The Technique Zone - Exploring the extremes

The recorder isn’t what you’d call an extreme instrument. Playing one doesn’t require huge reserves of stamina like a concert pianist or the astonishing coordination between hands and feet demanded from an organist. But the recorder has its own challenges - it’s an instrument which requires control and delicacy. Orchestral wind instruments have been developed and adapted over the centuries, adding keys and making tweaks to improve them. In contrast, the recorders we play most of the time are based heavily upon instruments crafted 250 years ago.

The nature of the recorder brings limitations – a smaller range than many other wind instruments, and weaknesses in the extremes of this range. Our low notes can only be played gently, while the upper reaches of the recorder are best played with a fuller tone. Good composers will write music which works with these limitations, making the most of them, but it’s still up to us to ensure we can play with confidence throughout the range.

This edition of the Score Lines blog is designed to help you learn to love your recorder’s low and high notes and I have tips and advice to get you playing these ranges with confidence and consistency.

Are there notes which fill you with dread?

Maybe you fret about playing low notes cleanly? Or perhaps your jaw clenches with nervousness as a top F appears on your musical horizon? We’ve all experienced moments when we’ve mentally crossed our fingers (doing so physically would be problematic), taken a deep breath and said a silent prayer to the recorder playing gods that a given note will speak cleanly. Go on, admit it, you’re quietly nodding in agreement, aren’t you?!

My aim today is to equip you with the tools to play the extremes of your recorder’s range without mental or physical tension, so you can play any note with confidence and consistency. I can’t promise instant results, but if you persevere you’ll get there…

A bad workman blames his tools…

There is a degree of truth in this old saying, but it’s worth giving your recorder a quick MOT, nevertheless. With a little care, all recorders will play low notes with ease, but high ones can be another matter. The majority of instruments are capable of playing the highest notes cleanly, but if you persistently have problems they may be exacerbated by your recorder.

The usual culprit is the thumbhole – take a quick look at yours now. Is it perfectly round, with clean edges? If so, you’re good to go. On the other hand, if it’s distinctly mis-shapen, with evidence of wear and tear on one side it may be time to give it some TLC. Worn thumbholes usually come about as a result of overenthusiastic thumb technique – digging your nail into the hole in an attempt to produce clean high notes. Of course, if you’re not the instrument’s first owner that may not be down to you!

Fortunately there’s a solution to this problem - thumb bushing. A good recorder technician will be able to add a small ring of hard wearing material (these days it’s plastic, although historically ivory was often used) to the edge of the thumbhole to restore the clean, round opening. I would recommend this if your recorder’s thumbhole is looking ragged – you may find it solves some of the challenges. Of course, I would also recommend you consider modifying your technique so the same thing doesn’t happen again!

While you’ve got your recorder handy, also take a look at the labium, the opening on the front of the headjoint, just beneath the windway. Is the edge of the labium clean and straight? A labium edge with dips or nicks will affect your sound, often adding a husky quality. Many years ago a pupil of mine had trouble with top notes so we sought advice about her recorder. On close inspection the repairer noted the labium had a distinct dip (created by years of jabbing a finger in there while blowing out excess condensation) and this had an adverse result. Sadly this particular recorder was beyond repair but it did at least explain the dodgy top notes.

Now you’ve (hopefully) given your recorder a clean bill of health let’s dive in and do some extreme recorder playing!

How hot is your breath?

Before we tackle our recorders’ extremes, let’s have a think about the breath you use to play these notes. This is relevant to both high and low notes so it’s a good starting point.

Hold your hand in front of your mouth and breath out gently, noticing the sensation you feel on the skin of your hand. Is the air warm or cool? If you’re exhaling gently the air will be warm. This is because it takes time to travel through your windway, picking up warmth from the blood vessels it passes over. This is the sort of breath you need to use for low notes.

Now blow out over your hand again, this time moving the air quickly. You may find it helpful to purse your lips to focus the stream of air and help it increase in speed. What do you notice now? The air is cooler, isn’t it? Because it’s moving more quickly it has less opportunity to pick up heat from your body and it’s still cool when it leaves your mouth. This is the type of air you should use for high notes.

Thinking about warm and cold air can be useful when you begin exploring the extremes of your recorder, because using the wrong type of airstream will make it harder to play these notes. If you want to relate these temperatures to the way you use your diaphragm, warm air requires just a gentle level of support, while cool air demands a firmer squeeze of the stomach muscles to acquire the extra speed. If you need a refresher on diaphragm breathing for recorder playing take a look here.

Logically, low notes shouldn’t be difficult. All you have to do is cover the holes and blow, right? Yes, that’s true, but there’s more to it than that! It’s important to consider the ingredients needed to create a lovely low note on the recorder. There are three required to bake this particular cake…

1. Fingers – this is the obvious one – if you don’t cover the holes fully the note won’t play.

2. Breath – you need gentle (warm) air for low notes

3. Articulation – tongue strokes need to be gentle

Diagnosing fragile low notes

If your lowest notes often split or refuse to speak cleanly you need to do some detective work to understand why. Let’s look at the three ingredients I mentioned just now…

Go gently…

Not completely sealing the fingerholes is a common problem, especially if you’re playing a larger size of recorder. Take a moment to make sure your bottom joint (assuming it’s adjustable – some descants and sopraninos have fixed footjoints) is in exactly the right position for your hands. I often have to make tiny adjustments to the position of the footjoint with my tenor and bass recorders. Without doing so the bottom notes become unreliable because I fail to seal the holes entirely. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t make a small pencil mark on the back of the middle and bottom joints to help you line them up accurately and get the position right every time.

Now play the lowest note on your recorder and see what happens? Perhaps that small adjustment made a difference. If not, try again but blow more gently – remember, you need to use warm air. If that made a difference, maybe you’ve been blowing too strongly. The lowest notes on most recorders are weaker than the rest, so they need to be treated gently.

Still no luck? Let’s try taking the third ingredient away and see if that resolves the problem…

Think about how you would clean a pair of glasses – trust me, this is relevant! I wouldn’t mind betting you bring them to your lips and breathe gently over them, creating a mist on the lenses which you them wipe away with a cloth. Am I right? I call this ‘hurring’. Now try your lowest note again but begin it by ‘hurring’ into the windway. By doing this you’re taking away the articulation – the breath comes straight from your lungs without interruption from the tongue. What’s more, the flow of air is warm and gentle.

If this approach successfully helps you produce clean low notes, now try reintroducing the tongue, articulating using a gentle ‘doo’ articulation. If you tongue too forcefully the fragile low notes will crack – don’t try too hard! Try moving the tip of your tongue a fraction farther back in your mouth, increasing the distance between it and your teeth and softening the articulation a little. I wrote about gentle articulation in relation to playing smoothly in this blog – you may find it a helpful refresher.

Relaxation is crucial

Hopefully these techniques will now have you playing low notes more easily. There’s one other element which is key for all recorder playing and that’s relaxation. If you’re tense your body works against itself, using energy which could be better employed for other things. This is particularly important when it comes to your fingers. Aim to keep them relaxed at all times, using just enough pressure to seal the holes and no more. Remember, if you’re pressing too hard you won’t be able to feel the vibration of the air column beneath your fingers – use this to guide you. I covered this in a recent blog about finger technique so do take a look here.

Scaling the heights

Now let’s consider the recorder’s highest notes. The pitch may be different but the principles are remarkably similar. Once again there are three ingredients to ‘bake’ successful high notes…

1. Thumb position – for high notes just one of your digits is critical – the thumb

2. Breath – for successful high notes you need a fast (cool) air flow

3. Articulation – this should be moderate – there’s no need for strong tonguing

Finding your thumb’s Goldilocks zone

The exact technique used to open the thumbhole to create upper register notes is a much debated topic among recorder teachers. Some teach their students to ‘pinch’, inserting the thumbnail into the hole to open it cleanly. Others prefer ‘rolling’, where you use the flesh of the thumb and a smaller movement. I won’t go into this in detail here (there’s plenty of material there for a blog post of its own), but if the technique you use works well then why change it?

The critical element to consider for high notes is how much you open the thumbhole. You’re searching for the Goldilocks zone - not too open, not too closed but just right! Look at most recorder fingering charts and you’ll see a half-filled circle to depict an upper register note. This may work for the first few notes, but once you reach two fingers with a pinched thumb you’re destined for failure with a half open thumbhole. Instead, open the hole just a fraction and your chances of success are much greater. Some recorders are more sensitive than others, so it’s often a case of getting to know your instrument(s) well and learning their foibles.

