Recorder - Complete Guide

8/19/2019 Recorder - Complete Guide

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Caution: Wordiness and Unorganized Rambling Ahead

More and more often I'm asked for my opinion about a recorder when a player isconsidering a purchase. I always hesitate to give an outright opinion, however, becausethe right instrument for one player may be the wrong instrument for another player. ButI do think that anyone making decisions about purchasing a recorder should consider thefollowing points:

1) How you will use the recorder:

Are you playing the recorder by yourself for your own enjoyment? If so, you have only

yourself to please. Intonation (playing well in tune) may not be something you need to be overly concerned about. Recorders are the friendliest instrument for folk songs on a beach or a mountain top, on a rainy Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea, or even tosoothe your nerves as you while away long minutes in stalled traffic. Pick the recorderthat appeals to you. But try before you buy.

Are you part of a group of players? To some extent, the group will have an effect onwhat you choose. Your recorder must be reasonably well in tune, and the tone (thesound it produces) might be a consideration. Renaissance and baroque-type recorders,for example, have different tone qualities. Blend may be a consideration. The range ofthe recorder - how high it plays and how easily it responds up there in the stratosphere -

may be a consideration. Try before you buy.

Will you be taking recorder lessons from a teacher? The teacher may have opinionsabout the quality of the instrument. Consider the teacher's suggestions, and then buy therecorder you like. But try before you buy.

2) Life expectancy of the recorder:

This refers not to its actual lifespan before it falls apart, but how long you will be

playing it - satisfied with it - challenged by it. Beginners aren't likely to spend a lot for arecorder, but adults in particular are likely to make better progress on a good-qualityrecorder than on a poor instrument. Players are often taken aback when I suggest thatthe reason their old faithful recorders are not playing as good as before is because theowners are now better players than the recorders are! It sometimes doesn't take long forenthusiastic beginners to outgrow their recorders.

3) Differences between high-quality and mediocre recorders:

This is what most players seem to want to discuss, and rightfully so. There are a numberof factors to consider, and this is where I start to ramble.



Wood: the most expensive recorders are usually made of harder, denser woods, likerosewood, bubinga, grenadilla, and ebony. Less expensive recorders are often made ofsofter, less expensive wood - maple, pear, plum, and other fruitwoods. In between are ahost of other woods - boxwood, kamba, olive, etc., etc. Generally speaking, the harder

and denser the wood, the more brilliant the tone; most concert soloists play hardwoodrecorders. Softer woods tend to produce a mellower tone that blends well in a consort.But correct voicing is all-important in the way a recorder sounds and responds. See the"Repair Services" page for a discussion of voicing and tuning.

Hand work: A more expensive recorder is usually the product of more hand finishing,voicing, and tuning - a real factor in its cost.

Finer features: Higher quality recorders often incorporate features that cheaper ones donot have, such as:

A) Curved windway: the end you blow in is gently arched from side to side, instead of being made straight across.

B) Tapered block: the block (the all-important insert that forms the bottom of thewindway) is narrower from side to side at the window end than it is at the beak end(where you blow).

C) A block set quite high: the beak opening is quite a bit smaller from top to bottomthan in less expensive recorders, requiring very accurate voicing dimensions. It alsoresults in more resistance and requires more consistent breath support for the player,unlike a recorder with a wide-open windway where the breath just flows. And flows.And flows. In other words cheaper recorders often use more air, while more expensiverecorders use less air but require more breath support and control.

D) Undercut tone holes: the holes that your fingers cover - their bottom edges inside the bore are somewhat flared.

E) With soprano recorders, a three-piece instrument is usually preferable to a two-pieceone, though most Renaissance sopranos are indeed made with two pieces or in one

piece. The movable foot enables a player to fit his or her pinky exactly. It also makesfor more exact tuning; if the highest notes on a soprano are sharp, pulling out the foot a

bit will help correct them.

4) Cost factor

This is what many players consider first - how much I can afford. Good thinking! It'swise to set a realistic limit and abide by it. And depending on the level of expense youcan afford, there will surely be several recorders to consider.

One question I am often asked: "Does a recorder that costs twice as much as anotherrecorder play twice as good as the cheaper one?"



Probably not. The better the player you are, however, the more you will expect fromyour recorder and the better recorder you will want. An $800 alto in the hands of a

beginner doesn't make much sense; in the hands of an experienced player, however, thequality of that fine recorder may well be worth every penny of the $800 or $1800 or$2800 it cost.

One comment I often hear: "I love the way my friend's (fill in the maker's name) maplealto plays, so I bought one just like it - same model and everything. And it plays andsounds a lot different.

Why? - because of its voicing, its tuning, the shipment of wood it was made from, howlong the recorder wood seasoned, how long the cedar block seasoned, how the person atthe workbench who voiced it felt that day, how long it sat on a store shelf before you

bought it, etc., etc. Most makers of high-quality recorders maintain stringent qualitycontrol standards, but wood is wood is wood and people are people are people; woodeninstruments can vary quite a bit, as do players.

Remember, correct voicing is essential for a good recorder to play its best. Most makersgive a warranty for a period of time after purchase. During that "break-in" time, thevoicing will probably change somewhat, and that is one reason why Collins andWilliams is the "authorized US repair agent" for a number of overseas firms; voicing isnecessary when the windway dimensions change even a little, and over a period of timethe warmth and moisture in a player's breath can certainly change those woodendimensions.

Wood or Plastic?

Some players seem to think plastic is almost blasphemous; to them, wood is the onlymaterial for a recorder worthy of the name. "If the good Lord had wanted us to play

plastic recorders, He would be growing plastic trees!" There is certainly no question that plastic recorders cannot compare with fine wooden recorders. But the operative wordhere is "fine." There is also no question in my mind that a high-quality plastic recorderis far superior to a mediocre wooden one.

The reason for that superiority is because many characteristics of fine wooden recordersare built into high-quality plastics (see "finer features" above). The best plastics on themarket today are, in my opinion, the higher-priced Zen-Ons and Yamaha 300-series,

and they have the features of fine wooden recorders. What those plastics don't have is awooden block to absorb moisture and lessen windway clogging. One reason the Collins& Williams customized Zen-On plastics sell so steadily is that their cedar-surfaced

blocks do absorb moisture and sound "woodier." In addition, they have been voiced to play their best - impossible to do with other plastics. See the "Customized Zen-OnPlastic Recorders" page for further information.

A beginning player would be wise to buy a good plastic that is built to play like thegood wooden one he or she will be playing one day. When that day comes, the good

plastic becomes a practice/travel/back-up recorder; the mediocre wooden one is rarely played again. Think about it. And try a good plastic.

Did you make it all the way through the above? Congratulations! I hope the thoughts



and opinions have been helpful and not confusing. If further questions come to mind,don't hesitate to get in touch with me. I'll be happy to help if I can.

Q. "Should I be oiling my recorder?"

It's a question that players often ask, and I can, with assurance, unequivocally andcategorically state that it depends! I have worked on wax-impregnated maples whose

bores were caked with oil residue from over-oiling and on rosewoods that were dry as bones.

Speaking of bones - the following might be of interest to any of you with bone-lovingdogs. I use what can best be described as cow thigh-bones to make recorder thumb

bushings, and they must be as hard, dry, and durable as possible. A veterinarian friend passed along a tip from the owner of a large dog who used to go through a bone a day:keep the bone in the freezer for a while. Freezing dries out and hardens the bone, and adog will get a lot more chew out of it. And a recorder player will get a lot more wear outof it.

Back to oiling. Where to oil? Only the bore and the labium (the lip). If you are super-careful, dab a very little bit on the end of a toothpick around the area above where theair leaves the windway, but only on the vertical surface. DON'T get any on the slanted

part (the head chamfer) that angles back into the windway. The labium (lip) should beoiled because it gets continually bombarded by your warm, moist breath, and you can

oil the walls beside the window labium if you want. But DON'T get any oil in thewindway; the block must absorb as much moisture as it can, and it CANNOT have oilon it. When oiling the bore, if any oil runs into the finger holes, wipe it out so that dustdoesn't accumulate there

How to oil? I use a slotted plastic stick with a cloth from an old T-shirt or handkerchief.Swab a thin film of oil evenly throughout the bore of all the pieces - not on the corks orin the windway. Wipe off any that runs. Stand the pieces upright (with the open jointend of the head down) for several hours. If the recorder hasn't been oiled for a longtime, it might be necessary to repeat the process.

With what? I recommend RAW linseed oil, used by most major recorder-makers. Youmay not care for the smell, and in hot climates linseed oil can make a recorder get alittle rancid if over-used. Some people use olive oil, salad oil, or mineral oil that is soldfor clarinets and oboes.

They are better than nothing, but they probably won't polymerize as well as linseed oildoes, which means that raw linseed oil soaks into the wood and then hardens to seal the

pores. It doesn't evaporate; it solidifies without diminishing in size.

You must use RAW linseed oil. "Boiled" linseed oil is for sale. Don't use it. "Boiled" isfine for furniture, but not for your woodwind. Today's linseed oil hasn't really been

boiled, by the way, but has just had dryers added to it. (You might be interested in anintriguing book entitled "The Periodic Table" by Primo Levy, in which he described the



early Italians gauging how long to boil linseed oil by throwing in some onion rings;when the rings were browned, the oil was done. Neat.)

How often to oil: Now it gets iffy, depending on what wood the instrument is made of,if the maker coated the bore with urethane or varnish, and if the wood has been wax-

impregnated. Let's deal with the last item first: some makers impregnate their softerwoods (most often maple and fruitwoods) with paraffin wax, rendering the wood denserand fairly inert. These instruments will absorb next-to-no oil, and there is little reason tooil them, unless they are years old and some of the wax has seeped out. The heavier

blackwoods and boxwoods should be oiled perhaps twice a year, and the more open- pored rosewoods somewhat more often. Players in dryer climates and those who keeptheir instruments in dry heated rooms may decide to oil more often. Remember, it is notusually the consistently dry or consistently moist wood that cracks and warps; it is thewood that from use becomes wet and dry, wet and dry, wet and dry, that reacts the most.

Look through the bore. Does it look dry and in need of oil? If it is smooth and shiny, it

is made of a dense, close-grained wood, or perhaps it has a finish on it. Neither willneed much oil. If it is dark and rough-looking, it probably needs an oiling. You can'treally hurt an instrument by oiling it if you:

1.Use only a thin film of oil;2.NEVER get oil into the windway;3.Stand it upright so that excess oil drains off.

Problem: raw linseed oil is sold at most hardware stores in pints, each of which isenough to last several lifetimes. It is not expensive, but it may turn rancid after a while.Collins and Williams will send you a film canister (the little black plastic container that35 mm film comes in) with about an ounce of raw linseed oil blended with some sweetalmond oil (very expensive, but it sweetens the linseed oil and keeps it from fromturning rancid). See the Accessories web page. Keep a strip of swabbing cloth in there, aslotted stick handy, and it will last you a long time.

For a thorough discussion of oiling, see the article Wood, Water, and Oil by Raymondand Lee Dessy in the November, 1995,"American Recorder found athttp://www.iinet.net.au/~nickl/wood.html.

Q. " I've been told that I must 'break in' my new recorder: why is it necessary,

and how do I do it?"

Breaking in a recorder is a process to introduce the warmth and moisture of your breathover a period of time to a new recorder, whose wood gradually adapts to it with smallchanges in dimension and moisture content. Long periods of playing a new recordersometimes produce changes quickly in some parts of the recorder and more slowly inothers, resulting in uneven expansion; cracks are often the result. Gentle playing at firstusually prevents this.

My recommendation (easily remembered) to players is this:

http://www.iinet.net.au/~nickl/wood.html

http://www.iinet.net.au/~nickl/wood.html



first week - no more than ten minutes a day;second week - no more than 20 minutes;third week - no more than 30 minutes.

After that, go ahead and play away, although I will say that playing for hours a day on a

wooden recorder - three to four hours a day, perhaps - will shorten its life. Most playerswho are that devoted to recorders, however, usually have several recorders that they usein rotation during practice sessions.

The larger recorders, such as the bass and contrabass, don't seem to be affected as much by moisture and temperature as the smaller ones. With their large bores and thickerwalls, moisture just doesn't condense as much in the bore. Since the windway is also

bigger, moisture clogging is usually less of a problem there. So while breaking in a newrecorder is always advisable, the big ones probably don't need as much attention to the

process as smaller ones.

Hard woods seem to require more careful breaking in than soft woods. Again, I thinkthe expansion rate inside and outside the recorder takes longer to equalize and stabilize.Also, some softwood recorders are wax-impregnated, which lessens the risk of cracking.

Finally, a very few recorders have tiny invisible flaws in their wood that will crack, nomatter how careful the care. Most makers have a warranty period to allow for thesecracks within the first months of playing.

"How about an old recorder that hasn't been played in years? Does it need to be brokenin?"

Yes, I would go through the same process as for a new recorder. The wood has probablydried out, and there is the same chance of the wood cracking due to uneven expansion.By the way, if there are keys, the pads have probably hardened and will need to bereplaced.

Q. "My right pinkie can no longer reach that bottom hole on the foot.

Can you add a key to a recorder for me?"

Maybe, but only if it is a single hole. I may also be able to add a key to a tone hole onthe middle section (a prime candidate for this procedure is the first finger/right handhole on the Yamaha YRT 304B plastic tenor). See the Repair Services page.

If you have a foot with double holes, a key cannot be added. Your only option is to buya new foot with keys on it from the maker. Contact me for availability and a priceestimate.

Q. "The top of my recorder is blackish, and the window where the air comes out is,

too. And it smells funny. What is the matter?"



It sounds like you have mold and/or mildew. Mold and mildew growth is a real problemin some recorders, most often maple, fruitwood, and boxwood instruments. Not only isit unsightly in light-colored woods, but the recorder's tone and response can beadversely affected. If left unchecked, mildew can permeate the wood, resulting in a

punky, rotten surface. In the windway, such a soft surface means that the recorder

cannot be voiced with any assurance of success. In short, mold and mildew cansignificantly shorten a recorder's useful life.

I say "can shorten", because experience has led me to believe that moisture fromdifferent players' breath must differ chemically, to the extent that some recorders willshow mold and mildew growth, while other players' instruments, under essentially thesame conditions, will not.

Related to that, deposits of hardened "crud" (for want of a more sophisticated term) arealso quite evident in some otherwise well-cared-for instruments, again (I think) theresult of an individual player's saliva. While these deposits do not affect the wood of an

instrument like mildew does, they do indeed affect the tone and response. Don't let thesedeposits build up in the end of the windway. One reason God gave us thumb nails is tochip away at the deposits around the mouthpiece without damaging the finish. Butremoving deposits gently from the block in the end of the windway must be done withthe end of a knife blade, being VERY careful not to remove any wood.

Back to mold and mildew: I recommend the following for all players, with a furthersuggestion for those with a more serious mold and mildew problem.

1) Always dry your recorder as thoroughly as you can after even a short playing session.A lint-free cotton cloth on a stick is better than a woolly swab. Take care to wrap thecloth over the the end of the stick to avoid hitting the edge of the labium (lip).

2) Blow out the head joint. It's NOT a good idea to cover the window with your fingerto prevent a shriek and then blow through the beak end. Over a period of time, even theslight finger pressure on the warm, moist labium can produce a sway-backed labiumedge, and a head that makes a fine piece of kindling wood! Instead, take the head jointoff, cover the open joint end with the flat of your hand, put your mouth on the window,and give a vigorous puff to blow moisture out the beak end.

