I think a lot of modern copies are not as accurate as one might think. I've met Tim Cranmore and Jacqueline Sorel; both make copies of historical instruments, but both said they are not exact copies - they have got some problems ironed out. I gather many original instruments are warped, have bits missing, have been altered in the past, etc, but even where that is not the case, there might be changes. At the very least, an exact copy would play in whatever pitch standard was current at the time and place of original manufacture. This almost certainly was not A=440 so the instrument would have to be scaled, then altered slightly to correct intonation issue introduced by the scaling. And so forth...
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Post by Zi on Jan 18, 2023 17:18:09 GMT
Second attempt - first was posted with my test account! I so wish they'd just provide a switch so I could swap between admin view and member view... sigh... What's even more annoying is that the system mails me to say there's been another post! Arghhhhh!!
I'd love to see them. It's not going to happen. I was looking at a picture of some historic recorders recently and I thought - I've got one like that! Until I realised what I was really looking at.
It's amazing how long they've been around and how many changes they've gone through. For example, I didn't realise that the choice of the recorders in F and C is actually quite a recent one and in the past there were more to choose from.
I've been particularly amused by Pepys who adored the recorder and could play it. He apparently paid also for his wife to have lessons on the flageolet in the hope she would improve. He was irritated by the fact she didn't practise so decided to have lessons on the recorder so that he could provide a good example... Wonderful!
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Post by pavane on Jan 18, 2023 17:32:33 GMT
You can't try out historical recorders, but you can buy this chart. It's brilliant, absolutely huge, the instruments are pictured full size and the resolution is pretty good for something that only costs €15. I got it delivered directly from Mollenhauer, I don't remember what it cost but it wasn't that much. Looks great on the wall!
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Post by Zi on Jan 18, 2023 17:40:20 GMT
Yes, I remember that! Bruggen's recorders. It looks wonderful. I'm not sure where we could put it though. Most of the walls here have pictures on and the ones that don't are small. I think it would be a nice thing to have just as a reminder of him too - he's still one of the recorder players I admire the most though according to the book I just finished he was something of a rebel in his youth and didn't dress in the way that the concert going public thought he should. I just have to add, that his famous slouch seated stance was because he was tall and he thought if he stood up, people would expect a louder sound from the recorder. So, he sat and slouched. How he played like that is hotly debated because recorder players are taught to stand and sit erect. Some critics used his slouch to suggest decadence. It's amazing reading that today. He's a bloke with a recorder - leave him alone!
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Post by Zi on Mar 14, 2023 10:32:49 GMT
I've asked a question about the demise of the recorder here I put it in the flute section because it is explaining the demise in terms of the flute but obviously I'd be really interested to hear what other recordorists think about it! So, here's the linky in case it remains unseen by recorder players!
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Post by pavane on Mar 17, 2023 10:58:54 GMT
I've "answered" (ie waffled on) also in the flute section.
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Post by Zi on Mar 20, 2023 8:09:22 GMT
I've "answered" (ie waffled on) also in the flute section. I thought you were interesting. Anyway, another thought. I'm reading The Cambridge Companion which I think is a pretty strange beast of a book. I'm nearly done but yesterday, I came across a comment which was someone summarising something Tim Cranmore said. Tim was commenting on the recorders which have survived as these are the recorders which have been used as a template for the recorders we use today and he rather stood things on their head by saying that the surviving recorders could be here today because they were treasured and thus looked after and were therefore preserved or they weren't played much because they were so awful and thus they've survived. I found that rather amusing giving that our recorders are styled after Haka, or Bressan or Stanesby etc.
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Post by pavane on Mar 20, 2023 8:41:23 GMT
Tim was really very interesting - a bit of a "man after my own heart" really who said, for example, that expensive recorders now all have curved windways because an expensive recorder is expected to have a curved windway so you have to give it one or people won't pay a high price for it, but nobody really knows what, if any, benefit they confer and he couldn't tell an ounce of difference between a curved and a straight windway. He also suggested that the reason recorders get found in latrines is that people threw them in there!
I think there is some truth in the notion that we have an old instrument by Famous Maker XYZ that plays very badly and we say, well, the instrument must have been damaged by the ravages of time because we know XYZ only made good instruments. Hmm....
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Post by Zi on Mar 20, 2023 9:17:35 GMT
He sounds absolutely fascinating - a breath of fresh air. The 'essay' (and I think it is an essay rather than a chapter as the book doesn't seem to hang together as chapters) says that he prefers English boxwood and he sees plastic in a kind of novelty way. He also explained how when he started it took him many hours to make just the block and now he can make one in minutes. He also said that he finds making the holes boring as there are so many of them. And he is quoted on how a recorder changes during playing so that he has spent time adjusting one when really it would have been better to play it in and see where it ended up. The book has been interesting in the lack of longevity in a recorder but that's maybe a discussion for a later time. keff might have something to say about the comparison with violins and recorders but I'll need to get the book out so I quote the writer properly. Oh - and it touched on how many recorders recorder players 'need' because how short a time a recorder can be played both in terms of session and how short its lifetime is in comparison say with a violin.
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Post by pavane on Mar 20, 2023 18:31:22 GMT
Just a note in passing: Tim also said that he now plays the recorder relatively infrequently (though he did play a little and was clearly very good). Mostly he now plays clarinet! On my last evening of the course I went with him to a sort of pub/club that had open mike live musicians and he played jazz improv with a friend - also very well. It's just not fair!!
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Post by Zi on Mar 23, 2023 8:45:18 GMT
Some people's recorder playing lives echo the history of the recorder - and the poor thing ends up in the metaphorical/ literal latrine...
Now reading Hans Martin Linde.
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Post by Zi on Apr 4, 2023 6:36:25 GMT
Got through Linde - some of it was a struggle. I don't think Linde was writing for me in particular and some required knowledge which was on a different level from mine. However, I did enjoy the bits I enjoyed - if you know what I mean and I am now fully(?) aware of the articulation argument. I fretted over that for a while until I reminded myself that I'm never going to play publicly! It has given me some interesting articulation syllables to try though. I've got Quantz lined up next but I really wonder if I'd like a break and something a bit more obviously fun!
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Post by pavane on Apr 4, 2023 8:28:28 GMT
I've already admitted to being a bit of a lazy reader, so this might come as no surprise, but I really struggled with Quantz and got nowhere near finishing it. I suppose the truth is that I'm also a bit of a lazy player. Put another way, I know what my limitations are, and have a sort of vague mental path to follow that excludes, for example, all of the finer variations on articulation. I articulate, if that's a verb, in a way that works for me; I have no problem with it and no particular ambition to improve it. That's not meant to sound negative and I don't feel negative about it, it's just the thing about not worrying about things I can't do much about and instead working on areas I can, and would like to, improve. Thus, for me, a book that goes into minute detail about a level of technique I will never reach had very little appeal - actually, to be really honest, none at all! Let us know how you get on. If there are any specially useful nuggets in there, feel free to share them
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Post by Zi on Apr 4, 2023 9:03:32 GMT
I agree with you so won't fret if Quantz drives me spare. Linde is extremely knowledgeable and he knows many musical terms and facts some of which alas are lost on me! If there is ever a Ladybird version I'll definitely read that!
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