Drama and style - exploring Italian Baroque Sonatas

If I ask you to name a Baroque recorder sonata, which composer would immediately spring to mind? Handel, or perhaps Telemann? They’re two of the biggest names of the Baroque era (what a shame Bach never composed any recorder sonatas to complete the trilogy!) but there were many others who also wrote for our favourite instrument. 

In today’s blog we’re going to visit 18th century Italy to explore some marvellous repertoire from composers who were well respected in their day, but perhaps aren’t household names today. Some of these composers spent their lives working in their home country, but many visited London, which was arguably the place to be for musicians in the early 1700s, and some of them decided to stay. 

It’s been such a pleasure diving into this musical world - at times elegant, often dramatic and always oozing with Italian style. I’ve come up with a playlist of seven recorder sonatas, but each one is part of a longer playlist too. I’ve included a link to each album and I hope perhaps you’ll bookmark them on YouTube so you can explore them further. All are available to stream/download too, and some of them as CDs, so I’ve included links to these too. So sit down with a cup of your favourite beverage (or perhaps a glass of chianti or a cappuccino?) and relax as I transport us to Italy. 

If these inspire you to try them for yourself I’ve dug out links to the music for each sonata, which you can download and print. Many are also available as facsimiles of 18th century editions, which are fascinating in their own right. If you have some spare time, why not print out both versions so you can compare 18th and 21st century notation. Many of them are remarkably easy to read and I love the way these online resources allow us to go back in time and see the notation exactly as the composer would have known it.  

Francesco Barsanti - Sonata in C major Op.1 No.2

Flute Sonatas from the Italian Baroque, Vol. 2 - Frans Brüggen (recorder), Gustav Leonhardt (harpsichord), Anner Bylsma (cello)

Warner Classics: 9029527253

Listen to the complete album here.

Sheet music - Modern edition or 18th century facsimile

As recorder players we often borrow music from other instruments to expand our repertoire, but this can create problems. Sometimes the pitch has to be altered and the process of transcribing often results in music which feels less comfortable on the recorder. Happily, Barsanti’s music has none of these pitfalls. Not only were his six sonatas originally composed for the recorder, but the composer was also a talented player of the instrument and you really can tell.

Barsanti (1690–1775) trained as a lawyer in Padua but at the age of 24 he abandoned this career for a life in music, travelling to London, perhaps with composer Geminiani. A talented recorder player and oboist, he quickly found a role in the Haymarket orchestra, where Handel’s operas were produced. He stuck with this until 1735, before moving to Edinburgh for nearly a decade. Here he took up a post with the Edinburgh Music Society and enjoyed the patronage of Lady Erskine. He also married a local woman called Jean (her surname remains unknown) and their daughter Jenny became a well known actress in both London and Dublin. 

Sadly the Edinburgh Music Society wasn’t a rich institution and after receiving a 50% pay cut in 1740, and having several requests for a rise turned down, Barsanti eventually returned to London. After eight years away his previously strong reputation had faded so he agreed to become a violinist in Handel’s opera orchestra. 

An example of Barsanti’s quirky approach to slurs

Fortunately for us, Barsanti’s six recorder sonatas were rediscovered by Walter Bergmann in the 1940s and he published three of them through his work with the publisher, Schott. When you play them it rapidly becomes clear these are the work of someone who really understood the recorder. Not only do the notes lie easily under the fingers, but he has a quirky approach to articulation, adding slurs and staccato to the music where most other composers of the day left such musical decisions entirely to the performer.

The C major Sonata is one of my favourites from this set, recorded here by Frans Bruggen way back in 1972. The opening Adagio is remarkably florid and feels quite operatic at times, with its chromatic moments and highly ornamented lines. The recorder and basso continuo lines are very much equal partners throughout the sonata and there’s a lovely sense of conversation in the Allegro.

Benedetto Marcello - Sonata in F Op.2 No.12

Flauto Veneziano - Dorothee Oberlinger (recorder), Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca

Deutsche HM: 88697988632

Listen to the complete album here.

Sheet music - Modern edition or 18th century facsimile

Benedetto Marcello

Like Barsanti, Marcello (1686-1739) also worked in the law, although Marcello did this in parallel with his musical life under pressure from his father. While living in Venice he was a pupil of Antonio Lotti and followed his teacher in composing a vast array of music, including instrumental pieces, hundreds of cantatas and many operas. Alongside the music his satirical pamphlet Il teatro alla moda (1720) became very popular in his lifetime, although initially it was published anonymously. In it he mercilessly criticises Italian opera of the period, from its artificial storylines, extravagant staging and the vanity of the singers.

He offers the following satirical advice to composers and singers:

"The modern Music Composer should possess no knowledge about the Rules of good composition, except for some principle of universal practice... He should not understand the numeric Musical Proportions, nor the optimal effect of contrary Motions, or the bad Relation of Tritones and augmented Intervals."

"To the Singers – It is not necessary that the VIRTUOSO can read, or write, or have a good pronunciation of vowels, and of single and double Consonants, or understand the sense of Words, etc., but it is better if he mistakes Senses, Letters, Syllables, etc., in order to perform Ornaments, Trills, Appoggiature, very long Cadences, etc. etc. etc."

Ironically, by the time this piece was published Marcello had himself already composed one opera of his own and subsequently wrote several more, although I wouldn’t like to say whether or not he followed his own advice!

This sonata is the final one from his Op.2 set, composed early in his career. Most sonatas from this period comprise three or four movements, but here Marcello goes for five, two of which take the form of dances from the period - a Minuet and Gavotte. He finishes the work with a beautiful Ciaccona, which is based around a repeating four bar bassline. Unlike a ground bass (where the continuo team play the same bassline throughout) in a ciaccona (or chaconne) the accompaniment explores the melodic and harmonic possibilities of this sequence, gradually becoming an equal partner with the recorder line.

Francesco Mancini (1672 – 1737) Sonata No.4 in A minor

Francesco Mancini: Six Recorder Sonatas - Yi-Chang Liang, Machiko Suto & Ensemble IJ SPACE

Claves: CD1907

Listen to the complete album here.

Sheet music - Modern edition or 18th century facsimile

Francesco Mancini (1672-1737) hailed from Naples, and is one of a number of composers who benefitted from Alessandro Scarlatti’s absence from the Neapolitan court between 1702 and 1708. During this time he was Director of the Conservatorio di S Maria di Loreto and maestro of the Capella Reale. On Scarlatti’s return he resumed his original role as his deputy, finally taking a step up once again on the elder composer’s death in 1725.

I introduced you to Mancini’s charming recorder sonatas in my October 2023 Sounding Pipes playlist, but I couldn’t resist including another of my favourites here, beautifully performed by Yi-Chang Liang. You can sense Mancini’s experience as a composer of opera here, especially in the first movement with its sudden contrasts of mood and tempo.

Paolo Benedetto Bellinzani - Sonata in D minor Op.3 No.12

Upon a Ground - Tabea Debus (recorder), Lea Rahel Bader (baroque cello), Johannes Lang (harpsichord), Kohei Ota (theorbo), Jan Croonenbroeck (organ)

Classic Clips: CLCL12

Listen to the complete album here.

Sheet music - modern edition or 18th century facsimile

Sources of information on Paolo Benedetto Bellinzani (1682-1757) seem to be rather sparse, but he was evidently an active composer, writing lots of vocal music. However, he also produced a collection of twelve recorder sonatas, a handful of which have been edited into modern playing editions.

This sonata is utterly intriguing. The opening Largo is rather abstract in its form, exploring constantly shifting harmonies rather than going for clear melodic lines. This is followed by a typical lively Allegro but from here it becomes ever more dramatic. Movement three is a solo for harpsichord (fully written out in the 18th century edition) which gives the recorder player a chance to breathe and creates a sizeable introduction to the final movement. The Sonata climaxes with an exciting set of variations on La Follia - a popular melodic and harmonic progression which has been used by composers from the 15th century to the present day.

Tabea Debus has chosen to use a large continuo team for this recording, comprising organ, harpsichord, cello and baroque guitar. They play with a remarkably light touch for such a large ensemble and I love the variety of tonal colours they’re able to create. There are moments which feel positively ecclesiastical (recorder and organ for instance) which contrast with other variations played with a sense of wild abandon in keeping with La Follia’s Iberian origins.

Diogenio Bigaglia - Sonata in A minor - descant recorder

Corelli & Co - Parnassus Avenue - Dan Laurin (recorders), Hanneke van Proosdij (harpsichord, organ, recorder), David Tayler (theorbo/baroque guitar), Tanya Tomkins (cello)

BIS: BISCD945

Listen to the complete album here

Sheet music - modern edition.

