The recorder has a wider range of native repertoire than many instruments thanks to its long history. We have Renaissance consorts (many of which were composed for unspecified instruments so they’re definitely fair game for recorders), a plethora of Baroque sonatas and concertos (even a smattering of consort pieces from the period) and a vast array of works composed since the recorder’s 20th century revival. But still we have a perpetual desire to broaden the range of music we play. This invariably leads us to raid other sources for music we can borrow, including vocal and instrumental repertoire.
If, like me, you want to explore beyond the recorder’s native repertoire you have three choices - transcriptions of pre-existing music, making more creative arrangements or composing something from scratch. Let’s consider each of these in turn…
Transcription
I would class this as a piece where you can take a work and transfer it quite simply to recorders. You might need to change the key of the music (more about that later) or play a little with the parts to make them fit, but otherwise it’s generally a fairly simple process. This approach often works well with vocal music and many Renaissance instrumental works will translate easily to recorders too.
Creative arrangement
In this category you might choose to create a new piece from a tune you already know - for instance combining folk tunes and adding your own twist of creativity. I think this could also include arrangements of music which isn’t immediately obviously suitable for recorders. Perhaps a piece for piano where you have to create individual lines from a more homogenous texture.
Composing
Handel’s manuscript
Here the only limit is your own imagination!
You have complete control over the choice of instruments, style of music, level of difficulty and much more. Whether you feel comfortable composing may depend on your musical knowledge and level of experience, but I would argue there’s nothing to stop you having a go. As with writing a novel, I would suggest you begin by drawing on your own experiences. Perhaps start with your recorder, noodling around with the sort of musical shapes you enjoy playing and if something great comes to you try writing it down. You could begin with a single line and work on from there. Even if you never share the music with anyone else you’ll learn from the experience and it’ll give you a greater understanding of what composers do. You don’t need fancy music typesetting software for this - all that’s required is some manuscript paper, a pencil and eraser. You can even download and print manuscript paper from the internet these days. Blanksheetmusic.net will even insert the clef for you before you print.
I’m going to focus mostly today on arranging as that’s my main area of expertise - I’ve never been much of a composer. But many of my tips will apply just as much to composing, so if that’s what tickles your fancy do read on…
Let’s say you fancy trying your hand at arranging or transcribing - where’s a good place to start?
Again, personal experience of music can lead you in a particular direction. Is there a piece of music you’ve heard that you’d like to try on recorders? Or maybe you have a favourite composer who neglected to write for your favourite instrument? These ideas may be enough to get you started, but I have some other ideas about the type of music you could mine.
Vocal music
Don’t be overambitious to begin with - pick something simple for your first arrangement. Vocal music often works really well because the range of the human voice is very similar to that of the recorder. Maybe begin with a hymn tune or a simple piece of Renaissance choral music? If you have a work for soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices, the chances are it’ll fit perfectly on descant, treble, tenor and bass recorders.
Renaissance instrumental music
Many pieces from this period don’t specify the instrumentation and may work well on recorders. If the music was originally for viols you might have to change the music from alto or tenor clef to something more familiar. You may find the notes need a little adjustment (shifting occasional low notes up an octave for instance) to fit the recorder. Unless you’re arranging the music for low recorders (tenor downwards) you’ll almost certainly need to shift all the notes an octave higher to make them fit, but we’ll talk about recorder pitch later.
Later music
Music intended for modern orchestral instruments may have lines which are too long for a single recorder to play, but we’ll look at how to cope with this in a while. It’s often tempting to try and fill the classical and romantic gap in the recorder’s repertoire, but sometimes pieces just don’t translate to recorders well. Many years ago I heard Wagner’s Procession to the Minster from Lohengrin played by a brass band and wondered if it might work on recorders. A brass band is a monochromatic ensemble (all the instruments basically make the same type of sound), just like recorders, so it seemed logical. Of course, a brass band has a much wider dynamic range and sadly I discovered a recorder orchestra (even if it’s made up of 130 people) just doesn’t have the same impact as a brass band at full power. It was a useful learning experience though, even if the music has only been used once!
If you’re considering arranging music originally intended for a symphony orchestra it’s worth bearing in mind the effect the transition to recorders may have on the impact of the music. Orchestral music derives a lot of its colour from the use of different instruments - for instance a melody played by a solo oboe against a string accompaniment. With a monochromatic recorder ensemble we lose this variety of colour so you may need to find ways around this. For instance, you could double a line an octave higher (say, a treble line doubled by sopranino) to bring a little sparkle. Some orchestral music will work this way, while other pieces just seem to lose their magic. That said, don’t be afraid to try - if nothing else you’ll learn something in the process!
