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.

~ ~ ~

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.

The Technique Zone - creating a truly beautiful tone

“Spare the breath and spoil the tone”

— Walter Bergmann

Walter Bergmann’s pithy aphorisms about recorder playing result from years spent working with amateur recorder players; observing their habits. While some may sound a little facetious, they all contain at least a nugget of truth. Today’s blog is inspired by the golden rule quoted above - one I often repeat to the musicians I work with. Let’s explore the reasons why…

Which element of technique do you pay most attention to when playing? I bet there are many occasions when you get tied up with fast fingerwork, or moments when you feel you’re wrestling with some sort of tongue twister. But what happens to your tone while this battle is going on? Almost certainly it suffers as you struggle to multitask. In this second chapter of The Technique Zone my mission is to help you understand how to work on your sound - hopefully to the point where you develop good habits which will hold, no matter how fast the notes are

Setting good foundations

In part one of The Technique Zone I talked about the importance of good posture when playing. Hopefully you’ve been thinking about this in recent weeks but if you’d like a refresher you can find that blog post here.

The next step is to get you breathing efficiently. Breath is as vital for a good recorder tone as it is for life itself, so it’s worth taking a moment to consider exactly how our lungs work. Breathing is such an instinctive act - our bodies just get on with it and it’s often only when things go wrong that we become aware of it. 

Understanding the way we breathe

The most important tool for breathing is your diaphragm - a parachute shaped muscle which sits beneath your lungs, separating them from your digestive system. Like your heart, it does its job without conscious direction from your brain. This is vital or there’s a danger we’d forget to breathe if something more exciting distracted us! 

So what does your diaphragm actually do? Fundamentally, it pulls downwards, expanding your lungs and creating a vacuum in them. This vacuum pulls air in from the atmosphere via your windpipe, filling your lungs and providing oxygen to your brain - breathing in. When it’s time to exhale your diaphragm relaxes, pushing the waste products (carbon dioxide) and any unused breathe out of your lungs. All this happens between 12 and 20 times a minute at rest without us even thinking! There are other muscles in your rib cage (your intercostal muscles) which hep this process, but for the purposes of recorder playing it’s the diaphragm that’s the main focus of our attention. If you want to learn more about how your lungs work I can recommend this article from the British Lung Foundation which explains the complete process of breathing very clearly.

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Learn to breathe efficiently

If you’re going to make the best possible tone with your recorder there’s one thing you need lots of - breath! We take our breathing for granted 99% of the time and it’s something we only really consider when under stress - perhaps when running for the bus or working out at the gym. At these moments our bodies need more oxygen so our breathing mechanism instinctively works harder, using the spare lung capacity which goes unused most of the time. 

If you’re to play with a beautiful tone you need to learn to utilise this spare capacity at will, really filling your lungs so allow for long, controlled musical phrases. The first step is to learn to inhale in a relaxed, open manner, really filling your lungs with air. 

The starting point is to be as relaxed as possible, especially around your abdomen. Take a few deep breaths in and as you do so imagine the air travelling right to the bottom of your lungs. To do this your stomach muscles need to be relaxed and soft - don’t try to hold your stomach muscles in to look thinner while you’re doing this. Allow your stomach and the soft tissue in your sides and back to expand as you inhale and your diaphragm pulls downwards, compressing the contents of your abdomen. When you exhale, do so in a completely relaxed way - just let the air go with no attempt to control its flow. 

It’s no bad idea to spend a minute or two doing this before you play each day so the feeling of really filling your lungs becomes natural and instinctive. This is of course the way you breathe when you’re asleep and you’re completely relaxed.

How to take active control of your diaphragm 

If the diaphragm is an involuntary muscle how can we control it to help our recorder playing? Although you can’t directly feel your diaphragm, it is possible to give it a helping hand by using your stomach muscles. We’ll begin by using these muscles in an extreme way and the gradually take control over the exhalation of breath.

Take a deep, open relaxed breath and this time strongly squeeze your tummy muscles to push the air out of your lungs really quickly. Imagine blowing out lots of candles on a birthday cake, trying to make sure none of them are left flickering. When you do this, the pressure from your stomach muscles pushes on the diaphragm, squeezing the air out of your lungs.

