North East Recorder Orchestra

1) Colin Touchin

Playing wooden recorders increases density of tone if played  properly but increases tuning problems. Choosing to go all-plastic is a solution to a severe problem (or several intricately entwined problems of blend, tone, balance and tuning), but I would suggest a wrong short-term solution. Longer-term view of a good tonal resource and good wooden instruments made to make real tone and sing with various qualities at different dynamics will be the best aim. We know that most people possess quite good trebles, so there is usually a much better sound from that section - descants are often fairly good, and tenors often rather woolly. Basses and below tend to be nondescript in manufacture and tonal depth. So the solution is investment individually in better instruments - persuade the players to look around for wooden higher-quality instruments which will keep their pitch at different breath pressures - I've just bought a Cranmore treble which is superb, but expensive, and he doesn't make basses or below. But it does hold its pitch very well between pp and ff. Also, in every rehearsal concentrate on getting everyone playing louder and fuller with more directed consistent air stream so the overall sound is simply more unified and positive - this usually makes even poor instruments sound better. The acoustic you rehearse and perform in also makes a huge difference to the individuals' feedback of their own sound and of the overall sound, blend, balance and tone -so better rooms/churches, etc. can enhance what is less secure or solid.

Hope this helps, at least in trying new plans of attack, before buying a joblot of plastic! If there is money to spend, buy one good bass, then one good contra, then one good great, and so on. I'd be interested to know if this helps. Also, I'd be more than happy to come up to work with you all as a workshop session if useful or relevant.

2) Paul Clark

If you are wanting all the same kind of instrument for your orchestra I think Yamaha are your best bet. I'm not sure if they make a C-bass in plastic; certainly a plastic contra sounds a formidable proposition, but perhaps an ensemble of Yamahas down to F bass, with support from, say, Paetzold C basses and contras might be possible.

When I founded the Staffordshire Youth Recorder Ensemble in 1984 we were lucky to be given a matched set of 32 Kung instruments from sopranino to Great bass, the contra then being little known, and this made a good balance of sound and similarity of problems when these arose. But there were problems #to do with voicing and I wouldn't recommend Kung although like all makers, they go on about their continuing research and improvement programs.

In times past a lady called Maureen McAllister had an ensemble of young players inBristol who all played Aulos recorders, the group sometimes featured in glossy adverts for that make of recorder. I heard them sometimes when adjudicating at the Eisteddford there and the one make structure certainly made for a well integrated sound and of course reduces problems within a single part.

You could do worse than try Yamaha for a special discount for a bulk purchase, or perhaps for some other form of grant. Don't be afraid of the big corporations, when at school I got help from the likes of Renault, UK!

I once met a judge who had bought a six part consort of Kobliczek recorders for handing round to friends when they played together and of course it made for a wonderful sound, and balance too. But that would not be for a RO.

3) Steve Mullany

I have played the recorder for over thirty years, much of that time professionally, and I have never played a better ALL ROUND set of recorders than the Yamaha plastic consort. These instruments are amazingly responsive, wonderfully in tune (with themselves AND with each other), full and robust in tone from top to bottom and they blend with each other as you would expect only from the finest instruments from the same manufacturer. No oiling required; no fear of cold or heat; run some hot water through the fipple occasionally if it gets clogged; they are virtually child-proof. And, it is possible to buy the entire lot of 5 instruments, sopranino to bass, for around $300.00. (That's what I paid 3 years ago, teacher's discount.)

If you wanted to buy wooden instruments of EQUAL performance, you would easily pay 5 times that amount; to afford wooden instruments of noticeably BETTER performance, you would have to pay 10 or 15 times that amount.

Other professionals I know play these instruments all the time in many situations, without any apologies. I would not, nor would I need to, recommend anything less to anyone at any ability level.

Would I use the Yamaha alto in the demanding solo literature of the High Baroque? Of course not, but that is not what THAT alto was intended for!

God bless injection plastic molding technology...and Japanese quality control!

4) Paolo Faeti

I am a member of the Italian Recorder Orchestra, and I offering some of our experience , also on behalf of our MD , who is not an English speaker unfortunately.

