The same but different - the wonders of alternative fingerings

Think back to when you first started playing the recorder. Do you remember the simplicity of the earliest fingerings you learnt? Each note had one possible fingering and it was challenge enough to wrap your fingers around those.

In reality, how many different fingerings do you think there are for each note on the recorder? A couple, perhaps? You might be shocked to learn that some notes have dozens of possible fingerings, each used for different purposes. Today we’re going to look at the reasons why you might wish to learn some of the recorder’s many non-standard fingerings. How many you choose to learn, and the reasons for doing, so will depend on the level you’re at, but it’s useful to at least have an awareness of the principles behind them.

A word on numbering

I’m going to share lots of fingerings with you today, so it’s worth saying a few words about how these are notated. I’ll mostly use illustrative charts, but from time to time I’ll also use numbers. A standard has evolved in recorder tutor books for the numbering of the fingerholes, which is shown below. The left thumb is 0, while the holes on the front of the recorder are numbered 1 to 7, top to bottom. This may be different from other instruments you play - for instance the piano, where the fingers have different numbering patterns.

The standard fingerings we use every day produce a consistent quality of tone throughout the recorder’s range, with good intonation. In most situations these fingerings work perfectly well, but there are still occasions when we might need to tweak them a little…

What is a standard fingering?

If you consult the fingering chart provided with any new recorder it might be easy to assume there’s just one standard set of fingerings and anything else is an alternative. There’s a degree of truth to this, but in reality even standard fingerings can require a degree of flexibility. Those shown in your fingering chart are just a starting point.

Certain notes may need a little tweaking to play in tune - for instance low C sharp on the treble recorder (G sharp on descant or tenor). Most fingering charts will show the following fingering:

This generally works well, but may not always be perfectly in tune. To correct this, the simplest solution is to cover a little more or less of hole 6. For instance, my sopranino recorder needs finger 6 to be covering both double holes to be in tune in most circumstances. I learnt this a long while ago and using this slightly modified fingering is now habitual.

It’s worth remembering too, that unless you’re playing with a piano (where the pitch of each note is fixed by your piano tuner) the exact placing of any note will vary slightly, depending on its position within each chord. For instance, a C sharp which exists as the major third of an A major chord will need to be slightly lower in pitch than the same note used as the fifth of an F sharp major chord.

When you begin playing larger recorders (bass downwards), a little flexibility is often required, even with the so called standard fingerings. For example, on many bass recorders (especially plastic ones) the standard fingering for low E flat will be too flat. The fingering below is often a better choice, using finger 5 instead of 4:

Similarly, many basses are reluctant to play top C sharp with the fingering we would habitually use for the equivalent note on the treble recorder. The following is a much more reliable alternative, although curiously it tends to be out of tune on smaller sizes of recorder:

Setting these minor anomalies aside, why would you wish to use a different fingering if the ones you’re already using are serving you perfectly well? There are a number of reasons, so let’s take a look at some of them…

Ease of playing

The most practical sort of alternative fingerings are the ones we use to make life easier for ourselves. The recorder’s basic design hasn’t changed significantly over the last three centuries. The keywork which gradually developed on other woodwind instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet etc) during this period was intended to help extend the range of notes available and to make the playing of chromatic passages simpler. Our instrument is capable to playing fully chromatic music without these additions, but this does lead to some complex fingerings. Take, for instance, this forked fingering (treble E flat or descant B flat:

It produces a clear tone, but to move from there to the notes immediately above and below requires us to move several fingers up and down simultaneously. With practice doing this neatly is entirely possible, but at high speed it can still be a challenge.

For such passages there are a number of fingerings we can use to make life easier, minimising the number of digits to be moved. These alternative fingerings tend to be the ones we learn first, simply because they make our life easier. The ones shown below are the most commonly used alternatives, with notes about the places where you might find them helpful:

There are many more you can use - too many to include a comprehensive list here. I’ll point you in the direction of some useful sources of information later…

Trills and ornaments

Baroque music has always been a significant part of the recorder’s repertoire, and with that comes the need for trills and other ornaments. Many trills are playable using standard fingerings, but for some combinations of notes we have to find alternatives to make them possible. I wrote a blog about trills, their reason for being and how to play them better a while ago. If trills scare you, this is a really good place to begin - you can find my blog here.

Creating dynamic shape

One of the expressive challenges we face as recorder players is the limited dynamic range our instrument has. There’s a limit to how much you can increase and decrease your breath pressure to play louder and softer before the notes becomes unacceptably sharp or flat.

One way around this problem is to combine a change of breath pressure with slightly sharp or flat alternative fingerings. Let me explain the principles involved…

To play quietly - here you use a fingering which would ordinarily be slightly sharp, and then drop your breath pressure slightly to bring the note in tune and play softly. This fingering, for instance, is a slightly modified treble E flat (or descant B flat). By adding a couple of extra fingers and dropping your breath pressure it creates a beautiful soft treble D or descant A.

The following table illustrates the quiet alternatives I use most frequently when I’m playing. Don’t forget to combine these with gentle blowing!

View fullsize

To play loudly - here you need to find a slightly flat fingering (often by adding a finger or two to the standard fingering) and blow more firmly to keep the pitch true. For instance, for treble C (descant G) you could add an extra finger on your right hand to do this:

I won’t include a list of loud alternatives here as they are easier to figure out for yourself. Just try covering or shading one of the open holes to see how much of a flattening effect it has on the note and choose the one that suits your needs best.

While these principles are quite logical, you must also remember that dynamic adjustments are easier to achieve with some notes than others. For the lowest notes there simply aren’t many (if any) suitable alternatives, while for others there are dozens of possibilities! As well as learning these new fingerings you’ll also need to remember to adjust your breath pressure to modulate the pitch of the notes.

How easy you find all of this will depend on the level of your playing. If simply finding the ‘normal’ fingerings is still a challenge this may be a step too far for you yet. I wouldn’t expect to introduce such complexities to my pupils until they are reasonably advanced, so please don’t feel you’re a failure if the concept alone boggles your mind!

Special effects

Another niche use for non-standard fingerings on the recorder is to create unique tonal effects - something most commonly found in contemporary music. For instance, in Hans-Martin Linde’s Music for a Bird he gives very specific fingerings to create special effects, such as a particular tone colour or to play multiphonics (playing more than one pitch at once), as you can see in the extract below. Such techniques are used in many contemporary works, but unless this is a style of music that particularly interests you, you needn’t worry about such fingerings in other types of music.

Resources to learn non-standard fingerings

Perhaps the most comprehensive source of recorder fingerings of all types is a website I only learnt about last summer - www.recorder-fingerings.com. Here you’ll find hundreds of charts for any type of fingering you could possibly wish for - for ease of use, dynamics, trills, and even for specific makes of recorder. It’s worth bookmarking this page so you can refer to it when you need a specific fingering. If you care to take a deep dive the site, it contains a bewildering array of options, but they’re helpfully arranged by category, making it easy enough to find exactly what you need.

If you prefer books to online sources, I can recommend two containing comprehensive charts for different uses:

Eve O’Kelly - The Recorder Today (Cambridge University Press, 1990).

A fascinating book about all aspects of the recorder, with a slant towards contemporary music. Still available to purchase new, but there are also plenty of used copies available at AbeBooks

Anthony Rowland-Jones - Recorder Technique, Intermediate to Advanced (Peacock Press, 2013)

A handy book covering all aspects of technique, including a comprehensive chapter on alternative fingerings. Available direct from the publisher or to order from most good bookshops.

Getting to grips with non-standard fingerings

It can seem bewildering when you first begin using alternative fingerings – there are just so many of them to get to grips with! To help you with this process, here are some of my top tips to get you started.

Start gradually

Don’t try to assimilate lots of new fingerings at once – that’s a recipe for disappointment and confusion! Instead, be selective. Whether you’re trying to learn an alternative fingering to make a difficult passage easier, or a specific trill fingering, begin by selecting just one or two. For instance, if you want to become fluent with the alternative E on the treble recorder (B on descant or tenor), choose a simple piece and practise using that fingering every time an E crops up in the music.

