Somewhere Duet

[rrayner]

Hi Jane,

Well, I am truly staggered -- and embarrassed. My formal training was on Tenor Saxophone (Flute and Clarinet) with an orientation toward the Piano keyboard. I am a self-taught Recorder player. My wife Cynthia had bought a Soprano Recorder over 30 years ago and never learned to play it. As she is now married to a musician, she asked me to teach her to read music and play her Soprano. So, we learned the baroque fingerings for it, and after a while, she bought me an Alto Recorder. I never even looked at the fingering chart that came with the Alto. After reading your post, I frantically dug out the fingering chart that came with my Alto, and I found, exactly as you are describing, the lowest written note for baroque fingering on an Alto is the F in the bottom space of the staff. In my ignorance, I treated the Alto just like any of the other modern concert instruments, i.e., Saxophones, Clarinets, Trumpets, English and French Horns, and transposed it, and as you say, used the Soprano fingerings for it.

So, for the embarrassment part -- I've posted about 100 songs and exercises in this forum that technically and classically have Alto Recorder parts that are not written correctly. My assumption is that probably most, if not all, of this forum's reader are not actually playing an Alto Recorder and are simply transposing the Alto part for whatever instrument(s) they are playing.

Thank you very much for enlightening me in this regard. I have to say I personally prefer using the Soprano fingerings on the Alto, and not having to deal with all of those ledger lines above the staff. I will continue to post songs and exercises in the same manner, as I want to be consistent with all that I have posted before. It seems the way you treat the Alto Recorder over there should have been the way I treated it over here.

Well, this should explain all the confusion you and your daughter had to deal with. My apologies to you and to all followers of this forum who actually play Alto Recorders.

Ralph Rayner

[rrayner]

Hi Jane,

Would you please take a look/listen to the attached file? I have tried to make it for two Altos, so that you could play Alto I and have Alto II "sound" right. I'm trying to figure out how to modify my transposition directions so they make sense to an Alto Recorder player.

The Alto II part in this version now goes too low to be properly played as written, but you will hear the correct harmony from Notation when you play the Alto I part on your Alto.

Please do let me know. I'm keenly interested in getting this right. Thank you.

Ralph Rayner

Note: All other viewers should use the file below attached to the original posting.

[JaneLewis]

Hi Ralph

I have downloaded your revised file .... it sounds beautiful. I love the lower tones and aspire to being able to play more! The double alto recorder duet appeals greatly - I hope that my daughter and I will eventually be able to play these duets together as Alto I and Alto II. Or maybe sing them. It is nice to have the tune line written for the Alto.

I will need to enlist my daughters help again because I have only learnt 5 notes on my recorder so far .... I'm a real beginner! Also, although I learnt the violin to grade 5 at school (many decades ago), I have had no formal music training.

Watching the file play through has now taught me a bit about reading music .... D.C. al Coda and the symbol were a bit of a mystery to me and I have had trouble with this in the choir I sing with. Thanks for the further learning you are enabling. I am very new to using Notation and on a steep learning curve - but it's fun and exciting.

I'm off to bed now and possibly looking after a sick grandson tomorrow while my daughter teaches music in school.

Wishing you well.

Jane

[rrayner]

Hi Jane,

To address some of your questions and straighten out a number of things in my own mind, please see the Transposing the Duets thread. I have made a complete revision and hopefully it will be more helpful to you.

Thank you for helping me learn some new stuff about Recorders.

Ralph Rayner

[Sherry C]

Hi folks,

Jane and Ralph, thanks so much for your exchange here. I myself didn't realize that the different recorders (being in different keys) simply used different fingerings rather than transposing for a single fingering style.

I play whistles, and I learned fingering in key of D (or G), and so whenever I've used Ralph's (or anyone else's) scores, I always transpose the part I want to play for whistle to fit my learned fingering. Ergo, I never had a second thought about how Ralph was doing it (I also have no idea if that's "the way it's done" or if I just presumed - most whistle music is in D or G, and a little C.)

Anyway, I've learned something new, and that's always good

Thanks!
Sherry

[aulos43]

I tried to add something to this thread yesterday regarding scoring for recorders, based on the version for Jane, but after examining the file closely, discovered my post was confused and not helpful, so I deleted it.

I've been playing -- and occasionally writing for -- recorders for over 40 years now, and it still is an effort to keep straight the relationship of the concert pitch for the various instruments with the various conventions for notating them. Rather than droning on, I'll just post a version for soprano and alto recorder that is consistent with a typical approach to scoring for them.

Ralph, this was definitely a learning experience for me -- much enjoyed,

Walt

[rrayner]

Walt - I am truly interested in what you have to say and your experiences. I must admit, my scoring for recorders is the equivalent of scoring for saxophones or clarinets, etc. My wife Cynthia and I have been playing recorders for only a little over 4 years, and are having a ball with it. My primary instrument was tenor saxophone, but I am self-taught on recorder and I am my wife's teacher. So, we didn't approach recorder from the traditional training side.

I didn't think your original post was confusing. I had given Jane the caveat that the Alto II part went below the range of the Alto. It was really just for her personal playing as a soloist playing the lead part accompanied by a second voice that I really should have changed to tenor recorder -- just a hurry-up job on my part.

I have a beautiful, mellow, Pearwood Hohner Alto, and I love the lower register. Admittedly, in a concert ensemble setting, the lower register wouldn't penetrate very well, but for just the two of us, it sounds quite nice. Writing for the alto lower register also helps to keep the soprano lower and more mellow.

For a short while at Berklee, we had a recorder quartet, led by my piano instructor. He had a bass recorder as I recall, although it was so long ago, I may be remembering wrong. Perhaps it was a tenor. So the four of us played some Handel and Bach and had fun with it. I imagine I was probably playing a soprano, so maybe it was 2 sopranos, an alto and a tenor. We only played a couple of times due to the other pressures of school work, but that was my only exposure to recorders before our current learning period.

I am glad that you are enjoying the duets. It is good to hear that there are actually some recorder players enjoying the forum. Until I heard from Jane, I assumed that the Forum followers were wind and brass players who would be transposing the parts as they required. The main thrust was to provide a harmony part for a soloist playing along with Notation. I was writing the duets for my wife and I, so why not share them with the Notation community.

Ralph

[JaneLewis]

Thanks Walt

Your file plays as I would expect pitch-wise and is lovely.

However, I would have expected the soprano line (your alto I) to have been written on the score an octave lower with the treble clef showing an octave up (the little 8 at the top of the clef). This avoids all the upper ledger lines and would mean that the first note for the soprano recorder would be written as a middle C although it would sound an octave up.

I took your file and clicked on the Alto I treble clef at the beginning and went through the options that came up. I picked the one with the little 8 at the top and it corrected the score without altering the pitches … so problem solved!

The Alto II line is correctly shown and plays correctly for the treble/alto recorder.

I re-attach your score J

Many thanks, Jane