The majority of solo recorder repertoire from the Baroque was composed for the treble, so this delightful sonata for descant by Diogenio Bigaglia (c.1678-1745) immediately stands out from the crowd. Bigaglia was well respected by his peers (including notable composers such as Vivaldi, Marcello and Albinoni) but today he’s all but vanished into obscurity. He joined a Benedictine monastery in Venice when he was just sixteen, but continued to compose both instrumental and vocal music alongside his role there.

This sonata is probably the best known of his works today, but if this whets your appetite, Bigaglia’s Opus 1 set of sonatas is also worth exploring. The title page labels them as sonatas for violin or flute (meaning recorder) and continuo. This was a common strategy during the Baroque (both Handel and Telemann did the same), perhaps because composer knew the music would work on either instrument, or more likely because it gave the potential for greater sales!

Francesco Maria Veracini - Sonata no.6 for violin or recorder

Vivaldiana - Michael Form (recorder), Dirk Börner (harpsichord), Melanie Flahaut (bassoon) & Delphine Biron (cello)

Pan Classics: PC10255

Listen to the complete album here

Sheet music - 18th century facsimile

Francesco Veracini

Veracini’s Twelve Sonatas for violin or recorder (another multipurpose set, like Bigaglia’s Sonatas mentioned above) were composed for Prince Friedrich August when he visited Italy to recruit musicians for the court in Dresden. Ultimately he hired an entire opera company, including Antonio Lotti as director and the famous castrato Senesino. The company included violinist Veracini, who was reputedly paid a very high salary. Already a well known violin virtuoso, he was required to compose music for the court and in 1717 became Kapellmeister in Dresden.

Veracini had a fearsome reputation, both as a violinist and for his arrogance. A quarrel with one of his fellow musicians led to a fall from an upstairs window which broke Veracini’s leg. There are conflicting accounts of the incident (did he jump or was he pushed?) but it seems the other court musicians were relieved to be rid of Veracini when he fled Dresden afterwards.

In the sonata I’m sharing here, Michael Form creates a virtuosic performance which I imagine would have delighted Veracini. Alongside his reputation as a player, Veracini was widely recognised as a stylish and talented composer. The music historian Charles Burney said of him, "he had certainly a great share of whim and caprice, but he built his freaks on a good foundation, being an excellent contrapuntist". Michael Form has chosen to reflect this ‘whim and caprice’ with his endlessly creative ornamentation and I hope you find his infectious sense of joy as pleasing as I do.

Giuseppe Sammartini - Sonata in F major Sibley No.23

Sammartini - Sonatas for recorder & bass continuo - Maurice Steger (recorders), Sergio Ciomei (harpsichord & organ), Mauro Valli (cello), Christian Beuse (bassoon), Margret Köll (harp), Eduardo Egüez (theorbo & guitar) & Naoki Kitaya (organ)

Harmonia Mundi: HMC905266

Listen to the complete album here

Sheet music - 18th century facsimile

My final Italian sonata comes from another composer who was one of the most respected performers of his time - Giuseppe Sammartini (1695-1750). Originally from Milan, Sammartini spent the majority of his working life in London where he gained a reputation as "the greatest oboist the world had ever known". He was reputed to be able to make the oboe sound like the human voice, such was the beauty of his tone. Like most woodwind players of the day, he also played recorder and flute, working in Handel’s orchestra and many others besides. He later worked closely with Haydn, playing a part in the development of the younger composer’s classical style.

Giuseppe Sammartini

In this sonata, Sammartini’s development of the Baroque style into something even more expressive is immediately clear. Most composers of the period chose a single tempo for each movement, but Sammartini explores the dramatic possibilities of shifting the boundaries. Nowhere is this more evident than the second movement, which veers dramatically between a jaunty Allegro and slower improvisatory sections, packed with extreme emotions. As if this wasn’t enough, he continues with an astonishing Adagio, so dramatic it sounds positively operatic. Having comprehensively wrung out our nerves, the final movement is one of pure joy, allowing us a moment to come back to earth again!

~ ~ ~

There ends our brief sojourn to Italy - one I hope that’s been both inspiring and entertaining for you. It’s easy to be distracted by the big names of the Baroque period, but I hope perhaps this has opened your eyes to some of the other composers who wrote for the recorder. Do you have a favourite Italian sonata I’ve missed, perhaps by another composer? If there are other pieces you would include among your favourites please do tell us about them in the comments below - I’d love to hear which Italian Baroque composers you just couldn’t live without!

Learn to love your scales!

What comes into your mind when you think about scales and arpeggios? Perhaps memories from childhood - being nagged by a teacher to practise? Or maybe even a degree of perplexity about exactly what they are?

Many of us have a love/hate relationship with scales. When I think back to my teenage years I realise I owe my music teachers an apology for my lack of application when it came to these fundamental exercises. Time and again I would spend the last two or three weeks before a music exam frantically cramming my scales and arpeggios instead of learning them gradually over a longer period, Fortunately for me, I had an uncanny ability to learn them at speed and I usually got away with this last minute feverish rush of learning. The downside was that I never really absorbed them thoroughly, so within a couple of weeks of the exam I’d forgotten them all again! My slapdash approach must have been infuriating, but those teachers I’m still in touch with seem to have forgiven me!

Of course the irony is I’ve seen the same situation from the other side of the fence many times during my teaching career, quietly trying cajoling my students to start learning their scales and arpeggios as early as possible…

What are scales and arpeggios?

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The first movement of Telemann’s Sonata in F major which is built upon lots of scale patterns.

Scales and arpeggios are the fundamental building blocks of music and all western music is created from these patterns. A scale uses neighbouring notes, while an arpeggio uses the 1st, 3rd and 5th steps of a scale to create a broken chord, where the notes are played in turn to create a melodic line rather than as harmonies.

Major and minor scales contain eight different pitches within each octave, arranged in a particular combination of tones and semitones. On the other hand, a chromatic scale includes all 12 notes - just as you would if you played every black and white note in order on the piano.

You’re probably most familiar with the concept of major, minor and chromatic scales, but there are many more types besides. Pentatonic scales have just five notes (sound just the black notes on a piano and you’re playing a pentatonic scale), modes are created from the patterns made by playing the white notes of the keyboard in different combinations, and jazz musicians have their own varieties of scales.

They’re not just a feature of western music either - in some musical cultures other patterns are used. For instance, Indian music is based on ragas - scale patterns which can include intervals even smaller than our semitone.

Why do I need to learn scales and arpeggios?

This is a cry many teachers have heard from their students in frustration! While they may not seem terribly exciting, learning scales and arpeggios helps your music making in many different ways. Let’s look at some of them…

They help you gain fluency

If we’re to play music with ease and speed, fluency is vital. Getting to the point where your fingers automatically find the patterns needed for each note at speed will allow you to tackle ever more challenging repertoire. If you have to stop and think about which fingers to move before each note (as a total beginner might) your musical lines will lack a sense of flow.

Improve your sight reading skills

Because music is made up of scale and arpeggio patterns, being able to recognise and fluently play these combinations of notes helps you read unfamiliar music more easily. If you want a comparison, it’s a bit like learning to read text. When we first learn to read we recognise the individual letters. Gradually we learn that these letters often appear together in particular combinations so we begin to recognise syllables and ultimately whole words and sentences. The notes of a scale are like the individual letters, while a scale is a long word or sentence which we take in at a glance through familiarity.

Coordinating finger movements

One of the big challenges of recorder playing is the complexity of the fingerings. Modern wind instruments have keywork to help simplify the finger patterns. Recorders lack these, so instead we have to play complex forked fingerings (for instance B flat on the descant or E flat on treble recorder). Shifting between neighbouring notes can often involve moving multiple fingers up and down simultaneously. We can use scales and arpeggios to practise this and make our finger changes neater and quicker.

Coordinating tongue and fingers

Not only do we have to coordinate our fingers, but our tongue needs to match the speed of our finger movements too if we’re to play a genuinely legato melody. Once again, scales can be a useful tool to help achieve this.

Building up speed

Want to play faster? In that case you need to practise the patterns which occur most often in music and gradually learn to negotiate them more quickly. What’s the best way to do this? Yes, you’ve guessed it - scales and arpeggios!

Practising double tonguing

Once you’ve built up some velocity, you might need to explore double tonguing so your articulation can match the speed of your fingers. Again, using simple scale patterns are a great way to work on this without having to think about reading complex music at the same time.

