Transcript for: Learning to Play the Recorder and Its History
I have had this recorder for 14 years, and I have never played it
properly, not even once. There's just something I
don't get about reading music and moving my fingers and breathing. (recorder whistling) I wish I was joking. I just never understood why we were forced to learn something that
sounds so awful in school. That was my excuse for why
I didn't try very hard. But I am an adult now and
I'm sick of making excuses. So, to finally figure this instrument out, I'm diving into the surprisingly vast history of the recorder, learning from a professional
recorder musician, and finally earning my black
belt in Recorder Karate. - I've been looking forward to this. - You shouldn't have, Alison. I'm so nervous. This is the dumbest video I've ever made. Thank you to Grammarly
for sponsoring a portion of this video, and to our patrons for
supporting the channel. Look what I found. - That's a nice case. - Did you not have one of these? - Yes, I learned how to play
the recorder in grade four, and that was the end of that because the instrument sounds whack? - Did you guys do Recorder Karate? - Like fight with the recorders? - It's like this program where there's like nine different songs of increasing difficulty. You learn new techniques
to play each song, and then you get like
a belt, like in karate. - That's cute. We never had that. - I never got my black
belt in Recorder Karate, so I held onto my recorder. - As a symbol of your failure? Why did you do this to yourself? - I'm determined to earn this. - When though? When are you gonna do this? - I don't know. - You're just gonna like not work and just play recorder all day? - What are you, my boss? - Well, I mean... One week. Let me know how you get to
your black belt in one week. - Okay. - So you don't spend the
rest of your life trying to get a black belt in Recorder Karate. - It's a thing that fourth
graders are able to do. - Sure, but you weren't one of them. Oh, Sabrina. - So today is day one
of trying to learn how to play the recorder. I have no idea if I washed
this the last time I used it. It's been over 10 years. So, let's start with that. If it's good enough for ducks,
it's good enough for me. Ugh. There's like a bunch
of bite marks on here. I actually found the art
curriculum from when I went to school and it said that
fourth graders should be able to compose a pentatonic melody. Like the acapella group? Anyway, in order to get my
white belt in Recorder Karate, we are starting off with a
classic, "Hot Cross Buns." (recorder whistling) One, that sounds like a choo-choo train. (recorder whistling) This is not gonna go well. Okay. I am as far from my neighbors
as I could possibly be. I do not want this project
causing a noise complaint. I have my recorder. I have my fourth grade
learn to play recorder book. I've kept both these things. Can you tell how much this has haunted me? So this should be able to
help me learn how to play, but I think I'm just gonna
try and get my white belt before even opening the lesson book. So we've got the Recorder
Karate songs, and let's do it. What letter is that? B? (recorder whistling) It's so bad. It feels like the fourth
grade all over again. I just need to do it once. I just need to do it
once. (recorder whistling) Do you breathe in between notes? It was humbling realizing that I was less capable
than a 10-year-old, but I was determined, mainly because this was somehow
my job for the next week. Improvement! Let's get my yellow belt. I have never heard this
song before in my life. (recorder whistling) Oh, but this is cool. There are these little apostrophes that tell me when I'm
actually supposed to breathe. (recorder whistling) That doesn't seem right. (recorder whistling) It's just so clearly
"Mary Had a Little Lamb." Like, why are we trying
to change its name? Mary went into witness protection. Okay, we all know it was a rocky
start, but it is day three. I'm going to get the hang of this. It's raining. There's a new note, E. (recorder whistling) Green belt achieved! I might be a prodigy, or 26 years old. I'm getting better faster than I ever did in elementary
school, but more importantly, I'm actually having fun, even
if everyone around me isn't. This is just reminding
me that when I was a kid, there was so much emphasis on
playing and creating music. But now as an adult, especially
one who clearly struggled with music, I mainly just consume it. And that is a very different experience. (recorder whistling) Purple belt complete! Only four more to go. But before that, I want to
talk about another thing I struggled with in school, writing, and how Grammarly is helping
me become a better writer and is supporting the channel by sponsoring this portion of the video. You see, every essay I've ever
written was always returned covered in red pen. This made it really difficult for me to understand which mistakes
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more confident business emails. And while Grammarly is free to use, there is a premium option that lets you tailor your
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20% off when you upgrade to premium to level up your productivity and get work done faster. Thanks again to Grammarly
for sponsoring this portion of the video and helping me write better. Now, if only you could help
me play the recorder better. New feature? (recorder whistling) Let's go! It is day four. I have been practicing...too long. Now it's time for my red belt. I just need to practice for my red belt. Little diddy called "Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star." Have you heard of it? Oh, there's a new note. What's this? Is that it? (recorder whistling) As I was preparing for my red belt, I was doing so well that I decided to share my progress
