♫♫♫ Take a one-foot length of plastic with a few holes drilled down the front, give it to your kids and sit back while they amuse themselves for about 5 years. Sound too good to be true? Sounds like a Recorder! ♫♫♫
This Ciao category encompasses a wide range of recorders on offer from Hohner, who actually produce a model to suit every pocket. But being a normalish kind of person I own only one kind myself, so that’s the one I’ll be reviewing. My little model is a plastic Descant with Baroque fingering (i.e. standard) and comes in one piece in a lovely shade of lemon. I’ve had it a very, very long time indeed, (about 30 years in fact), so I checked up on the Hohner website before launching into this review to see whether they still make the same model, and they do! It’s exactly the same; same colour, same design. So, I can state with some authority that it is a very robust instrument and can take a fair bit of bashing to boot.
♫♫♫ A Bit of History ♫♫♫
The recorder, believe it or not, is actually a remarkable little bit of kit. It has a very long history; the earliest known example in Europe dates to the Iron-age, is made from sheep-bone and is kept at Leeds City Museum. During the Renaissance and Baroque eras, the recorder, (known then as simply a “flute”), was one of the most popular instruments around. Composers such as Bach and Purcell wrote scores of music for the recorder and there were some very eminent enthusiasts, like that jovial old wife-collector Henry VIII. During the Renaissance the recorder was always made out of wood, but the design was almost identical to today’s. With the advent of orchestral music, (popularised by the likes of Mozart and Beethoven in the Classical and Romantic eras), all the budding musicians out there at that time started tackling the more modern flute and clarinet. The recorder’s status dwindled and by the 18th century it was hardly known at all. The recorder would have remained a relic of music history, had it not been resurrected in the early 20th century by a guy named Dolmetsch who was into his “early” music, and it really took off in the mid-twentieth century thanks to modern plastic techniques. A few recorders from this period were made from Bakelite, (that stuff they made records out of before vinyl emerged), but the big break-through was ABS resin (the stuff they make car-bumpers out of). This allowed massive batches of precision tuned recorders to be churned hot of the press at an extremely low cost, making them the instrument of choice for schools. Unlike other woodwind instruments, the recorder still has the simple design it had 500 years ago, and is not encumbered by faffy metal keys, springs and bits of cork. It’s just a slightly tapered tube with holes, and it works.
♫♫♫ Sizes of Recorder ♫♫♫
There are four standard sizes of recorder. Basically, the longer the instrument, the lower the notes you can produce. The four main sizes are called, (starting with the smallest), descant, treble, tenor and bass. The descant is about a foot long and its lowest note is middle C on the piano. The treble’s lowest note is F below middle C, the tenor is C below middle C and the bass is the F below that. If you’ve learnt the fingerings of one recorder, you can transfer them over to any other kind. It takes a short time to adjust to the slight difference in width between the holes, but that’s all. My Hohner recorder is a descant, which is the usual size for kids, as it fits their little fingers easily, and is the one everybody starts on and few progress from! If you have really tiny hands, there is an even smaller one, called a “sopranino” but it is so high-pitched it’s only pleasant for bats.
♫♫♫ Getting a Note Out of It - Basics♫♫♫
The beauty of the recorder is that it is essentially a kind of whistle- you blow and you get a noise. Other wind instruments require very specialised “embouchures” (or ways of shaping your mouth around the instrument and blowing). If you can blow, you can get a note out of a recorder. It might not be a very nice note to start with, or even after 5 years, but who cares! You hold the instrument vertically in front of you (whereas the flute is held horizontally), at an angle of about 45° from your body. The pads (not the tips) of your fingers cover the holes, with your left hand covering the first three and your right hand covering the bottom four. Most recorders come in three pieces, with a bottom joint that may be twisted to suit a left-handed player, but my model is an one-piece so will fit only one way round. The thumb of your left hand covers a hole at the back, and the thumb of your right hand supports the instrument, which is very light. By adding or removing fingers you will change the pitch of the note you play. The Hohner series comes with fingering charts to show you how to get each note- it’s not just a case of one off one on, although you can play a little bit like that! With this descant recorder, a novice player should be able to play from middle C to D or E in the next octave. Advanced players can get up to two and a half octaves (although heaven knows why they’d want to). To give you an idea of how easy it is, to play a tune like the start of “Three Blind Mice”, you need only index, middle and ring fingers of your left hand. My model is “Baroque”, which means that the bottom two holes are actually split into two smaller holes; this enables you to play semi-tones (like the black notes on a piano) more in tune than the alternative system, which is known as “German”. Hohner sells all its recorders in both systems. As far as I’m aware, all UK schools and nearly all recorder tutors use the Baroque fingerings, so I’d stick to that one if I were you, unless you are German of course.