Of course, it’s all very well knowing your thumb isn’t in the right position but how do you know whether the hole is too open or too closed? Fortunately there’s an easy way to find out! It’s tricky to explain in text, so take a look at this short video clip where I explain the technique, complete with sound effects…

Don’t forget the breath and tongue

For many people getting the right thumb position while pinching can solve their problems, but it’s worth considering the other ingredients too.

In contrast with the lowest notes, high ones need fast, cool air to make them play. I find it’s best to consider the speed of your breath, rather than simply thinking, “I must blow hard!” Try to avoid bracing yourself for high notes. So often I hear players take a deep breath immediately before the high note which concerns them, before launching themselves at it with all their might. If the note comes out at all it’s likely to be overblown and tense.

Instead, your strategy is best compared to riding a bicycle up a steep hill. If you stop halfway up (the musical equivalent of breathing and bracing before a high note) it’s hard to get your momentum going again and the hill feels even steeper. You’re better off pedalling like fury at the bottom and the momentum you build up carries you up and over the summit. The musical equivalent is to breathe earlier and use your stomach muscles and diaphragm to get the air flowing swiftly before you really need it. This flow of breath carries you through and beyond the high note (providing you get your thumb position right) which will sing much more easily.

As for articulation, don’t tongue explosively. Use a moderate ‘doo’ articulation and trust that the breath and correct thumb position will do most of the heavy lifting. Providing your air stream is quick enough even the highest notes don’t require strong tonguing.

The elusive fourth ingredient…

Assuming you’ve found the right combination of thumb position, breath and tonguing to play your high notes there’s one more ingredient which will help you – a combination of confidence and self belief! If you approach high notes with a glass half empty attitude, assuming it’ll all go horribly wrong, there’s a good chance it’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Playing tentatively often results in underpowered, broken top notes.

Instead, go into those higher registers with a positive attitude and total conviction - you’re much more likely to find the right speed of breath and articulation. Your tone will be fuller, the high notes have a greater chance of sounding well and you’ll gain confidence from your success. If it does go wrong, at least you’ll have given it your best shot and, as I often tell my students, if you’re going to make a mistake, do it with style and panache!

If a high note does fail, try to analyse what you did wrong – was your thumb position wrong, or perhaps you didn’t use fast enough breath? Use this as a learning experience and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You are human (a species not known for its perfection) and no one will ever come to physical harm from a split note!

Be persistent

My final piece of advice is to be persistent. Don’t get into a negative frame of mind and give up - that way you’ll never conquer your fears. Keep practising and those elusive notes at the extremes of our instruments will come to you. Here are a few quick tips which I offer to all my students, which are equally applicable whether you’re soaring through the upper register or plumbing the depths…

Relax! Tension is the enemy of all recorder players. Wiggle your shoulders to loosen the knots, take a deep breath and exhale with a big, soulful sigh. Allow your cheek and throat muscles to go soft and flabby so your breath can reach your recorder unimpeded. The only tension you need is in your diaphragm and stomach muscles!

Slow down and don’t try so hard. Human nature dictates that when we fail we tend to try harder and faster. This is almost always counterproductive, so instead stop, take a deep (relaxed) breath and begin again slowly.

Keep a recorder handy at all times. The best way to improve a skill is to practise it little and often. If that top F eludes you on the treble recorder, keep an instrument out at all times (a plastic one can be handy for this), preferably left in a room you use a lot. Every time you walk by, pick the recorder and play the note(s) which need practice for twenty or thirty seconds. Hopefully you’ll end up doing this multiple times every day and the frequent repetition will be so helpful. Sitting down for a long practice session can seem daunting, but these frequent small bursts are easy to fit in on your way to the kitchen or before you walk the dog. Trust me - little and often really does help!

These tips should give you the tools you need to improve your extreme notes on the recorder. Aside from the technical details, the most important things are confidence, a positive attitude and regular practice. Spend a few minutes every day making friends with your least favourite notes and they’ll become a strength rather than a weakness. Why not make a resolution to practise them for a few minutes every single day for a month and leave a comment below to share your progress? I’d love to hear how you’re getting on!

The technique zone - Finger training

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Hotteterre’s iconic image of a recorder player’s hands from his treatise, Principes de la flute traversiere, de la Flute a Bec, et du Haut-bois, Op.1

When you consider the myriad of things we concentrate on while playing the recorder it’s a miracle we make music at all, isn’t it? You’ve got breathing, tone production, articulation and fingering to consider and that’s without even making any decisions about the finer musical details.

Multitasking is a skill all humans struggle with - our brains just aren’t designed for focusing on multiple tasks at once. The way we overcome this in music is to practise certain skills to the point where they become instinctive and habitual. Once this happens, that habitual element of playing can continue while our brain focuses more heavily on other things. I see the challenges of multitasking all the time in the musicians I work with. A pupil can be playing with a gorgeous, rounded tone, but when faced with a sudden flurry of fast notes, or a passage in a tricky key, their tone suddenly suffers because they’re now busy thinking about their fingers.

This short video clearly explains the phenomenon of how we manage (or fail to manage!) multitasking.

To develop good technique to the point where it becomes habitual it’s important to separate out the various elements, focusing on just one skill for a period. In previous posts I’ve talked about breathing, tone production and legato playing, so today we’re going to focus on moving our fingers well.

Be a tortoise rather than a hare

My aim today is to get you thinking about the quality of your finger movements rather than the speed of them. You remember the old adage, “Don’t run before you can walk” - that applies to recorder playing too!

None of the techniques and exercises I’m going to share here need to be done at speed immediately - that can come later. Instead, take your time, focusing on efficiency rather than whizziness. In a further blog post we’ll discuss how to acquire speedy fingers - to do that as well today would almost certainly require too much multitasking!

If you practise the techniques below and turn them into good habits you’ll be in a much stronger place to develop speed in the future.

How do you hold your recorder?

I often see people doing battle with their recorders, holding them in curious ways - this inevitably has a detrimental effect on finger efficiency. Let’s go back to basics for a moment - I explain exactly where to begin in this short video:

Comfort with larger recorders

A welcome innovation over the last twenty to thirty years has been an increase in the number of knick recorders available. These are larger instruments (tenor downwards) which incorporate a bend in the headjoint, often some additional keywork. Such modifications are so helpful as they bring the body of the recorder closer to the player, reducing the stretch required for the fingers and arms. Straight tenor recorders often provide the greatest challenge for those with smaller hands. I know many players who now enjoy playing the tenor recorder because a knick and some extra keys have brought the fingerholes into comfortable reach for them.

Knick instruments have one drawback though - the bend in the headjoint changes the angle of the recorder’s centre joint. As I explained in my video, a straight recorder sits upon your right thumb in an almost horizontal position. This allows gravity to help pin the recorder against your thumb, adding stability. With a knick instrument, the centre joint takes an almost vertical position, so gravity then becomes a negative force, trying to pull your recorder to the ground! There are several possible solutions here, the simplest of which is to use a thumb rest. Tucking your thumb beneath a thumb rest gives the recorder a point of balance and the force of gravity holds it there. But with heavy recorders, or for those with arthritic thumbs, this can of be painful so there are other solutions you can try.

Attaching a sling or neck strap to the back of your recorder allows you to hang the weight of the instrument from your neck or shoulders, perhaps in combination with a thumbrest. If this isn’t comfortable, a third option is available for the bass recorder - to rest the bottom of the instrument somewhere. I often do this by crossing my ankles, resting the bottom of the recorder between my calves. If this isn’t comfortable you can also buy adjustable spikes which allow you to rest the instrument on the floor. I often use the latter solution with my bass and I love the way it takes all the strain away from my fingers.

Ultimately, if your body is comfortable while playing, this frees up your fingers to move efficiently, making your playing more fluent. It’s definitely worth spending some time finding the right solution for you.

The human hand - a flawed design

Evolution is an amazing thing, slowly making adjustments and improvements to the design of our bodies over many, many generations. However, from a musician’s perspective, there are still a few things which could be improved. One of these is the design of our hands.

