Sit Down, Shut Up, and Learn to Play the Recorder

In America, most people associate the recorder with elementary school music education. It is viewed as a plastic toy instrument for children to squawk on—just a stepping stone to “a real instrument.” It is the butt of jokes about being an object of misery for parents of children who are learning it in school. I’m not going to disagree with anyone who thinks most 9-year-olds who play the recorder sound like shit. I will, however, disagree with anyone who thinks the recorder sounds like shit. You are quick to write off the recorder as an unserious crappy instrument because you are ignorant, let’s change that babe! <3 *handcuffs your wrist to mine and sits down in front of my computer with youtube pulled up*

First of all, the recorder was not invented merely as a cheap tool of modern elementary music education. The recorder is a real musical instrument of the western classical music tradition. It was popular during the medieval, renaissance, and baroque eras, and fell out of favor in the classical period before experiencing a twentieth century revival. Now, let’s watch a few examples of beautiful recorder playing.

Let’s start with this medieval saltarello. If you can’t shake your ass to this, that’s a moral failing, a skill issue, and a huge lack of taste, goodbye. The sound of the recorder here is simple, buoyant, sweet, and colorful. The recorder is as capable as the player, and here we are treated to an ancient display of virtuosic gymnastics.

Much of the recorder music from the Renaissance era was written for a consort of instruments. A consort is an ensemble of one instrument family in all different sizes that creates a consistent timbre across a wide range, like a full choir of recorders. Check out all the different sizes. That thing that looks like a bed post? THAT’S A RENAISSANCE RECORDER. Probably a sub-great bass recorder or maybe a contrabass would be my guess. Also can we take a second to appreciate the top comment on this video?

Um why does this comment make me want to cry it’s so sweet..

In the Baroque period we see the recorder take a more prominent soloistic role in concerti and sonatas. Here is an excerpt of Vivaldi’s recorder concerto in C Major performed by Voices of Music. I highly recommend browsing the Voices of Music Youtube channel. They are a group of highly skilled performers dedicated to historically informed performance of early music, plus all their videos can be viewed in 4k, plus I love the way everyone dresses—they’ve really got that early music performer aesthetic lmao. It’s lovely to hear the transition from consort instrument to solo instrument between the renaissance and baroque periods. Baroque recorder concertos such as this one require the player to have extreme technical mastery over the instrument. The recorder has a lovely blend with the strings, while also soaring effortlessly over the orchestra.

Ok, this is cool as hell, nobody laugh!!! Yes, it is froufrou 21st-century atonal experimental art music for solo recorder, so what! The recorder experienced a revival in the twentieth century, and obviously there are composers writing new music for it! Charlotte Barbour-Condini was a finalist in the 2012 BBC Young Musician contest. This was the same year I was getting into recorder for the first time. There are several videos of her performing throughout the competition. She performed works across genres and periods. In 2012 I was watching her performances over and over again, and I still think about them. In this piece we get to see a lot of the extended technique that can be done on the recorder: singing into the instrument while playing, multi-phonics, special pitch bending techniques.

Ok I now deem you sufficiently educated in the virtues of recorder, and I expect you to treat the instrument with respect. For the second part of my essay, how do I put this? I want to be tactful, ok here goes, you need to learn to play the fucking recorder or else. Ok, you don’t need to, but if you’re one of the many adults who don’t make any music and have an unrealized life long dream of learning an instrument, HERE IT IS. I know, I know, you don’t want to play recorder, you never wanted to play recorder, you probably want to learn something normal like piano, guitar, or violin, or maybe you want to pick up whatever you played in middle school band. Let me just say this, do NOT try to learn the violin as an adult beginner unless you are extremely rich, have nothing but free time, are smart, and are willing to practice hours a day just to sound like ass for between two to forty years before eventually sounding only somewhat decent. That’s getting its own essay in the future.

Learning any musical instrument requires diligent practice and intelligence. You aren’t going to play anything masterfully overnight, but there is a reason we put a plastic recorder in the hands of every child. It is highly accessible and immediately gratifying to learn. Yamaha makes the top of line gold-standard plastic recorders. A good Yamaha soprano recorder is $22 on Amazon. An alto recorder is $29. These instruments don’t have the gorgeous harmonic subtlety of $2,000 handmade wooden instruments, but they sound good when played well, they are in tune, and they are capable of playing anything a nicer recorder can play. Recorder is also accessible to learn! Many instruments begin with a steep learning curve just to be able to produce a tone at all. Recorder? U put that sucker up to ur lips and blow, boom we’re in business baby. The fingering system is simplistic compared to other wind instruments that have one million buttons, keys, and doohickeys. Recorder? Just holes. <3

As someone who plays piano, violin, and recorder (all excellently) it is my belief that you are unlikely to achieve much as an adult beginner attempting to learn most instruments without a teacher, a lot of free time to practice, and extreme stick-to-itiveness. You need stick-to-itiveness to learn almost anything new, recorder is no exception, but I believe that a self-led beginner who is willing to play recorder for 10-30 minutes a day will be able to achieve progress at a rate that is gratifying enough that sticking to it won’t be so tough.

One of the great joys of making music is doing it with others, and in my experience, recorder players are some of kindest most welcoming musicians alive. Recorder players love recorder, and love anyone who loves recorder. We are traumatized by not being taken seriously and get giddy when we meet anyone who gets it. Recorder groups are often beginner friendly, and thanks to what an approachable instrument the recorder is, you can reach a passable level of playing somewhat quickly if you put your mind to it. Check if there is a chapter of the American Recorder Society near you! The monthly meetings of the Chicago Chapter of the American Recorder Society are always a highlight of my month. If there isn’t a chapter near you, look into the thriving online communities of recorder players on Facebook in particular.

If I have seriously gotten you interested in picking up a recorder, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what you should know. Feel free to ask me any questions you have in the comments. I also highly recommend the videos of Youtube’s recorder queen, Sarah Jeffery. Her channel hosts an exhaustive library of videos all about recorders. She is a star player and teacher, and her videos are so informative, entertaining, and well produced. Start with her playlist, “I’m a beginner, where to start?”

I actually didn’t ever play the recorder as a child. I bought my first recorder as a joke to annoy my friends in the vendor hall of Texas Music Educators Association’s annual conference in February 2012. By the end of the day I couldn’t put it down. I was thrown fast and hard into the clutches of an extreme obsession with playing the recorder, AND I THANK GOD FOR THAT EVERY DAY, IT IS A PRIVILEGE AND A JOY TO PLAY THE RECORDER. I just want to share that with you, can’t you see!? *in ecstatic tears of zeal* This is for your own good, *puts the recorder in your mouth* NOW BLOW! Ok please don’t call the police on me.

A video from a dress rehearsal of me playing recorder with The Florida State University Baroque Ensemble (next to my best friend Alexandra on violin <3 )

Hand knit lace shawl is the perfect pairing for the renaissance recorder in my hands

THIS IS ME LAST WEEKEND WITH THE CHICAGO CHAPTER OF THE AMERICAN RECORDER SOCIETY playing JAZZ!!!!!!!!! Yes this is a recorder consort arrangement of Charlie Parker’s Now’s The Time arranged and directed by one of our members. This is very lit. I once knew an old adage, “girls who get it get it and girls who don’t don’t.”

Thanks for reading, thanks for playing recorder. ily bye.