Some of the most common problems that learners find is that the notes sound blurry or squeaky. If the notes sound quite low but indistinct and muddy, you probably haven’t covered one or more holes completely with your finger pads. Your fingers should make an air-tight seal around the hole on the instrument- if there is a gap some air will escape and muddy the sound. If you get a really shrill sound you are probably blowing too hard. It takes time to learn the correct pressure of air to put through the instrument, but if you blow hard it will scream and if you blow too softly if will sound very miserable. The best way to learn is to experiment!
♫♫♫ Getting a Note Out of It - Advanced♫♫♫
The recorder IS played professionally, you can do Grade 8, and you can get a recording contract! Surprised? Most people are. It is still a very important instrument in “Early Music” ensembles (i.e. Renaissance/Baroque). The reason why it usually sounds so rough when played by amateurs is that if you play louder you also play sharper, or in other words you become out of tune. All wind instruments create greater sound volume by having a greater rush of air though the pipe, which makes the pipe vibrate more quickly. With the recorder, this also creates a sharpening of the note, to such an extent that a loud C can sound like a C#. For the advanced player, there are alternative fingerings to be employed when the volume is increased. Without wanting to get too technical, you can also differentiate between say, F# and G flat, which would be the same note on a piano, but not on a wind instrument or fretless string instrument. This Hohner is tuned quite well, so that the standard fingerings work adequately. I think the low F# is a bit sharp so I add the half hole of the bottom C#, and F needs the C hole added. Personally, I can quite happily play up to top A, I can squeak out B and C and D but they aren’t pleasant.
♫♫♫ Pros and Cons of a One-Piece ♫♫♫
Most recorders come in three sections for two reasons; a) they come apart and make a smaller package to transport and b) (more importantly) they can be tuned to other instruments. Two marvellous reasons, I’m sure you’ll agree. If your sprogs are taking part in a recorder group or playing pieces with a piano, they will sound god-awful if their instruments are out of tune with the others. The same principal I mentioned earlier about longer=lower applies to an individual instrument, so if your recorder is a bit sharp you can pull out one of the joints a bit, (a fraction of a millimetre will do), to lower the pitch a little. With a one-piece, tuning is impossible. However, a one-piece recorder is a strictly non-professional jobby- it is designed with kids in mind. And most kids don’t really give a toss whether they are in tune or not, so perhaps it’s not something we should dwell on too much. Plus, if you have a choir of 25 recorders, the chance of them all being exactly in tune with each other is practically nil. Still, I don’t think there is any particular advantage to having just one piece, (three-piecers are not difficult to put together); so let’s call it a stalemate.
♫♫♫ Plastic v. Wood ♫♫♫
Now this issue is a lot more controversial. Most musicians, who, let’s face it, are musical snobs, claim that the wooden recorder has a superior sound. As a musician myself, though naturally not at all snobbish, I have to concur. Wooden recorders, (also available from Hohner), are much more mellow in tone and have a lot less of that squaukishness we often associate with the instrument.
However, wooden instruments cost more, take a lot more looking after, and harbour a right old petri-dish load of bacteria. While researching this review I came across a very enlightening article about the hygiene of wind-instruments (http://www.recorderhomepage.net/disinfect_en.pdf ) which takes things rather further than the realms of this op, but I’ll briefly summarise and add my own thoughts. We all know that there are lots of ikky bacteria swishing around our mouths all day long, but in bigger quantities after we put things into our mouths (use your imagination…) When you blow into a recorder, you are putting old air inside the instrument, and in that air will be clinging various organisms who are no doubt experiencing some kind of “Wizard of Oz” type re-location crisis. The inside of the recorder, initially cold, makes your breath condense, and little droplets of yuk start sticking to the tube. As you continue to play, the tube warms up, mimicking the temperature of your breath, which just happens to be the ideal temperature for all those ikky blobs to start multiplying. After a few minutes of playing, the inside of a recorder becomes so clogged that it refuses to produce a clear note anymore, and the only way to remedy this is to remove the condensation. There are two methods, blow or suck. Now, you may logically think that since blowing caused the problem, sucking will be the answer. But if you suck, you’re putting back into your mouth all that ikky yuk and some more. If your kids are using a school instrument they will be inhaling someone else’s mouth germs. Nice! The other method is to blow, but to firmly cover the topmost hole on the instrument (like the whistle hole, not a finger hole), and to blow very sharply. This forces the air down the instrument under some pressure and the ickiness gets dispersed out the end. Much preferable in my view. The big advantage here with plastic instruments is that they can be washed in soapy water. Soap will not kill all bacteria, but wooden instruments can only be wiped through with a cloth. In any case, it is recommended that you always brush your teeth before playing, although I must admit I never do.
