September recorder course

I think that the 7 recorder players who attended the September 4 day course would agree by saying that it was particularly intensive this time. There were many workshops on sound production in particular as we were studying the madrigal Vestiva i Colli by Palestrina. We concentrated on being aware of the different muscles in the head, neck, back and arms without judging either ourselves or others. Using a little Alexander technique, we concentrated on our positions, in the chair and standing. Outside, we were aware of the contact with the ground under our feet and used the rhythm of our breath to release energy. We listened to the wonderful choir ‘The Sixteen’ singing Palestrina, to help understand the homogeneity of sound desired from the recorder ensemble.

During an articulation workshop, we noticed that between the 3 nationalities present, everyone articulated differently according to their different accents; we thus concentrated on the result accepting that the method could never be the same for two people. Exploring each player’s possibilities, we studied Bassano's divisions of Vestiva I Colli and those of Ortiz over the basse dance ‘La Spagna’. We also studied the divisions of ‘Greensleeves’ (inventing others and ornamenting the theme and the bass line, learning a little figured bass as we went) and discussed the Romanesca ground bass. During the improvising workshop, we learned how to improvise over a drone in a given tonality.

Each player presented several pieces for the end of course concert. On the last day, Conrad Wilkinson came with his Italian harpsichord in 415 to accompany the recorder players, as well as playing in 440 on the association’s spinet. The pieces were very beautiful as well as being interesting for the public to hear, and we finished with a wonderful modern Japanese piece, which was very well played and which created a very particular sound painting being based on variations around a very simple children song; but using articulations learned during the course.

Each recorder course is different depending on the players, but there is always depth of study. We believe that whatever the ‘level’ of the players, a certain excellence can be found and developed, which is of utmost importance for obtaining pleasure from the music.

If any recorder player happens to stumble on this blog I should be most interested to hear from you.

Denyse