For music exams

Most adult recorder players have no interest in working for exams, but if you’re someone who’s motivated by exams, you’ll need to learn some scales and arpeggios as well as pieces of music. The syllabus for the lower grades may only include a few different keys, but by grade 8 you’ll need to know all the major and minor keys.

Have I convinced you yet?

Assuming I have, you might well be asking some of the following questions…

Do I need to learn all of them?

In an ideal world, knowing all the major and minor scales and arpeggios (plus chromatic and other patterns) is a desirable aim. But this doesn’t mean you have to learn all of them! For anyone even learning a carefully chosen selection is immensely useful.

If you’re not sure where to begin, start by looking at the music you’re currently working on. What key is the piece in? For instance, if you’re playing a sonata with a key signature of two flats, try learning B flat major and G minor - the two scales with the same key signature. The music is likely to work through both of these keys at some point and if you can play these fluently the patterns you encounter in the piece will come more easily too.

Realistically, unless you choose to play Schickhardt’s set of recorder sonatas in every key, most music for our instrument explores a limited range of key signatures. It’s unusual to see recorder music in more than three sharps or flats, so I would recommend aiming for fluency in these keys before you worry about the exotic realms of D flat major or G sharp minor.

Do I have to learn them from memory?

This is a much debated topic among students and teachers. For music exams you’re expected to learn the prescribed scales and arpeggios from memory, but as we’ve already noted, many adult learners have no interest in testing themselves in this way.

In order to play scales fluently from memory you need to be completely on top of the finger patterns, knowing precisely which fingers to move between each note. This requires what is often called ‘muscle memory’, although in reality our muscles don’t have memories. This process is actually achieved by generating strong connections between our brains and the nerve pathways used to send instructions to the fingers. To achieve that (I plan to explore this more in a future blog post) requires lots of repetition, and in my experience, the process of memorising such patterns definitely seems to be harder for some people than others.

Memorising scale and arpeggio patterns presents a particular challenge for players of wind instruments. With the piano or a string instrument, there’s a logical visual pattern as you work your way up and down the keyboard or fingerboard. In contrast, each note on a wind instrument of any type requires a different combination of fingers. Yes, moving between some of these is fairly logical. But I’m sure you’ve noticed how that logic disappears when it comes to cross fingers (particularly flat and sharp notes) or the upper extremities of the recorder!

An additional challenge we face as recorder players is the limited range of our instrument. Most woodwind instruments can play scales covering at least a two, and sometimes three, octave range in all keys. In contrast, the recorder can comfortably manage a handful of scales at two octaves, but for most intermediate level players an octave and a half is the limit. This means scales come in different shapes to maximise the range we cover, either turning at the top or the bottom of the instrument. Remembering which scale follows which pattern is an additional thing to learn and can add extra stress to the process.

For my Score Lines subscribers I created scale sheets showing some of these patterns, which can be downloaded from your Members’ Area. I’ve linked to the treble recorder sheet here, but if you’d like access to all of them please feel free to subscribe here - it’s free and there are lots of other exclusive goodies for you to download besides the scales!

While learning scales and arpeggios from memory is undoubtedly desirable, I would argue that playing them from music is probably just as useful for most amateur recorder players. One of the most important skills to develop is sight reading (I’ve written a blog about this here) and being able to recognise scale patterns and convert them into fluent playing is a great way to achieve this. As with most skills, do this by starting slowly and gradually building up some speed.

How fast should I play them?

As with so many things, it depends! If you’re using a scale to develop your tone you might do best to play it very slowly - perhaps four beats on each note. But if fast playing is your aim you’ll need to take a different approach.

When I first started having lessons with Philip Thorby, I spent about three months solely working on slow scales and other exercises as we focused on developing my tone and legato playing. Ok, this may sound rather extreme, but I was aiming for a career as a professional player so it was absolutely necessary. My technique certainly benefitted from this approach and I finally began to understand scales and arpeggios in a way that set firm foundations for everything I was to learn later. Taking this approach with even just one scale and arpeggio can be hugely beneficial if it helps you focus on the foundations of your technique.

The most important thing is to play your chosen scale or arpeggio correctly from the very beginning. If that means you start out playing each note at a metronome speed of just 60 that’s absolutely fine, as long as the notes are 100% right. When you can consistently play all the notes fluently and cleanly at that speed, gradually increase the tempo until you reach your desired tempo, checking at every point that you’re still maintaining the same consistency and precision. A metronome is a really useful tool here to hold you at one speed.

How often should I practise my scales?

I’m a big advocate of little and often. Having a huge practising splurge on your scales just once a week makes it difficult to achieve consistent results. A much better way is to programme in short, frequent practice times - maybe five or ten minutes every day. This way you remind your fingers of the correct patterns at regular intervals so they become habitual more quickly. Perhaps even keep a recorder out at all times (a plastic instrument can be handy if you prefer to put away your wooden recorders) so you can pick it up and play a scale for a minute or two every time you walk by.

Which variety of minor scale should I practise?

Minor scales come in two different species - harmonic and melodic. Harmonic minors use the same notes whether you’re ascending or descending, so they’re slightly easier to memorise. However, they also include an augmented second interval (the 6th and 7th notes, which sound vaguely reminiscent of a snake charmer’s flute), circled in red below, which is less commonly used in western music.

A Harmonic Minor

In contrast, a melodic minor scale raises the 6th and 7th notes by a semitone on the way up and returns them to their original pitch on the way back down. This is an added complexity to memorise, but these melodic shapes (hence the name) are more frequently found in the music we play. For this reason, if your plan is to practise them with music and you only have time to work on one type of minor scale I’d recommend the melodics as a priority.

A Melodic Minor

Using scales and arpeggios creatively

Most readers of this blog won’t be looking to become professional recorder players, so being able to play in every key with total fluency and at high speed is probably not your aim in life! But you can still use these patterns to improve your playing and have some fun along the way. Here are a few ways you could use them…

Vary your tempo according to your intention

If you want to improve your tone you need to focus on quality rather than speed. For this I would pick an easy scale (perhaps no more than one sharp or flat in the key signature) and play it really slowly. By simplifying the notes you free up your brain to think about breathing deeply and blowing freely, producing the best possible tone on each note. Perhaps spend four slow beats on every note before moving on to the next, breathing as often as you need to, always focusing on using the optimum breath speed for each fingering.

If speed is your motivation, again begin at a modest tempo but focus on keeping your fingering even and well coordinated with your tonguing. Perhaps use a metronome to ensure you maintain a consistent tempo. As you perfect each speed setting, switch up the tempo by a small amount and repeat the exercise several times. If you begin to stumble, take the metronome down by a couple of notches and refine your playing before moving on. Be methodical in your approach and you’ll be surprised how much progress you can make in a fairly short space of time. If you’ve built up a good turn of speed with an easy scale why not take the tempo back down again and try it with a more complex key signature?

Experiment with different articulation patterns

The music we play often contains a wide variety of articulation, from long tongued passages to intricate patterns, where small groups of notes need to be slurred here and there. It’s a good idea to begin by practising scales and arpeggios smoothly tongued, staccato and in long slurs as these all demand different technical skills.

Alongside these single technique scales I recommend you also practise patterns that require you to mix slurring and tonguing - you can see some of my suggested patterns below. These are the sort of patterns you’ll encounter in the real world and if you can apply them to your scales they’ll seem less scary in context. These are just a few of my ideas, but don’t be afraid to come up with your own variations.

Four varied articulation patterns you could try out

Be playful

There’s no reason why you must always play complete scales. Don’t be afraid to be playful and creative. Breaking a scale down into groups of four or five notes, running up and down, may help you really master the transition between specific fingerings more quickly. Once you’ve got that fluency you can then glue these small groups back together into complete scales. For instance, you could break up the F major scale shown below like this:

Breaking an exercise like this down into bitesize pieces is a recognised technique, called chunking. It’s immensely useful as a means of building up fluency and consistency, allowing our brain to focus more efficiently on small amounts of information.

Explore different note patterns

Bored with just whizzing up and down your scales as printed? Why not add some variety and explore them by playing the notes in a different order? For instance you could play each one in thirds like this…

You could follow the same principle with fourths and fifths too, although these are harder….

If you’ve learnt every key how about mixing them all up together? One of my favourite challenges is to go up one scale, then move up a semitone and come back down the next one - for instance upwards through F major, down via F sharp major, up via G major, down via A flat and so forth. The same exercise is possible with the minor keys too. If you can play both of these fluently you can award yourself a generous gold star!

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Major keys

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Minor keys

Finally, look for the satisfaction in a scale played really well!