As you get used to this, gradually reduce the strength of contraction in your stomach muscles so you still exhale quickly but in a more controlled manner. This is still too violent for recorder  playing, but it’s part of the process of taking control of your breathing.

Finally, instead of tensing up your stomach muscles strongly, make it a gradual squeeze, noting how you can vary the speed of the air leaving your mouth with these abdominal muscles. This is where you want to be for playing the recorder. You’re now controlling the flow of air using these powerful muscles rather than creating tension in your chest, shoulders and neck. In the following video clip I demonstrate this technique.

Do you look happy as you play?

Even if recorder playing is an absolute joy for you (and why wouldn’t it be?!), you should always aim to look sulky and a little depressed! When you smile you engage lots of small muscles around your face and throat, creating tension - try smiling right now and note the way your face muscles tense up. 

Now take a breath and sigh heavily, consciously relaxing your lips, cheeks and throat.  This is the feeling you want while playing the recorder as any tension in your windway will have an adverse effect on your tone. Try yawning too, and notice how this opens up and relaxes your throat. 

Unlike all other wind instruments, there is no embouchure required for the recorder - the act of forming your lips around or against a mouthpiece. Instead you should aim to keep your lips and throat as relaxed as possible - no real effort is needed to seal the lips around the beak of the instrument. If you don’t believe me, try actively tensing up your face and throat and notice the effect this constriction has on your tone! 

Putting these new skills into practice

Now you know how to breath well, let’s grab a recorder and use these new skills to play.

Pick a recorder (perhaps a treble or tenor for starters) and try some of the exercises in the following video. Take some time to explore the extremes of your sound - from really weedy to overblown and violent. Don’t worry about disturbing your neighbours! 

Play notes in different parts of the instrument’s range and notice the way they demand different levels of breath. Low notes need gentle breath or they split easily - for these note you need to squeeze your stomach muscles very gently. 

In contrast, your breath needs to be moving faster for the highest notes - a firmer squeeze from those abdominal muscles. Thinking about these differences in terms of speed of air rather than being loud or quiet can be really helpful. To get a better sense of this, blow gently on your hand (slow moving breath) and notice how the air is warm, as it has time to pick up heat from your body before it leaves your mouth. Now engage your stomach muscles more firmly to move the breath quickly. As it touches your hand the breath now feels cold. This is because the air has less contact time with your blood vessels and doesn’t pick up body heat. You may find it helpful to think of low notes as requiring warm air, while high notes demand cooler air. 

How to develop your tone through practice

As with any new skill, it’s best to practise some simple exercises at first, so you’re able to give them your full attention. In time these techniques become habitual and you’ll need to think about them less while working on other things. Here are a few simple exercises to develop your tone.

1. Long notes. Ok, long notes aren’t the most exciting thing to practise, but they do give you lots time to think! Spend a few minutes at the start of each practice session playing long notes in different parts of the recorder’s range. With each one, aim to find the ideal speed of air to make a full, beautiful tone - slower air for the low notes, faster air for the high ones. Really listen to your sound (close your eyes - you’ll notice more!) and take care to keep the pitch of each note the same from beginning to end - don’t let them sag as you lungs begin to empty. As you feel you’re running out of breath, engage those stomach muscles a little more and you may be surprised at the untapped reserves of air remaining in your lungs.

2. Slow scales. Pick a really simple scale (no more than one sharp or flat) and play it really slowly - perhaps four steady beats on each note. As you rise up through the scale, you’ll need to gradually increase the speed of your breath to make the optimum sound. When you run out of breath, stop to breathe in deeply and restart on the same note you just finished. As you do this, listen carefully to see if your tone improves when you restart. If it does, that’s because you’d stopped blowing as efficiently as your lungs emptied. Instead, try to ensure the tone matches so you can be sure you’re always making the best possible sound.

Five or ten minutes spent every day on these two simple exercises will have a dramatic effect on your tone - as long as you really think about what you’re doing and listen critically to what your hear. 

