John P and Richard, you have hit it on the head.

1. We play music to have fun, not to become virtuosos. We play light-hearted early stuff, such as dances. There are chords to follow, percussion, and eventually a lot of improvising.

2. Michael has challenges and goals (teaching English to immigrants, for example) which are more important to him than mastering a new fingering.

3. That two-week learning figure is probably for somebody 14, not somebody who has been using C fingerings for 50 years. Me, I've been playing F and C fingerings for 40 years, and I still mix them up, to the amusement of my friends.

4. I'm already editing almost all the music we do. For one thing, much old music is in F, and the first thing I do is change it to G so I can play guitar with it. Sacrilege, eh? Another goal is to make it fit on one sheet of paper so I can make a transparency and project it. Amidst all this, producing a special line for the bass recorder is no big deal.

(Ah, how nice it is that after years of playing, we have three fat notebooks of transparencies. After we've played a piece, I say, "Somebody go over to the books and pick out the next one." What a load off my mind it is to know that I'm not always responsible for keeping everybody happy.)

I bought a bass recorder and decided that my hands were simply too small for it. I'm glad the TheSnail's instructions will let it come out of its box.