You may not feel the need to learn scales in every key, and for less experienced players such an aim may be too ambitious anyway. However, there’s a satisfaction to be gained from playing even one or two of them really well, even at a slow tempo.

Scales and arpeggios can be a valuable opportunity to find a contemplative zone, focusing on a simple task done to the best of your abilities. I enjoy spending a few minutes at the start of a practice session playing scales really slowly, closing my eyes and listening to my tone. I focus on the quality of my sound, tailoring the speed of my breath and the strength of my articulation to suit each individual note. By doing this I reinforce the good habits I’ve learnt over the years, as well as warming up mind, fingers, tongue and lungs before I move onto more demanding music.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about scales and arpeggios. Are they something you avoid at all costs, or have you cultivated a love for them? Perhaps you’re still on your journey to becoming a zen scale-master? If you have tips you want to share with others or experiences you’ve found useful over the years please do leave a comment below.

Sounding Pipes, Edition 6

With Christmas almost upon us, for this edition of Sounding Pipes I’ve gathered together another eclectic collection of music for you to enjoy during the festive break. Some of them are standalone works, while others are longer programmes you can escape into if you need some time away from the hustle and bustle of Christmas.

J.S. Bach - Cantata: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 140

Netherlands Bach Society, directed by Jos van Veldhoven

As recorder players we often ‘borrow’ music from other sources to expand our repertoire - undoubtedly an enjoyable way to broaden our musical horizons. If you’re going to do this I think it’s important to also explore the original source of your music, whether that’s via live performances or recordings. One of my consort videos this week was a trio movement from Bach’s famous Wachet auf Cantata so I’m beginning this edition of Sounding Pipes with a wonderful recording of the entire cantata.

Most people will have at least a passing familiarity with the melody from this cantata’s most famous chorale movement, even if that awareness comes from a series of adverts for Lloyds Bank from the 1980s! That movement is of course just a small section of a much longer work, so this live performance helps put it into context. If you play a lot of Baroque music (and most recorder players do) I encourage you to listen to repertoire from this period as more than just background music. It doesn’t necessarily need to be played on recorders - music for any instruments or voices can help us learn more about stylish phrasing and articulation, especially when performed in a historically informed way.

Corelli Concerto Grosso Op.6 No.8 Christmas Concerto

Dorothee Oberlinger and Tabea Seibert with Sonatori de la Gioisa Marca

While I’d like these playlists to be something you can dip back into at any time of year, I wanted to include at least one Christmas related piece. Corelli’s Christmas Concerto is another very famous work, originally composed for a trio of solo string instruments (two violins and cello) with string orchestra. It’s been purloined by many different instruments but this particular arrangement is one made back in the 18th century, when the work was still quite new. Playing the solo violin lines on recorders creates a very different soundworld, and this performance has oodles of energy and drive.

Anton Bruckner - Vexilla regis prodeunt, WAB 51

Quartet New Generation Genuin GEN89143

After all that Baroque energy we come another borrowed piece, but with an altogether calmer mood. Bruckner’s choral music often fits well on recorders - the range of the human voice is comparable to the recorder and his legato melodic lines suit the instrument comfortably. Here Quartet New Generation play Vexilla regis prodeunt on a consort of low recorders and their low, mellifluous tones are just magical. The end result is perfectly tuned and is distinctly reminiscent of an organ played on its flute stop. Take a moment to stop the world, close your eyes and just let this glorious sound wash over you!

Richard Harvey - Concerto Incantanto

Michala Petri (recorders) with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, directed by Jean Thorel OUR Recordings 6220606

If you’re not already familiar with Richard Harvey there’s a good chance you might either have heard some of his film and TV music or have heard his playing in the soundtracks of films such as Harry Potter or The Lion King. He’s a fantastic recorder player and his disc of Vivaldi recorder concertos was one of my favourites when I was a teenager.

In 2009 he composed Concerto Incantanto for Michala Petri and there’s undoubtedly some film music magic going on here. Listening to the work I also spotted echoes of more traditional recorder music, including a snippet (intentional or otherwise) from Walter Leigh’s Sonatina for recorder. So often recorder concertos are just accompanied by strings, but here Richard Harvey uses a broader colour palette, incorporating woodwinds, harp, celeste and percussion to create a fantastical soundworld. Digging around on the net I also found this adorable clip from the world premiere performance where he joins Michala Petri on stage, recorder in hand, to whip through a Handel trio sonata, playing on two sopraninos with strings accompanying!

In this YouTube playlist you get an added bonus as the album also includes Sir Malcolm Arnold’s Recorder Concerto and Gordon Jacob’s Suite for recorder and strings. I’ve featured the latter piece in an earlier Sounding Pipes playlist but it’s always interesting to compare different versions of works. The Arnold Concerto is a typically dynamic piece of music and one I once heard it in the presence of the composer himself in Harrogate when I was a teenager. I was blown away by his writing and naturally went to tell him how much I’d enjoyed it, although I seem to remember he seemed distinctly underwhelmed by my naive, youthful enthusiasm for his music!

The Flanders Recorder Duo in concert

Recorded on 24th October 2021

You’re no doubt familiar with the Flanders Recorder Quartet, but did you know that Tom Beets and Joris Van Goethem have continued performing as a duo since the quartet gave their final performance in 2018? Their enthusiasm for discovering fresh duo repertoire is infectious and their programming uniquely creative. Recent projects have included a CD, editions of the music they play and a new CD recorded with the composer Sören Sieg, which is due for release in 2024 - you can find lots of information about all of these on their website here.

The video below is a concert programme featuring a huge mix of repertoire, from medieval to the current century. Alongside music by Bach and Telemann, you’ll find Vaughan William’s Suite for two pipes (a welcome addition to the more familiar one for four), melodies from Renaissance Spain and Glen Shannon’s dynamic Slingshot. Both the music and the instruments are engagingly introduced by Tom and Joris, leaving me wanting to explore more of this music myself. If you’ve never met them in person, this is a great glimpse of their creative teaching style. If the chance comes to work with them I recommend you grasp the opportunity with both hands!

Find an hour to sit down with this in a comfy chair with a cuppa or a glass of something warming and it’ll be time well spent…

Morning joy

Short animated film directed by John Henry Hinkel.

Here we have something a little different, but still with a recorder connection. This short film introduces us to a recently widowed composer who’s depressed. His attempts to compose come to nothing until he finds himself being serenaded by a bluebird, whose voice is performed by recorder player Charlotte Barbour-Condini. The film contains barely a word of dialogue who needs language when music and storytelling are combined so beautifully….

That wraps up Edition 6 of Sounding Pipes and I hope you’ve enjoyed my selections. I know YouTube can be a huge time waster, but if you look in the right places it can also be a wonderful source of musical inspiration. If you have favourite performers you enjoy listening to why not share them in the comments below and we can all go exploring online - who knows, some of them may find their way into future playlists here!

Recorder tips from the real world

We like to think we’re all unique individuals, tackling life in our own special way. But anyone’s who’s worked as a teacher knows this is only partly true. Yes, everyone has a different character, but when faced with a class of pupils you quickly learn there are mistakes that everyone makes.

Photo by Dayne Topkin

I spend much of my working life coaching groups of adult musicians and, while each ensemble is unique, I find myself offering certain key pieces of advice to every one. Many of of you will be familiar with Walter Bergmann’s Golden Rules for Recorder Players - if you’ve been following the Score Lines blog for a while you’ll probably seen them in my first post, back in September 2021. While his advice is encased in pithy sayings I feel absolutely sure each one is founded upon an experience Walter Bergmann had while coaching amateur musicians.

Several people have suggested I share some of my own ‘Golden Rules’ here, so over the last few months I gradually jotted things down as they occurred to me. Now I can’t promise to be as witty as Dr Bergmann, but I can promise you’ll find yourself nodding in recognition at some of them as you glimpse your own bad habits.  No doubt others will occur to me as soon as I press ‘publish’, so this may yet become the first in an series of blogs, but for now I hope you may be able to use some of these brief pieces of advice to avoid some of the mistakes we all make from time to time. 

My collection of jotted thoughts fall roughly into two categories :

1. Aspects of musical notation and how we interact with it

2. Thoughts about playing style and ways to improve one’s performances.

With that in mind we’ll tackle them in that order.

Useful nuggets of notational advice….

Using language to help with rhythms

Some people find it very natural to translate rhythm on the page into sound, while others need a helping hand. It often pays to think of rhythms like multi-syllable words, rather than taking each note on its own, and words can help you remember the way these groups of notes work together. For some reason many of my phrases have a culinary feel. Quite what that says about me and my relationship to food is debatable, but it works for me! Here are some of my favourites, but don’t be afraid to come up with your own too.