If you’re beginning to add trills into Baroque music, don’t feel you need to include them all at once. Maybe pick one trill that occurs several times in your music and play only that one to start with. When you’re comfortable and are able to locate the right fingering reliably, then add in another one. Because recorder music tends to use a limited range of key signatures, you’ll notice some trills crop up much more often than others. Use this to your advantage and learn them gradually. There are no prizes for trying to wrestle them all into submission at once, especially if you fail!

Get to know your recorders

While plastic recorders are mass produced and identical, wooden ones tend to have at least an element of individual human work in their manufacture. Made from a living, breathing material such as wood, even supposedly identical models can vary, so you may find you have to use subtly different fingerings from instrument to instrument. Take some time to make friends with each of your recorders, listening to the tone and intonation of your fingerings.

Listen out for tone quality

Some alternative fingerings have a different tone colour to their standard  companions. For instance, cover your thumb hole and finger 1 (the fingering for E on treble, B on descant/tenor) and really listen to the quality of the sound - it produces a clear, solid tone. Now compare that with this alternative:

Do you hear the difference? The tone quality isn’t quite so clear, and on some recorders it may be a touch flatter in pitch.

Now consider the context in which you might use this alternative fingering. The obvious place is when you need to move swiftly (and perhaps repetitively) between E and the F (B and C on descant). If you’re doing this at speed, the difference in tone quality will be barely perceptible. But in slower music, where you may linger on the note for longer, its lesser tone quality may stick out like a sore thumb. In such situations it’s better to practise until you can use the standard fingering cleanly. If you’re adding an alternative fingering to make your life easier, be careful you’re not doing so at the expense of a consistent tone quality throughout the musical line.

Don’t neglect your intonation

When you start using sharp and flat fingerings to create dynamic contrasts you introduce another variable into the mix - an adjustment to your breath pressure. Over time you’ll learn to increase or decrease your breath appropriately, but it’s important to focus on tuning. You could practise this by playing with other people (or comparing your notes to the pitches on a piano if you have one). If neither of these is a realistic option, it’s worth investing in a tuning meter to help you. Standalone tuning meters can be bought quite inexpensively, sometimes combined with a metronome. But if you have a smartphone the simplest and cheapest solution is to download a tuning meter app. Using a tuner you can check the pitch of your piano and forte alternative fingerings and learn to modulate your breath pressure appropriately.

Elegantly dovetailed phrase endings

If you regularly play duets with a partner you’ll often find your phrases finish on the same note - particularly in Baroque music. If you’re both using the same fingering it can result in a final note which is suddenly much louder than those around it. To avoid this sudden bump a good solution is for one player to use a quiet alternative fingering, while the other sticks with the standard fingering. When I play with my friend Sophie in The Parnassian Ensemble we use this technique a lot to create smooth endings that don’t jolt the listener’s ear, and we both have favourite fingerings we know work well on our recorders. This is not a technique for elementary players, but if you’re looking to hone your phrase endings elegantly it’s worth experimenting with.

~ ~ ~

Have I opened your eyes to some new musical possibilities? Or are you feeling bamboozled by an unexpected array of alternative fingerings? Learning even a few of these fingerings can be a helpful addition to your technique, be they for trills, dynamics or simply to help you get around a tricky passage. The most important thing is it to begin your explorations of alternative fingerings gradually. Don’t try to learn them all at once - you may find yourself feeling lost and confused. Instead, be selective, picking just one or two at first, only adding more as you gain fluency and confidence.

Whether you’re new to this, or a real alternative fingering geek I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below. Do you have your own tips or perhaps favourite fingerings you wouldn’t want to be without? Please do leave a comment and let’s see if we can all learn at least one new fingering today!

The perfect excuse - real life mistakes

Are you the perfect musician? No? Well, that makes two of us who aren’t!

I’ve written on the Score Lines blog before about our need for perfection. We all know, deep down, that perfection may be a laudable aim, but in reality we rarely achieve it. I see this in my own working life, both in my playing and the mistakes I hear from other musicians. We all make excuses and apologies for our errors and there are certain phrases I hear time and again - from my own mouth and those of others. Teaching my evening class a few months back I heard familiar exclamations: “Oops, I missed the key signature”, “I forgot my reading glasses” and many more. It occurred to me that pulling these musicians’ excuses together might be an interesting and entertaining project, so I called out to my Score Lines community for your help.

Boy, did you come up with the goods! Over the last couple of months my email inbox has been peppered with wonderful emails from recorder players around the globe, confessing their mistakes and the ways they try to excuse them. Many a time I’ve found myself nodding in recognition and chuckling out loud. It’s time to bring your words to the wider recorder world so we can all be reassured these mistakes are completely normal. A huge thank you to everyone who got in touch to pass on their excuses - be that via email or in person. All your confessions will perpetually remain anonymous - it’s only my own deficiencies I’m openly revealing below!

Looking through your messages, our musical excuses tend to fall into various categories, so I’ve grouped them accordingly here. I’m going to talk about my own failings, bringing in lots of your comments along the way. Yes, professional musicians make mistakes too. You may not always notice them, and that’s because we’ve learnt through painful experience how to cover them up well! You’ll hear about some of my embarrassing moments and I hope perhaps my confessions may be reassuring.

Let’s dive in and explore the treasure trove of musical excuses we’ve gathered together between us…

Notational niceties

We all know we should look at the start of our music before we begin playing - the clef, key signature and time signature are useful pieces of information aren’t they? Can you say, hand on heart, that you always do this? No, me neither! If I had a pound for every time I had to make a swift, panic stricken glance back at the beginning of a line to check the key signature when I’m already several lines into the music, I’d be quite wealthy. I did this once while playing from a Salvation Army Christmas Carol book on Christmas Day. These tiny publications are printed on A5 paper so they can be mounted on a lyre while playing outdoors. To save further space, the key signature appears just once - at the very beginning of the piece. If you get as far as line two or beyond and realise you’ve forgotten to check the key, you have to shift your eyes even further to correct your omission!

Of course time signatures can be problematic too, especially if you’re playing a piece of music where there are frequent changes. While playing in the orchestra for John Hawkes’ Concerto for spinet and recorder orchestra I didn’t dare take my eyes off the music as the metre changed every couple of bars. Doing so risked me planting them back in the wrong place to count a of 7/8 bar when perhaps it should have been 3/4. There might be only a single quaver’s difference between the two, but that’s enough to make or break a performance. I made exactly this error in rehearsal, but in concert kept my eyes firmly glued to the music!

“Sorry everyone. I’ll play the piece in 4/4 instead of 3/4 this time.”

Have you ever noticed the most difficult bars in any piece of music always coincide with a line break or page break? I swear music publishers collude to make this happen, just to keep us musicians on our toes. I can think of one example in a Bach Trio Sonata where two consecutive lines have almost identical music - a sure fire recipe for missing a line or playing one twice. I normally only write on music in pencil, but on this occasion a highlighter pen helped me distinguish between the two lines and avoid disaster.

Generally speaking, music notation has evolved to be as clear as possible, so we can read the dots quickly and efficiently. If there’s one detail which could do with a rethink it’s surely the symbols for minim and semibreve rests. A single symbol is an entirely different length, depending on whether it sits on the third line of the stave or hangs down from the fourth. That’s a recipe for chaos if you’re not concentrating and I’ve seen many musicians fall prey to this.

“Oops. I thought that was a whole note…this edition doesn’t make it easy to distinguish the semibreves from the breves” (Said while squinting and leaning closer to the score.)

While we’re on the misreading of notation, we’ve all failed to see dots beside or above notes - and the difference between those two things can be enormous.

“Wait, was there a dot there?!”

A bad workman blames his tools. Yes, it’s easy to blame the quality of notation or printing in an edition, but I can think of two distinct occasions where this has almost derailed a session I was directing. At one course I ran a class studying the Telemann Concerto in F for four treble recorders. 99% of those playing had one edition, but we quickly discovered a whole array of errors in the music. This was bad enough, but imagine my bewilderment when I realised that in newer re-prints the editor had removed some of the mistakes, but added in different ones! The resulting music making was peppered with mistakes, but to this day I have no way of knowing which were the result of user error and which were typographical glitches…

“I forgot to come in because I had a GP in the bar before.”