It’s a common misconception that our fingers are controlled by muscles within our hands. In reality, the movement of our fingers is created by the muscles in our forearms. These muscles connect to tendons, which run through our wrists and hands into our fingers. As the forearm muscles flex they pull on the tendons, creating the finger movements needed to play the recorder.

It’s within these tendons you find a small flaw. A single tendon runs through each finger and into your wrist. However, the tendons from your third and fourth fingers fuse together in the centre of your hand before continuing as one single tendon into your wrist. The fact that these two fingers share a tendon means they work better as a team than they do individually. This is why your third and fourth fingers don’t work as independently as the others. This is particularly critical when we play forked fingerings, such as E flat on the treble recorder or B flat on the descant. These notes require the third and fourth fingers to work independently of each other – something they don’t do easily.

I’d love to think that if enough of us continue playing musical instruments of any type, eventually evolution will sort this design flaw out. Hopefully in a couple of million years time recorder players won’t face the same difficulties as we do with forked fingerings!

Keep reading and I have some exercises later which will help you make these weaker fingers work more efficiently.

Good vibrations

Do you have a recorder close by? If so, pick it up now and play a few notes. Focus on the sensations you feel through your fingers.

Do you feel gentle vibrations through the pads of your fingers? Or is your sole sensation that of the wood or plastic beneath your fingertips? This exercise will help you understand whether you’re covering the holes in the right way. Use the minimum amount of pressure and you can feel the vibration of the air column beneath your fingers. If you can’t feel this vibration you’re pressing your fingers down with too much force, and working harder than you need to. Being aware of this will help you to better understand whether you are working your fingers efficiently.

Remember too that you should always cover the holes with the pads of your finger, not the tips. This gives you maximum sensitivity and the best chance of sealing them effectively.

Active versus passive

An efficient finger technique is vital if you ever wish to play at speed. You should aim to use just enough effort to open and close the finger holes. Use too light a touch can result in air leaks, while pressing too hard with your fingers expends more energy than necessary.

A useful way to achieve the perfect balance of finger pressure is to think in terms of active and passive movements. Bringing your fingers down to cover the holes uses gravity as an assistant and is a passive movement. In contrast, when lifting fingers up, you’re working against gravity so this movement has to be an active one. Play a few notes on your recorder, perhaps a short scale, and really focus on these two types of movement. Harnessing, the power of gravity will help you cover the finger holes with ease, while the greatest amount of energy is always used when lifting the fingers.

Don’t work too hard!

When it comes to finger movements I always tell my pupils to be as lazy as they can get away with. Of course, I don’t mean taking a slapdash, “that’ll do“ sort of attitude. Instead, think in terms of expending the minimum energy necessary to get the most efficient result.

Are you a recorder player whose fingers are a model of efficiency and neatness? Or maybe you’re someone whose digits flap like flags in the wind?! It’s simple common sense that if you keep your fingers close to the recorder they’ll travel more quickly than if you lift them high. However, common sense doesn’t necessarily have a huge amount to do with what we actually do with our fingers!

If you’re  a finger flapper, spend some time playing a simple piece of music, where you have the spare mental capacity to be able to focus on your finger movements, without being distracted by other elements of technique. Playing in front of a mirror can be really helpful here, because it’s often easier to see which fingers are moving too much when viewed from the perspective of an another person.

Another mental image I suggest to my students is to imagine a mini electric fence placed horizontally two or three centimetres above your fingers. If you’re familiar with Star Trek, I’m thinking of a miniaturised version of the electronic force fields they use to close off parts of the Starship Enterprise. With this imaginary force field in place, think what would happen if you lifted your fingers too high and they came into contact with it. A quick zap of electricity would certainly focus the mind, deterring you from lifting your fingers further than they need to travel - not that I’m suggesting you should actually electrify your recorder!

If you’d like to see efficient fingering in action I recommend watching this video of a young Frans Bruggen performing the Vivaldi Concerto in C, RV441. He looks so utterly relaxed and his fingers lift just enough to clear the holes, but no more. For those of who don’t speak Dutch, the music begins at around two minutes.

Snappy mover

If you’re playing a slow piece of music, do you think your fingers should move quickly or slowly?

I often pose this question to students and you’d be surprised how many people get the answer wrong. Your fingers do, of course, need to move quickly and snappily, regardless of the tempo of the music. When you’re playing a slow, singing line the notes change at a leisurely pace and the spaces between the notes are minimised to create that legato effect. Move your fingers too slowly and the transitions become blurred and glissando-like. I often compare this to the voices of The Clangers in the 1970s TV cartoon! To avoid this always move your fingers quickly and efficiently to create a singing melody with crisp transitions between notes.

Putting everything into practice

Having considered basic principles, it’s now time to put this into practice.

As I mentioned earlier, trying to do too many things at once will almost certainly end in failure. Your best bet is to choose something simple, allowing you to focus entirely on your finger movements. Perhaps the simplest exercise is a five note scale like the ones shown below - one for the fingers on the left hand, one for the right.

Begin very slowly, but make sure every single finger movement is quick, neat and as minimalist as possible. Remember, the further, your fingers move away from the recorder, the longer they take to come back down again. The time saved by making small movements is important whether you’re playing a slow melody or virtuosic concerto. Even better, play these passages with every note slurred. Slurring leaves nowhere for your fingers to hide – every little inconsistencies in their movement will be audible. Slurring also exposes unevenness in tone and rhythm so don’t forget to listen out for those too!

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As you begin to improve the quality of your finger movements, gradually increase the speed of these short exercises. As the tempo builds, take care not to slip back into bad habits, with fingers flapping wildly.

Training badly behaved fingers

When we looked at the anatomy of our hands earlier, I mentioned how the connected finger tendons make forked fingerings harder to play neatly. This is because such notes require movement of two or more fingers together, frequently including one of your weaker fingers. The ultimate challenge comes when a note change requires you to move fingers up and down simultaneously, using digits on both hands.

The exercise below demands all these things between notes 2, 3 and 4. Try playing it now (ideally slurred) and listen to the neatness (or not!) of your finger movements.

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Now play the same exercise while standing in front of a mirror. Really study the way your fingers are moving.

If you hear blips between notes this is because one or more fingers are moving out of sync with the others. Watching this process in a mirror (seeing them from the perspective of your recorder teacher, for instance) makes it much easier to spot which finger is slower than the others. If you find it hard to spot the badly behaved finger, concentrate on any which are moving upwards. Remember, lifting a finger requires you to work against gravity, requiring fractionally more effort. You’ll almost certainly find misbehaving digit is a lifted finger, moving just a fraction slower than the others.

Having located the recalcitrant digit, next time, really focus on that particular finger, trying to make it work just a little bit harder than the others. Over time you’ll probably noticed a pattern. Third fingers are the most common offenders, simply because they’re weaker as a result of the shared tendon. There’s nothing you can do to change the way your hand is built, but by concentrating on the way your fingers move, you can gradually encourage them to move more efficiently.

Once you can do this neatly while playing slowly, then begin to increase the speed, bit by bit, always ensuring your finger movements are neat and precise before moving the tempo up another notch.

Do you have your own tips for dealing with lazy fingers?

I’m sure there will be things I’ve mentioned today which chime with you. We’ve all wrestled with difficult passages and berated our fingers for creating all sorts of blips and imperfections. If you can recognise these bad habits while practising, you’re in a good position to gradually improve upon them. Maybe you have your own exercises and techniques for improving finger control? If you do, why not leave a comment below and share some of them with us – there’s always room to learn from each other.

The tips and exercises I’ve shared today are ones that work for me, but we all tackle things in our own unique way. I’d love to hear some of your tips and tricks!

The technique zone - Making space and time to breathe

You’d think we’d be experts in the art of breathing, wouldn’t you? After all, breathing is something we do instinctively, so it’s a subject we rarely give a second thought to. If we’re running for a bus, or maybe if we’ve got a bad cough, we might be more conscious of our breathing, but otherwise it’s something we do without consideration.

A while ago Liz, one of my subscribers, got in touch to tell me about the challenges she finds when breathing deeply to play the recorder and it struck me it might be a useful topic to cover here in the Technique Zone:

“It’s making time to take a breath I find difficult. I'm still frequently left short of enough breath for the final note, and Bach is just impossible! I think the problem lies in finding/making enough time between the notes to take a big lungful or not breathing in deeply enough in the first place.”

