Subject: RE: another first - F#
From: GUEST,leeneia - PM
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 10:40 AM

'[...] Fortunately, there is a simple answer to this. I quote:

"Ninety percent of intonation is attention."'

Thank you for your informative posting, leeneia. This confirms something I had noticed myself: When I know what sound I'm trying to make, it usually sounds right.

"Two other things about recorders: 1. on some notes, esp high ones, the fingering that the maker specifies may not be the best one. Check out the options from a fingering chart and experiment."

The Aulos recorders all came with a chart of fingerings, but with only a couple alternative ones. On the reverse, there's a chart with trills, which often use alternative fingerings (as I'm sure you know). I have a book with another chart with the alternative fingerings. I know can sightread fairly well without looking at the chart too often, but I haven't made a start on learning the alternative fingerings or the trills yet. I've mostly been practicing songs that I know from songbooks and not from the music I bought that's specifically for recorder.

"It is certainly not true that a recorder (or a whistle) is merely a diatonic instrument."

A recorder certainly not, but I think it would be an advantage to have in more variants, in order to have easier fingerings for more keys. My penny-whistle only has six holes (and no thumb hole), and some of the "accidentals" are difficult to finger and don't sound as good as other notes, so I would like to get more for the different keys.