Early on in my career I nearly reached panic stations with a piece of Palestrina I’d set for a course. I had a copy bought several years earlier, while my students mostly had copies purchased shortly before the course began. We started playing and I struggled to understand why people were playing the wrong lines. Eventually the penny dropped and I realised the publisher, in their wisdom, had swapped two of the voices in the latest reprint of this double choir work (quite sensibly, as it happens). This made the layout more logical, but they failed to make any mention of it in the foreword and I’d assumed my older edition was the correct one. These days I like to think I’d have cottoned on to the problem sooner, but the experience put a large dent in my confidence and I’ve never conducted the same piece again since!

User error

One of the classic exclamations I hear all the time from recorder players, is a realisation that they’re playing in the wrong fingerings - for instance, C fingering when it should be F. In nearly forty years of recorder teaching I can honestly say this is a universal error. Only once have I taught a pupil who never confused C and F fingering and I think we can assume that particular student was an exception to the rule. I can go one better though…

At the Northern Recorder Course, a decade or more ago, I was offered the chance to play a sub-great bass recorder, alongside two other excellent musicians. At the time I didn’t regularly play C fingering from bass clef so it took a fair degree of concentration. The music went quite high in places and imagine my confusion when I found my notes at odds with those of my colleagues. After a little cogitation I realised not only was I playing in F fingering for these high notes, I was also reading the music as treble clef - no wonder it sounded awful!

“Oops, wrong recorder!”

What notes am I playing?

With most recorders, you play exactly what you see. But for some of the more obscure variants a degree of mental gymnastics is required. There may be some who read G alto or voice flute music by relearning the way familiar finger patterns relate to the notes, but most of us don’t play these instruments often enough to justify the lengthy learning process. Instead we learn cunning tricks to get around these transposing instruments. In the case of the voice flute, I pretend the music is really in bass clef and add three flats to the key signature in my mind. That gets me to the right pitches, but also means I rarely have a clue as to the note name for a given fingering. Faced with the voice flute it’s not unusual to hear me mutter to myself, “What note am I playing?”

Terrorising trills & alternative fingerings

Another classic ‘excuse’ occurs in baroque music, with an exclamation of “I forgot the trill fingering”. I rarely get fazed by trills these days, but there are still occasional moments when I suffer a moment of brain-fade and plump for a completely wrong alternative fingering when aiming for a quieter dynamic. Thankfully this tends to happen in rehearsal (I’ve practised thoroughly to ensure it doesn’t happen in performance), but it’s still frustrating!

Accidentals or on-purposes?

I’ve always wondered about the name we gave to occasional sharps and flats beyond the remit of the key signature. We call them accidentals, and I can’t help feeling that’s a misnomer - surely they should be ‘intentionals’ or ‘on purposes’? Whatever they’re called, they’re behind a huge number of our musical excuses. After all, who can honestly say they’ve never forgotten an accidental that appears again later in the bar? I try to look ahead as I read music for the first time, so as to avoid such mishaps, but I’m not perfect and have often uttered apologies for missing one out. Of course, your best friend here is your pencil, so you can write them in and never forget again, but if you’ve been reading the Score Lines blog for a while you’ll already know I’m a big fan of pencils!

To repeat, or not to repeat - that is the question…

Here’s another classic - that moment when you go sailing on into the next section of a piece of music, only to realise that everyone has repeated the previous one. Yes, I’ll hold my hand up to this one - it’s so easily done.

One of my favourite light recorder pieces is Philip Evry’s charming arrangement of Gershwin’s Summertime. He crams so many different characters and musical styles into an arrangement where all the parts fit on a single page and to achieve this he includes a Da Capo and then a jump to the Coda at the end. As a conductor you may have spotted me frantically flipping pages back and forth to find my way, and I’ve long since lost count of the number of players I’ve seen forget one or both of these geographical changes!

“I repeated, but nobody else did...”

Slow, slow, quick-quick slow

As twenty first century musicians we’re used to most of our music being written in crotchet beats as it’s this sort of notation we first learnt at school. As we start exploring earlier genres of music we begin to encounter the concept of counting in minim or (horror!) semibreve beats. This presents the opportunity for an endless array of musical excuses, usually because we’re counting in one type of beat when everyone is doing something different. Added to that, music written in minim and semibreve beats looks very white and, to our modern eyes, very slow. I’ve heard many recorder players excuse their slowness because of the type of beat, as well as a few gasps of horror when they’ve realised how quick crotchets and quavers can be if you’re feeling a minim pulse!

Musician 1: “Are you counting in minims or crotchets?”

Musician 2: “Crotchets”

Musician 1: “Well, I’m counting in minims!”

Thinking can be overrated

As we learnt recently in my blog about practising, the body has an uncanny skill for learning repetitive tasks without the need for us to consciously think about it - often (erroneously) referred to as ‘muscle memory’. This is all very well, but there are times when I make the mistake of thinking about an action which is usually instinctive. At that point, if it all goes horribly wrong, you’ll almost certainly hear that age old excuse - “I shouldn’t have thought about what I was doing!”

Distractions galore

One of my favourite (accidental) tricks is to keep counting rests for too long, forgetting to come back in at the right time. The reasons for this are many and varied, but there are two that have tripped me up several times. The first is when I use the rests to listen intently to another section of the ensemble. As I luxuriate in the beauty of their playing, time drifts on and instead of stopping after eight bars, I find myself counting “Nine-two-three-four, etc” until the point when I realise I’ve missed the boat!

“I can do it on my own, but not when others join in.”

“I was listening to how lovely the tenors/basses sounded, and lost count.”

The second likely distraction comes when I’m rehearsing in a particularly beautiful or unusual concert venue. Here my inner architectural photographer kicks in and I either find myself marvelling at the way a modern building is constructed, or else I’m musing on the beautiful play of light in an ancient church. Either way, there’s still that “Uh-oh” moment of realisation and a frantic rush to catch up!

For other musicians there may of course be different distractions. This one, which came from a member of one of my recorder orchestras, made me smile…

“I was so busy looking at you (the conductor) that I lost my place!”

Human limitations

Aside from our musical limitations, we all have simple physical limitations, which often increase as we get older. It’s only in the last decade or so that I’ve begun to wear reading glasses over my contact lenses for close up work and you can guarantee they’re never to hand when I most need them. My trombone playing partner has recently acquired some special specs for reading music or computer work and I’ve lost count of the numbers of times I’ve heard him same the exact words sent in by one of my Score Lines subscribers…

“Wrong glasses!”

Evidently it’s not just recorder players who make excuses for their musical shortcomings - I’m sure brass players have many special excuses all of their own!

If there’s one thing that’s become a permanent irritation as I’ve aged it’s the shrinking bar numbers in my music. Yes, I know they haven’t really shrunk, but it often feels that way. Yes, I could put my reading glasses on and they’d be beautifully crisp, but I don’t need them for playing or conducting music (I can see the notes well enough) so instead I go through my scores pencilling them in larger. It’s a clunky and time consuming solution, but it works.

In search of the perfect thumbnail

While we have no say over the deterioration in our sight (or hearing, come to that) there’s one recorder-critical element of our bodies we do have control over, and that’s our left thumbnail. Yet, still we attend rehearsals only to realise cutting this single nail was the one thing we forgot to do before leaving home.

I’ve seen many a recorder with a once round thumb hole, now worn away to something ovoid in shape, and this can make high notes a complete magical mystery tour. My personal solution is to roll my thumb instead of pinching with my nail, but I know that technique doesn’t suit everyone. At least I can do this without worrying about the length of my nail, saving me from that perennial excuse - “My thumbnail’s too long.”

“I must get my thumbhole re-bushed”

Technology that trips us up

While human nature is responsible for many of our excuse making, technology can be a trigger too. I’m guilty of occasionally forgetting my pencil (or omitting to sharpen in) but I’ve encountered ensembles where one pencil is apparently shared by an entire section of players!