The example below comes from my arrangement of The Shepherds’ Farewell by Berlioz. You can see that at bar 45 I’ve chosen to give all the music to the lower instruments to create a contrast of tone colour.
Keyboard music
A recorder transcription of keyboard music which contains clear musical lines (a fugue for instance) can be very effective. On the other hand, keyboard music (whether for piano, harpsichord or organ) can take many forms - single lines for each hand, chords or arpeggio patterns. These can require some imagination and creativity to make them work on recorders, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend keyboard music as the ideal starting point if you’re new to arranging.
The examples below come from Bach’s Little Fugue in C major. The original (on the left) is composed for keyboard, but the different voices are clear within the music so it transfers very easily to four recorder parts (on the right).
Listen to music for inspiration
As you listen to music ask yourself if you can imagine it being played on recorders. This is where my arrangements often start - sometimes I’ll hear a piece which immediately strikes me as being ‘recorder-like’ in some way. For instance, the Palestrina Sicut cervus I shared as a consort last year was something I discovered via YouTube. Its beauty and simple lines immediately struck me as being recorder-friendly so I went in search of the music.
Where to search for music?
Actually tracking down sheet music has become immeasurably easier over the last twenty years. Once upon a time you had to buy a physical book of sheet music or hope to find it in your local library. Now a search online can be all that’s needed. My first port of call is always the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) which is a vast repository for music that’s out of copyright. If you’re looking for something by a composer who died more than 70 years ago there’s a good chance you’ll find it here.
Other useful sources are the ChoralWiki (previously known as the Choral Public Domain Library or CPDL), 8Notes and the Mutopia Project. All of these sites offer free access to public domain music, but many have a paid tier to remove adverts or allow you unlimited downloads.
Getting started
Whether you’re arranging or composing for the recorder here are some basic pieces of practical advice which will help you get started.
Notation
Recorder notation can be confusing at first and sometimes trips up the unwary. You’ll often hear people talk about recorders in F and recorders in C. This suggests they’re transposing instruments, like the clarinet (which comes in B flat, A and E flat varieties). In reality all the letter describes is the pitch of the recorder’s lowest note. Therefore a recorder in F (treble, bass or sopranino) plays an F if all the finger holes are covered. Unlike real transposing instruments, any note on a recorder is written at its sounding pitch.
This brings us onto clefs….
Recorder clefs
All recorders either play from the treble or bass clef - which clef largely depends on the pitch of the instrument. Generally, any recorder down to the tenor plays from treble clef, while bass and lower use the bass clef. Having said that, some bass and great bass players prefer to play from treble clef so they don’t have to learn to read bass clef.
One small complication is the use of a little 8 above some clefs. This indicates that the instrument in question either sounds an octave (eight notes) higher or lower than the written pitch. This is a purely practical thing, so no one has to read too many leger lines. If descant recorder music was really notated at playing pitch, the lowest note would be in the third space of the stave and the high C would have five leger lines, making it very hard to read! As a result it can look as though treble music is higher in pitch than descant music because it tends to have more leger lines - something often confuses people.
Here’s a chart showing the clefs and sounding ranges of each type of recorder - you can see how using the octave clefs results in far fewer leger lines for some of the instruments:
Recorder ranges
While we’re thinking about notation, let’s also consider the range of notes you might use for each recorder. For most recorders, the easily useable range is two octaves and a note. Yes, higher notes are possible, but not very user friendly. It’s a good idea to think about the type of players you’re arranging the music for. Professionals should be able to play the entire compass, but if your intended audience is made up of middle of the road amateurs I would go for a more modest range. Fluent players will probably be comfortable with two octaves, but if you’re aiming your arrangement at those who are less confident I would restrict yourself to around an octave and six notes from each instrument’s lowest note.
Here’s another chart showing the written ranges for each instrument. Each instrument shows the range you could expect from advanced players, followed by an easier playing range for those who are less experienced.
Choose your instruments
Before you start arranging you need to decide which recorders you’re planning to write for. If you have a particular group in mind, do they have the full range of instruments? It’s no good writing a piece for the classic descant/treble/tenor/bass (SATB) quartet format, only to find that no one plays the bass! If you have access to more players, doubling up the inner parts (say, two treble and/or two tenor parts) can add richness to the sound because it allows you to write more layers into the music.
The following example comes from A Thousand Christmas Candles and you can see how the arranger has chosen to have two treble and tenor parts to increase the richness. He also uses octave doubling of the melody (shown by the circled bars) to create greater depth.
