Re: Recorder pitch bends

Hi any recorder enthusiasts:

I've just discovered I can bend the pitch of a recorder up
by a third of a semitone, while keeping the same volume,
by directing a very narrow stream of air into the mouthpiece.

Must ahve been doing it for some time now - knew I got more
variety in volume for the notes than one would expect, while
keeping the same pitch (echo effects etc), but thought it
was just by varying the attack.

Has anyone else come across this?

Don't recall reading about it.

Doesn't work for the base recorder, unless you remove the
top and play directly into it.

Robert

Right your are, Robert, the recorder is a great microtonal instrument.
Partial holing enables anything imaginable. Taping the holes with scotch
tape allows for all early temperaments. Donald Bousted writes for
quartertone recorders as does the pioneer Tui St. George Tucker.

Like many instruments of the Renaissance and Baroque, crescendo and
decrescendo were often impossible. If you blow harder on a recorder, the
pitch goes up more prominently than its amplitude. There is a way to play
dynamics on recorder through alternate fingerings and a healthy use of
shading. You can measure the air space above tone holes, and FEEL the wind
stream hit your finger. Keeping in contact with the blown air is a good idea
for really sensitive microtonal improvisation.

And prepared recorder, and singing contrapuntally through the instrument in
real time, and....

Johnny Reinhard

Afmmjr@aol.com wrote:
>
> Right your are, Robert, the recorder is a great microtonal instrument.
>
> Partial holing enables anything imaginable. Taping the holes with
> scotch
> tape allows for all early temperaments. Donald Bousted writes for
> quartertone recorders as does the pioneer Tui St. George Tucker.

A couple of years ago I was spending a more than a bit of
time playing microtonal recorder. No recordings exist but
I was really into sliding from note to note.

--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* 49/32 R a d i o "all microtonal, all the time"
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

Hi Johnny,

Yes, I'm only just beginning to explore the microtonal possiblities.
Shading, and alternate fingerings, indeed. Especially in middle
range, one can invent many alt. fingerings and add a few fingers
here and there or shade notes. Recorder is especially good for that
as the alternate fingerings often have as good a quality of sound
as the standard ones (which I gather isn't the case for, say,
the baroque flute).

I'll be interested to find out more about what's been done and
is being done with microtonal recorders.

However, I find it is possible to vary the volume at a steady pitch,
or pitch at a steady volume, by just changing the way I breath into
it. Sort of focussed, and a bit bouncing off the top of the
passage.

I know that the air passage is long before it hits the edge, but it
seems there is just enough leeway there to bend it a bit.

Like, an echo effect from f to mf, nothing as dramatic as say
f to p, but still enough to make quite a variation dynamics,
especially when coupled with varying attack on the notes.

Because the recorder is so sensitive to pitch, it also varies the
pitch by a fair amount, seems to be about a third of a semitone in fact,
at the same volume - but that may easily be an over estimate, as
it is a bit hard to tell if two notes are really exactly
the same volume, esp. with recorder when increasing air pressure
just a bit varies the pitch so much more than the volume.

One idea, maybe what it is is that I add turbulence to the air
stream by blowing in that way, in fact feels a bit like that.
Then the turbulence could survive through the air stream, in fact,
I'm sure it would, and presumably all the little vortexes hitting
the sharp edge could cause a different pitch from a very gentle
steady air stream.

It's not like a vibrato, the air pressure stays constant, but
you make it more turbulent.

One could do a crescendo or decrescendo in that way, but would
be quite hard, I'm not up to that yet. But it is fairly easy
to do an echo effect f, then mf, using identical fingerings
for both, and identical pitch.

There is a slight change in the quality of the sound as well
when one does it, but it isn't great.

The note when it is more turbulent is the one that is sharp
(and so that's the way one plays for the echo)
- don't know if that fits in with theory or not?

I suppose I could be fooling myself- it is rather easy to do
that with this kind of thing (e.g. varying attack, or hovering
fingers shading the holes, or whatever), and it is a fairly
subtle effect, more than the third of a semitone pitch change
might suggest because of the extreme sensitivity of the
recorder pitch to volume.

However, tried several times and listened carefully, and still
seem to be able to do it!

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else is able to duplicate
this.

Robert

Hi, recorder enthusiasts again:

There's no doubt about it now, - after a rest and
trying again, I'm getting a dynamic range of
f to pp for the same note on the recorder.

Playing the g in the low register of the descant,
so it can't be because of varying the amount
by which the note is pinched, and the other
fingers are well out of the way, indeed, one can
play it with only one hand on the recorder, so can't be
shading by them.

In the middle register, you also have to vary the
amount you pinch by to play the quiet notes.
- i.e. add turbulence, and make the gap smaller to get a
quieter note at the same pitch - because you need
less breath pressure so need to pinch more to prevent
the note from breaking (for pinching, actually, I use
the ball of the thumb rather than the nail, and just
leave a gap, which is just as accurate once one gets
used to it, and possibly faster for changes of
register).

Also, I'm not sure, but it may also be
a bit more liable to break in the middle register than it would be
normally, when you do this.

In the middle register, for many notes it is more like
mf to p, but very variable.

In the high register, the note is definitely more liable
to break when you add turbulence. However, you can also use the amount
of turbulence to help to choose one of the pitches for the
high fingerings that play a variety of pitches depending on breath
pressure.

e,g
� - 2

which plays a high E7 (rather flat, so needs to be made sharp if poss,
e,g, by _very_ _slightly_ leaking a bit of air from the 1, but perfectly
serviceable), or a G7 (very nicely in tune and about as easy to play as
the more usual � 1 - - 4 fingering for this note), or an A7, or an F7 sharp,
or an F8 sharp in a hurricane, rather nice to my ears, with a bit of
F8 sharp colouring amongst a lot of white noise from the breath.
(all these are somewhat dependent on the particular recorder used).

One can really get lots of interesting effects now in the high
register with varying turbulence! Things like playing a note
with white noise, and a quiet varying pitch glissando in another
pitch below it.

Also for some of those notes, you can vary the pitch a lot
by varying the turbulence, which is very useful indeed!

I haven't yet reached the point where I can use the
high register notes routinely in melodies, though can use
some of them for occasional one off notes. But with
this turbulence thing, they get quite a bit easier,
so may be able to eventually!

I've been doing some practicing of pieces with this,
and it really is quite a breakthrough in terms of
extra dynamics, and ease of playing!

My best guess is still that it works by adding
turbulence to the air stream. Pretty easy to do
once you get the idea of it.

I'll do a recording of it some time and post it (can't
seem to find my microphone right now).

Much easier than shading and alternate
fingering, which I've never quite got the hang
of somehow for anything except very slow passages.

However, would be nice to work out a fingering scheme
for some scales, say, for the 1 3 5 7, 1 3 5 11
and 1 3 7 11 hexanies for example, as I'm planning
on working on those for a while.

Robert

Robert Walker wrote,

>However, would be nice to work out a fingering scheme
>for some scales, say, for the 1 3 5 7, 1 3 5 11
>and 1 3 7 11 hexanies for example, as I'm planning
>on working on those for a while.

Why no hexanies with 9?