Sometimes our instruments are the brunt of our excuses. Perhaps you have a leaking pad on a larger recorder, causing low notes to be unreliable. Another favourite of mine is discovering at a crucial moment that my key isn’t quite in the right place for my little finger. I’m pleased to report this only ever happens in rehearsal - by the concert I’ve always got my act together and actually checked it’s positioned perfectly!

“My bottom C (tenor) isn’t working!”

The ultimate instrument related excuse is actually having the wrong recorder to hand. I have to confess I did this once at a friend’s wedding. I was playing some informal music with friends as the congregation arrived, an hour or so before the ceremony. One of our chosen pieces was the Chaconne from Purcell’s Dioclesian, which begins with a repeating bass line, after which the treble parts come in one after another. Imagine my embarrassment when I started playing my treble line, only to discover I was a semitone flat - I’d inadvertently picked up my A415 recorder, while the others were playing at A440. Much hilarity ensued and we thanked our lucky stars that it was still early, so only a handful of the congregation had been there to hear my utter incompetence!

A more modern cause of excuse making is the e-reader, which increasing numbers of musicians use instead of carrying round a heavy piles of books. I’ve yet to make this transition, but from your emails I can see these gadgets can provide a rich vein of excuses…

“The lighting on my e-reader hid that note…”

“Er… sorry, my page flip advanced the score two pages instead of one.”

And finally

I couldn’t resist sharing a handful more of your quotes, which either made me chuckle or gave me a flash of recognition…

From a recent orchestral rehearsal I conducted:

I was distracted by a spider.”

From an inadvertent soloist:

“Oops, sorry for that solo where we were meant to have rests.”

This one sounds life threatening, but I’m sure it’s a thought many of us have had when we weren’t concentrating properly…

“I forgot to breathe.”

So what can we learn from our shared compendium of musician’s excuses? Most importantly, none of us is perfect. We all make mistakes - some of them subtle errors that no one will likely notice but yourself; some of them great big howlers which leave us grimacing with embarrassment. Rarely will these mistakes be life threatening and I’ve even met audience members who love concert mishaps because it makes them realise we’re all only human - even the astonishing virtuosos we see in famous concert halls. The important thing is to learn from our mistakes and have some fun along the way.

I’ll leave you with two parting gifts. One was a request from Dr Winter, my harmony professor at Trinity College of Music. If we hadn’t completed the homework he’d set, we were instructed to at least have a creative excuse ready for him. For instance, “A swarm of bumblebees stole my harmony homework while I was riding the number 10 bus along Oxford Street” is much more entertaining than “I forgot” and shows some imagination, even if it has no bearing on reality. Next time you make a spectacular blooper, why not think up a really fantastical excuse, à la Dr Winter?!

Finally, here’s a priceless video from an informal concert in Amsterdam where the virtuoso pianist Maria João Pires finds herself faced with performing a Mozart Concerto… but not the one she’d been expecting. This is the sort of thing performing musicians’ nightmares are made of, but miraculously she recovers her composure and goes on to play with so much aplomb you’d barely know there was a problem. Next time you miss an F sharp, remember, it could be so much worse!

Do you have some priceless musicians’ excuses I haven’t included here? If so, do leave them in the comments below so we can carry on mining this rich vein of musical entertainment!

The Practice Files - How to practise like a pro

What’s your approach to practising? Are you a last minute crammer? Or someone who works diligently every day? My hope today is to open your eyes to the way practice works. Not just a case of ‘do this, do that’, but what actually goes on inside your body. Learning about this has helped me understand the process of learning and practice and I hope it’ll also help you harness your body’s ability to learn.

How do we learn new skills?

Have you ever considered what goes on inside your body when you practise? I suspect most of us go about learning music without giving it a second thought, but a little knowledge can be a powerful tool to help us understand the best way to improve our playing.

Let’s begin with a few basics of physiology…

In order to move any part of our bodies, an electrical impulse needs to travel from our brain, along our nerves, telling the muscles and tendons to move. Every second of the day our brains send endless electrical messages out to all parts of our anatomy, almost all of them without any conscious decision making. Think about the simple act of eating, for instance. Messages have to be sent to our hands to manipulate the cutlery (quite aside from the process of deciding which piece of food you want to eat next), followed by another to lift the fork to our lips and then our jaws and throat need yet more messages with instructions to chew and swallow. When you break down that process it’s amazing how many complex actions we carry out every second without a second thought.

What you may not realise is that we have secret weapon helping us learn these repetitive skills, making them quicker and more instinctive. That weapon is a substance called myelin.

What is myelin?

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Myelin is a phospholipid membrane - a dense type of fat which wraps about our nerve fibres to insulate them. As you can see from this image, it builds up in sausage-like shapes around the nerves. This insulation prevents electrical impulses leaking from the nerves, resulting in stronger, more efficient neural pathways. Myelin acts just like the plastic insulation around copper wiring, helping channel electrical signals to their destination without interruption. Fundamentally, when we’re playing the recorder, it helps messages travel from the brain to our fingers, tongue and lungs quicker, allowing us to play with greater fluency and speed.

The more layers of myelin we build up, the more accurate and speedier our thoughts and movements become. Uninsulated nerve fibres are like the copper wires used to provide the slow dial-up internet connection we used in the early days of the internet. In contrast, once they’ve been wrapped with myelin they become more like the optic fibre which provides us with super-fast fibre internet today – infinitely quicker.

The best way to trigger the myelination of nerve pathways is by making mistakes (something we’re all very capable of!), before fixing those mistakes through practice. Each time we fire a neural circuit (the path the messages take along the nerves) correctly, cells called oligodendrocytes and astrocytes sense this and respond by wrapping the nerves in myelin. The more often this happens, the more layers of myelin are laid down and the closer we get to building our own human equivalent of a super-fast optic fibre cable. A signal can travel through a myelinated nerve pathway up to a hundred times fast than an uninsulated one, and that can make a huge difference to the speed and accuracy our playing!

A one-way process

Once your body has wrapped a nerve pathway in myelin, that insulation is there permanently. It can only be disrupted by disease, such as Multiple Sclerosis, which destroys myelin. With diseases like this, the loss of myelin means nerves lose their ability to conduct electrical impulses, resulting in a loss of vital motor skills.

If you’ve ever wondered why bad habits are so hard to break, this is because of the one-way nature of myelination. Once you’ve created and insulated the nerve pathway to play a wrong note or rhythm, the only way to undo that is to practise the notes correctly, creating another freshly myelinated one. If ever there was a good reason to practise with care, this is surely it!

Is myelin only used for music making?

Absolutely not - myelin isn’t uniquely used to help us learn a musical instrument. It responds in the same way to any repetition, so it’ll do its job with any skill you’re working on. Whether you’re trying to play a C minor scale, develop your golf swing, memorising where the buttons are on your camera, learning a new chess move or language, myelin is used.

Following Einstein’s death, an autopsy was carried out on his body and the construction of his brain was revealed to be largely the same as other men of his age. However, his brain contained twice as many of the cells which support the production of myelin. At the time, the significance of this was unknown, but as we’ve learnt more about the way myelin works, it seems entirely logical that this would be the case in a man whose brain developed so many ground breaking mathematical concepts. Imagine how much myelin Bach must have had after a lifetime of honing his compositional skills!

Is there a best time to add myelin to our nerve pathways?

In our youth, and as young adults, we lay down myelin astonishingly easily - this is why children pick up new skills at such a fast rate. The ability to myelinate nerves at a high rate continues until around the age of 50. After this it’s a harder process, but we retain the ability to add myelin throughout our life - just at a slower rate. If you’ve ever wondered why it’s so much harder to learn a brand new skill as an older adult (be that learning a musical instrument, a new language, learning to ski) it’s because of this change in the way our bodies create myelin. Please don’t let this put you off though! You absolutely can learn new skills as an adult, but it will just take a little longer.

Something we can all do

The mechanism of laying down myelin is a unifying process for all humans. We often think of the best musicians as having an innate talent, with them from birth; something that’s missing from the rest of us. There may be an element of truth here, but in reality professional musicians and sports people have also spent many years firing particular nerve circuits over and over, laying down thick layers of myelin to help them make music or play sport really well.