What sort of sound world are you aiming to create? An SATB quartet can be quite high pitched, while a low consort of tenor, bass, great bass and contrabass creates a much mellower effect. If you have enough players at your disposal, doubling lines at the octave can also be an effective way to enrich the sound. This works especially well in Renaissance music where the texture and harmony is often quite simple to start with.
In my arrangement of Bach’s By the Rivers of Babylon I chose to double the tenor melody line on great bass to enhance and enrich the sound.
Key signatures
Here I would encourage you to be kind! I’m sure you know from experience that playing in keys with many sharps or flats can be difficult on the recorder. This is largely because the accidentals often require forked or cross fingers (think of E flat on the treble, or B flat on the descant). These notes not only have a slightly different tone colour (sometimes weaker) but because such fingerings are more complex they can be difficult to play at speed and tuning can also be more of a challenge.
Many years ago a tutor on a course I attended arranged the Hebrides Overture by Felix Mendelssohn for a massed playing session in its original key of B minor. Two sharps isn’t so bad, but by the time we got to the point in the overture where the music shifts into F sharp minor only a small handful of us were actually able to play the fast moving semiquaver scales in three or four sharps!
Sometimes such difficulties can be overcome by transposing the music into another key entirely. For instance, I’ve recently arranged a part song by Sir Arthur Sullivan, originally composed in A flat - a key signature of four flats. I knew most recorder players would find this very difficult, so instead I shifted every note down a semitone into G major (just one sharp in the key signature) and every group I’ve tried it with has thanked me for my kindness because it’s much more playable!
Beware of troublesome notes
There are a handful of notes which can be particularly awkward, regardless of the playing ability of the musicians and it’s sensible to avoid these if you can.
For example, top F sharp on the treble can only be played in tune by using the top G fingering and then stopping the bottom of the recorder with your knee. (The same applies to top C sharp on the descant). This requires a degree of gymnastics more easily achieved while sitting down, but even then there’s a small risk of clouting one’s teeth with the recorder if you’re not careful! Professional players will be practiced at this technique but less advanced players often hesitate when faced with a top F sharp and the resulting sounds can be very variable. One way around this is to place the line requiring a top F sharp into a descant line, where it will be placed in a more comfortable part of the instrument’s range.
There’s other note which requires less dental jeopardy, but nonetheless is also probably best avoided - top C sharp for the bass recorder. This fingering works well on smaller instruments, but for some odd reason it’s reluctant to speak on many basses - in particular plastic models. If you really need this note to be played by a bass there is an alternative fingering (shown below) which produces a sweet tone, but it can be tricky to find if you haven’t practised using it. Alternatively, slurring to the C sharp from the previous note will sometimes overcome the problem.
A fingering for top C sharp which works on all bass recorders.
Think about the voicing of your musical lines
As I’m sure you’re aware, not every note in a recorder’s range is dynamically equal. The lowest notes are quiet and fragile, while the tones in the upper register are stronger. You can use this to your advantage when arranging. If you need a melody line to sing out from the middle of the ensemble you might be better to place it higher in the range of a tenor recorder rather than low on a treble. This way you can influence the way any one musical line will either pop out of the ensemble or recede into the background.
Dynamics and range
This topic relates to the previous one because you can also use the natural characteristics of the recorder to create dynamic contrasts.
If you want your piece to end with a quiet chord, place the notes low in the instruments’ range. In contrast, if you’re after a triumphant fanfare to finish you’ll be better placing the notes higher in the range for added strength. Equally, if you include dynamics in the music, don’t be surprised if a top C on a descant isn’t played pianissimo - it just isn’t the nature of such high notes!
It’s worth noting that the recorder is capable of playing genuine dynamics, but how successful they are will depend on the ability of your players. Varying the speed of breath creates some dynamic contrast, but the pitch will often slide up or down a little with high or low breath pressures. Advanced players will frequently employ alternative fingerings to combat this issue - for instance playing a slightly sharp fingering for a quiet note so they can blow more gently and remain in tune. For many players this may be beyond their technical comfort zone, so be realistic about your expectations.
Ensure everyone has some musical interest
There’s nothing worse than playing in a consort and realising the descant line is the only one to contain a melody. Yes, accompanying is an important and enjoyable part of ensemble playing, but the joy can wear off if all you have is oom-pah-pahs! When arranging music, do try to ensure everyone has at least a small slice of the action. It might be you’ve chosen a piece to arrange which has a cracking bass melody in the middle section, or perhaps you could decide to give the tenors the tune while the descants and trebles play a light accompaniment above them. Your players will thank you if you give everyone some interest rather than just an accompaniment of long notes.
