The Lord God Made It All

Most people are familiar with the sweet voice of flutes. Many people are familiar with the Celtic strains of the tin whistle. Regretfully, not many these days are very familiar with the soft, pastoral sound of the recorder.

The recorder is an end blown flute that works on the same principles as both the tin whistle and ocarina.

It is distinguished from these other two instruments by having seven finger holes (the lower two are usually doubled to make sharps and flats easier). Popular from medieval times, the recorder was used to depict pastoral scenes, and was associated with shepherds, birds, miraculous events, weddings, amorous love scenes, and even funerals. Classical composers such as Bach, Vivaldi and Telemann wrote for this wonderful little instrument. Unfortunately, the recorder lost popularity in the 18th century to the oboe, flute, and clarinet, and was nearly forgotten altogether until revived in the last century. Nowdays, this instrument has been sadly relegated as a children’s instrument only, with few people understanding its amazing potential. It is as capable of performing difficult classical music as any concert quality flute, and, in my opinion, it’s a lovelier instrument.

My interest in the recorder began some eight years ago, when my father purchased a plastic Aulos recorder during a vacation in Arkansas in 2000.

He never learned to play it, and months after we came home, I found it lying forgotten in a corner of our music cabinet. Well there was no use to leaving an instrument to the dust bunnies, I reasoned, so I took it to my room and began to experiment. Within a few days, I could play up and down the scale, and could even play a few sharps and flats. Over the next three years, I learned to play it with some proficiency. There was nothing like coming up to my room at the end of the day, sitting down with my recorder and a hymnal and relax.

By 2004, I was recording songs into our electronic keyboard for me to play with. One day, my father overheard me and asked me why I was playing so out of tune. I wasn’t aware of doing anything wrong, so I showed him what I was doing. I told him I suspected my recorder didn’t play well and asked if there was any way we could get one of better quality. He said he would look into it, and that was the last I heard about it for several more months.

Christmas 2004. One of the last really great Christmas celebrations of my life. At the end of opening all the presents we gave to each other, Mom and Dad pulled out the special presents they had gotten each of us. Mine was a lightweight box that felt as though it had nothing but air inside. Curious, I pulled it open and revealed a simulated leather bag. When I undid it, I pulled out a sleek plastic recorder.

Dad explained that a wooden recorder of good quality was too expensive at that time to purchase. So instead, he found a man in New England that took high-quality plastic instruments digitally patterned after instruments made in the Baroque period and specially customized them to sound like wood recorders. In the mouth piece was a block of cedar that gave the recorder a warmer, woodier sound, and the instrument had been tuned and voiced to play its best. I fell in love with the instrument and called it my Nightingale for its sweet voice.

I purchased some recorder method books and settled down to seriously teaching myself the finer points of recorder playing. By the time I was nineteen, I was improving rapidly and could play almost any tune set in front of me. That year, I decided that I wanted to expand my horizons a bit, and asked if I could have a tenor recorder for my birthday. My parents agreed, and we jointly purchased the best plastic tenor we could find.

Abigail named it Big Ben (don’t ask me why). I didn’t care much what the kids called it; I was in cahoots trying to figure out how to play that behemoth! The tenor recorder uses identical fingering to the soprano, but it’s twice the size and uses twice the amount of air. It was several months before I got the hang of it, but the result was well worth it. The sound is wonderfully melancholy.

Things went on for the next couple of years. I met Sarah Hulslander, who also played recorder, and we’ve had a delightful time playing together, and with others in the Trinity Recorder Consort. Everything was fine and dandy until about three weeks ago. I had brought my instruments downstairs to rehearse. As I was setting up, Mom asked me a question and I turned around to answer. As I did so, I heard a sickening crack behind me. My beautiful Nightingale had rolled off the kitchen table onto the hard tile, and the head had broken off the body of the instrument. I broke right along with it. I knew I couldn’t afford a wooden instrument of equal quality, and Mr. Collins had stopped customizing plastics months before. In a matter of seconds, I was in absolute despair, so much so that I couldn’t even rehearse on the tenor. I put all my instruments away and holed myself in my room.

Two days later, I had recovered somewhat from the incident and approached Mom on finding a possible solution to my dilemma. It was then that I found out that Mom had mentioned the accident in passing to my grandfather, and he had just offered to replace my broken recorder. To say I was shocked (albeit in a good way) would be a significant understatement. I began to do some research and found a good, inexpensive wooden instrument made in Switzerland that seemed to fit the bill. When I showed it to my father, he examined my research, said it was good, then looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Is this the recorder you want?” I replied that it was the best for the price. Dad shook his head and repeated the question. Reluctantly, I showed him the Moeck Rottenburg recorders that I had admired for years.

We ended up ordering a Rottenburg soprano in pearwood. Pearwood is a soft wood that, when impregnated with wax, has attractive soft sound that gets richer with age, like fine wine. Last week, it arrived.

It came in a tightly sealed box that was difficult to open. All the kids were crowded around me in anticipation. They had never seen a wooden recorder before.

The hard case came in a silken drawstring bag for ease of transportation.

Examining the head joint.

Looking at the main body of the recorder. Unlike plastic, this instrument has a delightful “wooden” scent about it that makes it seem all the more real.