I think there are two issues here. One is learning how to breath in deeply and quickly, so we make the best use of our natural lung capacity. The second is a musical issue - specifically how to make space for breaths without it feeling like we’re creating a huge chasm in the music.

I often see musicians struggling with this problem, so if you’re nodding your head in sympathy with Liz’s message, you’re in good company. In today’s blog we’ll look at both topics and I’ll do my best to help you overcome these challenges.

Back to basics.

Let’s begin with a quick refresher on the best way to breathe when you’re playing. I covered the topic of breathing and tone production in a blog last year. You’ll find that post here, but let’s have a quick refresher on the basics of breathing for playing the recorder before we consider other techniques.

First of all, be as relaxed as possible. Whenever you play, always sit or stand with good posture, keeping your face, throat, neck, shoulders and abdomen, relaxed and soft.

When you breathe in, allow your rib cage and stomach to expand as the air descends into your lungs, inflating them like balloons. You then need to create a little tension to control your tone when you blow out again – specifically in your stomach muscles. Tightening these muscles places pressure on the diaphragm, which in turn gently squeezes the air from your lungs and out into your recorder.

When we practise these techniques to improve our breath control and tone quality, more often than not we do so in a slow controlled way. This means taking leisurely, relaxed breaths in, then releasing the air in a measured way, perhaps playing long notes. This is excellent practice, but doesn’t necessarily equip us for the real musical world.

Learning to breathe quickly

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Bach was a musical genius, but rarely considered the need to breathe in his music!

As Liz implied in her email, one of the greatest challenges is being able to breathe in deeply at speed.

Composers don’t always allow us a lot of time to breathe, and some are more sympathetic than others - I am of course primarily thinking of J.S.Bach. Singers and wind players alike always complain about his long phrases, which take no account of our very human need for oxygen!

If we’re going to breathe in quickly and deeply, what’s the most important factor to remember? Undoubtedly relaxation is key here.

If you’re one of those people who habitually pulls in their stomach muscles to make themselves look thinner, you’re going to struggle to breathe in quickly and deeply. Instead you need to let your stomach and rib cage remain as relaxed as possible, even if this means you don’t look quite a slender as perhaps you might wish!

Let’s begin the process of speeding up our breathing with an exercise:

Practising this exercise regularly, gradually reducing the time you allow yourself to breathe in, will help you learn to fill more of your lung capacity more swiftly. Of course sometimes you’ll have almost no time to breathe – maybe just a tiny rest or perhaps even between notes in a fast run. Here you need to speed up this technique even more, and for this I have a mental image to help you.

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Many years ago, I observed a colleague at a Saturday morning music centre talking to his young choir, helping them learn to breathe quickly and deeply. He described the type of breath they needed as one of those you take when something catches you by surprise - a sharp but deep breath.

No doubt you can think of occasions when you’ve experienced exactly this, but my colleague Mitch had a particularly imaginative scenario which he described to the children. He asked them to imagine they were sitting in a peaceful space, minding their own business, perhaps quietly reading a book. Out of nowhere a tribe of rabbits bursts through the window, riding Harley Davidson motorbikes and toting machine guns. He proposed, quite rightly I think, that this sight would cause you to gasp with surprise!

Try to imagine such a scene. Perhaps not rabbits on motorbikes, but instead think of a moment when something has caused you to gasp for breath in sheer surprise. When this happens, you don’t have time to think about the mechanics of how you breathe. Instead your body instinctively draws the maximum amount of air into your lungs at great speed. This is what we need to do, albeit in a slightly more controlled way, when we have to breathe swiftly and deeply, mid phrase.

Removing the kinks…

We’ve already talked about how your midriff needs to remain soft and relaxed, but this isn’t the only part of your body to consider. Working upwards from your lungs to your windpipe, you come to the narrowest part of your breathing apparatus.

Take a moment to picture your garden hose. Imagine you’ve tied knots in the hose, or trapped part of it under something heavy. These kinks and restrictions prevent the water flowing freely and quickly. Now think of your windway and picture what happens when you tense your throat. Just like the hosepipe, this tension creates a restriction, stopping the air flowing freely. This limits the speed at which you can fill your lungs.

Spend a couple of minutes quietly breathing in and out again in a genuinely relaxed way. Make sure you keep your face cheeks, lips and throat really relaxed, so your entire breathing apparatus is as relaxed and open of possible. One of the best ways to remove tension and relax your throat is to yawn. When you yawn, your soft palate lifts, and your throat opens up, creating lots of room. I bet just reading about it makes you want to yawn, doesn’t it? I’m fighting back a yawn just writing about it now!

Most wind instruments require an embouchure - using your lips and face muscles to control the vibrations of a reed or to buzz into a brass mouthpiece. Our instrument doesn’t demand this, but instead you should aim to keep your face and throat relaxed and free of tension when playing. I’ve heard other wind teachers talk about breathing in with a ‘yawning breath’ which is a great image to have in your mind. Imagine your throat and windway as wide pipes which have enough capacity to allow in lots of air very quickly, rather than that narrow, knotty hosepipe we imagined earlier.

Use your mouth, not your nose!

Finally (and this may seem like a statement of the blindingly obvious) always breathe in through your mouth to play the recorder. I’ve encountered several recorder players over the years who breathe in through their nose. When you think about it, it’s clear that inhaling through your mouth is quicker and more efficient, simply because air cannot travel as quickly through the small spaces of your nostrils. However, if this makes just one of you think about what you’re doing and realise perhaps you’ve been breathing through your nose rather than your mouth, it’s been worth me stating the obvious!

Okay, so we’ve considered the physical aspects of breathing quickly and deeply, so now let’s look at how we put this into practice while playing music…

Sometimes the music we play allows lots of room to breathe. This may come in the form of rests or breath marks, carefully planned out between phrases. But sometimes a really quick breathe is required, perhaps during a very small rest or in the middle of a long run of fast notes. This is where the techniques I’ve described above will help you.

Tailoring breaths to suit different recorders

Of course, different sizes of recorder demand varying quantities of breath. When playing a sopranino, for instance, you may find that inhaling really deeply results in you having too much air left in your lungs, so you then have to exhale before you can breathe in again for the next phrase. In contrast, a bass recorder will gobble up all the air you put into it very quickly and you might find you simply can’t reach the end of a phrase.

We all have different lung capacities and this is partly determined by our build. For instance, a tall person will naturally have larger lungs than someone who is short. It’s entirely possible to develop your breathing though, learning to use your natural capacity more efficiently, as I discussed in my earlier blog.

Even if you work really hard, you may still find there are phrases you simply cannot play in one breath, particularly on larger sizes of recorder. In this situation don’t give yourself too hard time - you’re only human and we all have our physical limitations!

If you feel you’re going to run out of air, don’t just stagger on to the next breath mark, rationing your breath to try and make it last. This compromises the quality of your tone and ruins your intonation. A much better solution is to find an additional place to breathe, so you can maintain the best possible tone throughout. If you’re playing in an ensemble with several players on each part, a handy strategy is to agree who will breathe where. By staggering your breaths in different places, you can create the illusion of a long well supported phrase, even if no individual player can manage the entire phrase in one go.

Be prepared!

When sight reading we tend to grab breaths whenever we can. That’s absolutely fine because you’re just getting to know the music. But when you settle down to really learn a piece thoroughly it’s a good idea to plan you’re going to breathe, especially if the music you’re playing from doesn’t contain printed breath marks. Knowing the location of your next breath means you can judge how deeply you need to breathe at any given moment.

Remember, there’s rarely an absolutely right or wrong place to breathe. Experiment inserting breaths at different places and see which feels right for you. Most music contains regular phrase lengths - perhaps two or four bars - so use that as a starting point. If the piece begins with an anacrusis (or upbeat), subsequent phrases will likely do the same - a useful guide when seeking out further breaths.

Remember too that any breaths you pencil into your music aren’t then set in stone forever. Music making should be a fluid, dynamic affair, and you’re allowed to change your mind about the best places to breathe as you get to know the music better.

Breathing without spoiling the musical line

Breaths should never sound like a desperate gasp for air!

If you only have a short space in which to breathe, it’s very easy to feel you need to do so as quickly as possible, to avoid interrupting the flow of the music. This seems logical, but in fact a desperate gasp will often interrupt the musical line more than a carefully planned and more leisurely breath.