with my biggest hater. Hi. (recorder whistling) (friends laughing) (recorder whistling) - Wait a second. - Right? - So wait, it's been a week. You sound like a grade four-year-old. - A grade four-year-old? No, I think it's because
there's like not a bunch of other kids to distract me, but I'm realizing that
this is kind of fun. Like I just think that it's
like a real musical instrument. - I've never seen a
real recorder musician, so I don't know what it's
supposed to sound like. (recorder whistling) Like I said, I've never seen a real
recorder musician before. - I think it's a real musical instrument. - All right, I'm gonna need
you to prove that to me. Thank you. - Are you kicking me out? In an attempt to defend my
honor and the recorders, I decided to figure out the
real reason why we were forced to learn the recorder in school. I wanted to check if
it was just economical or if there was something more. So I dove into the history
of the recorder to understand where it came from and how
it ended up in the hands of 10 year olds across America. And it turns out the
story is way weirder than most people realize. So the recorder, as we know it, comes out of Medieval Europe,
but it goes mainstream during the Baroque period when
famous composers like Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, are composing
solos for the recorder. And let me tell you, they go hard. (bright recorder music) Unfortunately, the recorder
was slowly sidelined by the transverse flute whose
flexibility better suited increasingly dynamic musical trends. So for the next 100-ish years, the recorder basically vanished. But if that's the case, how did it end up in the hands of 10 year
olds across America? Basic searches will blame
this guy, Carl Orff. He came up with this
music education approach that took off after World War II. It included the recorder, which
is a big reason why it ended up in schools across the world. But what everybody fails to mention is that he didn't want to use the recorder. I found his autobiography, and it turns out he wanted
to use the African marimba. The problem was that he
couldn't figure out how to mass produce it with Western tuning. So he consulted a specialist, Curt Sachs. But Curt Sachs was like, why don't you just use
the recorder instead? In fact, I know a guy who
makes a bunch of them. But why? Because remember, this was well before Carl's music system ever took off. In fact, this meeting had to have taken place between 1923 and 1930, which is also before plastic
recorders were even a thing. So who was mass producing this obscure wooden flute
from the 17th century? And why? (alarm ringing) Before Carl Orff, before World War II, the recorder played a key role in England and Germany's parallel struggle to define and redefine their cultural identity. Yes, the recorder. (recorder whistling) Intrigued. In the late 1800s, tensions were brewing
within England and Germany. England was mockingly called
the nation without music and scholars were keen
to prove them wrong. At the same time, Germany
was becoming increasingly industrial and individualistic, and people wanted to reconnect
with their communities. That is the context you need to understand what happened next. In 1903, Arnold Dolmetsch, a musician and instrument maker, bought a vintage recorder and learned how to play
it with his family. But in 1919, his son lost
it at a train station. So, Arnold decided to make
a new one from scratch and showed it off during a
music festival he organized. Over the years, two key
figures attended this festival, Edgar Hunt, an English music teacher, and Peter Harlan, a
German instrument maker. They both recognized that the
simplicity of the recorder, which once banished it to obscurity, could bring it back to life. Edgar Hunt was really keen to elevate music education
in English schools. At the time, students would
make their own pipes out of bamboo, but this was time consuming and often led to cut fingers
and out of tune instruments. He wanted to introduce kids to what he thought was good music, and he figured that the
recorder's repertoire of legendary composers could help. Unfortunately, all of the
recorders made in England were incredibly expensive. Luckily, across the sea, Peter Harlan had started
producing recorders and selling them to his peers in Germany, this rapidly growing
market of young people who wanted the connection that came with playing folk music together. Now, this desperation
was eventually co-opted by the National Socialist Party with an internal memo acknowledging... - [Narrator] Songs possess the strongest community building power. Thus, we use them deliberately
at those moments when we want to waken the consciousness
of being part of a community. - So the recorder,
according to Edgar Hunt, became the instrument of the Hitler youth with a children's orchestra opening the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, playing music by one, Carl Orff. Now, this twist in the
recorder's history is incredibly unfortunate, but it did
have one major benefit. It made the instrument
incredibly affordable. Cheap German imports was how
Edgar convinced English schools to adopt the recorder, solidifying its place in
international education so that even at the
outbreak of World War II, England just started producing their own, turning to plastic to keep prices low, which is how we ended up with this. Or, actually, you probably
played a plastic Yamaha. The story there is that
a Japanese man named Yoshitaka Sakamoto was attending
the 1936 Olympic Games. He saw all of those kids
playing the recorders, felt inspired, bought some,
brought 'em back to Japan, and then convinced the Yamaha
Corporation to make them. So it still goes back to the Nazis. But anyway, you weren't forced to learn the recorder in