3) Clean out the windway after playing, but not with anything harder than a small

feather or a folded piece of file card or cardboard. These types of materials are fine forregular windway maintenance to help reduce deposit ("crud") build-up. No pipecleaners, paper clips, steak knives, screwdrivers, or nail files in there! The onlyexception is the TLC scraping away of deposits at the beak end of the block, asdescribed above.

4) If your case is fairly air-tight, leave it open for a while to let the recorder air out anddry out. If your case is a box with a hinged cover, putting the head in backwards maykeep the cover open enough to let air in but keep dust out.

5) Though unrelated to mold and mildew, it's a good idea to disassemble your recorder

between playing sessions. Leaving it together will compress the corks over time,resulting in loose joints and the need to recork.



For those with an evident mildew problem (darkening around the window and labium,at the beak end, and in extreme cases, an evident discoloration on the top of the head

joint following the outline of the windway), the following will help: Fill a water glass1/3 full of household chlorine bleach; add the same amount of water for a one-to-onemixture. Immerse the windway area of the head joint in the bleach solution, up to and

including the labium (the inclined ramp that the air hits when it leaves the windway).Leave it there for five minutes or so, then take it out, wipe off the outside, blow out themoisture as directed in 2) above, and let it dry. The smell will disappear with drying andairing. It's best not to play it while the bleach remains in the windway, since ingesting

bleach can be unpleasant.

The finish on your instrument should not be affected by this treatment. If in doubt, test iton the bottom of the foot joint. I don't recommend the bleach treatment on a regular

basis, but I know it works, especially for players whose breath seems to foster the moldfarms that I occasionally see.

Q. "How about humidifiers? Do I need one in my case?"

You may, if the year-round climate where you live is hot and dry, or the winter climatein your living quarters is hot and dry. This situation can obviously apply to both ahacienda in New Mexico or an apartment in New Hampshire.

Wood kept in a state of dryness or a state of moisture does not usually deteriorate asmuch as wood that is subject to changes from wet to dry and wet to dry. Off-on-a-tangent time: I grew up on a farm, and every year my father and I had to replace fence

posts that had broken off. It was evident that the above-ground wood in those posts wasfine and could be used for firewood; the wood below ground was still solid and wet andhad to be dug out - the worst part of the job! - before a new post could go in. What hadhappened was that the post had rotted off right at ground level - the wet/dry line. It wasa graphic illustration of what wood will and will not endure.

Your wooden recorder doesn't like the shock of changing quickly from dry to wet.Oiling will help ease the shock (see "Oiling the Recorder" above). A humidifier willalso help. The ones that I stock are small plastic tubes with holes in the end and a pieceof sponge inside. From time to time the sponge is wetted and left in the case to raise theambient humidity. You can make one yourself by poking holes in a little plastic pill

bottle with a hot needle or nail and putting a piece of sponge inside.

But don't use one if you don't think it's necessary. Too much humidity can result inmold and mildew (see FAQ above). Use your own judgment.

Q. "I left my maple recorder in the trunk of my car on a summer day, and it must

have been pretty hot. When I opened the case, everything was covered with a slimy

wax-like stuff. What happened? Is it ruined?"



No, it isn't ruined, but it needs a good cleaning by a professional. It is indeed wax thatmelted in the heat and seeped out of the wood.

Some makers of fine recorders - Moeck and Mollenhauer are two - impregnate theirmaple instruments with paraffin wax. It is done under extreme pressure and renders the

wood quite stable and fairly impervious to moisture. On the downside, if a wax-impregnated recorder is left in a hot environment, the wax will melt and seep out of thewood. The bore and windway will collect pools of wax, and the recorder will be out ofcommission. Cleaning is a messy job, the block may need to be replaced, and the wholething is best left to a repair person.

On the upside, I've never known of a player who let his wax-impregnated recorder sit ina hot place more than once.

Q. "After I've played my recorder for a while, moisture collects in the windway,and the recorder sounds awful. What's happening, and what can I do about it?"

Clogging is a real bother for some players and not a problem for others. If your recorderclogs up with beads of moisture, the sound becomes choked and fuzzy, and the highestnotes won't play. Maybe it's because you're so excited about playing that you begin tosalivate? Anyway, the following may help:

The recorder should be in proper voice; this is the single most important factor. If yourrecorder hasn't been voiced for a while (or ever), it's the best first step toward correctingthe moisture problem. A plastic recorder cannot be voiced, however; it is glued

permanently together and the windway is not accessible. A treatment with a preparedsolution may help (see below).

Are your playing habits part of the problem? Remember, the only part of your mouththat touches the recorder is the outside part of your lips - not the moist inner side of yourlips, not your tongue, not your teeth. If any of these three does touch the recorder,moisture will find its way in. The recorder rests on the lower lip, which covers the lowerteeth; the upper lip holds the recorder in place, and it also covers the upper teeth. The

basic tongue technique consists of starting the tone by making a "t" or "d" on the roof ofthe mouth in back of the top teeth.

Most players instinctively make a quick quiet suck on the mouthpiece during a rest or pause, bringing any accumulated moisture back into the mouth; it is the simplest way toclear the windway, though not entirely effective, and some people think it's yucky. Butdo it. It does help.

The best way to clear the windway of anything, however, is to remove the head, coverthe open joint end with the flat of the hand, cover the window with the open mouth and

blow with a quick, sharp puff; almost anything in the windway will be blown out the beak end. Putting your finger on the labium to prevent a shriek while you blow into the beak end of the windway with a vigorous puff is NOT a good idea, at least with a

wooden recorder. Over a period of time, that warm moist labium can get pressed down



and retain a permanently warped shape, irreparably ruining the tone and response. Thatwill not happen with plastics, but it's best not to get into the habit.

There are prepared solutions available to help moisture clogging in the windway;Moeck makes Anticondens and Dupont makes Duponol. They can be a real help. While

I refer to Duponol in the following, the use is the same for Anticondens. Duponol is adetergent solution that helps moisture in the windway to stream, rather than form beads.It works much like dishwasher detergent does, helping the water to form a sheet, ratherthan stay in drops. That's why your glasses shouldn't have spots when they come out ofthe dishwasher.

To use Duponol most effectively, let the head section dry thoroughly, preferablyovernight. Cover the beak end of the windway (the end you put in your mouth) withwaterproof tape like electrical tape or duct tape. Or if you're the patient type, just putyour finger over the end. Hold the head or prop it up in a secure place with the beak enddown. Drip Duponol into the narrow opening of the windway until it is full. Let it sit

and soak for five minutes or so. Hold the head joint over a sink, take the tape (or yourfinger) off and let it drain. If not much comes out, it's because some of the solutionseeped down between the sides of the block and the inside of the head - not a problem.Wipe any solution off the outside of the instrument, but don't shake or blow it out of thewindway. You want a coating to remain in there. Let the head joint dry overnight. Ifanother treatment is necessary, follow the same procedure. The treatment may last for amonth or more, or you may find it must be repeated more often.

Two considerations for those players plagued with moisture problems:

1) More experienced players usually have fewer problems than beginners. Yourclogging problems will probably lessen the longer you play the recorder.

2) If it's any consolation, most dentists say that people with more saliva in their mouthsusually have healthier mouths than those people with dry mouths. So drool and behappy!

Q. "Playing a soprano recorder and an alto recorder at the same time from thesame music sounds all wrong. Sopranos and altos have the same fingering, but the

notes that come out are different. What's going on?"

This can be very confusing for a beginning recorder player. I'll do my best to explain it.

The recorder, like the contemporary flute, is a non-transposing instrument - that is, whatyou see on the music is what sounds on the recorder; when you play C on the recordermusic, C comes out of the recorder. That is different from the Bflat clarinet, forexample, which is a transposing instrument. When you play C written on the clarinetmusic, Bflat comes out of the clarinet. Don't ask why - that's a whole other question that

doesn't concern us. Okay so far?



Now it changes and gets even more confusing, but stick with it. The clarinet family allhas the same fingering - soprano, alto, bass - whenever you see C below the staff, it'salways left-hand thumb and three fingers. Not so with the recorder. The soprano andtenor recorders are said to be in C, because C below the G-clef staff is the lowest writtennote that they can play - all holes are covered. When the tenor plays that C, it sounds

that C; when the soprano plays that C, it sounds a C an octave above the tenor, but it isstill a C.

The sopranino, alto, and bass recorders are said to be in F, because first-space-on-the-staff F is the lowest written note they can produce, with the sopranino producing an Ftwo octaves above the alto, and the bass two octaves below. And C music looks thesame for all C recorders, and F music looks the same for all F recorders (except the

bass, which is often written in the bass clef). That's why the same method book servesto teach the soprano and tenor in C, and the method book in F works for the sopraninoand alto.

Therefore, the finger pattern for every recorder is the same from top to bottom, exceptthat the fingering for a particular note will be different for the two groups, F and C.Second-line G on a C recorder is left hand thumb and three fingers; second-line G on anF recorder is all fingers down except the bottom pinkie. You can play "Mary Had aLittle Lamb" with the same finger pattern on both a soprano and an alto; the alto versionwill just sound four notes lower the whole way through.

For experienced players that want to play all recorders, that means switching fingering patterns when changing from C to F recorders and back again. For beginners it can be achallenge, but it is definitely worth being at ease with both fingerings. One of the joysof recorder-playing is being able to enjoy the whole family of sounds.

But the range of each recorder is also a factor. The alto and sopranino cannot play below first-space F, which leaves out a lot of vocal music. Experienced playersroutinely switch octaves, which may take some planning and practice on a particular

piece, however, to make it come out sounding at all musical. The low C on a tenor, forexample, may sound fairly soft and not be effective in a group of instruments. Recordermusic is often arranged and rearranged for different consorts of recorders in order to

produce the most effective ensemble sound. Again, one of the challenges for therecorder players is to adapt its capabilities to the musical situation that presents itself.

Q. "One of my recorder joints is stuck, and I can't get it apart. I don't want to

break it. Do I have to send it to you?"

Probably not. If you're careful and persistent, you can do what I would do. Stuck jointsseem to occur most often on tenors and basses. Here are suggestions for two differentsituations:

1) To separate a too-tight joint: sit down, spread your knees, and lay the joined piecesacross them, with the joint in the middle. Rock the joint gently but firmly up and down,

all the while pulling and/or turning the joint apart. The two pieces should slowlyseparate. It may take some time and effort.



2) To dislodge a cap that has become stuck on a bass head: with the head joint on yourlap, take a sturdy kitchen carving knife and while rolling the head back and forth,carefully force the cutting edge into the crack between the pieces. (Make sure you areworking on the crack; don't be fooled by a turning that looks like the crack.) As you rollit back and forth, the knife will push the cap away from the head. When it separates a

little, change to a duller, thicker table knife, to prevent cutting the cork. Then rock and pull as described in 1) above. Be careful with those sharp knives!

In both situations, use cork grease! Or something! Vaseline is better than nothing. But at$1.50, cork grease is a cheap and easy maintenance item that belongs in every recordercase.

Q. "The low F on my bass recorder is very weak and soft, and I have to really pushhard on the key to get it at all. It must be leaking air. Can I send you just the foot

to repair?"

Recorder keys and pads can be the cause of problems, particularly when the pad doesn'tseal the hole properly. Repairs on tenors and basses are often time-consuming andfussy, since the tone hole rims must be perfectly level and the pads must meet themexactly, so that no leaks occur. It's no fun for the player who must cram the keys downhard to get notes to respond. Some older recorder key assemblies are also fairly flimsyin design and don't provide much force to the pad, however, even when the player exertswhat should be sufficient pressure.

If you're having problems with a pad sealing properly, you may help it temporarily bysqueezing down on the pad with your thumb for a moment before you begin to play.Don't use the lever that your finger normally uses, but push down hard directly on thecup that holds the pad. It will help the pad conform to the hole and should help stop theleaks. If you aren't sure what pad may be leaking, squeeze down on them all. You caneven put a rubber band over the pad cup to hold it down between playing sessions -anything to get the pad to fit the hole better. But eventually you should get the pad or

pads replaced.

And no, don't send just the foot. In order to ensure that the low notes are responding properly, I need the whole instrument.

Hand Tools for Recorder Making



by Gary Cook

Contents

Introduction Reamers Windway Cutters Underside Edge Cutters Other Tools

Introduction

In the public eye, recorders are usually regarded as "simple" wind instruments, a bit liketin-whistles. This is perhaps not surprising as recorders are most often heard in thehands of massed groups of young children at schools. Everyone is familiar with theawful strangled shriek of those overblown plastic instruments. This has led the general

public to the natural conclusion that recorders are simple, because children usually playthem, and they sound awful, so they cannot be real musical instruments. I've often seen

parents pushing their children into giving up their recorders in favour of a proper(grown-up) instrument. This is a shame, because anyone who has learned to play therecorder will appreciate just what a lovely, and challenging, instrument it is.

In fact, the recorder is not a simple instrument. It evolved continuously over many

centuries, from its birth, probably in early Medieval times, until its death at the end ofthe Baroque period. The instrument was brought back to life again less than 100 yearsago, by Arnold Dolmetsch, initially in the Baroque form. The recorder probably diedout originally because it could no longer compete with the louder, newer instruments ofthe time. The Baroque recorder is an inherently quiet instrument compared with those ofthe modern orchestra. However, the early makers designed these quiet instruments witha purpose. They are designed to have a wide range, play especially well in the higherregister, and sound wonderful. These key attributes are due mainly to the shape of the

bore, and to the design of the windway and voicing.

This article describes methods for fabricating modern special hand tools for Baroque

recorder making, with emphasis on bore and windway cutting. It also lists the ordinarytools which are needed to make a recorder. All of the tools can be used to make earlier

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Renaissance and Medieval versions as well. The article is aimed at those who eitheralready make recorders, or those who wish to have a go at making their own recorders.The information on tools should be of greatest value to keen amateur makers, likemyself, but may also be useful to some professional makers. Everyone has a differentapproach to recorder making; this is mine.

Reamers

Reaming the bore of a recorder to the correct dimensions is an essential part of recordermaking. Recorder bores generally follow a complex profile, especially Baroquerecorders. This profile is achieved by first drilling through the timber blank with aconventional drill, and then reaming the bore with special tools to produce the requiredshape. Some of the tools used by the original makers from the Renaissance and Baroque

periods have survived to this day. Large sets of spoon reamers were used by these early

makers to cut different parts of the bore separately. Indeed, the same spoon reamerswere probably also used to make adjustments to the tuning of their instruments. Somesurviving illustrations from these times also show what appear to be simple taperedwooden reamers, fitted with metal blades, although these were probably only used forroughing out in preparation for spoon reaming. Spoon reamer marks are visible in the

bores of many surviving original recorders.

There is nothing to prevent anyone who intends making recorders from doing exactlythe same as our ancestors did. However, accurately reaming recorder bores with spoonreamers is a difficult and skilled task, requiring years of patient dedication to learn

properly. It is much easier, today, to produce single reamers for each joint that cut the

whole section profile in one go. The idea is to make a "former" that has the same shapeas the finished bore. The former then has cutting edges set into its surface to become aworking reamer. Once the timber blank is drilled through, the reamer is inserted into thehole and slowly rotated by hand to cut away the bore. When the reamer has beenadvanced to a pre-determined depth, it is withdrawn and Hey Presto! the bore isfinished. A good reamer will leave the bore perfectly smooth and polished, requiring nofurther attention.