Get creative with accompanying patterns
If you’re creating accompaniments from scratch rather than just transcribing another composer’s lines, don’t be afraid to play and explore different textures. There is a place for sustained long notes, but sometimes you can add rhythm to create more variety. For instance, an ostinato rhythm (one that repeats) can add a sense of excitement and drive. In this extract from my own Polish Folk Song Suite, I’ve used arpeggio patterns to create a more interesting texture around the melody.
Articulation and slurs
While the recorder may not have a huge dynamic range, it does excel in its variety of articulation. Using staccato, accents and slurs can add so much character to a performance so don’t forget to employ these in your arrangements.
Recorder players often have a love/hate relationship with slurs - largely because the more complex nature of our instrument’s fingering makes some of them challenging. Most players are happy to play short slurs of two or three notes, but if you choose to use long, melismatic slurs it can be hit and miss whether they’ll be played. If you really want them played as slurs (rather than just indicating the length of a phrase) it’s worth noting this in the score, although that still doesn’t guarantee the players won’t inadvertently cut them down into smaller slurs anyway!
While we’re on the topic of slurs, it’s worth noting that some are harder to play than others. For example a slur across the transition from low register (covered thumb hole) to upper register (pinched thumbhole) can be a little ‘clicky’ because of the number fingers that have to be moved. It’s always good practice to take the time to play through all the parts yourself to see if they work comfortably. Doing this gives you a chance to make any tweaks before releasing your carefully honed work into the wild.
Coping with long melody lines
If you venture into less obvious musical realms (for instance music for orchestral instruments) you’ll sometimes come across melodies which are too wide ranging to be played by a single recorder. This problem can be solved by sharing the melody across two instruments, with a note or two to link up between them. Below you’ll see two examples of places where I’ve done exactly this. The first is from my arrangement of Bach’s Esurientes, where the alto vocal line was a too long to be played comfortably by just the tenor recorder. Here I’ve shared it out between tenor and bass (the red lines show the path of the melody), so the breath demands are easier and the melody is always played in a strong part of the recorder.
My second example comes from an arrangement of Eric Coates’ London Bridge March. He writes a wonderful swooping melody which fits beautifully on the violin, but has too great a range for one recorder. Instead I’ve shared it between treble and tenor recorders and each voice switches back to accompanying figures when it doesn’t have the tune.
Exploring extended techniques
This may be a new term to you, but it describes the way composers sometimes use less traditional methods of playing a recorder. Our instrument is capable of so much more than just blown notes, such tapping the recorder with your fingers, blowing across the labium, using the just the head joint - the possibilities are endless! These effects are often used in contemporary music and can be a great way to create pictorial effects in your music. This example comes from Judith Bush’s Midwinter Miniatures. Holding one’s fingers across the labium creates a whistling tone which enhances the impression of a frozen winter wind whistling through the house and is so effective in performance.
Extended techniques is a subject large enough for an entire blog, but if this concept intrigues you I encourage you to watch Sarah Jeffery’s video about the topic.
Learn from other arrangers and composers
As you begin your journey as an arranger or composer, one of the best things you can do is to learn from others. Find every opportunity to play in consorts, using the score to see how the composer or arranger has constructed the music. Take note of where the melody lines occur within the ensemble and how the composer/arranger voices the other instruments so as not to obscure the tune. Look at the way he or she uses dynamics and articulation markings to bring light and shade to the music. Exploring music from the inside can be so inspiring.
Listening to music will teach you a lot too. Listening to recorder consorts can open your ears to the way different instruments have an impact on the sound of the music, while exploring repertoire played by other instruments may give you ideas for pieces to arrange.
Always be curious and don’t be afraid to explore unfamiliar types of music - you never know where inspiration will strike.
Talk to other composers and arrangers
The recorder world is a very friendly one and if you meet a composer or arranger at a workshop or playing day the chances are they’ll be only too happy to chat with you. One of the best ways to pick up advice is to ask questions of those who already have experience, so don’t be afraid to speak to people you already know or meet at recorder events.
Over to you…
Is there anything I’ve missed out? Do you still have questions? If so, do leave a comment below and I’ll endeavour to fill any gaps. Or perhaps you’ve already had a go and you have tips of your own. Please feel free to share you thoughts and ideas with us in the comments so we can all learn more about composing and arranging.
Maybe you’ve already made some arrangements or compositions and you want to share them with others? Over the years several of my Score Lines subscribers have contacted me with their own arrangement and compositions and some have appeared in my consorts library, becoming popular downloads. If you have a piece you’re proud of why not get in touch and perhaps we can bring your creations to a wider audience - don’t be shy!