school because it was cheap. It was cheap because
people throughout history recognized this simple
instrument's potential as a tool to explore musical composition,
to educate young people with an instrument that'll
meet them where they're at, and to exploit the joy that comes with making music together. You can't win them all. But needless to say, this instrument is so
much more than a toy. But I'm worried that you
still don't believe me because you think that the recorder can only sound like this. (recorder whistling) Brown belt. Now, despite my genius improvement, I wanna find somebody who can show us what the recorder can sound like with a little bit more practice. (recorder whistling) I had the chance to speak
with Alison Melville, a professional recorder musician, at the beautiful Orange
Lounge Studio in Toronto. - I think the first time I
actually heard anybody say this kind of derogatory thing
about the recorder, a junior high school teacher, and he said, "Well, you don't
still play that, do you? That's just a stepping stone instrument." I don't know how this happened, but for example, Suzuki violin class, they usually don't sound very good, but everybody knows that a
violin doesn't sound like how it sounds in Suzuki class. How come it's just suddenly,
oh, but it's a recorder, it can't be any different? And if it's a skilled player, then some people will think it's a flute. Unless they see it's a recorder
with the sound coming out of it, they'll sort of say, oh, that can't possibly be a recorder. - [Sabrina] Alison gave
me some examples of where we might hear the
recorder without knowing it, including some of her own work. - "Cuphead," the latest game,
"The Delicious Last Course," and there's one tune where
it's really quite prominent, but you might not know that's a recorder. Any professional most of the
time is playing a wooden one. (recorder whistling) This is a plastic Yamaha
in translucent blue. (recorder whistling) So you can hear there's a
difference in the sound. It makes total sense. It's like any other instrument. The material it's made
of affects how it sounds. - [Sabrina] But interestingly, material isn't the most notable influence on a recorder's sound. Recorders actually come
in a wide variety of sizes that change its range. - This is an alto, the
lowest note on a soprano. (recorder whistling) And that's a C. This is an F. (recorder whistling) So it makes sense, right? The bigger they get, the lower they sound. (recorder whistling) The lower you get, the nicer
people think it sounds. This is the special one. This is the one nobody
believes is a recorder. (Sabrina laughing) - [Sabrina] That's delightful. (recorder whistling) - But you can also hear it's quite soft. It's not the only instrument
I play, but it's really, I feel like it's mostly the
instrument that is my voice. It's a very specific instrument. It has a kind of a rigidity about it. It needs to be just right. So you find more ways, whether it's different
kinds of music to play, different kinds of people to play with who challenge your
assumptions, who help you grow. Any instrument has the
people who find that that's really their voice. I've had colleagues say things like, they hate the accordion. It's like, okay, well, but there are lots of people
who love the accordion and who play it extremely well. And just because you
don't like the sound of that instrument doesn't make
it not a musical instrument. - I would like to try and play
something for you, Alison. - Yes. I've been looking forward to this. - You shouldn't have, Alison. You shouldn't have. I'm so nervous. If you could do me the honor of listening to me "Ode to Joy." - Yes. - And then let me know if
you think I deserve that. - [Alison] Yes, I will. - Okay. I've been so bad at breathing, Alison. I've just been losing my
breath the entire time. It's fine, it's good. Okay. (recorder whistling) - Yeah, very good. - Very good.
I got a very good? - I messed up a little bit over there. - You know what? Just try that bit again. (recorder whistling) Yes, okay. So my decision... - I got it? - Yes, you did. Of course you did. - Thank you! Ugh! Today's the day I learned that. I don't know how to tie a karate band. Perfect. People don't talk about this when you're in a classroom, right? But take a breath, take a really good
breath before you start. Because often, you'll see, especially when children are playing. (recorder whistling) Right? And they didn't breathe before they start. - And that was me. - One other thing is when
you start playing the sound, usually when you play the notes, instead of stopping and
starting with the air, like who, who, who, you go, do, do, do. But you keep the air going. Let's just play a little experiment here. I play something for you
and you play it back? - Okay. (recorder whistling) - There you go. So that's all in one breath. - Okay. - So then, if I was gonna tongue it, if I was gonna try and
play them separately, I could go do, do, do. The blowing stays the same. (recorder whistling) Instead of... (recorder whistling) Right? (recorder whistling) - You wanna just try that?
Sounds so much better. Can I do it? We're asking a lot now. (recorder whistling) - It's like singing and going la, la. (recorder whistling) There you go. - Oh! Oh! I know it sounds silly, but after a decade of feeling ashamed about my musical incompetence, Alison patiently teaching
me was incredibly freeing. It made me wanna try one more time. Do you wanna try and play together? - Would you like me to play
a harmony part with you? - Yes. (recorder whistling) Growing up can be so serious and lonely, but there's something about
making music together, even bad music, that makes
it feel a little bit better. (recorder whistling) - Oops.