The recorder: heading for extinction?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've still got my old wooden Schott descant recorder which occasionally gets a toot but I still can't reliably get the lowest note on the plastic treble one used by my children. Vive la flûte à bec!

Try adjusting the foot joint to correspond with your right hand little finger. Leakage through one of the RH holes is likely to be the problem.

[antongould]

Scottish bagpipes achieve their object - putting the fear of God into ye...


...Northumberland pipes, on the other hand can quite tickell your fancy!

BOOM BOOM as Basil would say in simpler days .........

[gradus]

Try adjusting the foot joint to correspond with your right hand little finger. Leakage through one of the RH holes is likely to be the problem.

Thanks for the tip.

[Cockney Sparrow]

The story has been picked up by Newsnight, BBC2 10.30 last night. When Newsight has a musical item it usually ends the programme and barely lasts 20-30 seconds before being faded out.

Last night, however, a recorder ensemble ( 4 players) and the issue got a 7 minute airing - playing and interview - at the end of the programme (at 37mins 10 secs). The presenter spent a few moments looking at the newspaper front pages but after that the quartet played the programme out with the Newsnight theme, in full.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...ring-offensive

There was an extraordinary recorder - Mrs CS said it is a Great Bass. On a stand and the body of the instrument stands a good two feet above the player, with a tube and mouthpiece coming down to her level.

Mrs CS was a dedicated primary class teacher with a fully realised ambition to bring music participation to most children in her school. Latterly, adopting the Blair government wider opportunities scheme she had string players (including cello, and double bass being quite popular, comparatively). At the end of their year of teaching only in the class, three quarters carried on into year 4 renting or buying their instrument and having lessons. Add to that a choir, recorder groups, keyboards (class teaching) at one time a Samba band and the achievement was remarkable with a Friday orchestra of leavers returning after school in their early secondary years.

And at the root of it all early, on teaching the recorder so every child who had the capability, could read music by the time the wider opportunities started.

And what happened? A new head mainly focussed on Maths Science and English (and, I suppose, keeping and enhancing their job). No understanding of the value of the music teaching and a supine set of governors. After 18 months it became clear that at most there was going to be a managed decline so Mrs CS resigned. At the root of it, I think there was a reaction from that Head Teacher, alongside the complete lack of interest in, or awareness of the value of music, that the teaching of recorder was "so old fashioned". Arguments that there was no comparable instrument which every child could access for £10 or less had no acceptance. There was no interest in the research showing the wider educational value of music teaching and participation.

Ofsted have no interest in music at primary level (as long as there are records with boxes ticked - any teacher plus a CD can fulfil that) and Gove gave head teachers the power to run their schools, Governors the power to terminate headteacher's services much more easily, in the context of holding them to account for reaching targets at any price. Before the pandemic and the latest iteration of austerity, it was hard enough for schools to manage their budget. It seems to me it must be a real struggle for a headteacher to back music sufficiently even in a secondary school where there is - I think this is still correct (?) a requirement to teach music in the curriculum. It must be almost impossible to resource the extra efforts to deliver real opportunities for music making - which we did experience at our children's secondary 15 years ago.

Its no surprise that real music making and opportunities to progress to universities and academies will be confined to parents who can fund tuition and logistics out of school hours - and of course those in independent education. (Levelling up, anyone?).

Is the situation any different in Wales and Scotland?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The story has been picked up by Newsnight, BBC2 10.30 last night. When Newsight has a musical item it usually ends the programme and barely lasts 20-30 seconds before being faded out.

Last night, however, a recorder ensemble ( 4 players) and the issue got a 7 minute airing - playing and interview - at the end of the programme (at 37mins 10 secs). The presenter spent a few moments looking at the newspaper front pages but after that the quartet played the programme out with the Newsnight theme, in full.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...ring-offensive

There was an extraordinary recorder - Mrs CS said it is a Great Bass. On a stand and the body of the instrument stands a good two feet above the player, with a tube and mouthpiece coming down to her level.

Mrs CS was a dedicated primary class teacher with a fully realised ambition to bring music participation to most children in her school. Latterly, adopting the Blair government wider opportunities scheme she had string players (including cello, and double bass being quite popular, comparatively). At the end of their year of teaching only in the class, three quarters carried on into year 4 renting or buying their instrument and having lessons. Add to that a choir, recorder groups, keyboards (class teaching) at one time a Samba band and the achievement was remarkable with a Friday orchestra of leavers returning after school in their early secondary years.

And at the root of it all early, on teaching the recorder so every child who had the capability, could read music by the time the wider opportunities started.

And what happened? A new head mainly focussed on Maths Science and English (and, I suppose, keeping and enhancing their job). No understanding of the value of the music teaching and a supine set of governors. After 18 months it became clear that at most there was going to be a managed decline so Mrs CS resigned. At the root of it, I think there was a reaction from that Head Teacher, alongside the complete lack of interest in, or awareness of the value of music, that the teaching of recorder was "so old fashioned". Arguments that there was no comparable instrument which every child could access for £10 or less had no acceptance. There was no interest in the research showing the wider educational value of music teaching and participation.

Ofsted have no interest in music at primary level (as long as there are records with boxes ticked - any teacher plus a CD can fulfil that) and Gove gave head teachers the power to run their schools, Governors the power to terminate headteacher's services much more easily, in the context of holding them to account for reaching targets at any price. Before the pandemic and the latest iteration of austerity, it was hard enough for schools to manage their budget. It seems to me it must be a real struggle for a headteacher to back music sufficiently even in a secondary school where there is - I think this is still correct (?) a requirement to teach music in the curriculum. It must be almost impossible to resource the extra efforts to deliver real opportunities for music making - which we did experience at our children's secondary 15 years ago.

Its no surprise that real music making and opportunities to progress to universities and academies will be confined to parents who can fund tuition and logistics out of school hours - and of course those in independent education. (Levelling up, anyone?).

Is the situation any different in Wales and Scotland?

A very interesting post. Re the very large recorder, I haven’t watched the programme, but by your description, it’s likely to be a bigger instrument than the great bass, which isn’t all that big - a C instrument that goes only as low as the viola. The sub-great bass, however, sounds an octave lower, so reaches the lower limit of the cello. Then there’s the sub-contrabass that’s even bigger!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A very interesting post. Re the very large recorder, I haven’t watched the programme, but by your description, it’s likely to be a bigger instrument than the great bass, which isn’t all that big - a C instrument that goes only as low as the viola. The sub-great bass, however, sounds an octave lower, so reaches the lower limit of the cello. Then there’s the sub-contrabass that’s even bigger!

For a real whopper…

https://earlymusicshop.com/products/paetzold-solo-sub-sub-great-bass-recorder-in-c

[Master Jacques]

May I give a plug for one of my favourite CDs? The complete recorder works of Rubbra and Britten, on Dutton Epoch. Mainly, I add, for the core Rubbra pieces, which are of a mystic, numinous beauty to match any of his chamber music.

Alas, Epoch have deleted this gorgeous disc. But Amazon have a few - very cheap - copies on sale, second hand.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Recorder-Works-Alpine-Suite/dp/B0006840LQ

[RichardB]

For a real whopper…

Yes, it sounds like wind blowing through a drainpipe! It's interesting that the Paetzold company's larger recorders go for the square cross section approach, which must be infinitely easier to make than a cylindrical bore of that size, it makes me wonder whether such designs would work for other woodwind instruments too, and brass for that matter. It would be a fascinating research project for someone with access to a 3D printer.