The simplest home made reamer, the bargain basement model, is made from an oldmetalwork file. All that is needed to make this is access to a bench grinder, or at a

pinch, an angle grinder. Take great care with these machines, they can be dangerous if

used improperly. Remember to wear the appropriate safety equipment, and work slowlyand patiently.

First lightly grind away both sides of the file so that they are as smooth as possible. Thisis so the finished reamer will have a good cutting edge. Any trace of the original filesurface would spoil it. The next step is to grind away the edges to the required profile. Itis important that both sides of the file are ground away identically and symmetricallyabout the centre line of the file. If one side is different from the other, the reamer cannot

possibly produce an accurate bore profile. Slow, patient work will give its rewards. Thefinished edge should be bevelled back slightly, so that the trailing edge just clears the

bore. If the bevel is too shallow, the reamer will tear the wood. If it is too steep, thetrailing edge will foul the bore and prevent the cutting surfaces from working properly.Figure 1 shows how this works.

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Fit a standard wooden file handle to the reamer. Drilling a hole through the handle willallow a suitable length of wooden dowel or metal rod to be inserted, making it easier toturn. The finished reamer should be advanced gently into the recorder body. If it is usedtoo aggressively it will bind and tear the wood. Making the first few centimetres paralleland of the same diameter as the initial drill will also help to make the job easier. Thistype of reamer will not usually produce a perfectly smooth and polished bore. It cannotcompete with the finish quality and accuracy of the steel reamers described below.

However, it is simple and cheap to make, and it allows people who do not have accessto metalwork lathes to have a go at recorder making. It can also be useful for quick

prototype instrument development. It warrants a recommendation because of this.

The second type of reamer is made of wood, and appears to be similar to the reamersseen in surviving illustrations from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Access to awood turning lathe (which is necessary for recorder making anyway) is required for thisreamer. It is particularly useful for bigger recorders, where the large bore size makes thereamer strong. This type of reamer is not suitable for descant or sopranino instruments.It should really only be considered seriously as an option for tenor and bass recorders.However, it produces a much better finish than the metal file version, and it is easier touse.

The reamer is made by first turning a length of timber to the exact dimensions of thefinished bore. The timber must be very well seasoned, to avoid warping and distortionsoccurring later, and it must be very strong and hard. Suitable timbers are Lignum Vitae(Guaiacum officinale), Greenheart (Ocotea rodiae), Brazilwood (Caesalpinia echinata)and other timbers with similar properties. The surface finish should be as smooth and

polished as possible.

The next step is to fit a metal blade; a hacksaw is ideal. The blade can be fitted in one of

two ways. Either a 90 degree quadrant is removed (by sawing, by routing, or with anedge plane) so that the blade can be screwed to the reamer, or alternatively by carefullycutting a narrow slot along the reamer and gluing the blade in place. If the latter methodis chosen, it is good practice to plane away a small flat area immediately in front of the

blade to allow the shavings some clearance. The first method allows the blade to bechanged easily, while the second method gives a slightly better finish. Figure 2 showsthe general idea for both options.



Once the blade is fixed in place, grind away the protruding excess until it is just level, orvery fractionally above the wooden surface. The last grinding should be done with afine grit wheel, or with a hand slip-stone so that the edge is left as sharp as possible.

Finally, drill a hole through the thicker end so that a suitable wooden or metal dowel

can be inserted to act as a handle. Do not apply any kind of varnish or wax to thefinished reamer, as this will cause it to jam in the bore. Instead, liberally apply a non-drying oil, like almond oil, which will prevent any warping and make reaming processmuch easier. Any excess oil should be wiped off before reaming commences, otherwisethe shavings will stick together and clog the reamer.

A third type of reamer is based around a linear metal taper (i.e. a shallow cone). A lineartaper is easy to turn on a metalwork lathe, by simply off-setting the tailstock and takingstraight cuts along a metal bar. The metal used for the taper will not be used to form acutting edge, so it can be relatively soft. Brass is free-cutting and is ideal for this

purpose. The degree of taper should be sufficient to clear the finished bore profile at all points.

The next step is to cut a narrow slot along the entire length of the reamer, into whichwill be set a cutter. In this respect, the reamer is similar to the wooden taper describedabove, except it is strong enough to be made small. Again, a hack-saw blade makes anexcellent cutter. The slot needs to be narrow, and it is best to cut this using a smallslitting saw. I do this using an electric drill (fitted with a speed reduction gear orelectronic speed control), mounted onto a vertical slide which is attached to the cross-slide of the lathe. The cut is made by gradually lowering the drill and making repeated

passes back and forth. Providing the drill mounting is robust and cannot flex, an

excellent finish can be achieved.

Once the slot is completed, the hack-saw blade can be fitted to the reamer. It can beglued, but it is better to drill and tap some grub screws fixings through the reamer forthis, so it can be replaced easily. The grub screw holes must be carefully de-burred toavoid scoring the bore. All that remains is for the blade to be ground to the correctdimensions and sharpened.

The linear taper reamer is best suited to gently tapering bores, like renaissanceinstruments. If the bore shape changes rapidly, the blade will stick out too from thesurface of the reamer, and the finish quality will suffer. Also, the side opposite to the

blade will tend to ride on the high spots of the bore. This can cause an eccentric cuttingaction and an inaccurate profile if the blade sticks up too far. It is best to choose



recorders that allow the blade to be no more than 1 or 2mm proud of the surface at any point.

The last, and best, reamer design is the so-called "D-bit". Most professional windinstrument makers use this design. It gives supreme accuracy and finish and lasts for a

very long time. D-bit reamers can be re-sharpened hundreds of times before they needto be replaced. The principle is very similar to that used for the wooden reamerdescribed above. An exact bore profile is turned from a piece of steel and the cuttingedge is machined directly into the surface. The type of steel used depends on whattimbers are to be reamed. Mild steel is OK with softer timbers like Maple or Cherry, butstainless or silver steel should be used for cutting harder woods. Silver steel rusts easilyif not protected in storage, but it can be readily hardened by heating and quenching to

produce a longer lasting cutting edge. Brass could also be used, but a suitable steel blade would have to be fitted, and it is easier to make the whole thing from steel.

The first stage is therefore to accurately form the reamer shape. This is best done by

turning a series of small steps, of about 0.1mm depth, in a steel bar. The length of eachstep is chosen so that the inner corner corresponds to the bore diameter at that point.Remember to add a suitable length to each end of the reamer to allow for a handle, andfor transitioning from the minimum bore diameter to the drill size used to make theinitial hole through the timber.

Once this is done, the small steps need to be removed to leave the finished profile. I dothis by hand using a fine metalwork file while the lathe is running. Take care to avoidloose clothing etc. while doing this, and use a chuck guard! As soon as the steps havealmost disappeared, swap the file for some emery cloth/paper glued onto some scrapwood. Once the step marks have just gone, polish the reamer to a mirror finish usingwet & dry paper and some metal polish. Figure 3 shows the idea.

The next step is to machine a cutting edge along the length of the reamer. Thetraditional way is to machine away a quadrant from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock from thecross-section. If access to a milling machine is available, this is straight forward. Thiscan also be done using the lathe mounted electric drill described above, but fitted withan end-mill cutter. The reamer is sharpened by raising a slight burr with some tool steelon one of the machined faces. Alternatively, either an end-mill or slot-drill can be usedto machine away a wide trough along the middle of the reamer. This is my own

preferred method. The slot can be any width, but the reamer works best when the slot

gap is wide. It should not be too wide though; limit the cutter width to approximatelyhalf the diameter of the reamer at its narrowest point. This also means that less metal



needs to be machined away than with the traditional D-bit. Figure 4 shows the cross-sections of the two alternative methods.

You will notice that the latter method produces a more acutely angled cutting edge. Thisis why I make my reamers this way. The traditional D-bit, and indeed all of the otherreamers described here, cut by scraping the bore. My design cuts the bore, leaving asuperb finish. The shavings look like they have been planed away.

One last practical note on machining the slots/quadrants in these reamers. Most smallmetalwork lathes, like my Myford ML7, do not have the facility to separately drive theleadscrew while the headstock chuck is locked. This makes it impossible toautomatically feed the milling cutter along the reamer using the leadscrew, because thereamer has to be held static by the locked chuck. After spending hours manuallytraversing the cutter back and forth, I found a solution. Grip the reamer by its smallestend using a drill chuck mounted in the lathe tailstock. Support the other end at theheadstock by using a live centre. This allows the headstock spindle to rotate freely, sothat power can be applied to the leadscrew, while the reamer remains static andsupported at both ends.

Windway Cutters

Most professional makers, and certainly all of the larger volume producers of recorders,use special machines to cut the windway roof into recorder heads. This consists of someform of cutter, usually a broaching tool, mounted onto a reciprocating drive bar whichmoves the cutter back and forth into the head joint. The recorder head is held in a jigwhich is gradually lowered down onto the moving cutter until the desired depth of cut isreached. Sometimes, the broaching tool also has an extension which simultaneously cuts

the underside of the edge as well.

Although I do not own a windway cutting "machine", I can appreciate how useful theymust be to volume producers. Some makers of hand built recorders might also find themattractive as a labour saving device for roughing out the windway shape. All of thecutters that I will describe here are intended for hand use, because that is the way that Iuse them. However, anyone who owns a windway cutting machine could easily fit mostof these cutters onto their devices.

The easiest windway cutter, suitable for school-style recorders which have flat

windways, can be made from an ordinary flat file. Grind the sides away until the file isof the required width for the windway. A couple of files, one coarse and one fine, willusually be enough for each size of recorder. Make sure the file is seated accurately




within the bore before starting to cut. Do this by making sure the file is parallel to the bore axis, and by gently rocking the file from side to side while holding it against the bore wall. If it rocks easily, it is not seated properly, so that it is resting in the bore on just one corner and one edge. Waggle it about slightly and it will seat itself properly.When it is seated, it will feel stable and a gentle cut can be made. Once the cut has been

started, it will guide itself. Carefully inspect the cut regularly to ensure that the cut isindeed flat, is not becoming slightly convex, is cutting evenly on both sides and is notslanted up or down.

Finish the windway with some fine abrasive like wet & dry paper, 600 and 1000 grits,or some very fine (0000 grade) wire wool. Wet the windway surface and allow it to dryout completely, then re-finish the windway again. This is because the windway will

become wet when the recorder is played. If it is finished only once, the first playing willraise the severed wood fibres at the surface and make it look "hairy". The tone qualitywill suffer if this happens. Pre-wetting allows the hairy windway to be shaved off sothat it doesn't become a problem. Don't put any kind of wood finishing like oil or

varnish in the windway. This would cause the condensation to form beads and quickly block the instrument. An untreated surface allows the condensation to develop as a flatfilm which is partly absorbed by the timber, and does not block the windway. Cheaperwooden recorders, which are make from pressure treated timber (usually with paraffinwax) to stop cracking, and plastic recorders, suffer acutely with blocking because thecondensation cannot film properly.

Curved windways usually give a much better tone quality to recorders. Half-round filescould be used to make curved windways, but I have found the finish they leave to beinferior to the curved cutters described below. Most curved files also have a radius thatis too small for larger recorders, They can only really be used for sopraninos anddescants, but I wouldn't recommend them.

A curved windway cutter can be easily made on a metalwork lathe. Fix a cutter blank, arectangular bar of steel of the right width and length, to a hexagonal support bar,mounted between centres. This is best done by screwing through the support bar, intothe underside of the cutter blank. Make the mounting holes blind so that the fixingscrews don't break through. The same screw holes can be used later to fix the cutter to ahandle. Several blanks can be mounted onto the same support bar so that more than onecutter can be produced at once. A simple straight cut, taken along the rotating blank,will produce a nice uniformly curved surface. The radius or curvature can be varied

simply by inserting a spacer between the blank and hexagonal bar. As with the reamers,the best material for the cutter is either stainless steel, or silver steel.

Once the blanks are correctly shaped, a cutting edge needs to be put into the curvedsurface. Either machine a series of simple slots across the cutter, or alternatively a saw-tooth profile using a shaped lathe tool. Figure 5 shows the two schemes.



The saw tooth profile is slightly trickier to machine accurately, but it cuts very quickly.However, it wears out fast because the cutting edges are narrow ridges with littlesurface area. The multiple slot style lasts indefinitely, but requires constant sharpening.Do this by raising a slight burr edge at the top of the slots with a slim piece of tool steel.

The best surviving examples of Baroque recorders had windways which were not onlycurved, but which had a radius of curvature that varied continuously along the length ofthe windway. The windway starts off curved at the beak, and gradually flattens out

towards the exit at the chamfers. It took me a while to figure out how to make a cutter toreproduce this effect. What is needed is a cutter whose radius of curvature varies alongits length, just like the recorder windway. As long as the cutting surface is relativelyfine, a very short cutting stroke (a few mm back and forth) can successfully reproducethis type of windway in one operation. The reduced stroke length prolongs the cuttingtime, but the results are worth it.

A cutter with a varying radius of curvature can be made in a similar way to the previousuniform radius cutter. All that is needed is to mount the blank at an angle onto thehexagonal support bar. One end is closer to the lathe axis than the other, so the radius ofthe finished cutter will be smaller at this end than the other, and it will gradually change

along its length. The beak end of the finished cutter is the end closest to the lathe axis,with the smallest radius. The same choice of cutting surfaces as before can also be usedhere. Figure 6 shows the tooling arrangement.

I find the cutters easiest to use by fixing them to a short flat handle, using the tappedmounting holes in the underside. The finished tool looks a bit like a metal toothbrush,

but is very effective. Figure 7 shows the finished device.



Underside Edge Cutters

Make these from either old chisels or from woodworking flat drill-bits. First grind thetool square and to the required width. Then grind a suitable concave radius into oneside, to form the underside of the cutter, by holding the steel sideways onto a grinder.Choose a grindwheel of the right radius, or use one of the cheap disposable drillmounted grindwheels found in local hardware stores. Finally grind a shallow bevel ontothe top edge, following the curvature of the underside. Don't make the bevel too steep,

or the cutter shaft will foul on the opposite side of the bore, as the bevelled surface is brought parallel to the underside of the edge.

Other Tools

The remaining tools for recorder making are all commercially available, and can befound in most woodworking tool kits. This is a short description of the main tools thatare required:

Abrasives A range of abrasives is essential, 240 - 600 grit for most uses. "0000"grade wire wool is also useful.

Beam

drills A range of sizes for initially drilling through the timber blanks beforereaming.

Block

plane For block making (the name is a coincidence!). Use one with a shallow

blade angle and an adjustable mouth, such as 9 1/2 and 60 1/2 sizes.

Callipers

Vernier, dial or digital, take your pick. Use to accurately measure turneddiameters. If you can find one, an internal calliper with a dial gauge isideal for checking the windway depth. If you can't get hold of one, makeyour own using a standard dial gauge fitted to a pair of thin "scissors"arms. The gauge fits on one side, while the other end of the scissors armsis inserted into the bore.

Chisels For cutting the ramp. Use a range of sizes from 4mm to 12mm to suit.




Coping

saw To cut the beak underside profile.

Dowel Lengths of dowel are useful for removing the block.

Drills Lip and spur type is best for drilling the tone holes. Metal drill-bits arenext best. Pack the bore with a wooden former made from scrap timber to

prevent internal splintering.

Files A range of needle files is always useful. Use round needle files toundercut he tone holes, but break off the sharp point and grind the endsmooth first, to avoid damaging the opposite side of the bore.

