G'day Nerd,

True ... but a whistle with chromatic pretensions!

Definitely not an instrument for me ... although I did make a couple of cylindrical, metal-bodied recorders back in 1965 ... when I was living with friends in Tasmania, on a farm with a fully equipped smithy behind the farmhouse. I had found a quantity of offcuts of copper plumbing pipe and I made whistles in a high G, standard C and low G ... as well as the recorders.

I sent one off to folklorist (and recorder-playing fanatic) John Meredith. John was polite enough to reply that the metal recorder, whilst not really any improvement in the modern repertoire, did very nicely on Bach.

I may not have really put my heart into the recorder models ... I was only a few (well ... eight!) years past my fifth year (primary school ... ~ 11 years old) experience of compulsory recorder class with the she-dragon Miss Standen. That put me off all music-playing for the next five years!

Regards,

Bob