I make no claims to be the best recorder playing in the world, but I sometimes see looks of astonishment at concerts and courses as I play fast music. An expression on the faces of the audience which says, “How on earth can it be possible to play the recorder that quickly?!” I don’t have a God-given gift, but instead I’ve spent most of my life practising, insulating my nerve pathways to make my reactions faster and more accurate. I had no idea all this was happening inside my body as I practised, but it means I can still play quickly, even though I’m now the wrong side of 50. If you’ve come to learning an instrument later in life it make take a longer to build up this speed, but it’s never too late to make more of the skills you have. Practise in the right way and you’ll be surprised what you can achieve.

If you’ve ever wondered why humans have the ability to create languages, this is down to myelin too. We have 20% more of it than monkeys – a key difference which means we can talk and they can’t. They have the equivalent of copper wiring, compared to our optic fibres!

The fallacy of muscle memory

The more we develop a particular nerve circuit, the less we’re aware that we’re using it. Gradually the activity becomes automatic; stored in our unconscious mind. This function is often described as ‘muscle memory’. In reality, muscles have no memory - it’s simply a convenient description. Instead, the process of myelinating the nerves makes it seem like our muscles have somehow remembered what to do.

What myelin means for our practice.

That’s the science bit over with – now to figure out what this means for our music making!

You’ll be pleased to hear that you’re not expected to be perfect. In fact, making mistakes is critical. As we recognise our mistakes we then practise to correct them, and it’s the process which trigger the myelination of our nerves. What is important is that you practise in the right way. In Daniel Coyle’s book, The Talent Code he describes this as deep practice. I’ll help you figure out what this is in a moment, but first let me describe a scene I saw time after time when I was teaching children in schools.

Let me introduce you to Tom, a pupil I taught many years ago… Tom arrives for his lesson and plays me a piece of music he’s practised. After a few bars he makes a mistake. Realising his error, he immediately goes back to the beginning to start again, only to stumble at the same spot. This is the crunch point. By repeating that error Tom has already started the process of myelinating the nerve pathway controlling that mistake, meaning it it’s likely he’ll continue making it – the first step to a bad habit!

So what could Tom do differently? To avoid these bad habit making steps, it’s much better to stop straight away and attend to the error. Playing a much shorter passage of notes, ensuring they’re actually right, means you begin to trigger a positive myelination process, insulating the right nerve pathway rather than the wrong one. Of course, Tom is far from unique in this respect. I saw countless pupils do exactly the same during my years as a school teacher and I’m sure I sometimes did this too in my own practice.

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett

This short TED video shows the way Myelin works very effectively, as well as exploring some of the practice tips I’ll talk about in more detail next…

Now let’s take a look at ways you can put yourself on the path to deep practice.

Perfect your practice technique

The first steps to deep practice

Deep practice is a process of identifying and isolating your mistakes, then slowly and carefully, correcting the errors through repetition. At every point you want to ensure you’re playing things correctly so you fire the same nerve pathway every time, allowing your body to insulate it with myelin. Each correct repetition you make helps ensure you build good habits which will last.

The most important way to correct mistakes in your playing and your technique is to slow down. We all want to go as far and as fast as we can, but in reality it’s far better to take things at a slower pace. Let’s take a hypothetical example…

Let’s say you’re working on this movement from Van Eyck’s Der Fluyten Lusthof and you stumble over the section marked in red, fumbling the fingering for the top B flat. These are the steps I would suggest you try to overcome the mistake, ensuring you gain complete fluency through the semiquavers:

1.      Check the fingering for top B flat and very slowly practise moving back and forth between that and top A. Are your fingers moving exactly together? Look at and feel the quality of your finger movements – make them small, quick and positive, while keeping your fingers relaxed. Repeat this movement many times and focus on consistency. Being able to play it correctly a couple of times could be a coincidence, but if you can do it perfectly ten times that’s less likely to be down to chance. Now make the same finger movements more quickly, only increasing the speed further when you have achieved consistency.

2.      Expand your zone of focus a little wider – a note further, playing G - A - B flat - A - G. Still go slowly – if you can’t play it slowly, it certainly won’t happen at speed. Again, make lots of repetitions before speeding up.

3.      Continue this expansion process – perhaps adding in the notes from the four notes before the B flat, through to the end of the beat containing the B flat. At all times begin slowly, focusing on precision and quality of finger movements.

4.      When you’re sure you’ve got the beats around the B flat secure, then go back further and play more of he piece to check if you can maintain the accuracy in the context of the wider music.

This whole process might only take a few minutes, but it’ll have a big effect on the fluency of your playing and can be applied to any similar mistake.

Chunking

Chunking is a term used to describe the process of breaking any concept or piece of work down into smaller units to understand and learn more effectively. It’s immensely useful for music, but is also often used in teaching children to read, and the principles can be helpful in many areas of learning.

The process of chunking involves breaking a piece down into small sections, which you slowly repeat over and over to achieve fluency. The important thing is to begin with genuinely small pieces, playing them slowly enough that you can consistently play them cleanly and accurately. As I suggested with the Van Eyck example above, repeating these chunks ten times is a good place to begin, because that helps you really understand whether you’ve nailed the passage.

When you succeed with an individual chunk, move on to the next group of notes and repeat the same process. When these are secure you can then bring the chunks back together and see if you can play the longer passage accurately. If reconnecting the chunks results in mistakes, choose a slower speed and try again, with lots of repetition.

Speed is a really important element of this process. It may feel like you’re admitting defeat by playing a passage at a metronome speed of 50 beats per minute when the music should really be played at 120. But if you can achieve real fluency and accuracy at this super-slow tempo you’re then in a position to gradually increase the speed. Remember too that you won’t need to follow this approach with every note in a new piece. There will be some passages which fall easily under the fingers straight away, and these won’t need to be chunked. Chunking should be your tool of choice for sections which are on the edge of your technique - the patches which feel tantalisingly out of reach!

Let’s look at the Van Eyck again and I’ll show with different colours how you could break it down. Let’s imagine you’re having trouble with the last bar of line 3. In the three examples below I show how you could break this down into small chunks, before gradually reconnecting those chunks together.

We begin by breaking the bar down into its four beats. Each chunk is shown with a red box. Notice how I’ve included the first note of the next beat into each box - that helps you make a connection between the beats, so you don’t hesitate here when you reconnect them. Play each box really slowly at least ten times, focusing on accuracy and fluency. Only increase the speed you play each chunk when you can reliably play them with fluency. If you still stumble over these chunks, don’t be afraid to break them down into even smaller elements.

Another useful addition to this process is to play the chunks in different ways. You could play them as dotted rhythms or perhaps add some slurs. These additions give you more to think about - if you can achieve fluency with added challenges, playing the music as printed will feel easier!

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When you’re happy with these chunks you can then gradually bring the chunks together…

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Finally, bring all four beats together. If you need to reduce the speed again at first, that’s absolutely fine. Again, fluency and accuracy is always the most important thing. Once again, make lots of repetitions to ensure you’re really myelinating those nerve pathways!

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Extreme Chunking. At one American music school, Meadowmount School of Music near New York, extreme chunking is a technique used in the teaching. One technique the students use is to cut their music into strips (a photocopy, not the original!) and practise these short sections in a random order. They might also breaking the strips down into even smaller chunks and using different rhythm patterns as I’ve described above. Once the strips of music are fluent they can gradually be brought back together, building the pieces back up again in the right order.

If you ever find you can only play a piece of music well when you start from a particular place (often the beginning) this could be a useful technique for you. Breaking the music down into a random order helps you disassociate the different sections from each other. When you bring them back together you should then be able to start from any point with equal ease.

I used a similar process as a teenager when practising scales and arpeggios for exams. Learning them from a book meant I found I could easily play them in the printed order because I’d become accustomed to the familiar progression from one key to another. To prepare myself for the moment the examiner would ask me for scales in a random order I wrote each one on a small card and drew them from a box. Because they came out in a different combination every time I gradually learnt to disassociate the keys from the order I’d learnt them in.

