Orpheus Music News

Looking for new studies to improve your technique? In this Gecko we share our favourite studies for Descant/Soprano and tenor recorders (C Fingering).  Last year we shared our favourite studies and etudes for alto/treble recorders (F Fingering). Click here to read it if you are interested.

We also share some unusual and interesting books about the recorder including improvisation, how the acoustics of the recorder work, avantgarde music and much more! 

Descant Recorder for those with a disability

• Designed for players who have finger disabilities.
• Some finger holes are adjustable, so players can fix the finger holes to the position where they can play recorder comfortably.

Fife in Pearwood

• Transverse Flute (fife) made from Pearwood in the key of C.
• A soft and enchanting sound, easy to play.
• The fingering system and basic tuning match that of the C soprano recorder.
• An easy introduction to flute blowing technique.

Recorder Accessories

Have you always wanted to learn how to improvise, but not sure how to?

A Beautifully Presented Publication Intended as a Guide to Improvisation. Suitable for intermediate students from approximately grade 3 and above.

1. The nature of improvisation
2. Getting started
3. Building up a session
4. If your technique is limited
5. Playing to your instrument
6. Mastering your instrument
7. Getting out of trouble
8. When the music takes wing

Recorders have been made and played for hundreds of years. However it is only comparatively recently that we have been able to understand some of the details of how recorders work.

This book offers the most complete description so far of the physical processes which determine the recorder's sound. The formation of the jet in the windway, the shape of the bore, the placing of the fingerholes, the voicing, the sound generation mechanism and other contributing factors are considered in detail, together with their interactions. The results are supported by literature references, new measurements and mathematical models.

An important part of the book takes the results of the physical investigations and shows their importance in understanding the historical development of the recorder and various aspects of its design and performance technique.

In addition, the book seeks to offer a plausible solution to one of the eighteenth century's musical puzzles: the identity of the "fiauti d'echo" in JS Bach's fourth Brandenburg concerto.

Have You Ever Wondered What That Squiggle Means?

This book aims to entice others to take part in listening to and froming sound, activities which for us are life-giving and pleasurable; to invite them into the "flow", the fever of creation, in which the authors of this volume are immersed.

Whilst no guide of this type could be absolutely complete, this publication deals with many kinds of 20th Century notation through exercises and explanations and draws specifically on many works of the era.

BACK IN STOCK AT ORPHEUS MUSIC

Large prints of the famous  Fred Morgan's drawings of historical recorders.

Comes with book with photographs of each of the historical recorders and description of marker, age and previous owners. 

Prints include 18 A3 sized versions of Fred Morgans detailed and beautiful measurements.