Imagine you’re reading a speech to a large crowd of people. Between sentences you breathe in and take a moment for the points you’ve made to hit home. Hurrying on between sentences makes the text harder to understand for your audience and will make your listeners feel uncomfortable. Try to use the same strategy in your music making. The music needs to breathe just as much as you do, so use your breaths as musical punctuation to add clarity to your phrasing.

The music below is a short extract from the second movement of Handel’s Recorder Sonata in F major - you can click on the music to make it bigger if you want to play it yourself.

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Here’s a recording of the same extract. Listen carefully and you’ll hear I’ve added a breath three notes before the end of bar 22, in the middle of the semiquaver passagework. At this point the melodic pattern changes and it seems to me to be an appropriate spot for a top-up breath.

Try playing the music yourself at a tempo which allows you to get around the notes fluently - you don’t have to play it as quickly as me! Now record yourself and listen back to it. The voice memo app on a smartphone is useful for this. When you listen to yourself playing, do your breaths sound like an act of desperation by someone who’s gasping for air? Or do they sound well considered and musical?

Compare your recording with mine and listen to how I make room for the breaths. The music, like spoken text, needs room to breathe, so the musical sentences make sense. Even in the middle of a run of semiquavers you can create space to breathe. Try and make your breaths feel they are an intrinsic part of the music, rather than an apologetic need for air.

If you find this difficult, play the music again and make really obvious spaces for the breaths, creating additional rests where you need to inhale. Gradually make these spaces smaller, using the quick, deep, yawning breaths I described earlier. As this becomes more natural you’ll be surprised how much time you can take to breathe and if you do this with conviction it will feel like part of the music.

Now make another recording with these more leisurely, purposeful breaths, and listen back to it. Does this feel like a more coherent performance? Do the breaths feel more organic and musical? It may seem counterintuitive to do this, but as your confidence and conviction grows around breathing, your breaths will sound more musical and considered.

Collaborate with your fellow musicians

If you’re playing with other musicians, agreeing on where to breathe should be a collaborative process. There will be places where you should all breathe together, and you may decide that the music would benefit if you allow a little bit more space to do so. In other situations, one part will need a breath while the other voices are still playing. Here it may be necessary to note in your part that someone else needs a little time to breathe. It’s all a matter of give-and-take - if you allow one of your fellow musicians time to breathe, no doubt, they will do the same for you at another time.

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I hope the tips I’ve shared today will prove helpful in your playing and have gone some way to answering Liz’s question. The most important thing is to remember you’re human and your lung capacity and technique may not always immediately match up to the music you’re trying to play. This shouldn’t stop you trying challenging pieces of music, so have a go, experiment with different places to breathe, and most importantly, have fun. Don’t get too hung up on the notes, but instead focus on making music, allowing room for both you and the music to breathe.

If you’ve learnt a piece of music which particularly tests your breathing, why not tell us about it in the comments below. I’d love to hear what strategies you used to overcome the challenges while practising.

The Technique Zone - Make your recorder sing

Do you make your recorder sing? No, I don’t mean singing into your recorder, but instead I’m talking about playing a genuinely legato, singing line. This is one aspect of technique many people find difficult. But if you can master this, your playing will really stand out from the crowd.

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Photo by Steven Erixon

If you think about it, the process of playing the recorder isn’t so different from the way we sing. The breathing technique you use is fundamentally the same, as are the muscles used to control the way breath leaves your lungs and enters the recorder. The big difference is of course the way the sound is produced. When singing, your vocal chords creating vibrations in the air column, while on the recorder this role is taken by the instrument’s labium. Similarly, in both recorder playing and singing we use our tongue and mouth to articulate words or notes clearly.

This parallel wasn’t lost of musicians of the Renaissance and Baroque. In his 1535 treatise, Opera Intitulata Fontegara, Sylvestro Ganassi says the following about playing the recorder:

“…just as a gifted painter can reproduce all the creations of nature by varying his colours, you can imitate the expression of the human voice on a wind or a stringed instrument. The painter reproduces the works of nature in varied colours because these colours exist in nature. Even so with the human voice which also varies the sound with more or less boldness according to what it wishes to express. And just as a painter imitates natural effects by using various colours, an instrument can imitate the expression of the human voice by varying the pressure of the breath and shading the tone by means of suitable fingering. In this matter I have had much experience and I have heard that it is possible with some players to perceive, as it were, words to their music; thus one may truly say that with this instrument only the form of the human body is absent, just as in a fine picture, only the breath is lacking. This should convince you that the aim of the recorder player is to imitate as closely as possible all the capabilities of the human voice.”

As Ganassi suggests, it takes much subtlety of articulation and fingering to perfectly imitate the infinite variety of the human voice, but for today we’re going to focus on creating a genuinely singing legato.

What do we mean by legato?

Type the word legato into an Italian-English dictionary and it’ll be translated as bound, connected or tied. For musical purposes, connected is perhaps the best of these, as the term is used to indicate a passage which should be played smoothly - that is connecting the notes to each other as closely as possible.

Is this the same as slurring?

This is a misconception I often encounter. When a musical phrase is printed with a long, curved line above or beneath it, the composer is asking you to articulate (tongue) the first note and then continue the rest of the phrase without tonguing, creating a silky smooth effect. Yes, the result is legato, but a genuinely smooth phrase doesn’t have to be slurred. It’s this non-slurred form of legato I’m talking about today as it’s the type you’ll need most often when playing the recorder. For this type of legato you’ll be tonguing every note, while still connecting them as closely as possible.

Do you sing?

Now, I know many recorder players also sing - for instance in a choir, maybe in church, or perhaps just while you’re in the bath. Maybe you class yourself purely as an instrumentalist, but I’m still going to ask you to sing. Don’t be afraid - I’m not expecting perfect operatic tones - this is just a means to an end. If you’re not a natural singer maybe find a quiet room where you can hum a tune without being self conscious - no one else need listen.

Sing a familiar tune to yourself, or maybe just sing a few notes of a scale. What do you notice about the way the notes are connected? Do you sing each note as individual, separate sounds, or do you naturally join them up? I’m willing to bet it’ll be the latter… When we sing it’s very natural to connect the notes together, because singing is one of those things we do from a young age, whether it’s nursery rhymes or humming along to your favourite song on the radio. For instance, listen to this beautiful rendition of Scarborough Fair by Rachel Hardy and notice how smoothly she shapes the lyrical melody.

Now think about your recorder playing. Do your musical lines have the same feeling of connection between the notes? If you were to record yourself playing, would you hear the same degree of smoothness when you listened back to it afterwards? If you’re not sure of the answer, why not do exactly that? If you have a smart phone it’ll almost certainly have a voice memo app you can use - no fancy equipment is needed. Pick a simple tune so you’re not overstretching your technique - if you’re stuck for ideas, click here for Jacob Van Eyck’s melody Daphne.

Now listen back to your recording. What did you notice? Were your notes beautifully connected, or did you notice some lumps, bumps and gaps? It’s easier to be dispassionate and critical when hearing your playing once removed, isn’t it? Now you’ve made a recording I suggest you save it - it’'ll be useful for comparison later.

Let me show you what I mean by a genuine, singing legato on the recorder, with a movement by Bach from my CD, Helen and Friends. Notice how I connect the notes to each other to create a sense of line.

How do I create a singing legato?

There are three crucial elements if you’re going to playing a genuinely legato melodic line - breath, tongue and fingers. Let’s take a look at the effect each one has on the end result.

Optimising your breath

When you listen to the Bach Adagio above, what makes the sound smooth and creamy? It’s the constant stream of air, isn’t it?

The most important thing needed for a perfect legato is continuity of breath. If the breath is constantly interrupted the result is a choppy, inconsistent sound. There are many reasons why this might happen and we’ll explore some of those in a moment.

For now though, the important thing is to keep blowing, right the way through each phrase - no matter whether you’re tonguing or slurring the notes. Let’s try this out straight away with a simple hymn tune, St Clement. I suggest you begin with a smallish recorder - these versions will work on descant, treble or tenor.

Click on the music to download a copy to print if you wish to

Click on the music to download a copy to print if you wish to

Begin by playing the melody entirely slurred - just tongue the first note of each phrase and then let your breath and fingers carry you through until the next breath mark. But look out for the one repeated note where you will need to tongue once more.