The techniques I’ve covered here won’t make you a whizzy, virtuosic recorder player, but you’ll definitely sound better. Fast fingers and nippy tonguing can come later, but if there’s one thing I’m always imploring of musicians I work with it’s to play with a genuinely beautiful tone.

When Walter Bergmann said, “Spare the breath and spoil the tone” he was absolutely right. Blowing inefficiently will create a weedy, undernourished tone which doesn’t make good use of the your instrument’s design. If you want just one thing to focus on every time you play, you simply can’t go wrong by concentrating on breathing and blowing more efficiently. I often say to groups I work with that few things in recorder playing can’t be improved by using more air and I suspect I’ll be saying that until I retire! 

Now it’s your turn to do some homework…

If my words here have inspired you to work on your tone here’s a simple task for you. Pick a simple melody to learn, then record yourself playing it. If you own a smartphone the built in voice memo app will do the job just fine. If you’re not sure what tune to choose, why not try this one by Jacob Van Eyck:

Next, spend a few minutes each day working on the exercises I talked about earlier - deep breathing and controlled blowing, long notes and slow scales. Ten minutes will be enough to make a difference. Maybe think of it as the recorder playing equivalent of cleaning your teeth - one off those short tasks you carry out without fail every day!

In six weeks time, record yourself again playing the same tune and compare the two. I’m sure you’ll notice a difference and by this stage the techniques you’re using will be more habitual, freeing you up to concentrate on other aspects of your playing.

Do leave a comment below if you’re planning to try this (there’s nothing like promising something in public to make you feel more accountable!) and I’d love it if you could report back in a few weeks and let us know how you’re getting on. Why not join me in my mission to make the recorder soundworld a more beautiful place!

The Technique Zone - Are you sitting comfortably?

The new year is traditionally a time for making resolutions, often with self-improvement in mind. It might be a promise to get fitter or to eat less chocolate, or maybe an assertion that you’ll practise more and improve your recorder playing. If you find yourself making the latter resolution every year this new series of blog posts is designed to help you. 

The Technique Zone will be an ongoing series devoted to different aspects of recorder technique. I don’t have all the answers, but hopefully my tips may help you to better understand what you could do to become a better player.

How to use this series

It’s easy when you’re filled with new year enthusiasm to promise yourself you’ll work on every aspect of your playing this year. After all, the elements of recorder playing – breathing, tone production, articulation, fingering etc. – are all interlinked. However, if you wish retain some sanity I would warn against this! Instead, take a few minutes to think about your playing. Which elements of technique do you find hardest? Be honest about your weaknesses. Pick one area to focus on and hone for a while before you then move on to tackle something else.

We all know how difficult it is to multitask. Trying to work on too many things at once brings a distinct danger of doing nothing really well. Instead, take time to really polish one aspect of your playing – your tone, for instance – to the point where the good habits you’ve learnt become second nature. At that point you can consider another area of your technique, safe in the knowledge that you’ll maintain the good habits you’ve already built up while learning something new.

Alongside the Technique Zone I plan to run another series of posts, devoted to the thorny issue of practising effectively and efficiently. But more on these in due course….

The subject of this first Technique Zone post will be posture and remaining relaxed while playing, so let’s get started….

Let’s warm up

Photograph by Zoltan Tasi

It’s easy to throw yourself into practising without a second thought, filled with enthusiasm to make immediate progress. Don’t neglect the process of warming up first though. A runner would never begin their training with a high speed sprint. Instead, they’ll start with a gentle jog to warm up. Likewise, a gymnast or ballet dancer will do some stretches to limber up their muscles, ready for the demands they’ll make of their bodies. Even cats stretch when they wake up - they must instinctively know it’s good for their wellbeing!

Playing a musical instrument may not seem quite as physical as running a marathon or dancing a jive, but its repetitive nature can be equally damaging over long periods. It’s easy to get caught up in the music you’re practising and before you know it an hour has gone by, leaving you feeling tired and stiff. Instead, take a few minutes before you begin to stretch, making sure the key muscles you need are warm and relaxed. Tension is one of your biggest enemies and you’ll always play better when you’re relaxed.

