Dealing with Difficult Notes: Four Strategies that Work

Some notes on the recorder are relatively easy. Set your thumb and two fingers down on the alto, for instance, and out comes a nice, round, ringing D. Raise one finger up from there and get a bright, clear E. Even some notes with more convoluted fingerings, like high A, are forgiving, accommodating a wide range of air pressures and thumb positions.

These are the notes that suck you in! They’re the friendly family members: the kindly Aunts, the twinkling Grandpas. They welcome you to the party, take your coat, ply you with peanuts and Mai Tais. You’re just starting to have a good time!

…and then you’re accosted by crabby Uncle high F. And demanding Cousin low F-Sharp. Not to mention enigmatic Great Aunt G-sharp and her coterie of cross-fingered notes– will they ever warm to you?

Suddenly the party seems a whole lot less comfortable.

Just as in families, some notes on the recorder are more difficult to deal with than others. And when we encounter them, it behooves us to be deliberate in our approach.

If you’re struggling with the a difficult note, what can you do? Let’s talk through four strategies:

1) Accept its essential nature.

Just like family members, you can’t make a note into something it’s not. If you expect more from a note than it is capable of giving you, you are signing yourself up for disappointment. Low F-Sharp is never, ever going to be loud, and trying to make it loud will get you nothing but an ugly squawk. Highest F can only be made so delicate before it cracks. And cross-fingered notes like G-sharp, C-sharp, and E-flat share a certain muffled, covered quality that is impossible to eradicate.

What’s the solution? Learn to appreciate the singular beauty of each note on the recorder, and don’t try to force it to be something it cannot be

2) Figure out what it wants.

Difficult notes are difficult because their wants are particular. Highest F, for example, needs not only the perfect thumb opening (the size of which can vary by recorder!), but also a very specific way of blowing (focused, rapid; strong but not too strong), and even a particular tongue stroke (gentle but not tentative). Whereas less difficult notes might accept all kinds of abuse, difficult notes want only what they want– and they want it now.

But take heart! Although it may not be easy to remember what I’m going to say next when you go to pluck a gorgeous high F out of the air and emit, instead, a strangled squawk– difficult notes are your best teachers! Unlike more forgiving notes, they force you to acquire finesse and control. Even the easy notes of the recorder want to be played with care and attention, and it’s the difficult notes that will teach you how.

Name the notes you have trouble with. Start to think explicitly about what each of them wants– and write it down.

3) Spend time with it.

If you barely ever spend time with your abrasive cousin, how can you expect to develop a relationship? For any difficult note, part of your essential work is to spend a lot of time there, and to do so in a sustained, relaxed, and observant way.

Working on highest F? Spend time every day sustaining that note. Notice what you have to adjust –or not– in order to make that possible.. Start to become aware of what it sounds like and feels like to have a relaxed, successful production of your difficult note, and begin to train your muscle memory to expect, and return to, that beautiful, easy production.

4) Make it home.

We know we’ve truly managed to befriend a difficult note if it is happy to see us when we arrive. To this end, once you have spent enough time sustaining the note to get comfortable with what it should sound and feel like, you should begin to practice moving away from it– and back.

I’ve dubbed my favorite difficult-note exercise the homing exercise, and you can do it with any note as your home base. Once you’ve selected home, practice successively larger leaps to and from your difficult note, first one note away, then two, then three, etc., always returning to home in between.

If you picked highest F, say, the exercise could look like this:

F

F-E-F

F-D-F

F-C-F

F-B-flat

F-A-F

F-G-F

F-F-F

And then back up….or further down! In the above example, you’re outlining a major scale, but you could also try a minor scale, a chromatic scale, or really anything your heart desires. The point is to practice moving both to and from a note that gives you trouble, and to do so in a way that is relaxed and controlled.

Applying this strategy– and the others outlined above– will take time! Dealing with difficult notes isn’t quick or easy. But over time, your efforts will bear fruit.