Here’s my version:

Don’t worry if your version doesn’t sound quite this smooth and creamy yet - we’ll fix that in a moment. The important thing is to keep the air flowing at all times, even if things get a little bumpy at first. Slurring forces you to keep the air flowing all the time - this should also be your aim when you start tonguing again.

Another crucial consideration when playing a singing line is the speed of breath for any given note. If you haven’t already read my post about developing your tone, now would be a good time to do so as I covered all the basics to get you started. Of course, if you have read it there’s no reason why you shouldn’t return for a refresher! You can find my post on tone here - it’ll open in a new tab or window on your browser so you won’t lose your place here.

It’s important to remember your recorder requires a different speed of breath depending on where you’re playing on the instrument - bottom notes need slower, gentle breath, while high notes require faster breath to create the optimum sound. This is something you need to consider while playing any melodic line but it’ll be especially noticeable in a simple tune like St Clement. Listen to my recording above again and notice how I subtly increase the speed of breath for the higher notes than the low ones, to ensure I’m always making the best possible tone. Tailoring the speed of your breath for the range you’re playing in is an important part in creating a smooth, singing line.

To practise this breath control further it’s important to use easy melodies at first - try and do this with something fast and whizzy and you’ll be distracted by your fingers. Hymn tunes or slow folk melodies are perfect for this, but you could just as easily use simple, slow scales and arpeggios for the same purpose. If you’re a Score Lines subscriber you’ll find some handy scale sheets to download over in your Members’ Area.

Don’t let your tongue interrupt the flow

As you get used to this continuity of air flow while slurring, the next step is to introduce some articulation.

We often talk about using particular letters to articulate notes - such as D or T. I would take this a step further and add an ‘ooo’ sound after your chosen letter - ‘doooo’ or ‘toooo’. This gives a greater sense of the air flow and will help you get that longer, smoother feel.

Which letter should I use?

Say the word ‘doo’ to yourself and note the way your tongue moves within your mouth. The tip of your tongue lifts and makes contact, briefly, with the hard palate - that crinkly feeling ridge just behind your top front teeth. It’s this contact which creates the clean start to each note. If you now say ‘too’, notice how it has a slightly stronger effect. Both are valid for recorder playing, but for a genuine legato you need to minimise the strength of the articulation as much as possible, so I would use ‘doo’ for best results.

Minimise interruptions to the flow of air

Now experiment with this articulation (without a recorder for now), saying ‘doo’ in different ways - with a firm D and then with a softer, less explosive one. It’s this latter, gentler ‘doo’ you need to hone if you’re to play a really smooth, singing line. Try shaping your tongue in different ways and notice how the the articulation is softer and smoother when your tongue remains in contact with the hard palate for as little time as possible. It’s important to remember that all the time your tongue remains in contact behind your teeth it’s stopping the air flowing into your recorder, creating gaps in the sound.

It’s also worth experimenting with a ‘looo’ articulation. If you compare ‘doo’ and ‘loo’ you’ll notice you’re fundamentally making the same tongue movement, but the contact with your hard palate is even gentler for ‘loo’. If you find your ‘doo’ tonguing is still a little too explosive, try using ‘loo’ instead.

Now try the same tongue strokes while playing slow, repeated notes on a recorder. Focus on keeping the breath flowing at all times and ensure your tongue interrupts this stream of air as little as possible. Don’t forget to think about the quality of your tone too - it’s easy to forget this while you’re concentrating on your tongue!

If you can produce a line of beautifully connected. steady repeated notes (speed is not required yet) you’re well on the way to being able to play a singing legato line. To give you an aural example, here’s a simple recording of me playing repeated notes, each time the pitch changes I alter my tonguing, first from ‘too’ to ‘doo’ and then to ‘loo’. Notice how the gaps between the notes become smaller and the connection between them increases.

Keeping your fingers neat

One of the habits I frequently notice among recorder players is a propensity for their legato playing to suffer as soon as the notes get harder. As soon as we hit a fast passage, or one that’s peppered with accidentals, we naturally concentrate more on what our fingers are doing. It’s a simple matter of multitasking - there are only so many things we can think about simultaneously. What’s the result? A choppy sound, which has little sense of line or continuity. Listen to this example, an extract from one of Handel’s recorder sonatas, first played as I often initially hear it in recorder lessons, and secondly with more attention focused on maintaining a smooth articulation.

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Extract from Handel Sonata in B flat

Now, of course, I was hamming that up a little for the microphone, but it’s still a fairly true representation of what I often hear! The scales are quite straightforward to play, but once the music begins to leap through arpeggios in line two, more finger movements are required (including a tricky cross fingering for E flat) and the brain naturally focuses on those more than their smoothness. That particular extract was from an Allegro, but the same problem can occur in slow moving music.

Don’t neglect the quality of your finger movements

Now go back to smoothly play the hymn tune St Clement again, but this time think about the way you’re moving your fingers.

With a slow piece like this, would you expect your fingers to move quickly or slowly between notes? If your instinctive answer is ‘slowly’ I’m afraid you’re wrong - your fingers must always move quickly, regardless of the tempo. I often pose this question to players I coach and there are always a number who fall into the trap I’ve laid!

Think for a moment about how much space there is between the notes when you’re playing really smoothly… There’s almost no space at all, is there? This means if you move your fingers slowly you’ll hear all sorts of blips and slurps between the notes as the change between fingerings takes too long. If instead you focus on making really quick, neat finger movements you’ll find your fingering is more rhythmic and it’ll fit neatly with your legato tonguing. For instance, listen to this second recording of St Clement, this time played with every note tongued as smoothly as possible. You’ll hear the transitions between notes are clean and the overall effect is almost as silky smooth as the slurred version you heard earlier.

The challenges of playing an eighteenth century instrument

The design of the recorder has more or less been frozen in time since the 18th century. Unlike the flute or oboe, our instrument hasn’t gained extra keys to simplify the fingering (aside from those added to ease long stretches on larger recorders). Because of this, we have to deal with more complex finger patterns for some notes - think of the awkward cross fingering we use for E flat (treble recorder) or B flat (descant/tenor). These forked or cross fingerings mean your thirds fingers (which are naturally weaker than the others) often have to work independently of the others. This is why music with lots of sharps or flats is harder to play on the recorder.

So often I hear awkward passages (be they fast or in difficult keys) being played less smoothly than sections where the fingerings are easy. I guess it’s an instinctive piece of compensation by our brains. Somewhere in our subconscious we know that if we create more space between each note (effectively playing staccato) that gives our fingers more time to get to that difficult fingering!

I don’t have a magic bullet for this problem, but if you find yourself falling into this trap don’t be afraid to slow the music down and tidy up your fingering. Once you’re able to negotiate difficult fingerings neatly and with ease, that then frees up more of your brain to think about tonguing smoothly too. While playing smoothly in slow music is simpler (you have more thinking time), if you’re aware of this potential pitfall you’re in a much stronger position to avoid it.

Developing your sense of line

So what can you do to improve your legato tonguing and create the mellifluous singing line we’re after? Here are my top tips…

Practise regularly - The best way to turn good technique into something you do habitually is to do it as often as possible! If you’re short of practice time, at least make sure you spend a few minutes every day playing really smoothly. Little and often will be much more effective than a big splurge of practice once a week.

Start with something simple - Don’t try and work on your legato lines with a Vivaldi concerto - you’ll get distracted by all the whizzy notes! Instead, pick a simple, slow melody or an easy scale and use that to really focus on the quality of your legato.

Build up gradually - Once you can habitually play your simple melody with a beautiful singing line you can then move on to something more challenging. Do it gradually, perhaps picking something a little quicker, or a piece with more complex finger patterns. Don’t push yourself too far too soon and don’t be afraid to take a step back to something simpler for a refresh from time to time.

Record your playing - Use the voice memo app on your phone, or another recording device, to record yourself from time to time. Maybe pick a simple melody and record yourself playing it once a week. After a few weeks go back and compare the recordings - if you’ve been listening critically to yourself and working diligently you’ll hear a difference.