Little and often

If you’re really doing deep practice, it won’t be something you can sustain for long periods. Don’t be afraid to work in shorter bursts - perhaps several times a day. When I’m working in this way on a piece of music I might spend 15-20 minutes really breaking something down, slowly increasing my speed. As soon as I feel my concentration is waning or I begin making increasing numbers of mistakes, I’ll step away from my music for a while and come back in an hour or two. This method of practising is useful if you’re a busy person who doesn’t have two hours at a time to practise. Little and often is the way to go! To really make progress on a new piece of music, it’s important to practise regularly. Even one short practice session every day will have more impact than a longer splurge once a week.

“If I skip practice for one day, I notice. If I skip practice for two days, my wife notices. If I skip for three days, the world notices.”

Virtuoso pianist, Vladimir Horovitz.

Practice comes in different forms

Aside from the deep practice techniques I’ve described above there are lots of other ways you can improve your playing. Treat the list below as your ‘practice menu’. In a restaurant you may choose fish and chips one day, but might be in the mood for roast beef another day. Music making can be the same - there’s no reason why every practice session needs to follow the same pattern.

Contemplative/mindful practice

Not feeling inspired to really work on a whole piece of music? Feeling in a more meditative mood? Try this simple, creative exercise…

Pick an easy scale and play just the first five notes. Keep it really simple so you don’t even need to look at the notes on the page - it could be as simple as C-D-E-F-G.

Play the notes really slowly - spend four steady beats on each note. Do this several times and close your eyes. Really listen to your playing, focusing on your tone. Is it even and consistent? Are you making a beautiful tone that you really enjoy? Are there notes which suddenly jump out, either weaker or louder than the rest? Keep repeating the pattern slowly, aiming for consistency. There’s absolutely no rush - be in the moment and really listen.

Adjust your breath pressure and see what effect this has on your tone. Really focus on the physical sensations. How far is your tongue moving as you articulate the notes? Is the transition between notes smooth or lumpy?

Now think about your fingers. Are they relaxed? How far are they moving from the recorder and are they rising and falling quickly and neatly? At every repetition, be inwardly critical of what you feel and hear, actively adjusting your movements to improve every aspect of your technique.

Even this slow, contemplative form of practice is beneficial, even if you don’t feel you’re making great strides. This sort of practice can be very therapeutic and relaxing. Remember, even at this pace, every repetition and improvement you make lays down a little more myelin around your nerve pathways!

Practise by thinking

As you work on improving a piece of music, it can be helpful to do some mental practice away from your instrument. Studies have shown that just workng through an activity in your mind can help reinforce the skills you’ve been practising. Don’t try necessarily do this with an entire piece of music, but pick a phrase or short section to play through in your head. Count through the rhythms, imagining how it will sound as you play it. If you have a train or bus journey you could take your music with you and spend some of the time on this sort of mental practice. Elite athletes sometimes visualise the skills they use during their training. Gymnasts will think through routines in their mind before competing, and Formula 1 drivers will mentally drive the corners of the race circuit before heading out on track, imagining which gears they’ll use in different places.

Silent practice

Another take on the mental practice I mentioned just now is to work on your music without actually blowing into your recorder. You could hold the instrument and rest the mouthpiece on your chin. I’ve also been known to finger through passages using a pencil or an instrument cleaning rod - especially handy if you want to do some silent practice while travelling on the train! Taking away the sound makes you focus on the quality of your finger movements without being distracted by wrong or split notes. Are your fingers moving exactly together? Look at the way your they’re moving - are they quick and neat, or does one of them look a little sluggish?

Listening to improve your awareness

It’s easy to get obsessed with our own playing, but it’s important to also listen to other musicians - and I mean really listen.

Pick a piece you want to learn, or something by a composer whose music you enjoy. Seek out difference recordings of the same piece (perhaps using a music streaming service, CDs from your local library, videos of performances by professional musicians on YouTube) and try to identify which elements attract you to particular performances. Is it the way they phrase the music? Do you like one performer’s choice of articulation? Does one player pick a tempo which really sings to you, or is is their tone quality?

Be like a child in a sweet shop - pick and choose which elements you might wish to use in your own performances. If there are aspects you don’t like, ask yourself what you would do differently? When you come to play the music yourself, think outside the box and try different approaches. Go on, go really wild! Don’t be afraid to try radically different ways of playing - dramatic tempi, dynamics, ornamentation - and see what appeals to you. Take risks in the knowledge that no one need know about your failures, but you might discover something amazing!

There’s no shame in borrowing elements you enjoy in recordings for your own playing. You might like the way a performer adds a trill in a certain place, or their choice of dynamic for a particular phrase. Imitation is not stealing - you’re just trying on different musical clothes to see which styles suit you best!

Don’t be afraid to use your pencil!

If you’ve been reading my Score Lines blog for a while, you’ll know I’m a great believer in using a pencil to help you add useful reminders or creative decisions into your music. There’s nothing more frustrating than coming up with a really great idea as you practise, only to find it vanished from your brain as you slept and you can’t remember it the next morning! I wrote a blog post all about my enthusiasm for making greater use of a pencil in your music making - if you haven’t already read it, or need a refresher, you can find it here.

Practice should always be an active process

Finally, aways be sure to practise in an active rather than a passive way. Be alert, listen and pay attention to what you hear and feel physically, rather than just letting the music wash over you.

Further practice tips

Here are a few bonus practice tips which have helped me over the years….

Work with music that excites you. If you adore Baroque music, explore that and work with your enthusiasms. If you love jazz, don’t let others tell you you’d be better off learning the saxophone. You can play jazz on the recorder, so pursue your passion because it’ll motivate you to practise.

Fuel your motivation with your successes. Practising can be frustrating and satisfying in equal measure. Don’t always set yourself targets which are really well beyond your abilities. Sometimes pick a slightly easier piece and do some deep practice on that until you can truly play it well. Success in your practice can be addictive. Once you’ve proved to yourself that you can master a piece, that’ll motivate you to keep going and aim higher,

Think of the music you play in a more visual or descriptive way. if you’re struggling to find meaning in the music you’re learning, try to imagine a picture or story to go with it, or find some words to describe the mood you wish to conjure up. As a teenager I learnt a Capriccio by Heinrich Sutermeister on the clarinet and found it difficult to find the right character. Between myself and my teacher we came up with a storyline for the work about a lady having an affair with her gardener and each musical theme related to a character in the story. This did the trick and suddenly my performance came alive! Be imaginative - sometimes a visual or linguistic concept can help you find what you’re looking for.

Make friends with your metronome. I know many musicians have a love/hate relationship with their metronome, but it can be an immensely helpful tool. If you fall into the ‘hate’ category, do take a look at my blog about using a metronome and I hope you’ll pick up some tips to help you make friends with your ticking assistant.

Putting my own advice into practice

To end I thought I’d share a glimpse of my own musical experiences - first from my days as a student and again more recently.

When I first began studying the recorder with Philip Thorby, at the age of 17, he set me what seemed a very dull task - slow scales and long notes, plus some exercises by Hans Ulrich Staeps. I’d only had a year of specialist recorder lessons prior to this and I really needed this concentrated focus to set me up with a truly sound technique. Without the pressure to learn complex pieces of music I was freed up to focus on how I was playing rather than what I was playing. Through the endless repetition of scales and exercises I came to appreciate the satisfaction of playing something simple really well. What I didn’t realise at the time was that I was also laying down thick layers of myelin around my nerve pathways - something I’ve benefited from throughout my musical life.

Since I began my research for this blog post I reaped the benefit of my newfound knowledge when I needed to learn a new piece of Bach. Many of the scale and arpeggio patterns contained within it felt comfortable under my fingers - the nerve pathways I use to play C major, A minor, G major, D minor and other keys have evidently become so well insulated in myelin that I could rely on my fingers to find the patterns easily.

In contrast, passages containing more complicated, less predictable combinations of notes still needed some deep practice. This I did by playing them slowly, figuring out where an occasional alternative fingering might make things easier. I did exactly as I’ve described above, breaking the runs down into smaller groups of notes and made lots of repetitions. If I stumbled, I slowed it down further still until I could play it perfectly. I’d use different rhythms, slur notes that should be tongued so as to make it harder for myself. If I could play these passages well with extra hurdles strewn in front of me, performing them as written would feel like a walk in the park! Gradually I increased my speed, stepping back again if mistakes reappeared.

