Did you hate playing the recorder at school?
The recorder is one of these instruments often taught in music class at school, but for me, I came across it aged 7, when my mother decided I should take some music lessons and we didn’t have enough space for a piano in our home (and keyboards didn’t really exist back then, at least my mother didn’t know about them).
I took lessons for 7 years, then I switched to classical guitar, which I studied for 2 years, then I dropped the lessons and bought a keyboard and an electric guitar.
Anyway, as most other kids, I hated the recorder, until I started playing the alto recorder. While the regular recorder (soprano) can be quite nasal and doesn’t produce a very nice sound, the alto recorder is quite nice and soft.
I stored away both my soprano and alto recorders when I was 14 and haven’t really touched them since. But a couple of weeks ago, for some weird reason, I decided that the sound of the alto recorder would suit the mood of this new song I’m writing.
The song is called “leftover” and is quite sad and melancholic. So I took my alto recorder out of its box and checked it still sounded OK - it did - and I wrote melodies to accompany the song.
I haven’t actually recorded the alto recorder parts yet but I am planning on doing this at the week-end, even though I’m a bit worried at my ability to play it now (my fingers felt quite rusty on it when I tried it) and also, how it will sound through the microphone I have.
However, I think it is a good way to reappropriate an instrument I’ve had a love/hate relationship with, and an instrument that is often seen as boring by kids who are forced to learn it at school.
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