The joys of playing the recorder

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2018 (2737 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been said about the oboe: “It’s an ill wind that nobody blows good.”

Some might say this also about the “blockfloete” (German for recorder) after hearing a class of beginners excitedly “playing” the instrument.

The recorder was brought to Winnipeg schools in the ’60s to be used in music education by Muriel Milgrom, a tiny, forceful, and pleasant music educator. She came from England and demonstrated to Winnipeg school teachers how to teach this small instrument.

She also invited a small group of friends to come to a local church where she would guide us into the joys of recorder playing. This led to many buying all four different sizes of recorders — soprano recorders, the longer alto and tenor recorders, and the still longer bass recorder.
We had great fun.. Many had never experienced the joys of playing instrumental music in a group (especially a group that could read music), as would happen in school music classes, where music-reading skills were reinforced by ensemble playing.

My husband and I hosted adult groups, who would come over on a Saturday night to explore lots of music together. There was only one thing wrong with those evenings — our guests were hardly ever finished by midnight.

Some of my students became quite ambitious, and signed up for Western Board and Toronto Conservatory exams. My students and I started out using Küng recorders, which are made in Switzerland. Later, we acquired Moeck recorders, which are made in a German factory.

When I toured the factory in 1984, we were shown how the four parts of the wooden recorders are made. In an airy building, with flowers in the window boxes, we were introduced to the intricacies of their construction.

One fellow checked all the wood stacked up and kept the best for the instrument – the rest was thrown away, either to age some more or to be used for firewood in his home.

Another group used a machine to bore the seven holes in exactly the right places in the wood, which had already been hollowed out. Next the parts were dipped in wax, then varnished and put together —the mouthpiece, the body part, and the end piece (or the foot).

The fourth piece, the fipple, was gently inserted into the mouthpiece section that had been prepared for it. Then they were all checked for tuning and sound beauty, and deposited into a drawer that had three sections, grouped accordingly. Prices ranged from $200 to $800 and they will have gone up, I’m sure.

But oh, they were fun to play, and they made beautiful music.

When Michala Petri played with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and did several recorder concertos in the early 1990s, audiences went wild.

This past April 24, 18-year-old Lucie Horsch, a remarkably talented musician from the Netherlands, played with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. I know music lovers were again thrilled with the sweet sound of the recorder, “blockfloete” or “fipple flute” just as they had been so long ago.

To join a recorder group to learn for your own pleasure, or to play in groups, just call Creative Retirement (downtown) or Good Neighbours Active Living Centre in Elmwood.

Good Neighbours had a group that began learning and playing in the 1980s and ’90s, which still meets semi-weekly and plays  for fun or to socialize and give pleasure at concerts.

Bertha Klassen is a community correspondent for East Kildonan.