It is, however, also an unfortunate reality that many other recorders, including some very expensive instruments produced by custom makers, are poorly designed and will never be able to play well in tune. Such instruments can usually be improved to the point where they will play very well in tune, provided that the instrument is custom-serviced by a craftsman who is also an accomplished performer. In some cases recorders are actually well-designed but, owing to production tolerances, variations due to the natural material, or lack of skill or awareness on the part of the maker, do not play as well in tune as they could or should.
#E NOTE RECORDER PROFESSIONAL#
They play the instruments which they make at a mediocre level at best (and in some cases very little or not at all) and are therefore not able to control the performance of their instruments at a professional level nor make fine distinctions as to whether an individual note or, for that matter, the entire instrument is exactly or only approximately in tune. The reasons for this phenomenon become at once obvious when one realizes that most woodwind instrument makers are craftsmen, not performing artists.
One of the most disheartening aspects of recorders and other historical woodwind instruments, at least from our multiple points of view as designers, dealers, and performers, is that most instruments are not very well in tune as delivered by their makers. There are, however, many simple facts about acoustics which can have a direct bearing on instrument selection and playing technique and yet are largely unknown or misunderstood among the great majority of amateur and professional musicians. While acoustical studies can be admittedly dull and boring to many people and downright terrifying to confirmed mathophobes, the fact remains that most musicians know very little about the physical principles which cause their instruments to function (or malfunction) as they do. Our intention here is to present a few miscellaneous observations and facts of a non-technical sort obiter dicta Have no fear we promise not to get involved with logarithms, antinodes, and other nasty things that go bump in the night. There are many books in print on the subject, ranging from casual sources of information for the armchair musician to ponderous scientific tomes bristling with calculus and impenetrable jargon. Please rest assured that we have no intention to provide a complete grounding in musical instrument acoustics. It is presented here for those visitors to our web site who might be curious as to exactly how and why we choose to custom-voice and custom-tune every recorder and other historical woodwind instrument sold by our workshop, as well as those who wish to improve the tuning and intonation in their own playing.įrom time to time we have found it necessary to delve into the seemingly forbidding realm of musical instrument acoustics for the benefit of our readers this would seem to be another one of those times. Green appeared in the February, 1990, issue of our customer newsmagazine Chrestologia. The following editorial by ASW director David H.
Recorder Tuning and Intonation From the Director's Desk
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