How long did this take? Remarkably little time. Every time I practised I’d play the music through, paying attention to areas which had settled, and noting the bars that were still rusty. These were the notes I then returned to and did yet more deep practice. Over the course of a fortnight, practising a little every day, I nailed those troublesome passages. I didn’t need to play for hours each day because my focus was laser like. Twenty or thirty minutes of really focused, deep practice is far more powerful than a couple of hours of playing through music, warts and all. Come concert day, the work paid off and all the passages I’d spectacularly fluffed at our rehearsal two weeks earlier had fallen into place - job done!

Could you do this too? Absolutely! Your aspiration may not be to perform a complex piece of Bach, with hundreds of notes per square inch, to a packed concert audience, but you’ll have other pieces you’d love to play really well. Perhaps you want to play your favourite folk song, or get to know a Handel recorder sonata really well, but the principles are the same.

Like many of my readers, I’m now the wrong side of 50, faced with the knowledge that my body will gradually lose its ability to myelinate my nerve pathways as swiftly as it once did. But the nerves I’ve already insulated remain and I can still reinforce those and continued to add newly insulated neural pathways. It may take a little longer, but I know that if I practise in the right way I can still achieve great things.

My advice to you is to slow down, repeat tricky bits often and well, and you too can avoid many of the pitfalls of sloppy practice. Use the knowledge you’ve learnt here as your superpower. Understanding the mechanics of how we learn gives you the ability to achieve more than you imagined you could ever do!

Further resources:

Through the course of my research, these are some of the books I’ve read and benefitted from. If, like me, you’re fascinated by the process of learning I can’t recommend these highly enough. I’ve included links to the books on Hive (my favourite online bookstore), but they’re available from all good bookshops.

Daniel Coyle - The Talent Code

This was a real ‘aha’ moment for me - my introduction to the existence of myelin and a much deeper understanding of how effective practising can best be achieved.

Glenn Kurtz - Practicing : A Musician's Return to Music

Notes on a life spent practising by a would be professional guitarist. I found a particularly interesting parallel to the recorder here. During his studies Glenn has a realisation that as a guitarist he’s a second class musician at music conservatoire - there’s unlikely to be a glittering career playing concertos with symphony orchestras, like pianists and violinists, or even a career as an orchestral player. This struck me as very similar to life as a professional recorder player - ours is a niche instrument whose players have to find their own unique way in the musical world.

David Eagleman - Livewired : The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

A fascinating book about the human brain and its astonishing ability to change and rewire itself, whether through our actions or in response to brain injury or strokes.

And finally, some videos related to the subject of music and the brain

How playing an instrument benefits your brain:

Why you're not stuck with the brain you're born with

A short film about neuroplasticity and the way our brains continually re-wire themselves through our lives as we learn new skills and create new neural pathways.

Sounding Pipes, Edition 7

It’s all too easy to get pulled into curious rabbit holes on the internet, scrolling endlessly between videos on platforms like YouTube, and it can become a tremendous timewaster. But there are plenty of gems hidden among the nonsense too. Every time I discover something I find interesting I save it, to share with you in my periodic Sounding Pipes playlists. Currently I have a huge list remaining on my longlist, so I think it’s fair to say there’s plenty more to share and inspire you in future editions!

For this seventh edition I’ve pulled together a collection of performances in which the recorder is combined with other instruments - some more surprising than others. We often hear the recorder in partnership with string instruments, but less so with brass or modern woodwind. I think these recordings show just how flexible our favourite instrument really is in the right hands, and I hope you derive as much enjoyment from them as as I have seeking them out to share with you.

Telemann - Concerto in F major, TWV 42:F14

Allegro - Loure - Tempo di Minuett

Croation Baroque Ensemble: Stjepan Nodilo - recorder, Bruno Grošić - horn and the Croation Baroque Ensemble.

Most modern brass instruments would be overpowering when combined with a recorder (although I did once play a duet for sopranino recorder and trombone!) but instruments from the Baroque period have a gentler tone and can be great partners. Telemann was a multi-instrumentalist himself (playing flute, oboe, violin, viola da gamba, recorder, double bass and more besides) so he wasn’t afraid to bring together instruments you might otherwise not consider pairing together. Here we have a delightful Concerto for recorder, horn and continuo, which demonstrates the flexibility of earlier members of the brass family.

Gordon Jacob - Suite

Daniel Koschitzki & Clair-Obscur Saxophone Quartet

Back in Edition 2 of Sounding Pipes I shared a movement from Gordon Jacob’s Suite, performed by Annabel Knight with a string quartet - the instruments originally named by the composer. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this new version, where our soloist is accompanied by a saxophone quartet! At face value you’d think four saxes would overpower a single recorder, but a combination of sensitive accompanying and the use of modern recorders makes for a wonderful effect. The tone of a saxophone is just as flexibile as any string instrument, and you can sense there’s a real connection and unanimous sense of intent between Daniel Koschitzki and the members of the Clair-Obscur Saxophone Quartet. I’ve long been a fan of this piece, but I think the use of saxes brings renewed life to the bluesy harmonies of the Pavan and the bossa nova rhythms of the Burlesque (movements 3 and 4 respectively).

Dario Castello - Ottava Sonata

Anna Stegmann - recorder, Inga Maria Klaucke - dulcian & Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya - harpsichord

We come back to the early years of the Baroque period for this Sonata by Dario Castello - part duet, part duel, for two very contrasting instruments. Anna Stegmann chooses a descant recorder to contrast with the dulcian - an ancestor of the modern bassoon - and the effect is enchanting. It may well have been composed originally for violin, but music from this period was often played on a variety of instruments so I don’t think we should have any hesitation in borrowing repertoire this good if it fits our recorders!

Viktor Fortin - Walking the dog

Clémence Grégoire - recorder & Tomás Braun - guitar

This humorous movement by Viktor Fortin is one of four character pieces for bass recorder and guitar, and it proves to be an attractive combination. I can’t help but wonder what breed of dog the composer had in mind when writing this. Thinking of the dogs I’ve met over the years who share these relaxed characteristics, my mind wanders back to the Basset Hound belonging to my clarinet teacher when I was teenager, who used to sing along in my lessons!

Antonio Vivaldi - Concerto in G minor, “La Notte”

Apollo’s Cabinet

https://youtu.be/kV3SnDAPrkA?si=BPZYu9EFtBJiBEXH

Vivaldi composed a good number of concertos for the recorder, but this one for flute is often purloined as a pseudo-recorder concerto too, even though it was originally intended for the flute. Vivaldi’s title, La Notte, conjures up a whole host of images and Apollo’s Cabinet have chosen to focus on the concept of this being a nightmare. The addition of theorbo and some subtle percussion played on a tenor drum add to the colour palette. The dramatic staging just adds a finishing spooky touch!

Which of those did you enjoy the most? I’d love to hear what you thought of my choices in the comments section below. Do you have your own favourite pieces featuring the recorder alongside other instruments? If you do, please do share them so we can all continue our musical explorations!

Strictly Come Dancing - Baroque style

Following my exploration of Renaissance dances last year, it’s now time to step (or perhaps dance?) forward into the Baroque period to compare the changing choreographic and musical styles.

When we think of dance forms in Baroque music we’re mostly talking about steps which developed in France and spread throughout Europe. Some of the dance movements we encounter today would have been used for dancing to, while others are a more stylised reinterpretation, such as those used by Bach in his instrumental music.

The nature of Baroque dance

When we think of Baroque dances there are two main types:

Social dancing

The first are the type of dances enjoyed in a social context. Think, for instance of John Playford’s The Dancing Master - a volume of English dances, published in several editions between 1651 and 1738. The first edition was intended for teaching dancing and printed in a small format so a dancing master could secret a copy beneath his cloak to refer to surreptitiously! The Dancing Master only gave floor patterns for dances and not the steps, so it became common for dancing masters to travel the country, teaching the latest steps and how to perform them.