Rests as silent notes

It’s easy to view rests in music as an absence of sound - a sort of musical black hole from which light, sound and matter cannot escape. I would argue a better approach is to consider them simply as silent notes. Play or sing through the following phrase and consider where the rests occur. RETYPESET MUSIC - PITCHES WRONG!!!

If you consider the rests as holes in the music, it’s tricky to know where to place the next note. But if you feel them as a silent notes - one which has shape and mass, but no sound - it’s easier to use them as a springboard for the notes that follow. Use this as your strategy when reading music, feeling silences as active rather than passive things and it’ll undoubtedly add rhythmic integrity to your playing.

Feel the dots!

Here I’m talking about the type of dots which appear next to a note rather than above or below them, making them longer rather than shorter.

When reading dotted notes, consider exactly how much extra length that dot adds to the note. Many times I’ve asked children how long a dotted crotchet is, only to hear the reply, “It’s one and a bit beats”. Ah, but how big is that bit?!  Knowing it’s precisely half a beat is important if you’re to place the following quaver with precision.

To place the following quaver accurately you need to feel the beats within the note. For instance this is how I would suggest counting the rhythm below. Actively counting the second and fourth beats creates a springboard for the following quavers. Do this and your dotted rhythms will be precise rather than nebulous!

Iron out the bumps 

If you’ve ever played under my baton you’ll probably know this is one of my pet hates… Assuming you’re following the advice I gave in the point above, you’re now actively feeling the beats within your dotted notes. That’s a good thing, but be careful not to audibly share your technique with the listener through your breath. Often I’ll hear a distinct bump on the dot of a dotted note, or the second note of a tie, rather than a seamless continuation of the pitch. This happens because you’re thinking hard about that inner beat, maybe nodding a little with your head, or feeling the pulse through your breathing muscles. This creates a lumpy sound which isn’t attractive and it’s an easy habit to get into. To find out if you do this, play a short passage with your eyes closed, or perhaps even record it and listen back dispassionately (the voice recording app in a smartphone can be handy for this) and you’ll hear it as others do. Once you’re alert to this bad habit it’s easier to avoid and your playing with sound much smoother.

The last will be forgotten first….

Playing in extreme key signatures is a rare occurrence in recorder music as our repertoire seldom ventures beyond a couple of sharps or flats. Of course, if you have a penchant for unusual key signatures, you’re welcome to explore L'Alphabet de la musique by Johann Christian Schickhardt which contains a sonata in all 24 keys! One thing I’ve noticed over the years is the way musicians, when faced with multiple flats or sharps, will almost always forget the last element of the key signature first. This rule seems to apply regardless of the key, so in E flat major the first flat to be omitted will be the A, and in E major it’ll be the D sharps that are forgotten first. I’ve no idea why this is, but I guess there’s something about the way our brains assimilate new information which must govern this. Whatever the reason, you now know to be wary of the last sharp or flat!

Short just means short

If I had a pound for the number of times I’ve had to remind recorder players about the true meaning of staccato I’d be remarkably wealthy! So often I hear recorder players beating the living daylights out of staccato notes, with a force worthy of Norman Bates in the film Psycho. But look up staccato in any Italian dictionary and you’ll find it simply means short or detached. Perhaps you want to make the conductor realise you’ve seen the staccato markings and are implementing them, but if you don’t want to offend our ears, please don’t make them heavily accented too! 

Short is a relative term

Following on from my last point, it’s worth noting that staccato doesn’t necessarily mean you should play the notes as short as possible. Instead, consider the context of your staccato notes. Quavers in an Allegro movement may indeed need to be very short, but staccato crotchets in an Andante may need to be more generous. If you like rules, perhaps aim to play notes about half the notated length as a starting point. But do listen to the result and see if it feels appropriate to the musical context. The mood and character of the music also has a bearing on the composer’s intentions and the acoustic of the room where you’re playing may come into play too. In the dry acoustic of a carpeted room staccato notes may need to be more generously proportioned, while a voluminous church acoustic might demand super-short notes because the echo will instantly lengthen the sound.

Just how long is a long note?

I often ask students how many pulses they need to feel while playing a minim, and about half of them plump for the wrong answer. Yes, a minim may be worth two beats, but where do those beats start and finish? Imagine your phrases ends with a minim, followed by a silence. That silence begins at the start of the third beat, which means the note before it should continue until the very end of the second beat. This means you must be aware of three beats when playing a two beat note if you’re not to short-change your listener. This principle applies to any long note which is followed by silence - unless, of course, your conductor tells you to do otherwise!

The arrows show how long each note sounds in relation to the beats of the bar:

Playing with style and panache

Just wiggle your fingers and blow!

If you’ve played under my baton at some point there’s a good chance you’ll have heard me utter this phrase. It may sound glib, but there’s a good reason for it. Once before I wrote about the human desire to play music perfectly, or else we’re somehow wasting our time. Now don’t get me wrong, striving for perfection is an admirable trait, but it can also tie you up in all sorts of knots. That determination to fit all the notes in can slow you down, bringing a stilted quality to the music. Sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind, chuck your fingers onto the recorder and see what happens. It may not be pretty, but there’s a pleasure to be derived from playing with abandon and you might discover a level of fluency which surprises you. If nothing else it’ll reveal where you need to apply more focus in your next practice session.

Perfect your recorder player’s sulk

To create a warm, relaxed sound on the recorder you need to be relaxed too - any tension will soon be reflected in your tone. Before you start playing, take a deep breath and exhale with a deep sigh, allowing your face and throat muscles to go loose and floppy. Aim to retain this lack of tension as you play - allowing your face to adopt what my recorder teacher called a ‘recorder player’s sulk’. Smiling or frowning engages more muscles, creating a degree of tension in your face which can easily travel to your throat. For more tips on producing an open, relaxed tone why not take a look at the post I wrote about tone here?

Don’t forget to blow

When you consider all the things we have to think about while playing the recorder, there’s a lot of multitasking involved - reading notation, breathing, tone, fingering, articulation and more besides. As we become more proficient we learn to juggle these competing tasks, but every musician has limits. When I’m working with adult recorder groups I see this firsthand in two situations - when the music suddenly becomes much busier, or when the players are faced with lots of unusual accidentals. At these points both the quality and quantity of tone often suffer because the players’ brains are instantly distracted by the need to tongue more quickly or to interpret the notation swiftly. I’m afraid I don’t have a magical solution for this one, but self awareness is a powerful tool.

Next time you’re faced with an unexpected flurry of semiquavers ask yourself if your tone quality has suffered because you’ve forgotten about the need to support your breath momentarily. If your recorder is beginning to sound like a wheezy donkey you know what you need to do!

Play with positivity

If you lack confidence it’s tempting to play more quietly, believing you can hide among the massed ranks of players in your local recorder ensemble. In many walks of being a shrinking violet helps you blend into the crowd, but sadly this isn’t the case with recorder playing.

When instruments are manufactured they’re designed to be played at a specific pitch, so each note rings out at the right frequency. In contrast, when you under-blow some notes will sound flatter than others and many of the highest pitches simply won’t sing reliably. Added to that, your tone will be weedy and undernourished. The result? Your playing will stand out from the crowd much more than you intended, and probably not in a good way! It might sound counterintuitive, but use a firm, well supported breath pressure and you’ll find it much easier it blend in.

I often use the word gumption in relation to playing with positivity. What do you think of if someone is described as having gumption? In my mind it’s a person who has a positive, can-do attitude, who will go for it and make things happen. You won’t find them cowering timidly in the back row. Have this in mind as you play your recorder and I bet you’ll make a more confident sound straight away. 

Make your mistakes with style and panache!

Following on from my encouragement to play with gumption, you might be thinking, “But what if I make a mistake? Everyone will hear it!” Yes, that might be true, but we learn from our mistakes, so being able to hear you’ve gone wrong is no bad thing. Tentative recorder playing often leads to a mushy rhythm as you gingerly dip your toe into new musical waters. In my book mushy rhythms are never a good thing! It’s much better to play with positivity (gumption) because your tone and rhythm are both likely to be improved. You’ll also hear your errors more clearly and be in a good position to correct them. Now I’m not advocating making loud and proud mistakes in a concert situation - by that stage you should have practised the music enough to iron them out. But when rehearsing, own your mistakes and make them with style and panache!