An excellent resource for this is a sheet of warm ups published by the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine. Why not print a copy to keep in your recorder case for reference?

Before I move on to talk about posture, can I also urge you to take regular breaks whenever you’re playing. This is important whether you’re practising alone at home or playing with others. Sitting still for too long takes a huge toll on our bodies. It’s important to get up, walk around and stretch for a few minutes every half hour or so. Your body will thank you and your concentration levels will benefit too.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Most of us do much of our playing sitting down, especially when rehearsing with others. If you generally sit to practise I encourage you to sometimes ditch the chair and stand for a while if you can. Standing restricts your breathing less, encourages you to move more often, increases blood flow around the body and will help your concentration too. Give it a try. There’s no need to ban yourself from sitting entirely, but it’s good to change things up from time to time.

Having said all that, a lot of what I’m about to say is equally applicable whether you’re sitting or standing. But let’s take a moment to think about the part of our posture which does change when we sit – our lower body and legs.

Setting good foundations

If you’re sitting down, please stand up for a moment and consider your lower body posture. You don’t need a recorder for this – just your body and some self awareness. You might find it helpful to stand in front of a long mirror if you have one.

Stand as though you were about to play the recorder and look down at your feet. Are they close together or spread far apart? Move them into different positions and note the effect this has on your stability and balance. With your feet very close together your core muscles have to work harder to maintain your balance. Remember, you use these same core muscles to control your breathing, so you don’t want to overwork them.

Now move your feet a little further from each other – about hip width apart – and see how much more stable you feel. While you’re there, spread your feet even further apart and note the way your upper leg muscles then have to work harder.

While you’re standing, consider your knees. I know you don’t use your knees to play the recorder, but if you have them locked and stiff that makes your leg muscles work harder, increasing tension. Instead, keep them slightly soft so you’re not stiffly locked in position.

Please take a seat….

Now we’ve set the foundations, let’s sit down and consider the effect this has on our balance and posture.

When you play sitting down do you use the back rest of your seat? In many places recorder players meet to rehearse we’re provided with cheap, moulded plastic chairs. Heaven knows who such seats were designed for, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t the human form! If you sit back in many of these chairs it’s almost impossible not to slouch. Instead I encourage you to sit forward a little on your seat. You don’t need to be perched on the edge, but leave a little fresh air between your back and the chair so you can use your body’s own balance mechanisms.

Now you’re sitting down, keep your feet about hip width apart and place them beneath your knees, so you have a right angle at both your knees and hips. Note how this gives you a feeling of stability and balance. Now try tucking your feet beneath your chair or stretching them languidly out in front of you. Both of these actions deprive you of balance, don’t they? Tucking your feet under your seat tips your upper body forwards, while stretching the legs throws you backwards. Either way, you have to engage your core muscles (the ones you’ll be using to breath and blow) much more to maintain an upright playing position.

Bring yourself back to that balanced position – feet beneath your knees, with right angles at knees and hips. Now gently rock your upper body back and forth a little, gradually reducing the movement until you come to rest in the centre. Think of the Weeble toys made for children from the 1970s and you’ll have an idea what I mean. If you’re of the wrong generation to recall Weebles you can see what I mean here!

When you reach the centre you’ve found your ischial tuberosities – your sitting bones. You’re now sitting in a balanced way, as nature intended. By doing this you minimise the work the muscles in your back and core need to do.

Let’s return to the back of your seat again for a moment. If you can sit back and use the backrest for gentle support while sitting well, that’s great, but remember this isn’t possible with all chair designs. I almost always sit forward on my seat while playing because doing so puts less strain on my body than fighting a badly designed chair. Don’t forget you can always relax back into the chair during rests!

If you’d like to see a visual demonstration of the ideas I’ve just talked about this short video may be helpful:

Find a balance between relaxation and sitting up straight

We’ve all been told at some point in our lives (often by parents or school teachers) to, “Sit up straight!” But just how straight should you be? If you actively try to straighten your back you’re almost certainly going to end up with tense, sore muscles after a while. Our spines have their own natural curves which we shouldn’t attempt to expunge. Instead, try a method often espoused by Alexander Technique teachers. Imagine a thread running right along your spine, through your head and out of the top of your crown. Feel this thread gently lifting you, so you feel taller, but without straining to do so. Sitting well should use as little effort as possible, while avoiding being so relaxed that you slouch!