Forstner

drills

Forstner bits are used for seating thumb bushings. Larger Forstner bits, or preferably saw-tooth bits can be used to cut tenon sockets. However, I prefer to use a metalwork lathe for the job, to get a good fit.

Gents saw Cutting block blanks.

Plug

cutters Used to make thumb bushing blanks. Use in conjunction with Forstner

bits for a perfect fit.

Scalpels Use for delicate cutting of the chamfers, cutting the step in blocks and preparing cork strips for the joints.

Steel rule Ditto callipers, but for lengths.

Turning

tools

Make miniature scrapers, parting tools and beading tools from shortlengths of slim tool steel set into wooden handles. Grind to shape as

required. Use to form the delicate beading and detail on Baroquerecorders.



The most important tool is patience! A good recorder can take a long time to make.Count on at least 30 hours labour for an alto; 50 if the timber is difficult or the recorderhas embellishments like contrasting wood fittings. A hand made recorder is a thing of

beauty. Enjoy creating it.

Malvern Recorders (Gary Cook) | Recorder Home Page

Part 1: Making Reamers

A stainless steel blank is first step-cut in

0.1mm radius steps to the required profile.

A finished step-cut blank ready forsmoothing.

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The 0.1mm steps are gently blended together by hand using progressively finer grades ofemery paper.

After blending out the small steps, thefinished profile is given a very high polish.

This helps to maximise the sharpness of thefinished reamer.



A cutting slot is milled along the length of thereamer blank.

The machining marks left from milling thecutting slot are worked away by hand using adiamond slip-stone. After final sharpeningwith a fine water-stone, a T-handle is fitted

and the reamer is ready for use.

Three different sizes are needed (one each forthe head, middle and foot respectively).



Part 2: Drilling and Reaming

Square sections of carefully seasoned timberare turned round prior to drilling through.

Each round blank is drilled right throughusing a drill diameter which corresponds tothe reamer minimum diameter.

After drilling through, but before reaming,the sockets are bored into the ends of the

head and foot joints using a specially madetool.



Each section is reamed to produce therequired complex internal bore profile.

Some timbers (e.g. boxwood) are initially part-reamed and allowed to "rest" for a fewdays. This allows any movement to occur

prior to final reaming to the finisheddimensions.

Part 3: Turning

Turning the outside profile of the head joint.

Great care is needed to produce the delicatefine beading.



Applying the finish. Shown here is theapplication of a tung oil based finish. Oil

finishes take several days to several weeks toapply, depending on the take-up by thetimber. Each section is liberally coated withoil and left to soak for a few minutes. Asmuch of the surface oil as possible is thenremoved by buffing on the lathe. Afterhardening, further oil coats are applied in thesame manner. Eventually a beautiful surfacesheen develops.

Turning the foot joint. Again, attention to

detail is paramount.



Applying an oil finish to the foot as describedfor the head joint above.

Oil finishes are ideal for recorders. The finish penetrates below the surface of the wood andis longer lasting than surface lacquers. Manymakers choose to simply submerge the whole

joint in oil for a time, followed by burnishingon the lathe to harden the oil. I do not do thisas the surface finish is inferior and easilyscratched. A quality finish takes time!

Turning the middle joint. At this stage, theoutside profile is only part finished in

readiness for adding the thumb bushing.

Part 4: Thumb Bushing



Cutting bone blanks for thumb bushings.

Bone is a very hard-wearing natural materialwhich is ideal for recorder thumb bushings.Bone sections are glued onto scrap wood andsawn into sections. Each section is turnedround and faced-off ready for gluing into therecorder.

Drilling the thumb bushing recess using a

Forstner drill.



After gluing in place, the thumb bushing iscarefully trimmed flush to the surface of themiddle joint.

An oil finish is applied, but not to therecesses for the cork seals, which are left

bare.

Part 5: Finger Holes and Cork Seals



Drilling the finger holes. All of the holesare drilled slightly under-size ready fortuning.

Drilling the angled foot joint holes using a

support jig.



Filing the finger hole recess for the foot joint. The same operation is carried out forthe 6th hole of the middle joint.

Adding cork seals to the middle joint. Theends of the cork strip are steeply bevelledto create a lap-joint.

Part 6: Windway and Ramp



Drilling an access slot to form the window inthe head joint.

Filing the window square. The finisheddimensions of the window define the axis

along which the rest of the voicing is aligned.



Cutting the windway roof. I use a specialhand broaching tool to do this. Details of thistool can be found in my article in NicholasLander's Recorder Home Page (see links toother sites).

The windway roof is further adjusted using atiny scraper during the final voicing.

Cutting the ramp. The head joint is carefully protected during this operation. A slip of

wood is inserted into the window to preventthe chisel from striking the windway exit.

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Fine sanding the ramp to the finisheddimensions. The ramp profile is refined at thisstage ready for the final voicing.

Each joint is sealed with masking tape andfilled with oil for a period until no further oilis absorbed by the wood. The time takenvaries considerably with different timbers,and this can take many weeks.

I prefer to use almond oil to which a smallamount of vitamin E has been added (thevitamin E is a powerful anti-oxidant and

prevents the oil from going rancid).

Part 7: Voicing and Tuning



Cutting the chamfers. This is a criticaloperation and must be done with the utmostcare. A similar chamfer is also cut into the

block.

Fitting the block. This is not glued in andmust be a perfect fit. The block is made fromvery stable timber which does not swell toomuch when wet, and readily absorbs water to

prevent the windway from glogging withmoisture during playing.

Cutting the beak. After cutting, the beak iscarefully sanded smooth and finished with a

porous sealant



Tuning the recorder by undercutting thefinger holes. This process smooths out theresponse and balances the octaves for eachnote. I often carry out this operation in

parallel with the voicing as tuning canslightly alter the tone of some notes.



The finished recorder!

Time taken from start to finish for thisinstrument is approximately 30 hours, not

including the time needed to make thereamers.

You have complete freedom of choice for your recorder. I can make copies of historical recorders by most of thegreat makers (Bressan, Stanesby, Denner, van Heerde, Haka, etc.). However, you do not have to be bound by thesedesigns. You can, for instance, have a Denner style windway fitted to a Bressan body, or a Baroque voicing to aMedieval recorder. It's your choice. The options below represent the extremes available. You don't have to chooseany of these variations, but they are available if you want them.





certain hard timbers like African Blackwood, Karanda, etc., or imitation ivory.

Finish. Your choice. My favourite is a tung based oil finish. This is built up gradually using many coats until adeep lustre sheen is achieved. This is hard wearing, easy to renovate, looks beautiful and doesn't mask any detail ofhe turning. An alternative is linseed oil, popular with many makers, but is easily scratched. There are also some

excellent polymer sealants available, which are incredibly hard wearing, but more difficult to repair if damaged thanoil finishes. The polymer finishes can be either a high gloss or a semi-gloss finish. Other possible finishes includeshellac based polishes, wax polishes and varnishes.

generally don't recommend staining or colouring recorders. Wood is a beautiful natural product and I always feel its a shame to hide the beauty of the grain and its natural colour. However, I can certainly colour or stain your recordero your requirements if you wish. I regret that for reasons of safety, I am unable to acid stain recorders.

Bore Oil. I prefer to use Almond oil in all of my recorders. I add a small quantity of vitamin E (an antioxidant) tohe oil to prevent it degrading through oxidation or decay. On request, I can use other bore treatments such as linseed

oil, tung oil, etc.

WOOD, OIL, AND WATER

by Raymond & Lee Dessy

HTML version by Nicholas S. Lander

Contents

Basic Chemistry The Wood

Oils and Waxes Wood and Water Oils and Water Oils and Wood What, Which and When An Informative (?) Survey Commercial Products or "DIY" Wood, Oil and Water do Mix Alternative Impregnation Strategies Acoustics and Woodwind Materials Acknowledgements

Prior Cellulose Publications Authors

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References, Suggested Reading, and Source Books Figure Captions

Imagine you have just acquired two recorders and the dealer has given you two oilingkits to maintain the bores. One contains Yamaha Bore Oil and the other MoeckRecorder Oil. Each is colorless, rather odorless and slightly viscous. Each can help

protect the wood from water and slightly improve sound efficiency in rough bores. But,the oils are chemically quite different.

There have been many articles on the subject of recorder oiling. They are not alwaysconsistent, and most lack needed chemical and physical information. The best is bySimmons (1), and Naylor's report is provocative (2). This article provides aninterlocking view of wood, oil, water and how they interact.

BASIC CHEMISTRY

The chemical elements carbon (C), oxygen (O), and hydrogen (H) bond together likeLego toys. The rules are simple; hydrogen bonds to one other thing, oxygen to two, andcarbon to four. Carbon is one of the few elements to form chains, -C-C-C-.

THE WOOD

CELLULOSE: The three major building blocks of wood are cellulose, hemicelluloses,and lignin. Cellulose is a polymer (many units) made up of repeating units of glucose.There may be 10,000 glucose units in the final polymer (Figure 1).

The cellulose polymer in wood forms long chains that bond with one another by a weakchemical linkage called a hydrogen bond. It is formed from the connection of the -OHof one chain with an O- of its neighbor, -OH...O-. These bound chains twist in space tomake up ribbon-like sheets of material. These sheets are used as the basic constructionmaterial for a variety of tubular structures that run longitudinal to the trees axis. Theseserve as support columns and/or carry water in living wood from the roots to thegrowing tips and return newly synthesized carbohydrates downward for storage. Thecarbohydrates are made from atmospheric water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the

leaves by the action of sunlight on a molecule called chlorophyll.

Hardwoods have longitudinal "vessels" that transport solutions, "fibers" that perform themechanical support role, and "parenchyma" for storage. Hardwood vessels are 0.15-1.5mm long, and 20-300 micron in diameter. Hardwood fibers average about 2 mm inlength and 20 micron in diameter. Hardwood parenchyma are brick-shaped cells. Thesemay be longitudinal and/or occur along radial lines (Figure 2).

At a macroscopic level we can think of vessels as closed tubes of cellulose having poresat each end that allow fluid to pass from one perforated tube to another. If many of thesetubes are bundled together longitudinally in the tree trunk a pathway exists for fluid

flow up and down. Imagine a bunch of soda straws glued together, all pinched off, butwith small pin holes at each end. Some of the cellulose polymer areas are very ordered,

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and are termed crystalline. These segments are quite strong. Other areas are lessordered, and are called amorphous.

LIGNIN: As the tree grows between the bark and the sapwood each season, some of thecarbohydrates are used to create another member of the composite, lignin. Lignins begin

with a simple chemical substance derived from phenylpropane, phenylalanine.Phenylalanine can be converted to 4-hydroxyphenylalanine, tyrosine, by plants or man.Phenylalanine and tyrosine are important aminoacids in man.

In wood, as the process continues, a very complex polymer is produced made up ofmany phenylpropane units originally substituted at the 4 position with HO- and at the 3and/or 5 positions with CH3O groups (Figure 1). Lignins with a majority of 3-methoxysubstitution are found in softwoods, while hardwoods have a mixture of 3-methoxy and3, 5-dimethoxy substitution. There may be 1,000 phenylpropane units of one kind oranother in the final polymer network. The function of lignin in wood is to provideanother supporting structure, and to help the wood repel attacks from degrading

organisms.

HEMICELLULOSES: The last major components in wood are called hemicelluloses.They are short polymer chains made up of a variety of carbohydrates. In hardwoods, themost common non-glucose carbohydrate found is called xylose. There might be 100-200 monomer units in the final polymer. Hemicelluloses play an important role at theinterface between cellulose structures and the lignin portion of wood. Hemicellulosesare amorphous. Some theories suggest that small circular lignin polymer chains bonded

periodically to the hemicelluloses encourage the surrounding cellulose chains to becomemore crystalline.

The normal cellulose/lignin/hemicellulose ratios vary from wood to wood. Typicalratios are 2.2:1:1.5 for hardwoods. Tropical hardwoods are usually more heavilyligninized. The three components together form a composite which provides strengthand flexibility to the wood.

THE COMPOSITE: Cellulose occurs as long, threadlike fibers (microfibrils). These areimbedded in a matrix of hemicellulose and lignin. The assembly is just like fiber-glassimbedded in resins that are used to repair automobile body dents- a composite material.The microfibrils consist of the outer original primary wall (Figure 3), and three innerlayers of secondary wall (S1, S2, and S3 (the innermost)). The three secondary walls

have their microfibrils oriented at different biases with respect to the long axis, roughlylike these lines; /, |, \. Biasing adds strength; e.g., the belting in tires, or yourabdominal muscles.

OILS AND WAXES

VEGETABLE OILS AND WAXES: Glucose polymers are one way nature storesenergy, in you or the tree. Another storage form involves long chains of carbon thatterminate in a -COOH group, R-COOH molecules. These are called carboxylic acids orfatty acids (Figure 1). Their biosynthesis favors even numbered fatty acids, from C12 toC22. These are weak acids, about the same strength as acetic acid or vinegar, which isCH3-COOH.In plants and animals these free acids would make the environment too acidic, so nature









found a way to make the molecules neutral. It does this by forming what is called anester. This involves removing a molecule of water between the R-COOH and an HO-R'alcohol molecule to give R-CO-OR' (Figure 1). Esters with small R, R' groups arevolatile liquids and usually have characteristic pleasant odors. The energy storageelements, however, need to be viscous or semi-solid materials at body temperature that

can sustain body shape, yet not be too rigid. When the carbon chains are longer, and theester product is a solid, it is called a vegetable wax. Vegetable oils have three estergroups in the same molecule, since the alcohol has three HO- groups react with threefatty acids (Figure 1, Figure 4). In porous recorder woods, like maple or some fruitspecies, the wood is often impregnated with waxes (either ester or paraffin waxes) bythe maker to make them resist moisture uptake from the breath during playing.Vegetable oils are often used to oil bores made from fine grain wood. But so are

paraffin oils.

MINERAL WAXES, OILS: Paraffin (mineral) waxes and oils are long hydrocarbonchains (Figure 1, Figure 4). If they are solid at room temperature they are called paraffin

waxes, and mineral oils if they are liquid. They are organic compounds, despite thenames. Some players use the latter as bore oils.

WOOD AND WATER

Water, HOH, is essential to the living tree and our own bodies. Newly hewn green treewood can contain a great deal of water. How much? 40-200%! Where is it all located?Some is bound near the surfaces of hemicellulose and cellulose structures. The rest isfree water in the open tubules. The internal surface area of wood is enormous. Internalsurface areas viewable by visible microscopy in a one cubic centimeter piece of wood

will be larger than the combined area of several pages of this magazine. Smaller tubules,from 1 micron to 4 nanometer, augment this surface area by factors of a hundred. Woodis a very porous material. How porous? Density is defined as a weight/volumerelationship, grams/cubic centimeter (gm/cc). The density of "wood substance" (thecollection of cellulose, lignin and hemicelluloses) is about 1.5 gm/cc. A dried woodsample of Scots pine with a density of 0.5 gm/cc would have a void volume of about0.65 cc/cc (internal empty space/wood volume). Common recorder woods and theirreported densities (3,4) are: maple 0.72, pear 0.76, rosewood 0.88, boxwood 1.00, andgrenadilla 1.29 gm/cc. Their calculated void volumes range from 0.50 to 0.20 cc/cc.