Give yourself an improvement target

A strategy I’ve tried recently is to set ensembles a target when we’re rehearsing. For instance, I might ask the tenors to project their sound 56% more so a melody cuts through the texture, or perhaps I’ll instruct the contrabasses to play their staccato notes 48% shorter. The precise figure rarely matters (although a very specific number often elicits a chuckle from the musicians) but the simple act of providing a target usually puts us on the right musical path. Try this in relation to a specific task when you’re practising and you might find it does the trick. 

Tuning trumps dynamics 

The recorder may have a limited dynamic range compared to many other instruments, but it’s still entirely possible to play expressively. For really convincing dynamic contrasts alternative fingerings play an important role and I plan to write more about this in a future post. If you’re not yet comfortable using different fingerings for loud and soft effects it’s tempting to use breath pressure to create these contrasts. Yes, slowing the flow of your breath will make the notes quieter, but go too far and your intonation will also become flatter.

When faced with an extreme dynamic changes in a piece of music by all means experiment, but ultimately I would argue that intonation is more important than dynamics. It’s all very well playing an exquisitely soft passage, but if you leave your listener squirming uncomfortably in their seat because the music is painfully out of tune that positive effect is greatly diminished! In the long term make a point of getting to know some creative alternative fingerings so you can achieve dynamics and good intonation, but remember this will probably need to be a gradual process.

The holy grail of recorder playing - a true legato

One thing which will make you stand out from the crown as a recorder player is being able to sustain a genuinely legato melodic line, with a well supported tone throughout. If you can cultivate a rounded sound while playing with articulation which is super-smooth you’ll bring a new level of expression to your melodic lines.

The words I come back to time after time are singing and fluidity. Aim to sustain your breath and create a sense of connectivity between the notes, just as you would when singing a hymn tune, and you’ll be well on your way. Think of the breath you put into your recorder like a stream following a crease in the hillside and that’ll help you sustain right through a phrase.

I’ve written a whole blog about this topic, which you can find here.

Breathing is good!

Once again we come back to the thorny issue of multitasking. Breath is the lifeblood of our sound, yet when we get distracted by tricky rhythms and challenging fingering it’s so easy to forget this fundamental activity. Breathing is a vital thing to do, whether in every day life or playing the recorder, so don’t be afraid to stop, take a good lungful of air, and regroup - you body and recorder playing will thank you!

If you find it hard to make space to breathe while playing why not take a look at my blog in this topic? 

Get a head start with Baroque style

Most modern music is littered with instructions from the composer, showing you his or her creative intentions. In contrast, Baroque music can seem a bewilderingly blank canvas, with little in the way of expressive instruction. Tempting as it may be to just play the notes and rhythms, you’ll achieve a decent basic baroque style by using these simple guidelines.

In faster music (say Allegro or Vivace) look the notation and identify the smallest note values you have (perhaps semiquavers or quavers, depending on the time signature). These should generally be played quite smoothly. Now look for the second shortest note values - these can be more detached.

Bear in mind that this isn’t a rule, but merely a guideline which can be broken. If the second shortest notes are repeating pitches, or leaping around, playing them detached will almost certainly create the basics of a good Baroque style. But if you have stepwise (scale) passage you might choose to break this ‘rule’ and play them more smoothly. Be open to trying different things and  take every opportunity to listen to recordings of professionals playing Baroque music so you can learn from their example.

Be brave - sit in the front row!

Time and again I go to conduct an ensemble and I’m faced with a row of empty seats directly in front of me. Why does no one want to sit in the front row? Do they think I’m scary, or perhaps I’ll ask them to play a solo? Whatever the answer, I’m on a mission to persuade people that the best seat in the house is in the front row.

Ask any school teacher and they’ll tell you they always look to the back row for the troublemakers, but that’s not the reason why I recommend the front row. The recorder is a very directional instrument, so if you’re at the back of a large group (a massed playing session at a festival, for instance) you’ll hear very little of those sitting in the front row. However, those brave souls sitting right by the conductor get to luxuriate in a wash of sound from those sitting behind them. This creates a real sense of togetherness and gives them the confidence to play to the best of their abilities. Even better, if your ears aren’t as good as in your youth you’ll find it much easier to hear the conductor’s helpful advice. Go on, making it your new year’s resolution for 2024 to sit in the front row and find out for yourself that it’s the best seat in the house!

Eliminate the chiff

When we first learn the recorder we tend to start with a small instrument - perhaps a descant or treble. As we progress we expand our horizons, often trying larger recorders - perhaps the bass or even bigger. It’s easy to assume the techniques we used on the descant will work just as well on the low instruments but some of them need a little modification. I’m thinking specifically about tonguing. Using strong articulation on a descant recorder will often do little harm, but the same level of attack on a bass can create a very explosive sound - often known as chiffing. Think of the sibilant sound you hear when a steam train sets off. A nostalgic sound at a heritage railway, but in the context of a recorder orchestra it can wreck the mood and destroy any semblance of a legato musical line! 

Yes, there are places where this percussive effect may be desirable, but you do at least need to be able to turn it off at will. My advice is to make the gentleness of your tonguing inversely proportional to the size of recorder. On a contrabass you tongue should make the softest of contacts with the hard palate in your mouth, keeping further back from your top teeth, so it imperceptibly interrupts the airflow. Most importantly of all, listen critically to your playing and ask if your articulation sounds appropriate to the musical style. If the answer is no, you need to do something about that!

Make your intentions clear

My final thought is one that occurred to me while teaching online during the pandemic. Clarity is often lost via this medium, but I’ve since found the following a useful concept in person too.

Many of us were brought up to be well mannered we’ll have an innate worry about being tasteless and over the top, Being polite is one thing, but sometimes you have to exaggerate ideas to get your point across. Think of actors on stage. Instead of speaking as we would in conversation, they amplify their gestures and tone to project to the whole theatre. Don’t be afraid to do the same with your recorder playing. Whether you’re using varied articulation, contrasting dynamics or changes of tempo, you need to make your intent clear. In a concert situation, only a proportion of your gestures will reach your audience who may be sitting a long distance away. 

My advice is to imagine your listener is sitting with a copy of the score in front of them, pencil in hand. If your performance has sufficient clarity of intent they should be able to listen to you and annotate the music to reflect what they’re hearing. You could even test yourself by recording your playing and listen back with a clean copy of the score in hand.  Could you honestly notate the details you hear? If the answer is no, you know what you need to do! 

~ ~ ~

No doubt I’ll come up with more ideas in the coming months, but that little collection should give you plenty of food for thought. Are there other topics you consider regularly when playing, or gems of knowledge you’ve picked up from other teachers? Why not share some of them in the comments below - it’ll be fascinating to learn from each other’s experiences.

Back to basics - the theory of time

Whatever job you do for a living, the chances are you had some training at the start. Surgeons start about anatomy long before they operate on a human, and lawyers are taught the intricacies of the law before they’re sent into court to defend someone’s freedom. Likewise, a professional musician spends many years at music college or university gaining a rounded understanding of music theory and the history of the repertoire we later play and teach.

I meet many able amateur musicians who are highly qualified in their own fields of work, but have come to music making by a more circuitous route. Maybe they learnt the basics at school and returned to music making several decades later. Or perhaps they decided to learn an instrument when they retired. One common factor I frequently see is a patchy knowledge of music theory, picked up piecemeal as they’ve learnt to play new repertoire.

I also see this from a personal perspective with my photography. I’ve learnt a handful of skills to help me tweak my photographs in Photoshop, but my knowledge is far from complete. Rather than learning this complex piece of software from the ground up, I’ve picked up pieces of information as and when I need them. The result - I can do certain things, but gaps in my knowledge leave me floundering when the task in hand moves beyond my limited understanding. Even worse - I often don’t know exactly where the gaps in my understanding are, which makes them even harder to fill!

With this in mind I recently asked my Score Lines subscribers about areas of music theory where they felt they had gaps. This is the start of a new series of blog posts to help you begin to plug the holes in your knowledge and gain greater enjoyment from the music you play. Among the responses to my plea were several asking about time signatures and how they interact - especially in Renaissance music.

This seems as good a place as any to begin. So let’s dig in!

Understanding time signatures

Let’s begin with the basics - what is a time signature?

Those numbers at the beginning of our music tell us how many beats there will be in each bar. They also explain what type of beats we’ll be counting in and whether they subdivide into twos or threes. Here’s how to decode them…

Let’s begin with perhaps the most familiar time signature - 4/4.

The top number

The top number of any time signature tells you how many beats there are in each bar - in this case four. It really is as simple as that. If the top number is 2 there are two beats in the bar, if it’s 10 there are ten of them. How you feel those beats can be a touch more complex, but we’ll come to that later.