Head up, chin in, shoulders down!

It’s very easy to get into bad habits with your upper body while playing the recorder. We naturally feel an instinct to reach for the mouthpiece, stretching our chin forward. When we get tired and tense our shoulders will rise and in moments of stress (such as that tricky bit with all the accidentals!) we forget to check our posture.

Use a mirror to observe the position of your shoulders when you’ve been playing for a while. Now roll them in a circular motion, back and forth, dropping your arms at your sides, so gravity pulls their weight gently downwards. Are your shoulders further from your earlobes than they were a few moments ago? I bet they are! While you’re here, are your shoulders back and inline with your body, allowing your shoulder blades to form a V shape? Or maybe they’re rounded and pulled forwards. If you’re not sure, try rolling them forwards and see how much more strain that puts on your upper back muscles. A physiotherapist who used to treat my back would often say, “Shoulders back, boobs out!” to remind me to maintain good upper body posture. Now I realise this phrase only works for 50% of the population, but gents can try “shoulders back, chest out” instead!

Finally, think about the position of your chin. We spend too much of our lives today with our heads down over computers and mobile phones, often sticking our chins forward. The average human head weighs 5 kilos, so sitting with your head stretched forward puts enormous strain on your neck, often resulting in tension and headaches. As someone who has an unusually flexible spine and neck I’m frequently painfully aware of this fact because my natural vulnerability to overextension.

Try instead to tuck your chin in and keep your head lifted rather than bent forward. Doing this not only allows a freer path for the air passing through your windway when playing your recorder, but also helps you avoid tension headaches and knots in your neck and shoulder muscles. It may be you need to lift your music stand a little higher to encourage a healthy head position when playing, although I’m aware this can cause problems seeing the music with certain types of glasses.

Next time you play your recorders, try to be more aware of your head, chin and shoulders, focusing on keeping your chin tucked in, shoulders low and relaxed. Most importantly, make sure you always bring the recorder’s mouthpiece to you, rather than stretching your body towards it. This is particularly important for bass recorders and larger.

Knick basses or those with crooks have lots of points of adjustment and don’t overlook the way you support the recorder either. A sling can be helpful in taking the weight of the instrument, but maybe try it slung diagonally across your body if it causes discomfort when hung around your neck. Another option is a spike attached to the bottom of your bass, so the floor takes the weight, rather than you. With bigger basses make sure your seat is at the right height to allow you to play comfortably without having to actively stretch to reach the mouthpiece.

Are you now sitting more comfortably?

All the tips I’ve shared with you today are things I’ve picked up during over forty years of playing, as I’ve learnt to be comfortable in my own body. None of them are groundbreaking concepts, but they are easily overlooked.

When music making is your passion it’s easy to get caught up in the moment, neglecting your physical wellbeing. We spend many hours of our lives making repetitive movements. This can be damaging, but it needn’t be if you simply think about what you’re doing a little more.

How to practise what you’ve learnt…

Practising good posture shouldn’t be something you only consider when playing your recorder. Instead, make a point of sitting really well for some time every single day. OK, there will be times when you just want to lounge languidly on the sofa, and that’s absolutely fine! But find moments in the day when you’re doing something simple (maybe while you’re eating breakfast or as you sit on the platform waiting for a train) and consciously check your posture. Find your ischial tuberosities, drop your shoulders, lift your head and take some deep, relaxed breaths. Doesn’t it feel marvellous?! Try to bring this habit into your practice time too. Maybe follow some deep, relaxed breathing with a few minutes of long notes or a simple folk tune where you can think about how you’re sitting without the distraction of other technical challenges.

Have you picked up other useful tips on maintaining good posture while playing? If so please do share them with us in the comments below so others can benefit too. I’d love these Technique Zone posts to become an interactive resource where we can all learn from each other. In the meantime, keep relaxed and tension-free and I’ll see you again soon in the Technique Zone!