[Ansteorra] buying recorders (was: iso dance)

[Jeffrey Clark]

Choosing the right instrument can go a long way to helping tuning and balance, and there is a reason most professional recorder players will avoid playing soprano unless they absolutely have to. Unless you have a very well-made soprano recorder, it is very hard not to sound shrill, and it takes some seriouls control to play a soprano recorder in tune with other instruments.

Early instruments do not transpose. Everything is read at sounding pitch. Actually, I was 
looking at a facsimile of a manuscript for one of Purcell's orchestral works, and I noticed that the "flute" part was transposed, after a moment I realised why: it was so that someone playing on a soprano recorder could play the part reading it as if they were playing an alto. So, apparently Purcell's recorder player didn't play soprano that much....

--AS Zorzi

On Feb 15, 2012, at 16:04, Derek Harris <eats.bugs at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wouldn't think it would matter so much what sort of recorder you use if you can sound good (good tuning, balances, no one louder than another). If you have an alto recorder when the music calls for soprano, you may need to transpose. But it really just means you need to know what your music calls for. If all the key signatures look the same, you have like instruments and/or singer. If its different, you're probably looking at mixed voices.
> 
> Derek Harris (via iPhone)
> 
> 
> 
> On Feb 15, 2012, at 3:50 PM, Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> 
>>