The bottom number

Now for the bottom note of your time signature. This indicates the type of beat you’re dealing with, as you can see in this table:

Now you know these two pieces of information you can at least identify the number and type of beats.

Simple and compound time

Aside from the actual beats we have in each bar, another important element to understand is whether the music is in simple or compound time. These terms refer to whether the main beats in the bar (the pulse we feel when we tap our feet in time with the music) divides into two or into three. Let’s begin by listening to two pieces which illustrate the way these feel.

Simple time

When the pulse subdivides into pairs of notes, the music is said to be in simple time. For instance, in a piece built upon crotchet beats those notes each divide into two quavers. Listen to this recording of Elgar’s famous Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 and count along to the beat - one - two, one - two. When you subdivide the beats they break down into pairs of quavers - as you can see in the extract below. This means the music is in simple time.

Simple time comes in many different forms, but if the main beat is a quaver, crotchet or minim it naturally divides into two halves. Here are a few more examples of pieces in simple time:

Gabriel Faure - Pavane, Op.50: Four crotchet beats per bar, each of which divides into two quavers.

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Handel - Hornpipe from Water Music Suite No. 1: The lower number of the time signature indicates a minim beat, and these subdivide into two crotchets.

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Vivaldi - Autumn from the Four Seasons, 3rd movement: Here we’re dealing with a quaver beat and each of these divides into two semiquavers.

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Finally we have Marg Hall’s Klezmer Fantasia. It may have an irregular number of beats in each bar, but each one of these splits into two quavers. We’ll come back to irregular time signatures like this again a little later…

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Common time and other curiosities

While most time signatures are notated as numbers, sometimes the letter C is used. This is a historical throwback, connected to the mensuration symbols used in the 16th century and earlier, before music had bar lines. In short, C (often known as Common time) means the same as 4/4.

When the letter C is divided with a vertical line (often called Cut Common time) it usually means 2/2 time, although in early music it is occasionally also used to indicate 4/2 time. If you’re interested to learn more about this, do check out my post called Cracking the Code from 2021, where I talk in more depth about the vagaries of Renaissance notation, including the evolution from mensuration symbols to time signatures.

Occasionally you’ll also come across simplified time signatures in early Baroque music, where the composer just gives a single number. In such situations this number equates to the top number of a modern time signature. It’s up to you to look through the music and figure out which type of beats are involved. In the example shown here we’re dealing with crotchet beats so a modernised time signature would be 3/4.

Compound time

Not all music subdivides neatly into pairs of notes - sometimes the main beats divide into thirds - this is called compound time.

Let’s take a look at an example – Barwick Green, the theme music for the radio soap opera The Archers, by Arthur Wood. As you listen, note how the music has a ‘rumpty tumpty’ sort of feel, common in a lot of folk music.

If we consider the time signature of 6/8 and use the advice I gave earlier it’s easy to assume we have six quaver beats in the bar and each of these subdivides into two semiquavers.

Yes, this is true, but listen to the music again and tap along with it. Are you tapping the quaver beats? I bet you’re not! No, in this sort of music we feel a larger size of beat - in the case of 6/8 that’s two dotted crotchets in each bar. Each dotted crotchet breaks down into three quavers and that’s what makes 6/8 a compound time signature.

6/8 is probably the most familiar compound time signature, but there are others too. If you want a basic principle to work by, you should look out for time signatures where the top number is divisible by three, such as 9/8, 6/4 or even 15/8. This doesn’t apply if the top number is 3 though, as those are still simple time signatures.

Let’s do the same as before and check out some real world examples:

Bach - Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV537: The time signature for this piece is 6/4, so each bar contains six crotchet beats. These are grouped into two dotted minim beats. In the first bar there are two dotted minims in the lowest voice and elsewhere the quavers are beamed together in groups of six, whose combined length is a dotted minim.

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Corelli - Pastorale from Concerto Grosso, Op.6 No.9: Twelve quaver beats in each bar, but these are grouped into four dotted crotchet beats.

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Putting your knowledge into practice

Knowing how to identify and translate a time signature is one thing, but that’s just the first step - now we have to put this into practice so we can actually count the music we’re playing.

Is there a difference between the pulse and beat?

This is a question I’m often asked, and the simple answer is that the pulse and beat are fundamentally the same thing. The term pulse is most commonly used to refer to the gentle throb a nurse feels for in our wrist to check how fast our heart is beating. The pulse in music has the same function, recurring at regular intervals through a piece. If you tap your foot in time with music it’s the pulse you’re tapping along with.

The term beat can often be used as a synonym for pulse in music, but it’s used in other ways too. For instance, a conductor beats the time signature with their hands or a baton, but again they’re visibly indicating the pulse or beat, just as you might by tapping your foot. You may well have heard conductors using both terms and that’s where confusion often occurs - I’m sure I’ve been guilty of doing exactly this at times!

How do I know which beat to feel/count?

Knowing which type of beat to feel when playing a piece of music is dependent on several things:

1. The style and character of the music

2. The tempo (speed) the composer has specified

3. Your own level of technical proficiency.

Let’s look at three different scenarios…

Simple time signatures

When faced with a piece of music in 4/4 time, the logical approach is to count four crotchet beats in each bar - after all, that’s exactly what the time signature means. Take this extract from Handel’s Water Music, for instance. The C at the start means 4/4 time and, when played at the traditional Andante sort of speed, it makes perfect sense to feel four crotchet beats in each bar - as you can see from the beat numbers I’ve added in red.

Now let’s look at a snippet from Francesco Mancini’s Recorder Sonata No.10. Here you can see we have the same time signature but the tempo indication (Largo) is slower than in the Handel. It’s entirely possible to feel a crotchet beat in this music, but the speed will probably be around 50. For many people this will feel very slow and there’s always a temptation to rush. One alternative is to subdivide the beat in your head, counting one-and-two-and etc. as I’ve shown in the music below:

A second option is to feel a quaver beat, resulting in eight quaver beats per bar, as shown below. The metronome mark of these quaver beats would be 100 to achieve the same performance speed. This may make it easier to read the rhythms and analyse the length of the notes, but there’s a risk the music can become a bit too ‘beaty’ because you’re feeling eight pulses in each bar rather than four. It’s a matter of personal preference. If you begin counting eight quaver beats you may find you can gradually slip back into feeling the slower crotchet beat as you get to know the music better.

Minim beats

This is a thorny issue for many recorder players and a topic of conversation in many rehearsals. Look through a pile of music from the eighteenth century or later and you’ll see that most music in common time is written in crotchet beats. We spend a lot of our musical lives counting in crotchet beats and these are the notes we’re first introduced to when we begin to read music.

But this hasn’t always been the case. If you delve back into music from the 16th century and earlier you’ll find much of it is written in minim beats, or sometimes even semibreve beats. To our modern eyes this notation looks slower because there’s an absence of the smaller note values. During the first decades of the early music revival in the 20th century, music editors often sought to make this music easier to read for modern musicians by creating editions where they halved the note values. Since then the needle has swung back towards a preference for authenticity in notation, allowing us to see the composer’s original intentions. As a result most modern editions of early music now retain the original time signature.

As with the Mancini example above, you could subdivide the minim beats into crotchets. In this extract from Byrd’s Fantasia I à 4 I’ve marked up the first two bars with numbers showing the minim beats. From bar five I’ve changed that to crotchet beats and you can see how much busier it looks. If you’re trying to think about two beats for each minim that’s an awful lot of mental activity in every bar. Once again the music will be in danger of feeling too ‘beaty’ and there’s a good chance you’ll slow down too.

I know a lot of musicians find it difficult counting in minim beats, but I would argue this is largely down to a lack of familiarity. We find comfort in things we know well and unfamiliar skills will always seem harder. But if we work at it, these skills become more familiar and less scary!

One solution I sometimes hear suggested is to ‘translate’ the longer note values back into something more familiar. For instance, a minim in 4/2 would be a a crotchet beat in 4/4. It’s similar to the way we mentally convert between currencies when shopping in a foreign country. But in music we need to do it in a split second while also reading the pitch of the notes, plus accidentals, articulations and dynamics!

A better solution is to take a moment before you sight read a piece to think about the relative speeds of the different note values. Spend a few seconds looking at the minims and tapping them at your chosen tempo. Then half the speed of your tapping while looking at the semibreves. Finally, double your minim speed to tap the crotchets. Over time you’ll be able to work these out more quickly, and after a while you’ll wonder why you ever found counting in minim beats so hard!