We are happily playing at the moment with instruments from different makers , and with a combination of plastic and wood.

We considered the idea you were mentioning a few years ago , but gave it up, as we found it impractical, on the following grounds.

Instruments from a single maker in a group have to be plastic ones realistically  , as you said . But even if they were wooden that would be no extra help at all because :

A) Not all sizes of a line from a single maker are equally fortunate / in tune / good , etc. This is easily checked with almost all recorder makers. As in many families , where one of the siblings is brighter than the other, it may happen than a tenor is perfect , and the treble in the same series is badly out of tune, etc. Each size of a line is a different project, not a scaled up/down version of another size.

B) It is the player who makes the sound. As Brian appropriately  keeps reminding us , playing in a group inevitably entails LISTENING to the others. Without this, even a perfect series of  wooden recorders would be no good per se.

There are of course  other factors too.

If you play plastics recorders only, it will be difficult if not impossible to have the biggest sizes (great basses, etc) which are not made in plastic, to the best of my knowledge.

Moreover, here in Italy, which is a Country of  very well defined charachters and , possibly , whims, a sizeable number of people would resent being forced to buy / play an instrument they are possibly not familiar or very happy with.

I suppose that something similar might also happen elsewhere.

As for querying " The Good and the Great" ... etc . may I offer a personal comment  ?

I have often found that, as a famous Frenchman once said,

 " War is too important to leave it to Generals " ( !!)

The best of luck to your Orchestra, and if I may be of help, do not hesitate to contact me...

Ciao ---- Paolo

5) Brian Blood

I am a member of the London Recorder Orchestra conducted by Denis Bloodworth. I play the Great Bass. I have also heard on CD the Hampshire Orchestra directed by Chris Burgess, the Dutch Orchestra of Norbert Kunst and the New York Recorder Orchestra.

Matching makes of instrument is really not as important as a matched idea of how the recorder should sound.  Despite some comments to this list most of the better makes are quite adequate to the task and I personally feel that wooden recorders always seem to produce a greater

tonal and dynamic range as least where the better mass production and hand-made instruments are concerned.   A nice softer wood sopranino, for example, will always sound nicer at the top of an orchestra than any make of plastic.

I think the most important aspect of the instrument (whichever make it is) is that it should, or more accurately, the player should be able to make a nice sound throughout the range of the parts being played. Some recorder orchestra parts are quite difficult (take the modern works of Colin Touchin for example) and both player and instrument have to be up to a more severe technical demand than for standard arrangements of light music by Denis Bloodworth.

Different arrangers expect different things and write to different standards of playing ability and this too will determine the quality of instrument and player required to successfully negotiated the repertoire.

And of course there is another thing.

It is far better to have the recorder orchestra players playing the instruments they know well, the ones they play frequently enough to play with comfort, than to force individuals to switch to instruments they use only for orchestra and rarely use at any other time.

As a professional player I have use one set of recorders, carefully maintained, for my entire forty year career.  I know exactly what each instrument needs in order to make a the sound I want and produce the tuning subtleties required by the composer.

6) Art Armstrong

I  have played for several years in a recorder group ranging around 12-15 members.  We are not experts but have played together for several years. Our director, a professional musician and expert recorder player, requests that we all play the same make which, for us, has been Yamaha.

The is no question but what the tuning is easier and more precise with all of us playing Yahama.  Occasionally a new person comes in with only wood instruments and the difference is obvious. It is much harder for them to stay in tune with the rest of us.

There is also a difference between makes of plastic instruments.

7) Klaus Bjaere

Brian and Paolo say the right thing!

Wood instruments all are individual and all call for a player making them sound musically.

Good players can control their wooden instruments. The individualities of several such instruments played well is what adds up to the rich and complex sound, which we call orchestral.

But then one may make better or less functional choices of instruments. I have two Küng sopraninos. The grenadilla one can cut through, when doing barn dances. The one in olive adds a much more pleasant top on recorder ensembles.

Documents

Some comments on the 'All Plastic' idea.