Do you ever listen to some of the fine recorder players and wonder how you can produce that kind of tone quality? Here are some suggestions to incorporate into your practice session to help achieve better tone quality.
- Relax – Your breath into the recorder must be effortless. Try this:
- Deep Sigh – without Recorder. Do a couple of times, feel the relaxation in your throat.
- Deep Sigh into the Recorder - without tonguing. – play long, doesn’t matter if you over blow. (doesn’t matter what note, “G” for C recorders & “C” for F recorders.
- Sigh into the Recorder with less air, without over blowing. (no vibrato); sustain and end in a dying fall
- Small light sighs. (no vibratos or wobbling)
- Small light sustained sighs. Break between each.
- Tonguing – without losing the relaxed feeling, add the tongue
- Say “who edited it?”, then leave out the who, so it sounds like “dududut. Feel where your tongue is.
- Now say it into the record on a “G” or “C”
- Now try on lower notes, breath starts very gently on lower notes, tongue must come away from the palate at the same instant that the breath begins. Low notes are fragile and you must ease into them gently.
- Now try on higher notes, breath must be faster.
- High Notes
- Play “A” on C Recorder, “D” on F Recorder, no tongue. Then play the upper octave with a faster breath stream. Go back and forth, then add tongue until you find yourself producing a clean and perfectly articulated high notes.
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