Compound time

Having dealt with simple time, the principles are very similar for compound time. The type of note value you choose to feel while playing will depend on the character and mood of the music. Let’s look at the examples I used earlier.

With Barwick Green (The Archers theme tune) you would naturally feel two dotted crotchet beats in each bar because the tempo is Allegro. To try and feel six quavers in a bar would quickly have you tied in knots!

That said, if the music is very fast your choice of speed may be dictated by your own technical limitations. For instance, if you decided to play Barwick Green and found the quavers were too fast to play at full speed, it might be better to begin at a slower tempo, counting six quaver beats in each bar. As your fluency improves you can gradually increase the speed and eventually you’ll reach a point where you can adjust back to a dotted crotchet pulse instead of quavers.

In contrast, the Bach Passacaglia is usually played at quite a slow tempo, perhaps crotchet = 72, so you would naturally count six crotchet beats in each bar, as I’ve marked below. At this tempo the dotted minim beat would be 24, which is far slower than any mere mortal can sensibly maintain!

With both simple and compound time signatures, your choice of beat will be influenced by the tempo of the music and the character you’re trying to bring to the music. The trick is to figure out what the possibilities are and make your decision according to which feels right and/or which is easier. As you get to know the music better you may decide you prefer to feel fewer beats per bar - you’re absolutely allowed to change your mind!

Irregular time signatures

I promised to come back to unusual time signatures, such as 5/4 or 7/8. These irregular time signatures can often feel uncomfortable, purely because of their irregularity.

As humans we have two of most things - eyes, ears, legs, hands etc. and because of this we like music which has a predictable left-right-left-right sort of feel to it. Music in triple (three) time doesn’t fit this description, but it does still have a regular lilting feel (think of a waltz) which comes quite naturally.

However, a time signature like 5/4 has an instant imbalance to it. A bar with five beats cannot divide neatly into two equal halves - instead you have either 3+2 or 2+3 beats. Most composers tend to set up a regular pattern in such time signatures, only deviating from it periodically. Take this short extract from Mars from Holst’s Planets, for instance. You can clearly see the bars are broken into three beats and two beats - I’ve marked the dotted minims (three beats) with triangles and the minims with square brackets. This is very consistent in every bar.

When counting a piece like this in 5/4 you have two choices. The first is to count a consistent five crotchet beats in every bar, while the alternative is feel two unequal beats per bar - in this case a dotted minim followed by a minim. This choice will almost certainly be influenced by the speed of the music. If your metronome marks is crotchet = 100 you’re probably best off counting in crotchet beats. On the other hand, if you crotchet beat is 160 it may be easier to feel a lopsided two in a bar. What you absolutely mustn’t do is add an extra beat to turn the music into a nice, balanced 6 beats per bar!

When you have to make a decision like this it’s often best it look at the full score rather than just your own part. Seeing all the voices together can make it clearer how the music break subdivides - as you can see in the extract from Marg Hall’s Klezmer Fantasia which I’ve marked up below:

If you’re playing a piece like this in a conducted group your conductor will probably explain how the music breaks down, so do pay close attention to what they’re saying!

Time changes in Renaissance music

I’ll complete this exploration of everything related to time signatures with a look at the thorny issue of time changes in Renaissance repertoire - a topic I’m often asked about.

It’s not unusual for music from the 16th century to switch from duple (2) time to triple (3) time in the middle of a piece - and sometimes back again. Of course this happens in later music too, but Renaissance repertoire is a special case because there is usually a mathematical relationship between the two time signatures. The exact nature of this relationship is not always clear and then you have the practical matter of transitioning from one to the other to consider.

During the 16th century there were two relationships between the time signatures. At the time they had different names…

Sesquialtera

This is where a whole bar of the duple time signature is the same duration (i.e. occupies the same length of time) as the new triple time. In Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium shown below, I’ve marked the time change in red. Treating this as a Sesquialtera, the 3/2 bars would be the same length as the preceding duple time bars (each of which is a breve long), making the new minim beat very slow.

Tripla

This is the term used when the length of the new triple time signature is the same length as half of the preceding duple time. Looking back at the Victoria example above, I think this approach works much better. The new triple time bars are then the same length as the semibreve beat (half a bar) in the duple time. As a result, the minims in the triple time section are faster than in the preceding bars.

How do I tell a Sesquialtera from a Tripla?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a clear way of knowing which piece requires which approach? Absolutely it would, but sadly notation during the Renaissance was far from consistent!

Sometimes editors of modern editions will give an indication as to how they think the music should be played, showing a sort of musical equation above the score. For instance, at the change in the Victoria shown above you might see something like this:

With such a lack of clarity in the original sources the most practical approach is to try both the Sesquialtera and Tripla and see which works best. Usually one will work better than the other. In my experience the Tripla tends to occur more frequently but this is far from a fixed rule.

Practical tips for time changes

One of the questions I’m asked most often about Renaissance music is how to negotiate these sorts of time signature changes when playing. It’s all very well if you have a conductor to lead you through this minefield but I know many smaller, self-led groups struggle to figure this out. To explain the process we’ll use the Victoria O Magnum Mysterium again. Below you’ll see a short extract from the full score, which I’ve annotated, but if you’d like to refer to the whole score you can download it here.

In order to decide whether you’re going to treat the time change as a Sesquialtera (whole bar = whole bar) or a Tripla (half a bar = a whole bar of the triple time) you need to figure out the relationships between them. To explain the options you’ll see I’ve added some metronome marks. If you want to hear these speeds for yourself you can use your own metronome, or just click on the words where they’re highlighted in the text below and you’ll hear the tempi courtesy of YouTube.

Let’s begin with the Sesquialtera option…

I would normally play this piece at around minim = 120 and that means a semibreve (half a bar) = 60 and a whole bar is breve = 30. It’s very difficult to really feel 30 beats per minute as it’s so slow - that’s where a metronome can be very useful.

Looking ahead to the time change, making it a Sesquialtera means the new triple time bars (which are a dotted semibreve long) are the same length as the breve in 4/2. Now you know this, you just need to multiply the breve’s metronome mark (30) by three to find out your minim beat, which is 90. As I mentioned earlier, that means the new minim beat is still pretty slow and I find this relationship quite hard to feel instinctively.

Sesquialtera - a whole bar of the new 3/2 time signature is the same length as a whole bar of the preceding 4/2.

If the Sesquialtera doesn’t feel natural, let’s see if the Tripla works better…

Here the opening speed remains the same, but the new 3/2 bars are the same length as half a bar of the 4/2. Therefore the semibreve = 60 of the 4/2 becomes a dotted semibreve = 60 in the new 3/2. To find out the new minim beat multiply by three, which makes them minim = 180. Yes, this is a fast beat, but it makes for a livelier effect and I think it creates a more natural relationship between the two time signatures.

Tripla - a whole bar of the new 3/2 time signature is the same length as half a bar of the preceding 4/2.

The process I’ve described above is what I do when I’m preparing to work on a piece of Renaissance music like this with an ensemble. I work out the relative speeds for both Sesquialtera and Tripla and decide which seems more natural. If I’m honest, I probably opt for the Tripla more often, but it’s good to explore both.

Putting the time change into practice

Having decided which option you’re going to use, the next task is to put your decision into practice. With time and experience you may find you’ll begin to make these transitions instinctively, but I have some tips to help you get to that point. Again, I’m using the Victoria as a practical example - you can download the complete score here if you haven’t already done so.

1. Break the piece down into sections. Having decided on your opening speed, begin by practising all sections which share the same time signature. In the case of the Victoria this means rehearsing from the beginning up to bar 52 and from bar 67 to the end. After a few repetitions the music will begin to feel familiar and you’ll develop some ‘muscle memory’ for this speed.

2. Practise the 3/2 section separately. Now use your metronome to remind yourself of the new speed at the 3/2 and play this section. Try playing it with a minim beat or the slower one-in-a-bar dotted semibreve beat and see which feels better for you. Repeat the section several times so the speed becomes really settled in your mind. Do check back with your metronome to ensure you’re maintaining the new tempo.

3. Now practise the transitions. This is where you combine the two time signatures. By now you should be comfortable playing the different sections, so try moving from one to the other and the muscle memory you’ve built up will carry you across the joins.

You can use this process for any piece of music with abrupt tempo changes like this, whether it’s from the Renaissance or any other period of music.

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Has this completed some of the gaps in your knowledge? Or maybe you still have questions? Answering one question often reveals other areas you’d like to know more about, so please do leave a comment below with your thoughts. My aim is always to broaden your musical knowledge and the most efficient way I can do that is by responding to your needs - I’d love to hear your ideas and requests!