Wood shrinks as water is lost (desorbed). Wood swells as water sorption occurs. The

term sorption will be used to avoid the confusing adsorption and absorption terms. Theaddition of water to dried wood takes place in three successive steps. First, individualwater molecules insinuate themselves between the elements making up the hydrogen

bonds that hold the cellulose chains together. This swells the wood composite. Thisinsertion occurs mainly in the hemicellulose and amorphous cellulose regions. The moreordered crystalline cellulose regions are much less affected. Large amounts of ligninwill reduce the amount of water taken up.

The chemist, in plotting the amount of water uptake versus the relative humidity (RH),would say that the first step in water sorption by dry wood was obeying a principlecalled a Langmuir isotherm (Figure 5). This can be viewed as the formation of a singleand then double layer of water molecules across the affected wood surfaces. Theamount of water sorption first rises as the RH increases, and then levels off somewhat as




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not suddenly stressed by rapid shrinkage. How can it play these three roles? Think ofGortex that is rain water resistant, yet permits water vapor from the body to escape.

CONTACT ANGLES: Vegetable oils and mineral oils have contact angles of less than90 degrees with the wood surface. Drop one of these oils on a clean wood surface. The

angle between the wood/oil interface and the exposed drop's surface will be less than aright angle. This indicates that the oil can "wet" the surface and can penetrate into thewood pores. Now, spread it out. The oil can provide the protection the instrument needs.Place a drop of water on the treated surface, and observe how it "beads up". The waterdrop cannot wet and penetrate the treated surface, but water vapor can slowly pass

because of the thinness and/or nature of the surface oil film. How do typical woodfinishes affect water vapor transport rates? Table I presents some data that may surpriseyou. Most films and paint allow the wood to breath, a requirement for wood stability.

Table I: Film Water-Vapor Transportation Abilities(5)

#

Coats

Linseed

Oil

Spar

Varnish

Polyurethane

Varnish

Two Part

Epoxy

Paraffin

Wax

1 -100%* 100 89 47 31

2 -100 85 64 18 NA

*Numbers represent uptake of water vapor by brush coated Ponderosa Pine samplescompared to uncoated controls exposed in a high humidity chamber (90% RH @ 80 F)

for a period of 14 days. Linseed Oil exposed for 1 day gave values of 88 and 78% for 1& 2 coats respectively.

OILS AND WOOD

VEGETABLE OILS: In fine grained woods, vegetable oils are often used by instrument players to prevent rapid water-induced wood swelling/shrinking. Nature uses Glycerin,an alcohol with three HO- groups, to make these. Each of the HO- groups is condensedwith a fatty acid, R-COOH, to form a glyceryl triester (Figure 1). If this is liquid atroom temperature it is called an oil. If solid, it would be a fat. A shorthand notation forthe fatty acids will help in the following discussions. Their structure can be represented

by (1) the number of carbon atoms, (2) how many C=C double bonds exist, and (3)where these bonds are located (indicating the carbon atom # at which they begin,counting from the -COOH); thus 18:2;9,12 represents CH3-(CH2)4-CH=CH-CH2-CH=CH-(CH2)7-COOH. (18 = the number of carbons, the 2 = the number of double

bonds, and the 9 and 12 = the # of the carbon atom where double bonds start.)

Some of the acids found in recorder oils are listed in Table II.

Table II: Common Fatty (Carboxylic) Acids Found in Recorder Oils(9)

Name Structure





Lauric Acid 12:0

Myristic Acid 14:0

Palmitic Acid 16:0

Stearic Acid 18:0

Oleic Acid 18:1;9

Linoleic Acid 18:2;9,12

Linolenic Acid 18:3;9,12,15

Eleosteric Acid 18:3;9,11,13

Erucic Acid 22:1;13

UNSATURATION: Compounds without C=C double bonds are saturated. Double bonds create unsaturation, since the carbons COULD bond to other atoms if they wereavailable. For example, Oleic Acid can be converted to the saturated Stearic Acid by theaddition of a molecule of H-H across the double bond. The degree of unsaturation in anoil determines its drying characteristics, and can be found by adding Iodine (I-I). TheIodine Number is the # of grams of iodine taken up by 100 grams of oil. Table III liststhe approximate Iodine Numbers for four oils made up of the pure glyceryl triesters

from Stearic, Oleic, Linoleic, and Linolenic Acids. The name Tristearin comes fromTRI STEARic acid glycerIN, etc...

Table III

Iodine Numbers of Pure Glyceryl Triesters(9)

Name Iodine Number

Tristearin 0 (saturated)

Triolein 85

Trilinolein 170

Trilinolenin 255 (very unsaturated)

Vegetable oils are mixtures of various saturated and unsaturated acids. With just StearicAcid and Oleic Acid there are four (4) possible combinations. Using G to representglycerin, and U and S to represent the unsaturated and saturated fatty acids attached tothe glycerin, we have GS3, GUS2 ,GU2S, and GU3. Just imagine the number ofcombinations possible for 6 or more acids, as is common! Vegetable oils do not contain

just one substance, but hundreds. Nature distributes the acids rather randomly amongthe many glycerin molecules, except that it usually avoids GS3 combinations which are



solids. This is called a restricted random distribution. Why is this important? Itdetermines the drying characteristics of the oil which is discussed later.

Table IV shows the fatty acid composition of typical oils that have been used for oilingrecorder bores. These are nominal values, since genetics, growing conditions (soil and

weather), storage, and processing can dramatically affect the ratios. The Table alsogives an average Iodine Number for the oil, and divides the oils into non-drying (Iodine# <100), semi-drying (100-150), and drying (>150). The first remain quite fluid afterapplication to a surface, semi-drying oils become somewhat more viscous over anextended time, and drying oils eventually form a tough film after 3-6 days.

DRYING OILS: For unfinished porous wood, rough surfaces, and occasional oiling thedrying oils work best. When applied, the oily touch soon changes to a surface filmdescribed as "set-to-touch". The film is sticky, and if broken will transfer an oil residueto your finger. During film formation oxygen is rapidly absorbed by the surface of theoil, up to 10% by weight. After the set-to-touch point is reached, oxygen uptake is

reduced by the polymerized surface. Eventually the film becomes hard and smooth. Ithelps repel bulk water but allows water vapor to slowly pass through. The oxidation

process induces a complex polymerization process creating a three dimensional networkthat entraps smaller molecules, a gel.

Table IV: Nominal Fatty Acid Composition Recorder Oils(9)

Acid Coconut Olive Peanut Almond Corn Tung Linseed

Lauric 47

Myristic 18

Palmitic 9 9 11 5 10 3 6

Stearic 3 3 3 2 2 3

Oleic 7 80 63 77 26 11 23

Linoleic 2 6 20 17 59 14 16

Linolenic 52

Eleosteric 70

Iodine # 9 85 91 100 120 167 190

non-drying semi-drying drying

What characterizes a drying oil? The ratio of the rate of oxidation of Oleic, Linoleic,and Linolenic Acids is 1:10:25. It is easier to polymerize carbon chains with two nearby

C=C bonds (linoleic) than it is with just one double bond (oleic). Three such bonds in



close proximity make it even better (linolenic). The presence of the three double bondsalso promotes the 3-dimensional gel cross-linking, as does high GU3 content.

SEMI- and NON-DRYING OILS: These oils coat the wood surface, also preventing penetration by liquid water and reducing water vapor transport. The oils have a low

vapor pressure and do not evaporate easily. However, periodic renewal is necessary.These may be of vegetable origin, a low viscosity mineral oil, or even a citrus oil.

WHAT, WHICH, AND WHEN

WHAT KIND, WHEN? Experience suggests it is best not to randomly mix the twooiling approaches. Wax impregnated woods are already protected and occasionalapplication of non-drying oils might help. Unfinished, rough bores will benefit fromapplication of drying oils every 3-4 months for the first year, and then semi- or non-drying oils thereafter. Fine grain bores are possibly serviced best by semi- or non-drying

oils from the outset. Always remove excess oil.

WHICH? But which oil to choose? Tung Oil, which has "conjugated" double bonds(C=C-C=C-C=C) drys very quickly, but may leave a frosted surface if you are notcareful. Addition of iron ion or lead ion driers can help reduce this. The average playerwill use linseed oil. This should be the "raw" linseed oil. The nomenclature in the area isarcane and confusing. Raw linseed oil has actually been processed to removeundesirable materials. "Boiled" linseed oil has cobalt and manganese driers added tomake the polymerization process faster. Its films can set up in hours, rather than days.Older boiled linseed oils had lead salts as the accelerator, but these have beenabandoned because of toxicity. Unfortunately, cobalt driers can lead to frosting, since

"top drying" of the film is promoted. This leads to undesirable volume changes in thematuring film that may lead to cracking. Use raw linseed oil.

With semi- and non-drying oils, rancidity must be considered. This implies degradationof the oil to produce offensive or unusual odors. And this often makes the literatureconfusing. The reports are not necessarily wrong, but oils from different geographicsources, growing conditions, and processing steps respond differently. And ranciditycan come from several sources. For example, liquid coconut oil would appear to be a

perfect oil, since its low Iodine Number suggests stability. However, under certainconditions, hydrolysis of the esters back to free acids with unusual odors occurs.

Olive oil is a very promising candidate. Pure Triolein is rather resistant to oxidation, butLinoleic Acid appears to catalyze oxidative rancidity. Fortunately, high grade virginolive oil has natural anti-oxidants present. These prevent the formation of oxidizedOleic Acid products that have unpleasant odors. Unfortunately, this same olive oil mayalso contain chlorophyll, trace metal ions, or other materials that serve as pro-oxidants,

by activating oxygen in the presence of light. Which side wins?

IS AN OIL "THE" OIL?: To make life more complicated, plant growers and nature arealtering the genetic make-up of many of the oil producing plants. Peanut Oil is in atransient state of natural genetic modification. Rape Seed Oil is an example where manhas intervened. Many of the normal plant species produce an oil with high Erucic Acidcontent. Animals cannot use glycerides from this acid efficiently. Hybridizing andgenetically altering the Rape Seed plant has produced Canbra and Canola Rape Seed Oil



with low Erucic Acid and high Oleic Acid content. Is the oil you can get today the sameas the oil in an old report or recommendation?

These problems can be avoided by using a commercial mineral oil bore protector thatlacks the ester functions and double bonds which give vegetable oils their reactivity,

potential rancidity, and tendency to revert back to odors typical of the unrefinedoil.

AN INFORMATIVE (?) SURVEY

Waldemar Meckes, of W. G. Smith Inc., an oil expert and music lover who providedtechnical input to this article, asked professional woodwind musicians with theCleveland Symphony and Institute of Music what bore oil they preferred. Each had adifferent, strong opinion about what was "the good oil".

At the recent BEMF '95 the author took a survey of the woodwind makers presentconcerning their preferred bore oiling practice. This informative survey of six artisansrevealed the following six different specific suggestions: (1) mineral oil, (2) olive,

peanut, or corn oil with Vitamin E added for stability, (3) linseed oil, (4) linseed oil plusalmond oil [2:1 or 1:1], (5) almond oil, and (6) boiled linseed oil. A WoodwindQuarterly E-Mail survey revealed that with some instrument makers another alternativefound favor: (7) don't oil!

Despite this panorama of suggestions, there did seem to be general agreement that: (a)Drying oils often present considerable problems to instruments with pads and keys and

bores when too generously used by owners. Excessive oiling without swabbing out

before skin formation has led to instruments being returned for repair. A wooden dowelhas often been needed to scrape out the hardened residues! (b) It is better to suggest anoil that owners commonly have around the house, since it encourages regular oiling

practices. These suggest that an important variable is how players employ whatever oilthey do choose.

When experts disagree, what does a player do? Decide yourself.

COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS OR "DIY"

DO IT YOURSELF: Does that mean you have to purchase commercial bore-oils?Moeck Recorder Oil can be analyzed using C13 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)which clearly shows each type of carbon atom and allows you to count them. TheMoeck Recorder Oil is a semi-drying triglyceride oil (Table 4), perhaps with someantioxidant added.

It is possible to add your own antioxidants to a semi- or non-drying high grade food oilyou have selected. Find a friend who is taking Vitamin E capsules. Each contains 200I.U. (200 mg) of alpha-tocopherol, enough to treat a pint of oil. Slit just one capsuleopen and stir the contents (not the capsule wall) into the oil. Then, keep the material inan amber bottle to prevent air and photo-oxidation. Moeck very carefully uses a brown

PVC plastic bottle for their product to avoid light and oxygen diffusion through thecontainer. Polyethylene containers are not safe, since they pass both light and oxygen.



What if you wanted to avoid vegetable oils? Yamaha Bore Oil, analyzed by NMR, is alow viscosity mineral oil (Figure 4). It is a mixture of long carbon chains withhydrogens attached at all points (hydrocarbons). A good grade of Baby Oil clearlylabelled as Mineral Oil will suffice. The mineral oil used internally is more viscous.

For the connoisseur, Aerospace Lubricants, Inc. makes a series of lubricants of differingviscosities. NMR and infra-red analysis indicates that these are linear hydrocarbons.They are extremely pure, narrow molecular weight spread materials. This is ofimportance under high rates of shear, where traditional lubricants may exhibitthixotropic behavior and show a marked decrease in viscosity. They range (low to highviscosity) from Alisyn Valve and Slide Key, to Finger Board, and Bore Oil.

If you prefer pleasant odors, both lemon and (sweet) orange oils have been used. Theseare both about 90% limonene (Figure 1). This is a simple cyclic unsaturatedhydrocarbon biosynthesized from two isoprene units in the plant. Your body usesisoprene units to build cholesterol and the sex hormones. The citrus oils differ in the

small amounts of oxygenated materials present. The instability of these can rapidly leadto a terebinthinate odor. Addition of about 5-10% of a non-drying vegetable oil willhelp prevent this because of their natural stabilizers, like tocopherol; or add your ownVit. E.

IS THERE A MAGIC OIL? Is there one magic formula that is better than anythingelse? Perhaps, but it is difficult to find controlled experimental evidence to substantiatesuch a claim. Players and makers have their own preferences based upon experience.All help smooth roughened, checked bores and provide a water barrier.

SWABBING: A convenient way to oil recorders takes advantage of the availability ofgun cleaning patches of various sizes. They are tough, lint free, thin enough todiscourage "soaking" the surface, and cheap enough to dispose after use. That isadvisable for non-drying oils to prevent dirt accumulation, and necessary with dryingoils because of the danger of heat build-up in improperly stored rags.

DECONGESTANT SOLUTION: It is also easy to make the decongestant solution sold by many vendors. It is a dilute solution of sodium lauryl sulfate. Reducing Lauric Acid produces Lauryl Alcohol. This forms an "inorganic" ester with sulfuric acid. Its sodiumsalt is a detergent. It is sold by DuPont under the trade-name Duponol, and you may beable to get small quantities as a sample. Since you only need 1 gm dissolved in 8 ounces

of distilled water, a sample will take care of your consort's needs for years.Chemistry can be useful!

WOOD, OIL AND WATER DO MIX

Wood is magic, and the various species all cast a different spell. With the above background it is now appropriate to examine the physical properties of some typicalrecorder woods (3,4). Table V shows why the dimensional instabilities of maple have

been addressed by many vendors via wax impregnation. Pearwood is borderline, andsome pear instruments are impregnated while others are not. The characteristics ofRosewood (Palisander) depend upon the species, so a "rose is not a rose, necessarily".Lignum vitae is included as a final reference point since the best literature source lacksdata on the more popular heavily ligninized woods, such as grenadilla.







