Did you know that the recorder family of instruments have been developed and standardised into 5 different types (ranges) of recorders?
In fact, you can think of the recorder family in the same way as the strings family. The violin, viola, cello and double bass is basically 4 ranges of violins. Yes, they are indeed called “violin family” in some cases.
So stop thinking of the recorder as simply the soprano model that most of us started playing as children. Because it was not even the “main” recorder used in classical music, the alto was.
Furthermore, the best part of the recorder family system and design, is that they all have the same fingering system, so if you learn to play 1 of these recorders, you will be able to use that knowledge when you pick up any of the other types (as long as you can manage the finger stretch etc.).
5 Recorder Types (Ranges) – Quick Chart
- Sopranino (highest): F5 and up
- Soprano (school recorder): C5 and up
- Alto (middle range): F4 and up
- Tenor (standard flute range): C4 and up
- Bass (lowest normal recorder): F3 and up
The lowest note on each recorder type is set, but the highest note depends on the players ability. In most cases you should count the range of a recorder to be 2 full octaves, but a professional player will be able to push a few more notes higher.
All recorders are fully chromatic, and you can even adjust the fingerings depending on your air pressure, to fix sharp or flat notes.
The Recorder was Famous in the Past
In historical time of the renaissance as well as the baroque periods, the recorder became hugely popular and famous among the composers at the time.
Vivaldi, Bach, Händel and many more composed music featuring the recorder family extensively for its sweet, mellow tone, great range (counting the entire family), and lovely sound.
The Recorder is still used in Popular Music
The recorder have sadly “fallen out of favor” in our modern music world, mainly due to the bad reputation from kindergarten teachers and kids’ music schools, bad quality instruments, and frankly bad players (kids are mostly bad at music).
However, it is a lovely instrument and you should not discard it. I myself play a LOT of music instruments, and I still love the recorder for pretty much the same reasons Bach and Vivaldi loved using them.
The open holes makes it very expressive, since you can do slides, glides, legato, finger vibrato, bends, cuts, taps and other decorations not really possible, or at least less so, on the Boehm keyed flute.
The Sound of Different Recorder Types
Here’s a video demonstrating the variation in tone, range and overall sound you can get from playing the various types of recorders: