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Post by keff on Jan 22, 2023 14:58:28 GMT
Our daughter's recorder must have been in its pouch for about twenty five years without being touched until a few moments ago. The original fingering sheet was still there so I attempted to produce a note. First surprise there doesn't seem to be a note for a completely open pipe. Second surprise was that fingering and note pitches were stated for, soprano, tenor, sopranino and alto recorders but I thought this was a descant. With one finger placed on the second top hole I achieved a high D so concluded it must be a soprano.  |
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Post by anacrusis on Jan 23, 2023 12:29:29 GMT
The terms soprano and descant are used interchangeably for a small recorder with a bottom note of C - the standard one which used to be taught in schools. I guess it's to do with the internal acoustics of the instrument that blowing with absolutely no holes covered makes a slightly nasty sharp upper D - but the fundamental is the low C, and the rest of the instrument is tuned from that. Are you going to make some more notes from it? You'll have found that there are some rather odd combinations of fingers needed to produce some of the notes, but it can be fun to find them. The soprano/descant and tenor recorders produce the same notes for each fingering, with the tenor sounding an octave lower: sopranino and treble/alto (again interchangeable terms) recorders have the same finger patterns, but the fundamental is an F, and all the other notes then follow on from that.
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Post by keff on Jan 23, 2023 13:14:26 GMT
The terms soprano and descant are used interchangeably for a small recorder with a bottom note of C - the standard one which used to be taught in schools. I guess it's to do with the internal acoustics of the instrument that blowing with absolutely no holes covered makes a slightly nasty sharp upper D - but the fundamental is the low C, and the rest of the instrument is tuned from that. Are you going to make some more notes from it? You'll have found that there are some rather odd combinations of fingers needed to produce some of the notes, but it can be fun to find them. The soprano/descant and tenor recorders produce the same notes for each fingering, with the tenor sounding an octave lower: sopranino and treble/alto (again interchangeable terms) recorders have the same finger patterns, but the fundamental is an F, and all the other notes then follow on from that. Thanks for the reply anacrusis. Sound wise if I were to persist with recorder I think a tenor may suit my ear better but I gather from reading some of the posts in this forum that fingering could be more difficult. Yesterday I found controlling the air flow rather difficult. We still have our daughters violin which periodically I take out of its case to attempt to tune it. Going back to recorder a few minutes ago I couldn't get the fundamental from it, only the low D. |
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Post by Zi on Jan 23, 2023 14:44:02 GMT
The fingering for descant and tenor are identical. So if you can play tenor you can play descant. The descant is harder to make it sound nice. At least, I think it is. It can be shrill at the top end if you don't control air flow carefully. The treble and sopranino have the same fingering. If you learn the descant or tenor in C then it can be confusing to go to the treble because the fingering for bottom C on the descant or treble produces bottom F on the treble and it can mess with your brain - or maybe I should say that it has messed with mine a bit!
Both treble and tenor are lovely. But then I think the descant is lovely too - it's still my favourite.
Bruggen playing some Van Eyck...
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