Table V: Recorder Wood Properties(7)

WOOD FSP

DENSITY

(gm/cc)

oven-dry

DENSITY

(gm/cc)

~50% RH (EMC)

tangential/radial

MAPLE ~32% 0.687 0.721 (12%) 2.6 (3.9%)

PEAR 28% 0.665 0.695 ( 9%) 2.5 (2.9%)

ROSEWOOD 24% 0.836 0.863 (10%) 2.0 (2.6%)

L. VITAE 20% 1.215 1.301 (12%) 1.5 (1.5%)

FSP=fiber sat. point, RH=rel. humidity, EMC=equil. moisture content

BREAKING A RECORDER IN: The hysteresis shown in Figure 5 forsorption/desorption of water indicates that the loss of water is slower than its uptake. Asa new, or long unused recorder, is first played the water content in the wood increases.As it stands between sessions it loses water more slowly. If the playing sessions arespaced closely together the water content of the wood, on average, will slowly increase.That is why experts recommend a breaking in protocol of increasingly longer playingsessions spread over time. It allows the wood to adapt to the increasing water content,and avoids stress fractures. Water and water vapor barriers on the wood surface reducethe rates of sorption and desorption; but the build-up pattern remains. Softer woods pick

up and lose the water more quickly. Thus, the wood, the oil, and the playing patterninteract in a complex way and each instrument/player combination is unique. Possiblythis is why some players might prefer drying oils, others non-drying, and yet othersmixtures of non- and semi-drying oils (2).

As the wood surface of the bore interior "weathers" due to repeated moisturesorption/desorption cycles it may grow rougher. Oils can reduce this type of roughness.Drying oils form a hard film, but users should recognize that it will follow the contoursof the roughened surface to a great extent. Each treatment also reduces the borediameter slightly. Semi- and non-drying oils reduce the roughness, but may locallydeform due to flow/pressure. A dilemma! (But not a big one, since both will work

to improve sound somewhat.)

ALTERNATIVE IMPREGNATION STRATEGIES

Just when plastic recorders are making their products look like wood, there is interest inmaking wood/plastic composites. Sometimes the goal is cost, sometimes fashion, andsometimes it is the elusive immortal woodwind. The technique is not new. Amishfarmers have impregnated maple wheel bearings for over a century with lard. TheWWII Maytag ringer-washers used mineral wax impregnated maple. Most techniquestoday are aimed at the floor panel, knife handle, and designer pen body market. But

woodwind makers may possibly realize shape stabilization, and water repellency. Onlytime will tell.





METHYL METHACRYLATE (MMA): Wood Stabilizing Specialists Inc. (Cedar Falls,IA), has produced a billet of cherry impregnated with polymerized methyl methacrylate.Scott Hirsch, a flute maker in Coleville, WA, has made instruments from the material.Wildwoods (Monclova, OH) has produced similar impregnated billets of maple and

black-dyed birch for Powell Flutes (Waltham, MA). Tim Bernett of Powell Flute made

an impregnated maple alto in the mid '80s. Bamboo has been treated for use in makingJapanese flutes; Yamaha has worked with impregnated rosewood for clarinets. RogerRowell of the USDA Forest Product Laboratory has explored impregnating maple woodwith MMA for recorder manufacture.

The pure polymer is the well known Lucite or Plexiglass. Such impregnated woods do pose challenges to the craftsman because of brittleness, the need to use low turningspeeds and coolant because of the low melting point of the plastic, and a tendency toclog sanding materials. Finished instruments play well and seem to have gooddimensional stability. Some results are reported in Woodwind Quarterly, #2, August1993. Such impregnations for many commercial purposes began in the 1960's. Ken

Caines of WSSI reports load factors of about 50% are normal with common woods.Exotics, such as ebony, accept much less polymer (<10%) and are prone to bleeddisplaced "wood oils" for many months after treatment. This can be removed by wipingwith acetone. Odors from the monomer are often prominent, and are due to excessivewater in the impregnated wood (>10%), or improper curing. Drying (40 C) can removesuch odors.

OTHER ACRYLATES: Many other efforts in wood impregnation exist. Daniel Deitch,a Baroque woodwind maker in San Francisco, has utilized cyanoacrylate impregnationfor wood stabilization. MMA has the structure H2C=C(CH3)COOCH3, while a typicalcyanoacrylate has a structure H2C=C(CN)COOCH3. They differ by the substitution ofa -CN group for a -CH3. This substitution makes it easier for the material to polymerizeinto long carbon chains, much like a zipper closes. The cyanoacrylates are used as rapidsetting "glues". Deitch swabs out the finished bores with the cyanoacrylates, lets thematerial polymerize, and then finishes the interior surface. Deitch also reports that hehas been pleased with a technique for finishing the exterior learned from Rod Cameron,a flutemaker from Mendocino, CA. A few drops of the cyanoacrylate are added tolinseed oil, and the mixture applied as a hardening finish to the exterior. Thecyanoacrylate accelerates the hardening of the mixture. Do not be concerned about the

presence of the -CN group in the molecule. It is an organic nitrile or cyanide, not aninorganic cyanide. The latter are toxic, but the organic -CN is not. Some artisans find

the cyanoacrylic bore finish beads water excessively.

OTHER FORMS OF POLYMERIZATION: The polymerization of both thecyanoacrylates and methacrylates depend upon chemical induced free radical formationto begin the polymerization. A free radical is a carbon with only three groups around it,and one lone electron. This poses some interesting problems in getting complete

penetration into all the void space of the porous wood. The cyanoacrylates react with airand polymerize quite rapidly, providing good near surface penetration. Free radicalinitiators added to the methacrylates allow somewhat deeper penetration before

blockage occurs. Firms such as Applied Radiant Energy (Lynchburg, VA) havedeveloped an alternate strategy for achieving an even more complete penetration. The

methyl methacrylate is forced into the wood by first applying a vacuum, then floodingthe chamber with the liquid acrylate, and finally bringing the head space up to



atmospheric pressure. They can achieve loadings of 10-100% in this way, filling a greatdeal of the void space. The polymerization of the material is then induced by exposureto gamma radiation. This ionizing radiation penetrates the wood completely and evenly,allowing uniform polymer hardening throughout. The degree of polymerization can becarefully controlled by the amount of irradiation. This permits careful adjustment of the

working properties of the resulting composite. Don't be concerned about the radiationinitiator. Gamma radiation is just like an X-Ray beam. Once the beam is turned off, itsgone. The route has been used to sterilize food for long term preservation. Gammaradiation DOES NOT consist of radioactive particles which have long half-lives, andwhich slowly emit hazardous particles and radiation.

Billets up to 8"x8" have been treated. Ash, oak, pine and poplar are common. Moreexotic woods include cherry, ebony, and jatoba (Brazilian cherry). Best results comefrom using the heart wood. Robert Turner, a Charlottesville, VA recorder maker, isexperimenting with some of the materials.

PHYSICAL AND PSYCHEDELIC PROPERTIES: It should be noted that thesetreatments do not prevent the penetration of water vapor into the wood. It is merelyslowed down, as described earlier. The composites have increased tensile strength andlower impact resistance due to their brittleness. They are harder. Little objectiveacoustic data on composite woodwinds are available, although strong opinions exist.

Most composite manufacturers are focusing on dyed impregnated woods, often withmulticolored, swirling patterns for designer products. Imagine a recorder playing cool

jazz or hot Blues with a color scheme to match! Avant-garde players could havecomplete sets. On the other hand, although the Pacific Rim produces the greater part ofABS plastic instruments, most players there seem to prefer buying perfect, naturalmaterial woodwinds. But good grenadilla and rosewood are becoming scarce.Interesting marketing problems.

Wood, composite or plastic? Some subjective panels claim they can tell thedifference; others claim no distinction. A paradox.

ACOUSTICS AND WOODWIND MATERIALS

Buffet has announced its Green-Line series of commercial clarinets. These are madefrom grenadilla wood powder, polycarbonate fibers, and a bonding polymer. But, will

recorders made from such synthetic and impregnated woods sound the same? Wait andhear.

The recorder player sees and feels wonderful instruments made from different bulkwoods and hears differences. The artisan sees and feels different bore surfaces and holeedges and hears differences. The acoustician sees and feels (in the mind) the boundaryair layers of the played instrument and conceives possible differences. But they usedifferent languages in expressing cause/effect. Leibniz, in discussing a metaphysicalapproach to language, suggested the need for a Universal Language. We must try tophear these different views. Most players feel they detect tonal differences in what appearto be identical instruments made from different materials; but, are they really identical.Experimental and theoretical evaluations (10) suggest that the bore wall construction



material does not noticeably influence the timbre of sound produced from a thick-wallcylindrical "wood"-wind.

A WOOD IS A WOOD IS A WOOD? Considering mechanical distortion, differingconstruction materials can affect sound quality in thin square or rectangular tubes (organ

pipes), or where the material is essential to sound production (like string instruments),or in very thin wall wind instruments with very large side holes. Thick walled circular

bore instruments are quite different. Compare the relative compliance associated withexpansion of the bore under pressure, and the compression of the air in the tube. Theratio is about .001 for even thin walled cylinders. Direct sound radiation from wallvibration is insignificant. This is not surprising, since it would require local changes inthe radius of the bore, coupled to air column vibrations. The walls are just too stiff.Such vibration levels are estimated to be some 60 dB below that of the air column. It islike hearing a cat purr next to a subway train.

Only a few percent of the energy of the air stream makes it way out of the tone holes as

perceived sound (0.5-1%). Where does the rest go? Tube walls can influence vibrationsof the contained air column because of viscous air and thermal losses across theair/wood boundary layer. This is where free movement of the air is affected by the

proximity of the wall and viscous and thermal losses occur. Wall materials all havethermal conductivities much greater than air so this cannot be a differentiating factor.Surface roughness only becomes a factor when it develops to a scale relevant to thethickness of the boundary layer. The viscous and thermal boundary layers are frequencydependent, but range from about 0.1-0.05 mm (100-50 micron). Machining practicesyield a surface roughness average of 10-1 micron. Wood grain and smoothness canaffect the damping coefficient or drag, but in a filled, fine-finished and oiled bore suchdifferences are small compared to those caused by the edges of chamfers, the blade,finger holes, key pads or even finger tips, which are sources of turbulence. Thesevariables are determined by the working nature of the material, the skill of the artisan,and how much time can be afforded by player and maker.

CHEMICAL CHANGES: Sorbed water, or chemical modification of the wood material,can change the visco-elastic properties of the wood composite. Here, the word viscousrefers to a material that absorbs sound energy and converts it to heat. Elastic refers to amaterial that can give back such energy, like stretching and releasing a rubber band.Wood is inbetween, and is called visco-elastic. Sorbed water makes it a little moreviscous. Benders of wood "knew" this, since steaming wood (heat + water) allows you

to form the complex shaped ribs of a violin. The water acts as a plasticizer, lowering theglass-transition temperature of the composite. This is the temperature where longersegments of associated molecules in the composite can begin to slip past one another,

but basic form is retained (rubbery). The heat raised the rib material above thistemperature. In the finished violin there is a major air resonance from the box, as well asa top-plate wood resonance. The latter can certainly be affected by wood compositionand treatment. In recorders the cylindrical bore is used below its glass-transitiontemperature and any affects are less than most musicians can detect.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Scott Hirsch for his direction and encouragement, and particularly for his reference to the source of the data shown in Table I; Ben Dunham



for his continued enthusiasm for the "Wood-Works" project; Roger Rowell for technicalediting assistance; and Ching-Wan Yip and Yue-Ling Wong for the computer graphics.Wood impregnation vendors were most helpful, including Rodney Bell and JamesMyron of Applied Radiant Energy, Jim Fray and Nicholas Forosisky of Wildwoods,Ken Caines of WSSI, and Tim Bernett of Powell Flutes. John Martin (University of

Queensland) and Susan Thompson (Yale University) were most collegial in sharingtheir opinions, as was John Gates of ALiSYN and Wally Meckes of W.G. Smith.Finally, the following artisans freely shared their experiences: Lee Collins, TomPrescott, Jonathan Bosworth, Daniel Deitch, Robert Turner, and Daniel Noonan. Thesupport of the Gomer van Awsterwyke Institute has been invaluable.

PRIOR CELLULOSE PUBLICATIONS

This article originally appeared in the Winter 1996 issue (#11) of Woodwind Quarterly,1513 Old CC Road, Colville, WA. A shorter form appeared in the November 1995 issue

of American Recorder . Response to readers questions, and detailed analyses of thewoodwind/composition controversy appeared in the Spring 1996 WQ, with anabbreviated version in the January 1996 American Recorder The authors appreciate the

permission of WQ and its editor, Scott Hirsch, for permission to mount this material onthe Web.

AUTHORS

Raymond Dessy is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Polytechnic Instituteand State University, Blacksburg, VA. His research areas include microsensors andcomputer applications in science. He and his wife are interested in playing the recorder,from Kunstlieder to the Blues; and in discovering how recorders work. They raiseand train dressage horses.

REFERENCES, SUGGESTED READING, AND

SOURCE BOOKS

1. "The Good Oil", T. Simmons, The Recorder . #17, 15, 1993.2. "Grenadilla Wood and the Environment", L. Naylor, Woodwind Quarterly, #6,

August 1994.

3.

"Woods Used for Woodwind Instruments Since the 16th Century", M. Zadro, Early Music 3, #2 134; and 3, #3 249, 1975.4.

"Which Wood Should I Use?", P. Levine, American Recorder , May 1986, 60.5. "The Moisture Excluding Effectiveness of Finishes on Wood Surfaces", W.

Feist, J. Little, J. Wennesheimer, USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Research

Paper FPL 462, 1985.6. Wood Structure and Composition, edited by M. Lewis and I. Goldstein, Marcel

Dekker, New York, 1991.7. Physical and Related Properties of 145 Timbers, J. Rijsdijk and P. Laming,

Kluwer Publishers, Dordrecht, 1994.8. The Chemistry of Wood, B. Browning, R. Krieger, Huntington, NY, 1975.



9. Bailey's Industrial Oil and Fat Products, edited by D. Swern, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1979. The Physics of Musical Instruments, N. Fletcher and T.Rossing, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1991.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

1. Simplified Chemical Structures In Wood And Oils

a. Glucose b. Lignin Precursorsc. A Carboxylic, or Fatty Acidd. An Alcohole. An Esterf. A Glyceryl Triester

g. Limonene

2. Microscopic View of the Cross-Section of a Typical Hardwood

V=Vessels, F=Fibers, R=radial parenchymaMicrometer bar in lower right is 10 micrometer (micron)(from Ref. 6 with permission)

3. Idealized Microfibril Cellulose Wall Construction

(from Ref. 6 with permission)

4. Space-Filling Models of

A. Triolein (Vegetable Oil)B. Mineral Oil (typical chain)

5. Water/Wood Interactions

a. A Plot of Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC) versus RelativeHumidity (RH) for Brazilian Rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). The

separation of sorption and desorption curves is common and is calledhysteresis.

b. A Plot of Radial and Tangential Shrinkage and Swellage of D. nigra atvarious EMCs. (r=radial, tg=tangential) (from Ref. 7 with permission)




Choosing a recorder

It is best to go to a shop where there are hundreds of instruments on display and theymay all be played. It does help to have your usual instrument with you, for comparison.If you can, take the recorders you want to test to the relative privacy of a separate roomand play in comfort. If there is ample room for several people, so much the better. Takethe elementary precaution of being reasonably in practice, do not wear lipstick, and trimyour thumb nail! If possible, have some clear idea of the style of instrument you arelooking for and, where relevant, find out what your teacher would recommend. Lists ofthings to try playing are only of use if you know how to interpret the results. Therecorder specialist in the shop should be expected to have played them all and to havemade sure they work well. If you use a tuning meter, remember that it may well tell youmore about your technique than about the instrument. In some shops, including

Saunders Recorders of Bristol, UK where the manager, John Everingham, is wellequipped to give advice having been a woodwind teacher and professional player formany years, you may get good un-biased advice.