♫♫♫ Why It’s Perfect for Kids ♫♫♫
I got my first recorder (yes, this exact one!) when I was about 7 years old. I played in school recorder groups, played at home with my dad or alone, played in school shows, played for the fun of it. Unlike most toys, which have limited creative application, a musical instrument never ceases to engage a child’s imagination. Kids usually do grow out of playing recorder, (Purcell would be turning in his grave), but they either realise that it’s too easy and progress onto another instrument or they realise they’ve reached their musical potential and it’s time to move on to other things. The vast majority of kids are the second group. But what they gain during their few years of playing is hugely important. If they play in a group, then team skills are learnt, minor skills like reading music or following a conductor are developed, but most importantly, they are using and developing a part of the brain which is otherwise underused. Studies have shown that children who participate in musical activities are more socially adept and have higher IQs (on average) than those who do not. It’s also a helluva lot easier to learn when your brain is young and fresh!
You could say that indirectly playing the recorder paved out my life. The recorder led me onto the piano, then the clarinet, and I eventually went on to study music at university. Playing the recorder as a child is great because it is the most affordable and least risky investment for parents. Not every kid will go on to do a degree in music, but unless you nurture musical skills early, kids won’t have a chance. For most academic subjects, it is sufficient to do well in your school lessons to continue that subject at university, for music, unless you’ve done extra-curricula music from a young age you’re very unlikely to succeed. OK I’m off the soap-box now!
I dug out my old recorder to entertain my 10-month old baby, Poppy, recently, which is what prompted me to write this (epic!). At 10 months, a crying tantrum is halted instantly when I play a tune on the recorder. Babies are more alert to higher pitches (one reason why they often prefer mama’s voice and why daddies instinctively go falsetto when talking to the little’un). Poppy is transfixed by the recorder and after a half a minute of me playing she wants a go herself. She hasn’t yet learnt to blow (see pics), but still manages to get a lot of amusement out of it- banging it on the floor is just fun enough for now. I hope she feels interested enough to start to learn some tunes when she’s old enough, but I do also strongly feel that kids should never be forced into learning things like music, sports, dancing and so on.
♫♫♫ Dr Who ♫♫♫
Fans might like to know that in one episode of Dr Who, the Doctor lets his recorder fall into the force-field generator of the tardis just before getting stuck in a black hole with the result that the instrument becomes the only positive matter in a universe full of anti matter. Hmmm! I wonder if it was a Hohner one-piece?
♫♫♫ The Name ♫♫♫
When you think about it, the “recorder” sounds more like a newspaper than a musical instrument. The name dates back to 1430. Before that, the verb “record” had been used to describe birdsong and got modified to mean “practice a tune”. No-one really seems to know how the name got resurrected with the instrument, but one thing is for sure, all continental European languages refer to it as a flute!
♫♫♫ Effect on Animals ♫♫♫
As a little aside here, I am cat keeper. When I was a kid, my cat, Pippin, could not stand the recorder. He would flatten his ears, make a weird scriggly sound and dart off. My current cat, Henry, seems attracted to the sound and goes a bit daft when he hears it. Same recorder, different cats.
♫♫♫ Buying One ♫♫♫
You can order a Hohner recorder via the website: www.hohner.eu or buy one through ebay. My particular model is currently on ebay for £5.99- sorry but I can’t remember how much it cost in 1980!
♫♫♫ What you Get ♫♫♫
You get a plastic recorder in a PVC case with a paper, folded-up fingering chart stuffed inside. You’ll need to supplement your purchase with a good recorder tutor, or a friendly teacher. The instrument comes without any assembly needed, is perfectly tuned to concert A (standard pitch), and is easy to learn. Unlike a TV, you can’t unwrap it, glance through the instruction manual and having it working in a jiffy, but it’ll last a lot longer and won’t make you brain dead.
♫♫♫ The Company ♫♫♫
Hohner is a German company which was founded in 1857 and which is very proud of its heritage. The website gives you the impression that they are a prestige organisation, but I have to say I do associate them with budget instruments (perhaps unfairly). A quote from their website which perhaps sums up their ethic is “For human beings music is one of the most important forms to express themselves“.
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
