Woodwind has historically been on the back foot when it comes to absolute beginners. The aspiring six- or seven-year-old scraper can begin immediately on a one-quarter- or one-half-size stringed instrument, but hopeful blowers used to have to wait for several years before picking up any description of flute, clarinet, oboe or bassoon. Instead, ever since the 50s, when Imogen Holst persuaded the powers that be that it was a good idea, everyone started on the recorder. It is still an outstanding instrument, and the resources available have only grown in number, but, as we all know now, it is in something of a decline in the classroom (see below). However, the wider woodwind situation has changed dramatically in recent times and, as explored here, there is a rich marketplace full of woodwind instruments for absolute beginners.
Playing a woodwind instrument in the same room as your teacher is currently beset with problems, and for some schools, ensemble playing in general may be impossible. There are plenty of videos doing the rounds that demonstrate how playing woodwind instruments projects less air than normal speech. These are well intentioned and make some good points. But the situation in the minds of teachers, parents of students and the medical experts is a long way from being ‘business as usual’. As always, it's important to follow the advice of the ISM, Music Mark and Musicians’ Union in terms of what measures to take to keep yourself and your students safe.
The recorder
When I was a child my school had a flourishing recorder group where my friends and I would go at lunchtime to work our way through the ‘Abracadabra’ ensemble book. If you showed particular promise you were invited to learn the alto recorder and were given a recorder and a tutor book to take home and teach yourself. I, alas, was never one of the chosen ones but I was terribly jealous of my older sister who was!
Sadly, it would appear that the sound of the multi-coloured, often non-pitched plastic monstrosities has finally reach a cacophonous climax: no longer do whole classes of primary school children learn to play the descant recorder, instead they have moved on to guitars and ukuleles. YouGov research, commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to find the most popular instruments among schoolchildren, revealed the increasing popularity of the ukulele in particular, with one in eight expressing a desire to learn, making it the highest ranked instrument behind the rock-band grouping of guitar, piano, keyboards, drums and bass guitar.
So how can we keep the recorder alive in schools? ‘There needs to be more representation of the recorder as a respectable instrument on a par with the violin and the piano,’ says recorder player and popular YouTuber Sarah Jeffery, ‘Educating teachers is key too – if a music teacher is to teach recorder, they need to know how it works and what it can do too’.
I for one absolutely adore the recorder! I love the way it sounds, looks, and feels. It is easier to breathe than other woodwind instruments so there is much more control over phrasing for even beginner students. It is small enough to fit in a bag or a locker, it can be inadvertently mistaken for a flute or clarinet (genuinely!) and there are hundreds of years of repertoire available.
Descant recorders are pitched in C and plastic models are available for as little as £3.59 from Recorder Workshop. The wooden recorder undoubtedly has a warmer and less, dare I say, irritating timbre and can be purchased at a reasonable price, so why not introduce them to the beginner rather than just the ‘serious’ recorder student.
‘There's a lot of research being done into wind instruments and the spread of Coronavirus, so I am sure we will know more in the coming weeks, but I would be surprised if the recorder contributed to the spread more than normal speaking,’ says recorder virtuoso and educator Jill Kemp on the current crisis. ‘The air flow is directional and there is minimal risk of it spraying out, in the way that it might for e.g. beginner flautists who are learning to control the direction of their breath. I know of several schools and music providers that are planning to continue to teach recorder in the autumn term (some are actually swapping to recorder from trumpet/flute because they believe it to be lower risk) so it may even have a positive effect on the uptake in some schools.’
© PHOTO COURTESY OF OCARINA WORKSHOP
Giving primary school children a positive and exciting first experience of the recorder is vital. Catherine Fleming, professor of recorder at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, describes some recent initiatives: ‘My quartet The Flautadors has been involved with lots of educational projects over the years and it has been very rewarding to see children flourish and develop as a result of these events. The recorder quartet Palisander had a fantastic programme “Recorder Revolution” and have been successful in achieving funding to take this into schools. Another interesting project on the horizon is “Endo the earworm”, featuring Puppeteers and musicians (including recorder player Tabea Debus) who are currently fund raising to make short films about an earth worm's adventures.’
Off I go then into as many local primary schools as possible! I'll introduce them to the coolest member of my recorder collection (my Mollenhauer electric Elody), I shall play a selection of genres, perhaps add a backing track to some Van Eyck, funk up a few by Bach, unleash the Zahnhausen and throw in the theme to Game of Thrones.
If we can capture the imaginations of the youngest students by demonstrating the versatility and sheer brilliance of the recorder then all we need to do is maintain their motivation throughout their teenage years…
Frances Thornton
The ocarina
The Ocarina Workshop's outstanding 4-hole ‘Oc’ (£14.62 for instrument + method book 1) is an easy-to-play, cheap and attractive instrument for the classroom. It has 11 notes, is pitched in C and makes a beautiful mellow sound. One other important attribute of this small vessel flute, as opposed to the majority of its wind instrument brothers and sisters, is that if you overblow it, it simply cuts out, lending a much calmer ambience to group lessons. The Ocarina Workshop publishes a wide range of resources, and has been proven to be an effective instrument for whole-class teaching. They also make a six-hole model and various larger models.
In terms of Covid-19 safety, each Oc has a neck string, so that each pupil is clear which is their own instrument, and they are washable.
Junior clarinet
Howarth of London has worked with Lambeth Music Service to produce its Junior MX clarinet, and it also produces a ‘Junior PLUS+’ model. Both use standard fingering, have reduced keywork in order to be lighter and simpler to play by young children, and come with a Howarth Simplefit mouthpiece to help with placement of the reed. The Junior MX costs £220 and will play a little over a concert pitch F major scale. The PLUS+ model (£260) is pitched in B flat, and is fully chromatic over three octaves, which will take the student up to Grade 3.
Nuvo instruments
Nuvo's range of plastic instruments includes a number of beginner woodwind models, including a standard descant recorder (£6.60) and a descant recorder with silicone keys, known as the Recorder+ (from £10.55). But standout beginner products are the so-called DooD (£30) and TooT (£30). The DooD is a single-reed training instrument. It uses recorder fingering with silicone keys and has a clarinet-style single reed mouthpiece. It makes a beautifully mellow sound and plays over one octave. The TooT is for prospective flute players. It also uses recorder fingering, and has an easy-to-play Firstnote lip plate, which the student just needs to blow through in order to make a sound. This can be removed, revealing a standard flute-style lip plate. It is fully chromatic and plays an octave and a half.
Nuvo also produces a clarinet in C, named the Clarinéo (£118.80). It is slightly smaller than a clarinet in B flat, making the stretches smaller and the tone holes shorter. Otherwise it is a standard clarinet form, giving three-and-a-half octaves, which is enough to play Mozart's Clarinet concerto. If mini clarinets and flutes aren't enough for you, Nuvo also produces the jSax (£88.80). Pitched in C, like all Nuvo instruments, it has the distinctive saxophone shape and uses saxophone fingering. It plays an octave and has a sax-style embouchure.
All Nuvo instruments are waterproof and can be thoroughly washed. Each model is supported by the WindStars programme, which includes beautifully produced books and a raft of online resources.
The mini bassoon
There are several sizes of bassoon, and the smallest, the ‘mini’ bassoon, while not an instrument for an absolute beginner, is suitable for children from around the age of seven and deserves a mention here. A Ludlow mini, made from plastic resin, costs £1,500. It is pitched in G and has ergonomic finger distances suitable for children. The Howarth ‘Mini-Bassoon PLUS+’ (£2,830) is also pitched in G. It is made from matured mountain maple and weighs just 1.05 kg.