For mass use, in schools for example, it is best to choose plastic instruments, and tokeep to the same make and model for each size. The cheaper models of large recordersare excellent value, but small cheap ones can be a problem. Small Yamaha recorders donot mix with other makes unless the head joint is pulled out about 2mm. Your playersshould be shown how to do this. The alternative option of "underblowing", which canresult in a sweet sound, is not good for the musical development of the players. There isno reason why wood and plastic should not be mixed, but the instruments used should

be adjusted, by pulling the headjoint out, to the lowest pitch being produced by strong players.

Where you cannot come to the shop a good supplier may be able to help via the postalservices. There are so many instruments available that the array can be quite daunting!Price can be a good guide for quality but it does not tell the whole story. It is notunusual to find a suitable instrument which is well within a price limit. The very bestinstruments are worth the high price, but only if you can appreciate the difference. Anexpensive instrument will not make you play better, but it may enable you to make themost of your ability.

The wood (or plastic) used is of less importance than the design in determining the tone.Once a model is selected it is worth trying the range of available woods to discover theadditional characteristics. Broadly speaking, maple (white) and pearwood (pinkish

brown) are cheap because they lend themselves to machine production and originate intemperate climates. They are usually impregnated with wax to help preserve the softwood and stabilise it. Pearwood usually gives a more vibrant tone with greater presencethan maple. Box wood (yellowish when not stained) comes in two types, European andnon-European. Although their characteristics are similar when made into a recorder, themuch more expensive European variety is to be preferred despite the frequent occuranceof knotty blemishes. In the best instruments the characteristic tone is warm and full.

Tropical hardwoods were little used in the 18th century but are valued now for their bigger tone and durability. Rosewood, also known as palisander, comes in manyvarieties and colours, from almost black to light red-brown. Tulipwood is similar and



striped like steaky bacon. The characteristic tone is more edgy than box, the overtonestending towards oboe tone. Ebony and grenadilla are black and heavy, and the tonemore silvery and flute like. Other exotic woods are used, kingwood (stripy red brown)gives an "elegant" tone, use coral wood (red orange) if you are sensitive to rosewood,while satin wood (yellow), a good choice for a "wet" player, gives a sound similar to

boxwood.

Some players come up in a rash as a result of playing one of the resinous tropicalhardwoods, palisander in particular. I do myself. Should you discover this after

purchase you should be able to get an exchange or a full refund.

Wooden recorders need some after care. New wooden recorders should be acclimatisedslowly, play only for short periods, about ten minutes a session, two separated sessionsa day for the first week. This may be increased gradually, and regularly up to an hour orso. It is not advisable to play any wooden recorder continuously for more than an hourat a time. If you alter your pattern of practice try to spread the load onto a plastic

instrument. The popular recorder activity breaks, and the run up to exam periods doseem always to produce a crop of split instruments. An old instrument acquired at arecorder event should be treated even more carefully than a new instrument

After playing, dry the instrument, especially the sockets, and leave it apart in the openair for a while. Be sure to shut the case after half an hour or so. Extremes are harmful, itis not good to keep a recorder very wet or very dry, keeping it in a case prevents rapidchanges from one state to the other and will help to prevent splitting. Damage to thelabium edge is not repairable. Do not poke anything into this part of the recorder. Whenthe recorder clogs, suck the moisture away. Covering the slot or putting your fingeralong the cut of the labium and blowing is harmful and ineffective. If you must blow,

blow sharply into the slot, excess moisture will appear at the windway entry and may bewiped away.

Take great care not to score marks round your recorder if you wear rings. It is easy to bruise the wood or scrape off varnish while putting your recorder together or taking itapart.

Try to protect the recorder from large and rapid changes of temperature. Roll bags offergood protection, but not from knocks if the recorder has keys. Cases do not always

protect well from temperature change. Avoid draughts and sunlight through glass,

cupboards with hot pipes, car glove boxes and boots and similar perhaps unexpected places of extreme temperature. A bag produced for transporting frozen food offers verygood protection, summer and winter. Never ever leave your recorder on a chair, bed ormusic stand. If you don't sit on it or knock it off yourself someone else will do it foryou. Beware of dogs, they love to chew recorders. Do not use any more than a trace ofgrease on the cork joints. Apply grease only when the joint is very stiff and squeaky. Ifone application does not do the trick another will probably make things worse. Removeexcess grease from the wooden parts of the recorder, otherwise it will migrate into theend grain of the wood, spoiling the appearance. Lipstick stains are similar and areimpossible to remove. Apply any bore oil sparingly and evenly. Avoid the block andcorks. Do not oil a recently played recorder and leave it for a day before playing it

again. Remove excess oil with a cloth. Do not oil varnished recorders, eg, Dolmetsch



handmade and the square section Paetzold basses. Do not use paper tissues on the insideof a recorder.

Mechanism will work better if lightly oiled occasionally with sewing machine or gunoil. Do not use "3 in One". Case catches should also have their pivots oiled from time to

time, especially if they begin to grate. Recorders with keys are quite vulnerable. Watchwhat you do and take care not to catch long keys on clothing or bend them by twistingright round. If you do damage or break a key let me have it for repair. Do not give it toan amateur plumber to fix. A good repairer can avoid the pitfalls and in most casesmend as new.

FAQs from Beginners

Dear ASW:

What is a good all-around recorder for an adult beginner? I am not certain whether Iwill ever become an advanced player and don't want to spend a whole lot of money, atleast not at first.

You should first decide whether you want to play soprano or altorecorder. Most advanced players eventually learn to play both c-fingeredrecorders (piccolo, soprano, tenor, and greatbass) and f-fingeredrecorders (sopranino, alto, bass, contrabass), but the beginning playerneeds to concentrate on one or the other. Trying to do both often leads toconfusion and discouragement.

A soprano recorder is cheaper and usually plays the top or lead voice inrecorder ensembles, but it is small for adult hands, has a higher andshriller tone quality, and has relatively little solo literature available –and the bulk of that consists of arrangements and transcriptions, notoriginal music. The soprano is usually the beginning instrument ofchoice for children or adults with small hands.

An alto recorder, on the other hand, is more expensive to purchase (2-3times as much for a wooden alto than a soprano of corresponding makeand model), usually plays an inside voice in recorder ensemble, but is

better suited to adult hands, has a more pleasant tone and range, and hasa vast amount of original baroque solo music available. The alto is, allthings considered, probably the best beginning instrument for mostadults.

A tenor recorder can be another possible choice for a beginner whowants to play melodic material in a soprano range but prefers a deeper-

toned, mellower instrument, can afford to spend a good deal more moneyfor an recorder, and has sufficiently large hands. The tenor recorder is



largely an ensemble instrument and has relatively little solo literaturewritten for it; however, much of the soprano solo literature can be playedto good if not better advantage on a tenor, and solo oboe music from the

baroque period also usually works well on tenor recorder.

I notice that you have both plastic and wooden recorders. Is wood preferable to plastic?

All other things being equal, yes – but then all things are not alwaysequal. There are good and bad plastic recorders, as well as good and badwooden recorders. A good plastic recorder is far better than a cheap poorwooden one. However, a good wooden recorder is always preferable to agood plastic instrument – AOTBE.

Advantages of plastic instruments: they are relativelyinexpensive to purchase and require little if any care.

Disadvantages of plastic instruments: they have a hard,glassy sound which many players find unpleasant, andthey also tend to clog up with moisture easily andrepeatedly. Also, although there are a large number ofmakes and models of plastic recorders on the market, onlya few models are really decent instruments.

Advantages of wooden recorders: they have in general amuch more pleasant tone than plastic instruments andtend to clog less readily if correctly voiced and when

properly played in. Perhaps most important, there is awide choice of good makes and models available,although there are still many inexpensive woodeninstruments of very poor quality, usually sold throughcommercial music channels. In addition, many moreexpensive wooden recorders have quirks and drawbacksof which the informed buyer needs to be aware beforelaying out a substantial amount of money.

Disadvantages of wooden recorders: they are more

expensive than plastic ones and usually require more careand maintenance. In general, less expensive woodeninstruments made of maple or pearwood are less care-intensive than more expensive instruments made of exotictropical hardwoods, which typically requirehumidification in dry climates and periodic oiling.

Summary: Caveat emptor – you pays yer money andtakes yer choice. If you are anguishing over whether toinvest in a custom-serviced instrument to replace yourstore-bought one, or whether to spend the extra money for

a wooden instrument, take our course Recorder Buying101. Whether you buy a plastic or a wooden instrument,

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you would be best advised to buy an instrument from asource that will customize, voice, and tune yourinstrument and guarantee that it will stay that way for thelife of the instrument. Makers typically guarantee theirinstruments for six months to two years, but such

warranties can be of little or no value if the ability andexperience of the person doing the repair work arelimited.

Ultimately, it is the selling dealer who is responsible for the customer'ssatisfaction. Dealers who run discount warehouse operations typically

provide a limited choice of instruments and no custom service; customerswho buy instruments from the cheapest commercial sources on a price

basis alone should be aware that they are buying a recorder off the shelf"as is". Such instruments rarely play well when new and will mostdefinitely deteriorate with use. When you purchase a recorder, you are

ideally buying not just a musical instrument but a complete package ofgoods and custom services, as well as investing in an on-goingrelationship with someone who will hopefully be able to provide youwith information, education, and guidance.

Okay, I think I want a good but inexpensive wooden recorder. Is there anything in the below $100 range that would be a good choice?

You can get any one of several very good wooden soprano recorders for$60-$80. Unfortunately, there are no decent wooden alto or tenorrecorders available in that price range; you have to spend $160 to $210for an alto recorder and $250 to $350 for a tenor recorder of equivalentquality. See the section on inexpensive modern recorders in our ASWGuide to Recorders for a list of recommended instruments.

Unless you really can't stand the sound of a plastic instrument and don'twant to deal with the chronic clogging problem, you are probably betteradvised to start off with a good quality plastic alto recorder rather than awooden soprano instrument. If you find that, after a period of time, youare seriously interested in learning to play the instrument well, you canupgrade to a wooden instrument and retain your plastic recorder for

backup. If you find that you are not all that interested, a good plasticinstrument may be all the recorder you will ever need to buy. And if youfind that recorder playing is really not for you and you would ratherspend your spare time doing something else, then you haven't blown a

big chunk of your disposable income. See the section on plastic recorders in our ASW Guide to Recorders for a list of recommended makers andmodels.

Bottom line: unless you have other priorities, buy yourself a top quality,custom-tuned plastic alto recorder (we recommend the Yamaha 300

series woodgrain alto in either palisander or ebony), both volumes of the

Hugh Orr method "Basic Recorder Technique" for alto recorder, andHans-Martin Linde's "The Recorder Player's Handbook" to educate

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yourself as to what it is all about. Total cost: $108.35. We pay theshipping and insurance. Come back when you have worked your waythrough both volumes of Orr and read the Linde book from cover tocover, and we can talk about where to go from there.

I would like to get my elementary school-age children interested in recorder playing as well, so that we can learn together as a family. What beginning instruments and methods would you suggest for youngsters?

I have always been an ardent advocate of family music-making, which iscalled Hausmusik in German, and firmly believe that "the family that

plays together, stays together." Many families have a home musictradition that goes back for decades and spans more than twogenerations. The recorder and early music are also an ideal choice for

both parents and children involved in home schooling. The Yamaha 300

series woodgrain soprano recorder in either palisander or ebony or the

Adler Filius soprano, and Volume I of the Mario Duschenes "Method forthe Recorder" for soprano recorder, together with a bit of adultsupervision, should get any youngster off to a good solid start. Thismethod has some useful easy duets for soprano and alto recorder in the

back for beginning parent/child ensemble use. There is also a separatevolume of simple piano accompaniments available which can makelearning a fun family project if someone has rudimentary piano-playingability, and the piano accompaniments are now also available on a CDrecording.

If several adults and kids are learning soprano recorder simultaneously,the Giesbert "Schule des Zusammenspiels" (don't let the name intimidateyou) offers a wide variety of easy trios for soprano recorders. However,if you are seriously interested in family ensemble playing, I usuallyrecommend that one parent learn to play soprano along with the child,and the other adult learn to play alto recorder. After the child has gotten

beyond the beginning stages, the adult playing soprano can switch easilyto tenor, since the fingerings are virtually identical, and the familyensemble will then be able to access the vast amount of trio literatureavailable for soprano, alto, and tenor instruments. Edward B. Marks

publishes three excellent, extremely inexpensive anthologies of early

music (renaissance, baroque, and preclassical) that can be played oneither SSA or SAT recorders and provide a wealth of material for the beginning family recorder consort.

All of the methods and materials mentioned on this page are listed in our detaileddiscussion of Adult Recorder Methods and Materials. as well as in our completecatalogue. If you have any further questions, contact me via E-mail [email protected]. or give me a call M-F 10-6 EST at +1 (508) 833-3979.

David H. Green, directorAntique Sound Workshop, Ltd.

Associations with the supernatural

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Amongst the literary references to the recorder gathered to date a significant number areassociated in some way with the supernatural. We have already encountered several ofthese.

The recorder features in many depictions of angel choirs.

There might be one in this Jesse Tree of 1411 (British Museum). See detail here and acloser detail here.

A cherubic recorder-playing angel can be found in a Triptych by Giovanni Bellini in theChiesa di Santa Maria Gloriosa del Frari in Venice.

A positively exquisite one graces The Coronation of the Virgin (ca 1607) by Guido Reni(1575-1642). See detail here.

And there certainly is a recorder playing angel in this angel choir from El Greco's

Annunciation (ca 1590) although, typically, he seems to have lost his part while allabout are playing their's!

Another angelic recorderist by El Greco may be seen in his Imacculate Conception of1607-1610 (Thyssen-Bornemiza Collection, Prado, Madrid).

Recorder playing angels also occur in literature. The earliest manifestation of this mightwell be Chaucer's House of Fame (1340-1400), a dream vision, owing quite a bit toDante, in which the poet meets and hears the harpers Orpheus, Orion, Eacides, Chironand, lastly, Glascurion (a famous Welsh bard) and the pipers "many thousand tymestwelve".

We have already encountered the description of an angel choir from from the mid-15th-century Buke of the Howlate.

In an early 16th-century Cornish miracle play, Ordinale de Origine Mundi, recorder playing minstrels are included in King David's band.

Likewise in Stephen Hawes' Passetyme of Pleasure (1509) a recorder player is amongstthose musicians who "did sytte about their ladyes mageste", the lady in question being"dame Musyyke".

Thomas Campion's exquisite devotional song Come let us sound the praises of the

King's king (1601) affords the striking lines:

"But when once thy beams do remove my darkness,O then I'll shine forth as an angel of light,And record with more than an earthly voice thyInfinite honours."

Well, of course these angel choirs and their Earthly surrogates contain all manner ofinstruments and there is nothing remarkable about the appearance of recorders in them.

But, unlike other instruments, for the recorder this association with the supernaturalextended to spirits of all kinds, portents, miracles, death, resurrection and to fake

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funerals. Unfortunately time allows only the briefest sampling of these. They are brought together in an Interactive Database here for the first time.

