What's the difference between a recorder and a soprano recorder?!
Question: Sorry for my ignorance... I just started playing the recorder yesterday. Is there a difference? Do they sound the same? Is the sheet music for both?
Thanks!
-Ali ^.^
Answers: Sorry for my ignorance... I just started playing the recorder yesterday. Is there a difference? Do they sound the same? Is the sheet music for both?
Thanks!
-Ali ^.^
As a rule of thumb, recorders sound one octave above the human voice after which they are named (soprano recorder is an octave above soprano voice, alto an octave above alto voice, etc.) The recorder's mellow tone and limited harmonics allows for the seemingly deeper sound.
Sheet music for recorder is nearly always notated in 'concert key,' meaning that a written "C" in the score actually sounds as a "C." This implies that the player must learn two different sets of similar fingerings, one for the C recorders and another for the F recorders. However, many sizes of recorder do transpose at the octave.
Bass recorder in F may be written in treble clef at real pitch, so that the low F is written a fifth below middle C with three ledger lines.
Bass recorder in F may be written in treble clef an octave above real pitch (i.e. sound an octave below written pitch), so that its fingerings are completely octave-identical to the alto in F.
Great bass recorder in C may be written in treble clef. If so, it would probably be written up an octave to match the fingering régime of the tenor in C.
Tenor recorder in C may be written in bass clef one octave below real pitch in order to read choral parts for tenor voice.
Alto recorder in F may be written down an octave to read alto vocal parts.
All recorders may be transposed by both octave and key so that the lowest note is always written as middle C below the treble clef. In this system, only the tenor is non-transposing while all other parts would transpose up or down in fourths, fifths and octaves as appropriate.
Urtext editions of baroque music may preserve the baroque practice of writing treble(alto) recorder parts in the Violin clef (G clef on the bottom line of the stave). From the player's point of view, this is equivalent to using bass(et) recorder fingerings on the treble(alto) recorder.