 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SantiandCo
Date: 2010-09-20 01:24
i bought 2 recorders yesterday. I bought them with the intention of showing my little brother, who is 6, how to play an instrument. I've played my clarinet for more than 3 years now and i consider myself a fairly good player. as ive been learning how to play some of the notes and learning how to play fairly simple songs ive noticed that the amount of air needed to get a sound out of the recorder is very low compared to the clarinet. Because of this i've been squeaking constantly when playing a piece because i am use to blowing a lot more air. Can this "squeaking" be solved by simply practicing and getting used to the mechanics of the recorder or should i simply apply a looser embochure around the mouthpiece? Another question is when it comes to the mouthpiece of a recorder should my mouth be placed in the same place youd put your mouth around the mouthpiece of a clarinet or should i apply my mouth somewhere lower or higher in the mouthpiece of the recorder? Final question is how do you toungue with the recorder? In general what i want to know is how do you transition from playing a clarinet to a recorder. I never learned how to play the recorder, even though many young children whose parents wish for them to play the clarinet sometime in the future start them off with the recorder. My intentions are to teach my little brother how to play the recorder and learn how to read basic notes and music, so that 2 or 3 years from now he can start playing the clarinet.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-09-20 02:46
James -
I play lots of recorder - probably more than clarinet these days.
Recorder needs no embouchure (and you shouldn't squeeze your lips together). The tone is pretty much built into the instrument.
You put the tip of the instrument between your lips and close them just enough to prevent leaking.
Start blowing from zero. Relax, beginning with your buttocks and up to the top of your head. Bring the recorder to your lips (i.e., don't tuck your chin down) and blow gently, letting your cheeks puff out slightly. On a decent recorder, you'll blow just enough to bring the tone up to pitch. Then experiment with slightly more breath pressure to find the most resonant point. It takes practice to find that and stay on it.
Find how little finger pressure you can use. Without keys to operate, just the weight of your fingertips on the holes is enough.
The basic tongue stroke is like the French-accent pronunciation of "th" (as in "that"). The area just back of the tip of your tongue should touch the ridge behind your upper teeth, in a cross between "th" and "z."
As to instruments, there's lots of garbage out there, particularly on eBay. The ONLY ones worth having are the plastic Yamahas, which are head and shoulders above the rest. If you have anything else, give them away and get the Yamahas. Even the colored plastic school sopranos and altos are quite good at $7.50 and $20, and the "300" series, at $22 for the soprano and $40 for the alto, are better than anything you'll find at 10 times the price.
As a clarinetist, I'm most comfortable with a thumb rest, even on the soprano. Split about 1/3 longitudinally off a wine bottle cork, wrap a sheet of coarse sandpaper (maybe 220 grit) around the body of the recorder, grit-side-out, and sand the split side of the bigger piece of cork until it fits the body. Cut about a third of the length of the cork off and glue the remaining part to the body, so that the bottom end of the cork is even with or slightly below the bottom edge of the hole for the right index finger.
Good luck. Join the Yahoo recorder group at http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/recorder/.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Barry Vincent
Date: 2010-09-20 05:27
Ken ,that's a well written answer you've done. As for the thumb rest if one is going to go to that much trouble just be careful what glue you use, remember it's a plastic instrument most likely and some glues have solvents that 'eat' plastic. I have a Soprano (Descant ) and Alto Yamaha and also a pair of Aulos plastics. The Aulos is also a quality recorder.
I find the windway of the Yamahas more narrower (thinner) than the Aulos's which means one has more problems with condensation but that's a problem that plastic recorders have mostly. Wooden ones less so .
After a fair bit of Clarinet playing , it's nice to go back to the old 'English (fipple) Flutes' and have a bit of a toot. A lovely sound.
Skyfacer
Post Edited (2010-09-20 05:29)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-09-20 14:46
Ken, as an amateur doubler, I agree with your advice about how to switch between clarinets and recorders. Plastic recorders, including those good Yamahas, are very available used, cheap, at yard sales. On any Saturday with good weather in a major metropolitan area or big suburb in the mid-Atlantic USA, you can come home with at least one Yamaha C-soprano for US$5 or less.
I bought all my recorders used at yard sales and flea markets and I don't know their dates, but my best wooden recorders (good tone, good intonation) are branded Concerto (German), Koch (handmade of rosewood), Dolmetsch and Sonata. I have some other individually good instruments but not enough experience with the brands to be confident about recommending them. I look for the models that come apart with separate head joints and foot joints, and that have double holes for F and G on the F-pitched recorders and for C and D on the C-pitched recorders. Intonation will be a lot better on those instruments.
Sometimes I pick up bargains on plastic C-soprano recorders to keep some on hand for kids in my family and among friends. I now look for the Yamahas. The Aulos recorders, made over several decades, vary in quaklity. Before I got so picky, I bought two Aulos C-sopranos. They had such bad intonation that I couldn't give either of them to any kid I liked, so I got rid of them at a yard sale for what I paid for them (US$1 for one and US$3 for the other). But I've kept a different black plastic Aulos C-soprano and an F-sopranino that aren't bad at all -- I could play those outdoors (and probably every rat in the neighborhood would come running). Hohners also span several decades and vary a lot. Hohner made a bunch of different models I haven't sorted out. Some of the wooden C-sopranos with ivory-colored plastic heads are okay and I've got a couple of pretty good all-wooden ones. Nonetheless, I'm not throwing any more spare change into Aulos, Hohner or Amman recorders. With Yamaha, you can be pretty sure it'll be playable.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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