Thomas Norton's Gorboduc (1561) begins every act with a dumb show accompanied bymusic. The stage directions for Act 3, scene 1 call for flutes (ie recorders) for "a

company of mourners" for the murdered Ferrex.

John Marston's Antonio's Revenge (1600) affords us our first fake funeral for which "thestill flutes sound a mournful cynet" as a coffin enters. However, the coffin's occupant islatter found to be alive!

In Shakespeare's As You Like It "still music" is requested for the entrance of Hymen"leading Rosalind in woman's clothes and Celia".

In his Midsummers Night's Dream "still music" is called for when Oberon casts his spellover Bottom. In this scene we have a ritual beheading, magic and symbolic rebirth.

In John Fletcher's Bonduca (1613/1647) the stage directions for a Druidic ceremonyinvolving sacrifice stipulates recorders.

In Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Mayd in Cheap-side (1613) "recorders dolefully playing" accompany the entrance of the coffins of Touchwood junior and of Moll. Thisturns out to be a double fake funeral!

In Beaumont & Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy (1610/1619) recorders play for awedding masque of gods and goddesses.

Such references come thick and fast and continue on unbroken well into the 18thcentury. It seems likely that the solemn and ethereal tone of recorders played togetherreadily created in the listener a sense of mystery, of majesty or holy dread, much as theelectronic confections of our own age do for horror films.

Perhaps one of the most moving examples of such use of the recorder is the Ode on the

Death of Mr Henry Purcell (1697) with words by Dryden and music by John Blow:

"Mark how the Lark and Linnet Sing,With rival Notes

They strain their Warbling Throats,To welcome in the Spring.But in the close of Night,When Philomel begins her Heav'nly lay,They cease their mutual spight,Drink in her Musick with delight,And list'ning and silent, and silent and list'ning andlist'ning and silent obey.Struck dumb they all admir'd the God-like Man,The God-like Man,Alas, too soon retir'd,

As He too late began.We beg not Hell, our Orpheus to restore,

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Had He been there,Their Sovereigns fearHad sent Him back before.The pow'r of Harmony too well they knew,He long e'er this had Tun'd their jarring Sphere,

And left no Hell below.The Heav'nly Quire, who heard his Notes from HighLet down the Scale of Musick from the Sky:They handed him along,And all the way He taught, and all the way they Sung.Ye Brethren of the Lyre, and tunefull Voice,Lament his lott: but at your own rejoyce.

Now live secure and linger out your days,The God's are pleas'd alone with Purcell's Layes,

Nor know to mend their Choice."

This quotation encapsulates almost all we have discovered so far of the recorder'sassociations making reference to birds, Gods, heavenly choirs, resurrection andmiracles. It's scored for two countertenors and two recorders; after all, Purcell was acountertenor and, as you can see from the comprehensive list of his works whichinclude the recorder, was fond of this instrument.

These associations were not confined to England. In the Spanish theatre, recorders wereassociated with religious events. In La gran columna forgos, San Basilio el Magno (1596-1603), recorders accompany the discovery of an altar. In El tuhán del cielo y loco

santo (1620-1630), recorders accompany the discovery of a Christ figure and theappearance of the Christ child. In France, Lully used the recorder to represent thelamentation of a choir of mourners for the hero in Alceste (1674) and pleas to Apollo forhelp against the monster in Bellérophon (1679).

In a number of self-portraits of the 17th and 18th centuries, artists are shown holding, playing or contemplating a recorder as a symbol of inspiration, eg. Metsu's (1629-1667)self-portrait Inspiration (Private collection, Roermond), Job Andrianz Berckheyde's(1630-1693) Self-portrait in the atelier (Uffizi Gallery, Florence), and János Kupezki's(1667-1740) Recorder player (Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest).

The recorder has been associated with the supernatural and with religious ceremonies in

music, too. In Purcell's incidental music for Nathaniel Lee's Theodosius (168)), tworecorders accompany the bass aria "Hark! Behold the Heavenly Quire" as an angel choirdescends. In his Dioclesian (1690), two recorders accompany the soprano aria "Charonthe peaceful Shade" which concerns crossing the River Styx. In his St Mathew Passion (1727/9), J.S. Bach replaces flutes by recorders (doubled by oboi di caccia) in therecitative and chorus "O Schmerz! Hier zittert das gequälte Herz", describing thesuffering of Christ on the Cross. And Bach scores for recorders in the funeral cantatas,namely the aria "Bestelle dein Haus" from Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit , BWV 106(1707) and the chors "Wenn es meines Gottes wille" form Komm du süsse Todesstunde,BWV 161 (1715). Gluck's famous "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Orfeo is thoughtto have been scored originally for recorder rather than the transverse flute.

Associations with disorder

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Suprising as it may seem, after ca 1600 the recorder often appears in references todisorder and conflict, even war!

In Martin le Franc's Le Champion des Dames (1440-42), Francvouloir and Malebouche seem to be discussing the merits of this 15th century girl's recorder playing. In fact they

are arguing about her virtue! From the 16th century onwards the recorder becameincreasingly popular amongst amateurs. Their intolerable fumblings might often havegiven rise to conflict. A hint of this is found in the reference from Actes and

Monuments, The Book of Martyrs (1563) of John Foxe in which it is noted that Bilney,who gave his life at the stake for his opinions:

"could abide no swaring nor singing ... and when Dr Thurlby, the scholarliving in the chamber underneath him, would play upon his recorder (ashe would often do) he would resort strait to his prayer."

As we have seen, even the problems of naming the instrument seems to have provoked

argument. Remember the Pepper/Piper dispute?

In Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream Hippolyta comments on Quince'sintroduction to Pyramus and Thisbe:

"Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; asound, but not in government."

And in King Henry IV, Part 2 Rumour likens himself to a pipe:

"I, from the orient to the drooping west,Making the wind my post-horse, still unfoldThe acts commenced on this ball of earth;Upon my tongues continual slanders ride;The which in every language I pronounceStuffing the ears of men with false reports.I speak of peace, while covert enmity,Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;And who but Rumour, who but only I,Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence;Whilst the big year, swol'n with some other grief,

Is thought wath child by the stern tyrant war,And no such matter? Rumour is a pipeBlown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;And of so easy and so plain a stop,That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,The still-discordant wavering multitude,Can play upon it. But what need I thusMy well-known body to anatomize among my household?"

In William Percy's The Cuckqueanes and Cuckolds Errants (1601) is the followinginterchange between Shift and Nim:

"Thats a new song now ..."

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"Shift, did'st ever hear better music in thy days, Shift?"

"No, by the crowd of Apollo, Nim, have I.Why, sirrha, this now was better to me than a pair of recorders, I vow."

"A pair of disorders, you should have said, gentlemen"

Of the war-like references perhaps the most fascinating and certainly the most chillingis that in Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) where the angels defeated in Heaven ritually

prepare their minds like "warriors old" for the more fatal confrontation to come onEarth:

".............. Anon they moveIn perfect phalanx to the Dorian moodOf flutes and soft recorders; such as raisedTo highth of noblest temper heroes old

Arming to battle, and instead of rageDeliberate valor breathed, firm and unmovedWith dread of death to flight or foul retreat,

Nor wanting power to mitigate and swageWith solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chaseanguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and painFrom mortal or immortal minds. Thus they,Breathing united force with fixed thought,Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmedTheir painful steps o'er the burnt soil; and nowAdvanced in view they stand, a horrid frontOf dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guiseOf warriors old with ordered spear and shield,Awaiting what command their mighty ChiefHad to impose."

In Dryden's Don Sebastien (1689) Antonio pulls out his recorder first in order to attracthis master's daughter, and later to drown out a woman with whom he is quarrelling.

Lines from masques and operas like "Since the toils and the hazards of War's at an end","Ye blustering bretheren of the skies", "Why should men quarrel", all accompanied by

recorders, continue this particular association well into the 18th century.

Strange to relate, the very last eighteenth-century literary reference I have found to therecorder in William Cowper's translation of The Iliad (1791) has the lines:

So frequent were the groans by Atreus' sonHeaved from his inmost heart, trembling with dread.For cast he but his eye toward the plainOf Ilium, there, astonish'd, he beheldThe city fronted with bright fires, and heardPipes, and recorders, and the hum of war;

But when again the Greecian fleet he view'd,And thought on his own people, then his hair



Uprooted elevating to the Gods,He from his generous bosom groan'd again.

In music, Charpentier associated recorders with the transition from violence into calmor war into peace, as in Médée (1693). Worthy of note here is Telemann's use of two

bickering recorders ('a pair of disorders') to evoke Xantippe, Socrates nagging wife, inhis well-known trio-sonata in C major. Bach's aria for alto accompanied by tworecorders and strings, "Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?" from the cantata of the samename, BWV 81 (1724), depicts the sleeping Jesus in a boat on the Sea of Galilee when astorm frightens his disciples enough to wake him up.

Pastoral and amorous associations

As we have seen, from Chaucer onwards the recorder has been associated with pastoralscenes involving birds, rustics and shepherds. Here is a typical scene from a Shepherd's

Calendar of ca 1500.

Intimately bound up with such images are amorous or erotic encounters of variouskinds, illustrated exquisitely by this Chelsea porcelain group (from the Art Gallery ofWestern Australia, right here in Perth) after The Music Lesson (ca 1765), a painting byFrançois Boucher (1703-1770) (from Melburne's Art Gallery of Victoria.). Thislangorous pair depicted by Louis Silvestre (1675-1760) in an Allegory of Music (Stadt-theater, Lindau) seem more than a little distracted.

Although da Cossa's Triumph of Venus (1470 is explicit enough, those smug littlerabbits we saw earlier in the complete picture are often remarked upon as a symbol of

fecundity. But the recorders and the pregnant shape of the lute's back are surely anequally obvious reflection of what is going on in the foreground!

Titian (1488/89-1576) exploited the erotic symbolism of recorders in several of his paintings. Here he does so in an early work, the so-called The Three Ages of Man (ca1510-1515, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), in which a young girl presentstwo recorders to a youth, who is already holding a recorder in his right hand. Thus astraightforward interpretation understands the iconography to represent childhood oryouth, marriage or middle age and old age (Egan 1961). Recently, Joannides (1991) hassuggested that the narrative theme of this picture is in fact the legend of Daphnis andChloe as told by Longus in a Greek 3rd-century manuscript which Titian might have

known of through his literary contacts.

And he does so again, in what is thought to be one of his last paintings, and certainly hismost blatantly erotic, the Nymph and Shepherd .

It has been said that Titian's Pastoral Concert (Louvre, Paris) is the outstandingmasterpiece of the Venetian Renaissance. It is thought to have been inspired by thePoesia card from Andrea Mantegna's 'tarochi' series. The naked figures are the Muses ofPoetry. The recorder (which reminds us of the Greek aulos) and the lute allude toAristotle's Poetica. Thus this painting proclaims the close interrelationship betweenhuman beings and nature and between poetry and music.

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Other paintings by Titian depicting recorders are his Venus and Cupid with a Lute

Player (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), in which Venus holds a recorder (detail)whilst a lutenist turns towards the goddess as if seeking inspiration through gazing ather beauty, and Bacchanal of the Andrians (Prado, Madrid) which depicts two recordersin the hands of women revellers, with a third recorder by the foot of a woman (detail).

In Titian's Assumption of the Virgin (Franciscan Church, Venice) a cherub holds a ductflute (recorder or flageolet) beside another who is playing the crumhorn (detail); on theother side of the painting a third plays the timbrel. In the National Gallery of Scotland,Edinburgh, is a Portrait of two boys with musical instruments, attributed to Titian(Anonymous loan, 1993) in which one boy holds a lute, the other what looks like arecorder but is probably a six-holed pipe.

In literature uses of the recorder music to accompany amorous scenes, weddings, andentrances and exits of Cupid, Hymen or Venus abound.

In James Shirley's The Grateful Servant (1629) an assignation is arranged for which

recorder music is provided as an aphrodisiac:

"............ be preparedFor your first entertainment; these about serveTo quicken appetite."

[SD. Recorders.]

"............ I like this well,I shall not use much courtship. Where's this music?"

"Doth it offend your ear?"

"'Tis ravishing."

Dryden's Song for St Cecilia's Day (1687) has the lines:

"The soft complaining fluteIn dying notes discoversThe woes of hopeless loversWhose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute."

Henry Purcell's Hail Bright Cecilia (1692) set Nicholas Brady's words to music with anobbligato part for recorder:

"In vain the am'rous flute and soft guitarJointly labour to inspireArdent heat and loose desire."

Lully employed recorders to represent Mercury's pipe in Achille et Polixène and Persée (1682), and again for the pipes of Pan in Isis (1677) and Cadmus et Hermione (1673).

Purcell used the recorder for a number of texts involving shepherds or celebration of the pastoral life in arias such as "We reap all the pleasures we freely enjoy", "How pleasant

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is this flower Plain" (1688), "Ah, happy, happy life!" (1688), "How blest are shepherds"(1691), "Shepherd, shepherd, leave decoying" (1691).

Vivalidi's chamber concerto La Pastorella RV 95 is scored for recorder, oboe, violinand continuo.

The aria " While Corydon the gentle shepherd" from Johann C. Pepusch's cantataCorydon (1714) has an obbligato recorder part.

Bach's aria "Doch Jesus will auch be der Strafe" from the cantata Schauet doch und

sehet BWV 46 (1723), scored for two recorders and two oboi di caccia refers to Jesusthe shepherd. In the opening tenor recitative "Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen" andthe alto aria "Komm, leite mich" from BWV 175 (1925) three recorders and continuoevoke a pastoral atmosphere.

Conclusion: the Twentieth CenturyI do hope none of you are feeling like this chap who is so anxiously watching thesundail. Lest you are, let me hasten to assure you that we are very near the end.

I have confined my attention today to references to the recorder prior to the revival ofinterest in it at the end of the last century by a few antiquarians and scholars. However,one contemporary use of the instrument in a dramatic context demands our seriousattention.

On one of his televised escapades, Dr Who allows his trusty plastic recorder to fall intothe force-field generator of the tardis just before getting stuck in a black hole. Thus the

recorder remains the only positive matter in a universe of anti-matter.

With his usual flair for celestial mechanics, Who is able to use this unique recorder to bring about the downfall of the sinister Omega, a rogue Time Lord! Omega is inducedto dash the force-field generator to the ground thereby dislodging the recorder whichgoes off with a 'big bang' and creates a supernova!

Needless to say, Who and company make good their escape a nano-second before thistumultuous event.

What is fascinating here is how, after a lapse of nearly two hundred years all the old

associations reappear -- the presence of immortals (Time Lords), conflict (on a cosmic



scale), death (Omega's), symbolic rebirth (Who and company escape the black hole),and miraculous events (the creation of a supernova).

It is my sad duty to report that Who's brief tootle on the recorder can only be describedas deplorable and that nothing he says or does gives any inkling that he is aware that the

instrument is of serious musical intent.

Now after seven-hundred years, Dr Who has come to remind us of a terrible truth. Likeall great inventions with obvious power for good the recorder can unleash immense evil,too. As I said at the outset, the number of recorders on Earth exceeds that of all othermusical instruments combined. Thus "the still- discordant wavering multitude" nowhave it in their power to use recorders to blow up the universe. Our only hope lies inturning the tables against that "blunt monster with uncounted heads" by doing ourutmost to realize the full musical potential of "this little organ", for as WilliamCongreve had it long ago:

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast."

Documents

Recorder - Complete Guide