![]() ![]() Here is a picture (below) of a hand made boxwood treble recorder showing thumb hole wear after about thirty years of intensive use by a good player. The oboe has at least two and the holes are so small that a pin will not fit into them.) (Flutes, of any kind, do not have 'octave keys' but other woodwinds do. It is all too easy to open up a crack along the lower boundary of the hole, especially on a large holed renaissance model, or even a 'Dream' descant. Also, the rest of the thumb hole must be fully covered. An opening "down the side" (see below) will not do at all. The opening should also be towards the top of the recorder. The term used by some American writers, "cracked", is more graphic and descriptive than the common English usage "pinched". ![]() Or should I change the emphasis by saying "partly opening" it. I am a firm believer in the thumb nail approach to partly closing the hole. The most common difficulty is the size of the thumb hole opening. ![]() If you are lucky the top F will improve without creating intonation difficuties in the lower registers. One thing worth trying though is to pull the head out a fraction. Some cheap instruments can have easy top notes, at the expense of poor intonation or bland sound. Predictability is, though, very important. Unfortunately easy top notes are not a primary design feature for expensive recorders, interesting sound is more important than ease. The ability to produce a beautiful sound and high notes in particular is largely in the mind. Is your practice just "doing it over again", right or wrong? Have you learned any scales? Do you actually listen to the sound you are making? Can you hear the sound of the note you are about to play "in your head"? Do you know what is coming or is it "pot luck". how much thought do you give to the way the note starts and finishes? Does it scoop and fade? Does the pitch soar and swoop? Do you get a pre-echo as your breath precedes your tongue? Do you get a thud as your tongue bounces back? Have you actually got it all together to make a beautiful sound? Are these difficult questions? I have some more! The lowest recorder notes are not too much of a problem, cover the holes completely and don't blow too hard or the tone will come out too high (a harmonic). It takes time, but then there is no stopping, apart from learning how to stand, and toddle, and walk, and jump, and run like the wind. Bottom up, a must, and then reach and wriggle but forward movement only happens when the legs move in the right sequence with the hands. Watch, as I have done recently with a grand child, a baby learning to crawl. To get difficult skills right is not easy because many factors are involved and success only comes when you "Get it all together.". It takes a special sort of person to be a virtuoso. I believe everyone can become a passable, perhaps even "good" performer on the recorder. Given a certain amount of dedication and aptitude the task becomes easier as skill is acquired. And there is a stock answer "With difficulty.". There is a common question "How on earth do you do that?". How do bugles and historic trumpets and horn produce so many different notes without the use of any valves? It is done by playing harmonics. Have you seen a guitarist, violinist or harpist lightly touching the string they are sounding and heard a high sound of different tone colour? When they do this they are playing harmonics. These additional openings are not functioning as "note holes", they are promoting the formation of a harmonic as opposed to fundamental mode of air vibration.Ĭast your aural and visual memory around. For B you start over yet again, still with the thumb hole partly open, but with the third hole open as well. Fully open which is passable for E is no good at all for A. As one goes higher the opening becomes critical. To help the sound to come, the thumb hole must be at least partly opened. When you move higher up the recorder's tube there comes a point where you must start over again (D# on the descant). The lowest notes are, in technical terms, "fundamental" (a good word), the lowest sound that the resonance of the air in the tube can produce. The troublesome ones are not natural to the instrument. It helps if you understand why some notes do not come easily. ![]()
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