Formal dances

In France social dancing no doubt took place, but the court of King Louis XIV was central to the development of formal dancing - the precursor to classical ballet. These same dances were later introduced to England in the court of King Charles II and subsequent French dance masters worked all over Europe sharing their knowledge. Dances appeared in all types of formal entertainment, from court events to opera and ballet in theatres.

In 1661 the Académie Royale de Danse formally codified the French dance style, resulting in the Beauchamp-Feulillet shorthand notation of dance steps in 1700. This was followed by treatises on the topic, such as Pierre Rameau's Le Maître à danser (1725) which described the steps and gave rules for arm movements.

Now let’s look at the different Baroque dances, many of which you’ll have encountered in the music you play.

Allemande

Allemanda, almain, alman

This is a direct descendant from the Almain we see the music of Holborne and Dowland and the Baroque Allemande became one of the most stylised dances. A line of couples would take each other’s hands and walk the length of the room, taking three steps and then balancing on one foot. This means the music doesn’t need to be played quickly if playing for dancers. The tempo gradually increased as the century went by and the more stylised versions of this dance found in the suites of Bach and Handel are played relatively quickly, almost entirely divorced from the music’s dance origins.

Courante

Corrente, coranto, corant

The courante is often paired with the Allemande in Baroque dance suites. It was popular in both France and Italy and the two countries seem to have adopted different styles for the dance.

In Italy (where it was the Corrente) it was a fairly rapid running dance, with small back and forth steps in triple time. Meanwhile, in France (a Courante) the style was more majestic. In 1725 Pierre Rameau describes it as

“A very slow dance that inspires an air of nobility more than the other dances”.

The common factor between both forms of this dance style is the time signature, which is always in three, usually with a short upbeat of a quaver or semiquaver.

Gavotte

Gavot, gavote, gavotta

Perhaps one of the most familiar Baroque dances, the Gavotte originated from a lively peasant kissing dance. Danced with lifted steps, it became popular in England and France. Later, in 18th century France it adopted a statelier style, in two or four time with a half bar anacrusis and more ornate steps. In common with many baroque dances, most Baroque gavottes are composed in binary form, comprising two sections of music each of which are repeated.

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The opening of the Gavotte en Rondeau from Bach’s Violin Partita in E

Bourrée

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The dance steps of a Bourrée

Like the Gavotte, the Bourrée is also a dance in duple (two) time, but with a single upbeat and a brisker tempo. It was popular for around a century, starting off as a folk dance in the mid 17th century. It was adopted by the Academie of Dance at the French court, where its small, quick steps were formalised.

The Bach Bourrée above has been influential on many popular musicians, including Paul McCartney who’s said in interviews on a number of occasions that it inspired his song Jenny Wren.

Sarabande

This dance often follows the Courante in a Baroque dance suite but has very different roots. It’s often claimed as a Spanish dance, but there are also links to the New World and the Middle East, depending on which source you consult. There’s a definite connection to the Spanish speaking parts of the New World as the oldest reference to a Zarabanda appears in a manuscript in Panama from 1539. Of course it’s entirely possible the dance had previously been taken there by Spanish explorers, so exact truth may never be known!

The Sarabande’s original dance steps were deemed so salacious and erotic it was banned in Spain by the late Renaissance. Inevitably taking the dance out of reach this just made it even more popular - such is the power of banning something!

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By the Baroque it had become a more serious dance and is often assumed to require a slow tempo. But this isn’t always the case - the tempo depends on location. It was played more quickly in Spain, Italy and England, and slower in France and Germany. Two things are consistent regardless of the nationality - the music is in triple time and has a characteristic rhythm. This features a lifted first beat, followed by a minim or dotted crotchet, creating a stress on the second beat of the bar. Phrases frequently end with a weak (sometimes called feminine) ending.

Sometimes the Sarabande is combined with a ground bass, such as La Follia (also from Spain). This chord progression in triple time fits the dance’s rhythmic patterns perfectly and often forms the basis of sets of variations, as in the example by Corelli above.

Gigue

Giga, jig, jigg, jigge

The Gigue is usually the last dance of a baroque suite and has a quick tempo. It was popular in England from the 15th century, eventually gaining popularity in both France and Italy. In its earliest form it was consider a vulgar dance and Shakespeare refers to this characteristic in Much Ado about Nothing:

“Wooing is hot and hasty Iike a Scottish jigge.”

Over time it evolved into a more refined dance and in the 17th century Purcell included several Jiggs in his theatre music. The most obvious characteristic of a Gigue is its compound time signature (usually 6/8 or 9/8), with its lively ‘rumpty-tumpty’ rhythms. More recently, the theme from the radio show The Archers could definitely be considered a Gigue! The complexity of the music varies according to location, with simple line and harmonies in Italian examples and more complexity in France.

Loure

The Loure is another dance whose roots are in France - probably with its origins in folk music. Usually in compound time (6/4 or 6/8 time), it’s a slow, poised dance - sometimes described as a slow gigue. Johann Mattheson described it in 1738 as

“proud and self important in character”.

The dance often begins with an anacrusis (upbeat) of one and a half beats, as you can see in this example by Telemann. Sadly its popularity was short lived and was little used by later composers.

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The Loure from Telemann’s Water Music

Minuet

Menuet, menuetto

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Originating in France, the Minuet was an elegant dance in triple time, performed by pairs of dancers who begin in couples before coming together to dance across the floor in an S or Z shape pattern - thought to be a reference to Louis XIV’s fame as the Sun King. The musical lines fall into straightforward four bar phrases, accompanied by a walking bassline mostly in crotchet beats.

Unlike many of the dances we’ve looked at so far, the Minuet retained its popularity well beyond the baroque period. Gradually it lost its connection with dance, becoming a common musical form in concert music, such as symphonies and string quartets.

One characteristic which persisted from the Baroque was the inclusion of a Trio in many Minuets. This originated as a middle section for three instruments, often two oboes and bassoon - a combination popularised by Lully. This creates a contrast and is followed by a repeat of the Minuet straight afterwards, but played without repeats.

Passepied

A lively dance from Brittany which became popular in the mid 17th century. It tends to be in a fast triple time (usually 3/4 or 3/8) with an upbeat and, as the name suggests, the steps consisted of the feet passing each other, crossing and re-crossing. It often appears in French Baroque opera and ballet in pastoral scenes, but the Passepied continued to appear in later instrumental music, such as the last movement of Bach’s Orchestral Suite No.1.

Rigaudon

Rigadoon

This is another lively dance in two time, similar to the Bourrée. Originally a folk dance from southern France, its hopping steps gained more formal popularity in the court of Louis XIV and remained in favour throughout the 18th century in France.

Hornpipe

Naval cadets dancing a hornpipe on deck in 1928

While the majority of the dances popular during the Baroque period developed in France, the Hornpipe was most popular in England. Today the term probably conjures up images of sailors dancing on deck, and it probably originated on English ships during the 16th century. Sailors’ hornpipes could be danced in duple or triple time, depending on the location. The Hornpipe performed at the Last Night of the Proms each year is in two, while the folk form danced in Northumberland and Scotland is often in three.

The hornpipes composed during the Baroque period tend to follow this latter format, with a triple time signature. There are lots of examples in Playford’s The Dancing Master, while both Purcell and Handel composed Hornpipes too, sometimes incorporating Playford’s popular dance tunes.

Hopefully this fandango through a myriad of Baroque dances has left your toes tapping. Which ones are your favourites? I’m partial to a sonorous Sarabande myself, but when the mood takes me I could be tempted to gad around to a lively gigue! Below you’ll find a list of some of my own consort videos which include these dances, so you can play some of them yourself - either with me or with friends. Enjoy!

Bach Rondeau from Orchestral Suite No. 2 Gavotte

Bach Orchestral Suite No.3 Gavotte, Bourrée and Gigue

Handel Water Music Sarabande, Bourrée and Minuet

Handel Fireworks Music La Rejouissance and Menuet

Mozart Menuetto from Symphony No.39 K.543

Pezel Four Dances Sarabande, Allemande and Courente

Telemann Suite in G major Gavotte