The Recorder

What is the right age to start with the instrument?
The recorder can be played by children at the age of four onwards.
What do I need at home?
The instrument, a music stand, sheet music, a metronome, and cleaning utensils.
What do I need to bring to my lessons?
The instrument, sheet music, a manuscript book.
Does the instrument come in different sizes?
There is a soprano, alto, tenor, and bass recorder.

What do I have to consider upon purchase?
Especially for children you may want to consider purchasing a plastic recorder. You can still buy a wooden recorder when your children have advanced their playing. You should discuss beforehand with the instructor which fingering system (German or Baroque) you want yourself or your child to learn.

In General:
The recorder goes way back in history. In the beginning it was just a simple wooden pipe. However it has been improved throughout the ages.

It literally was a very fashionable instrument during the 16th century.. Wealthy families used to own whole collections of recorders of different sizes. Friends used to invite each other to evenings with singing and recorder playing. Around 1700 Jacques Hotteterre, grandson of the inventor of the oboe and the bassoon, changed the simple recorder from scratch – from then on pitch and tuning were harmonized. And suddenly even great composers made use of the recorder. Whole sonatas were composed solely for the recorder. Händel composed for it and in Bach's “Brandenburg Concerto No. 4”.you can hear its fast runs. For over ahundre years the recorder stayed very popular, especially after Hottenterre's added improvements.

Later the recorder was outshone by the musically more versatile transverse flute. The smooth and mellow sound of the recorder goes very well with viola and  cembalo. It could not compete with the more dominant instruments such as piano or violin that were common during that period. For a while both flute types co-existed but after that, the recorder fell into oblivion for about 160 years. In 1906 the Frenchman Arnold Dolmetsch acquired a recorder from the 18th century which fascinated him so much that ten years later he had the first modern recorder in history produced after its example.

The recorder is held outwards from the player's lips (rather than to the side, like the "transverse" flute). The player's breath is compressed into a linear airstream by a channel cut into the wooden "block" or fipple, in the mouthpiece of the instrument, so as to travel along this channeled duct called the "windway" Exiting from the windway, the breath is directed against a hard edge, called the "labium" or "ramp", which causes the column of air within the resonator tube to oscillate at the desired frequency, determined by the bore length or open tone hole used. The length of the air column (and the pitch of the note produced) is modified by finger holes in the front and thumb hole at the back of the instrument.