Listen to other recorder players - Go onto the internet or your favourite music streaming service and search for professional performers playing. Really listen to their performances and analyse what they’re doing. As Oscar Wilde once said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” You don’t need to imitate every last detail you hear in another recorder player’s performance, but you’ll learn a lot by listening critically to those who’ve spent a lifetime honing their skills to share with the rest of us. To get you started, here are a few recordings where the performers achieve a deliciously legato singing line, bringing their recorder as close to the human voice as Ganassi said we should.

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Marion Verbruggen playing Amarilli mia bella by Jacob van Eyck

Piers Adams performing Dido’s Lament by Henry Purcell from Bach Side of the Moon.

The Flautadors playing Pavan No.13 by Anthony Holborne

Dan Laurin performing the second movement of York Bowen’s Sonatina for recorder and piano

Erik Bosgraaf performing the Sarabande from Bach’s Partita BWV1013

If you have tips of your own please do leave a comment below and share them with us. Maybe your teacher gave you a great way to play smoothly, or perhaps there’s a gorgeous recording you’ve discovered which you love to try and emulate when playing smoothly. Let’s share our ideas and work on this together!

Trills without the terror

Do you panic when you see a trill sign in your music? Does the thought of all those fast notes send you into a frenzy? If so, you’re not alone! It’s amazing that something so small and so frequent in the music we play can cause so much worry, but I’m here today to help you overcome your fears. With a little thought, time and practice your trills can become a thing of elegant beauty rather than sheer terror.

What is a trill?

Fundamentally a trill is an ornament – a decorative addition to the music. At its most basic level, a trill is a rapid oscillation between the printed note and a pitch one step higher. It’s important to take the key signature into account, so you play your trills within the key of the music you’re playing. Therefore, in a piece with no key signature if your printed note is an A, you will alternate between that and a B. On the other hand, if your music has a key signature of one flat your upper note will be a B flat.

For the purposes of this blog post I’m going to focus on Baroque trills, as this is the type of repertoire where you’re most likely to encounter them. There are subtle differences to the way you play trills in earlier and later music – for instance whether you begin on the upper or lower note – but if you start with a sound understanding of the Baroque variety you’ll be in a good position to explore these later.

Let’s start by taking a look at the practicalities of trills – the hows, whys and whens. Then I’ll help you build up your skills so your trills can sound effortlessly elegant.

What is the purpose of a Baroque trill?

I said earlier that a trill is an ornament. This suggests it has a purely decorative function – like a porcelain figurine sitting on a shelf. In some music this is true, but Baroque trills have a more specific purpose – to create a sense of tension and release. In order to understand this we first need to know where to begin our trills.

You already know that a trill is made up of two pitches – the one notated in your music and the note immediately above. Which should you start on? Put simply, it’s almost always the upper note. So when playing the following phrase (from Telemann’s Sonata in F) you would begin the trill in bar 4 on a D and then alternate swiftly between that and the notated C sharp.

But why do we begin trills on the upper note?

This is where the concept of tension and release comes into play. Take a look at the same passage again, shown this time with the accompaniment.

If you study the chord beneath the trill in bar 4 you’ll see a chord which includes an E and a C sharp. By playing the upper note of the trill (a D) against this you create a discord or clash in the harmony. This creates a sense of tension, which then dissipates when the trill resolves downwards to the C sharp. This is the purpose of a Baroque trill. No doubt you’ll have heard teachers and conductors nagging to begin trills on the upper note – now you know why. It’s not because we’re trying to make life harder for you, but instead to create that magic combination of tension and release.

Where should I play a trill?

If you’ve played a reasonable amount of Baroque music you’ll have encountered places where your teacher or conductor tells you to insert a trill, even though it’s not marked in the music. Why is this? Is the composer being lazy in his or her notation?

Not at all! We’re spoilt with modern notation – composers today generally give very clear information about the way they’d like the music to be played. It’s not unusual to have very detailed articulation marks (slurs, staccato, accents and the like), dynamics and even the odd trill printed into our music. With early music (generally prior to around 1750) composers left these creative decisions in the hands of the performer. Because players were familiar with the style of the period they knew what was expected of them so there was simply no need to mark every last little detail in. This requires a lot of decision making on our part – a topic I talked about in an earlier blog post which you can find here.

When it comes to trills, the most common place for them is at a cadence point. A cadence occurs at the end of a phrase, usually accompanied by a particular combination of chords. Whether you have a knowledge of harmony or not, these chord progressions are so much a familiar part of the music that you’ll probably have an instinctive sense that you’re reaching the end of a musical sentence. At these points a trill will often be added to the penultimate note of the phrase, emphasising this point. For instance, listen to Dan Laurin’s performance of the opening movement of Handel’s Sonata in C. Note the way his trills occur just before the end of phrases. These are points where there is a moment of repose, before the music moves onwards. Think of it like the time you would take at punctuation points if you were reading a piece of prose aloud to an audience.

Sometimes these cadential trills will be notated in the music – perhaps by the composer, or as additions from the editor. There will be lots of other places where a trill might be appropriate though, so don’t be afraid to try putting them in. If you feel you’re approaching the end of a musical sentence pop in a trill and see if it works. What’s the worst that can happen? You might find it fits perfectly and, if not, you can try somewhere else next time. No one will suffer an injury from an incorrectly placed trill!

Which notes should I articulate?

With potentially lots of notes to play you may be daunted by the thought of getting your tongue around them. Fear not! Baroque trills are always slurred so you should tongue the first (upper) note and then your tongue doesn’t need to make contact with your hard palate again until the note immediately after the trill. It’s very easy to slither onto this final note in an uncontrolled way. This may be because you find it hard to coordinate your tongue with this single note. If this is the case, instead focus on the underlying rhythm beneath the trill. Let’s look at an extended extract of the Telemann again:

Take a look at the rhythm of the trill in bar 7 - a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver. You wouldn’t think twice about tonguing those two notes cleanly without the presence of the trill. Instead of worrying about how you’re going to coordinate your tongue stroke with that quaver, focus your articulation on the underlying rhythm as though the trill wasn’t there at all. Once your trill finger patterns have a little more control you’ll find they match up very easily. I’ll talk a little more about creating shapely trills in a moment.

Selecting your trill fingerings

This is an occasion when Occam’s Razor should come into play – a centuries old principle which decrees that the simplest answer is usually the right one. In other words, if you can play your trill by using the standard fingering for both notes, you should do exactly that! There will of course be some combinations of notes where this isn’t possible – for instance the trill which appears in bar 6 of the example above (the equivalent trill would be C to B on a descant or tenor recorder). Here it isn’t practical to shift cleanly and swiftly between the two standard fingerings so an alternative has to be used.

A very thorough chart, showing trill fingerings for all sizes of recorder, can be found on the Dolmetsch website here. You could perhaps print out a copy and keep it near your music stand or in your recorder case for reference.

Feeling overwhelmed at the number of possible trill fingerings? Don’t be!

Recorder music tends to be written in a fairly limited number of keys. This means the number of trill fingerings you’ll need on a regular basis is relatively small. If you’re just starting out with trills, get to know a couple to start with and use them whenever they occur in your music. Once you’re comfortable finding one or two of these in the heat of the moment, choose another one and add that to your repertoire. There’s really no need to bamboozle yourself with all of them at once – instead add new trill fingerings gradually and they’ll stick in your muscle memory more easily.

Making your trills shapely

It’s all very well knowing the theory of playing trills but the next step is making them feel like an integrated part of the music. Johann Joachim Quantz offers his thoughts on this subject in his 1752 book, On Playing the Flute:

“Shakes [trills] add great lustre to one’s playing, and, like appoggiaturas, are quite indispensable. If an instrumentalist or singer were to possess all the skill required by good taste in performance, and yet could not strike good shakes, this total art would be incomplete.”

If trills set you into a state of panic it’s easy to forget about ‘good taste’, instead throwing your fingers at them and ending up in a frantic mess. Take a moment to remember what I said earlier about the purpose of a Baroque trill. In music of this period trills are an expressive device, as much an a decorative one. Therefore you’ll achieve a more stylish result if you focus more on the shape of the trill and less on the sheer speed required.

