Recorder
Various recorder flutes
- This article is not about devices for recording sound, visual, and other information; see tape recorder, video cassette recorder, flight data recorder ("black box"), camcorder.
The recorder is a flute-like woodwind musical instrument. In German it is called the Blockflöte, in French the flûte àbec, and in Italian the flauto dolce. It is held vertically from the lips (rather than horizontally like the 'transverse' flute). The player's breath is directed by a wooden 'fipple' or 'block' in the mouthpiece of the instrument along a duct called the 'windway'. Exiting from the windway, the breath is directed against a hard edge called the labium, which agitates a column of air, the length of which (and the pitch of the note produced) is modified by finger holes in the front and back of the instrument. Because of the fixed position of the windway with respect to the labium, there is no need to form an embouchure with the lips. The recorder is descended from very early folk-whistles. It was used in Renaissance music and Baroque Music, and has more recently been revived, gaining a reputation as a children's and amateur's instrument.
Known in the 18th century simply as Flute = Flauto - the transverse form was separately referred to as Traverso. It was for the recorder that J.S. Bach wrote the 4th Brandenburg concerto in G major (though Thurston Dart mistakenly suggested that it was intended for flageolets at a higher pitch, and in a recording under Neville Marriner using Dart's editions it was played an octave higher than usual on sopranino recorders). In fact Bach scored this work for two "flauti d'echo", or echo flutes, an example of which survives in Leipzig to this day. It consisted of two recorders in f' connected together by leather flanges: one instrument was voiced to play softly, the other loudly. Vivaldi wrote three concertos for the "flautino", an instrument first thought to be the piccolo. It is now generally accepted, however, that the instrument intended was the sopranino recorder.
The instrument went into decline after the 18th century, being used for about the last time as an other-worldly sound by Gluck in his opera Orfeo ed Euridice. Although it was revived at the beginning of the 20th century by German scholar/performers and in England by Arnold Dolmetsch and others, even in the early 20th century it was uncommon enough that Stravinsky thought it to be a kind of clarinet. Subsequent to its rediscovery it became very popular in schools, since it is inexpensive, easy to play at some level, is pre-tuned, and is not too strident in even the most musically-inept hands. It is however incorrect to assume that mastery is similarly easy - like other instruments, it requires talent and study to play it at an advanced level.
Barock recorder flutes
The range of a recorder is more or less 2 octaves, chromatically. Some higher notes exist, but notably the augmented prime, two octaves and one semitone above the base note, is absent or can only be played by covering the end of the instrument, typically by using one's upper leg. Basically, a recorder is a diatonic instrument, with one hole for each note of the scale of its lowest note, although the upper half of the second octave requires irregular fingerings. Two versions exist, one using the major scale and an older one using the lydian scale.
The chromatic scale degrees are played by so-called "fork" fingerings, uncovering one hole and covering one or more of the ones below it. Fork fingerings have a different tonal character from the diatonic notes, giving the recorder its characteristic, woody, and somewhat uneven sound.
Today, high-quality recorders are made from a range of different hardwoods, such oiled pear wood, rosewood or boxwood with a fipple of cedar wood. However, children's recorders are often made of plastic, which is cheaper, more resistant to condensation, and doesn't require re-oiling. Of course the sound of plastic recorders is none too pleasant.
See also
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