Remember, the upper note of the trill is the moment where you create a discord – that moment of tension. This note is an appoggiatura - the Italian word for a leaning note. Sometimes the composer or editor will print this appoggiatura in the music (see bar 1 of the Telemann example above) but even if they don’t, you still need to play it. The longer you can spend on this appoggiatura, the more expressive the result. Not only that, but by lengthening the upper note you reduce the time remaining and therefore the number of wiggles you need to fit in. The result – a more expressive trill that sounds more musical and is easier too. I call that a win! Listen to these two snippets of me playing a short section from the Handel C major Sonata – the first with fast trills which have a short upper note, the second with longer, more expressive appoggiaturas. Do you agree that the second feels more stylish and expressive?

Speed isn’t everything

My harpsichord teacher, Maria Boxall, often used to remind me that trills don’t need to be like wallpaper. Imagine of a roll of wall paper – the printed pattern repeats at the same interval throughout its length. This is the wall paper equivalent of a fast, whizzy trill. Now imagine instead a roll of paper where the repetition of the pattern alters along its length. At the top of the roll the patterns are distanced from each other and their repetition increases in frequency as you move down the length of paper. This is a great image to have in mind as you begin a longer trill. You don’t need to jump in feet first, at full speed. Instead, start the oscillation slowly and gradually wind it up. See how much more shapely this makes it feel? I’ll give you some exercises to practise this later.

Again, Quantz has some good advice on this subject:

“All shakes do not have to be struck with the same speed; in this matter you must be governed by the place in which you are playing, as well as by the piece to be performed. …. In melancholy pieces the shake must be struck more slowly, in gay ones, more quickly.”

As Quantz suggests, you should always consider the mood and character of the piece you’re playing. A fast, energetic movement may demand swift, snappy trills, whereas in a slow movement a more leisurely approach might feel more appropriate. Again, here are two snippets from Handel’s C major Sonata – one a sonorous Larghetto, the second an energetic Allegro – notice how I tailor the character of the trills to match the mood of the music.

How do I finish a trill?

Now you have a better understanding about the way trills begin we need to consider how to finish them. Quantz offers this advice:

“The ending of each shake [trill] consists of two little notes which follow the notes of the shake, and are added to it at the same speed. They are called the termination. This termination is sometimes written out with separate notes. If, however, only a plain note is found, both the appoggiatura and termination are implied, since without them the shake would be neither complete not sufficiently brilliant.”

However, later he does later add:

“I would like to note in addition that if shakes are indicated above several quick notes, the appoggiatura and termination are not always possible because of the lack of time.”

So it would seem it’s case of “You should always play trills the way I specifiy, except on occasions when it’s not practical” - a wonderfully pragmatic approach!

Another option for finishing trills is to use an anticipation note - a brief anticipation of the note you finally land upon. In the first movement of Telemann’s Recorder Sonata in C we see him writing these anticipation notes into the music after the trills (notated here with a + sign rather than tr).

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It’s worth practising these different endings for trills so you can call upon whichever is most appropriate in the heat of the moment. In Gudrun Heyen’s Advanced Recorder Technique, Volume 1, she offers these patterns as the basis for practising anticipation notes or turns at the end of trills. The three patterns are shown for a trill on a C, but you could replicate the pattern and practise is on any note to acquire the muscle memory for any key.

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Developing your trill technique

One of the things people worry about most with trills is the sheer speed. As we’ve learnt, trills don’t always need to be super-speedy, but there will be occasions when you need some velocity. For those moments it’s important to hone your finger movements and practise them so you can call upon that speed when necessary.

Let’s begin with this simple exercise:

Begin with a steady tempo - maybe crotchet = 72. As you play, focus on the quality of your finger movements. You should keep your fingers as relaxed as possible, using as little effort to seal the finger holes as is absolutely necessary. Make your finger movements small too – don’t lift your fingers more than about a centimetre above the holes. Remember – the further you lift your fingers, the longer they will take to come back down again. You may find it helpful to play these exercises in front of a mirror so you can see your fingers from a different perspective.

Now focus on the evenness of your notes. Close your eyes and really listen. Taking away the visual element makes you listen more carefully. Remember, lifting a finger takes just a fraction more effort than lowering it as you are working against gravity.

Now do the same exercise on different notes, working up from the bottom of your recorder. Some fingers will move more easily than others – third fingers are often recalcitrant and moving your thumb quickly may prove troublesome too. This is because the joints in our thumbs work in a different way to those in our fingers because they have a greater range of all round movement. Once you can do this exercise on every note at this slow tempo, gradually increase the speed of your metronome to make your fingers move faster.

Spend a few minutes on these patterns each time you practise and you’ll soon find you gain speed and flexibility.

Now for some rubato…

OK, so you’ve got your fingers moving more quickly. Now we need to introduce the flexibility needed to create a shapely Baroque trill. Here we use rubato. This Italian word means robbed time – literally you’re stealing time from some notes and adding it to others to create a feeling of flexibility and spontaneity.

Now take the exercise we did just now, oscillating between two notes, but instead of precise, mathematical changes in tempo go for a gradual increase of speed. Begin really slowly and gradually move your finger faster until you reach your terminal velocity. Again, with some finger combinations you may find you get stuck, as a finger momentarily stalls. Keep trying, but be careful to maintain the feeling of relaxation in your digits. Tension is your greatest enemy when it comes to developing speed. While you’re at it, try the same exercise with trills which gradually reduce in speed, and finally trills which increase and decrease in velocity. If you can get to a point where you can do this with every finger you are in a great place to apply it to the music you’re playing.

Other trilling conundrums

One of the things I found hardest when I began playing trills was keeping an awareness of the pulse while playing a trill which felt organic rather than metronomic. Sadly I don’t recall how I overcame this stumbling block, but using a metronome will certainly help. Having an audible beat to play against will help you keep track of the number of beats you’re trilling for and in time you’ll be able to maintain this sense of pulse in your head against even the most flexible and shapely of trills.

Keeping your upper notes on the beat

Because we perceive trills as requiring masses of speed, it’s easy to panic about fitting everything in. Somewhere in our subconscious, a small voice tells us that if we begin the trill earlier it’ll give us more time to get all those whizzy notes in. You can’t deny the logic, but sadly it just doesn’t work! The end result is a trill which may begin on the upper note but it often comes so early that by the time the chord with which it’s intended to clash (thus creating the desired feeling of tension) comes along, the upper note is but a distant memory!

Remember my advice earlier about spending more time on the appoggiatura and less on the wiggling notes. This may help, as the appoggiatura then becomes a more significant note in its own right. In fast pieces though this will often not be enough to cure your impatience to get trilling. To conquer this problem a good practice strategy is to play your piece of music, inserting only the appoggiaturas and leaving out all the wiggly notes. Really focus on getting them firmly on the beat. Then once you’re happy, add back in some twiddles, while maintaining the appoggiatura on the beat. Even after you’ve done this you may slip back into bad habits, so never be afraid to go back and repeat the exercise periodically.

Learn from others

To finish off, the most important piece of advice I can give you is to listen to lots of Baroque music. YouTube is a fantastic resource and there are lots of wonderful performances to be found by amazing recorder players. Do a search for names such as Dan Laurin, Erik Bosgraaf, Pamela Thorby, Frans Brüggen, Saskia Coolen or your favourite recorder professional and you’ll find no end of sonatas and concertos which contain a myriad of trills for you to enjoy and inwardly digest.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Barsanti Sonata in C major:

Handel Sonata in D minor:

Mancini Sonata in A minor

Remember too that you don’t even need to restrict yourself to recorder music. The same principles apply to Baroque music played on any instrument so you’ll never be short of listening material. Really focus on how and where they play trills and gradually you’ll begin to understand where you could add them into your own performances.

If you have your own trill tips, perhaps shared with you by your own teacher, do share them in the comments below so we can all learn from each other.

Further reading

If you’d like to explore the topic of trills further I can recommend some books which you may find useful:

Johann Joachim Quantz - On Playing the Flute (1752) - Faber & Faber

A classic book, intended as a guide for flautists, but relevant to anyone who plays Baroque music. Available in paperback and eBook formats.

Gudrun Heyens - Advanced Recorder Technique, Volume 1 - Schott

A fantastic resource, packed with practical advice and exercises. Volume 1 is devoted to fingers and tongue, while volume 2 covers breathing and sound. Originally written in German and translated to English by Peter Bowman.

Walter van Hauwe - The Modern Recorder Player, Volume 2 - Schott

This three part series is a classic reference and practice book for the recorder. Volume 2 contains masses of exercises for honing your trills.