Talk:Alto recorder

Citations

I don't quite understand all of the requests for citation. The tenor is indeed lower than the alto. This is... just a fact. -- Evertype·✆ 19:06, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

It is the entire paragraph that requires a citation. The fact of the tenor being lower than the alto can, as you say, be taken for granted. (Wouldn't it read more easily if the alto were to be described as intermediate in pitch between the soprano and tenor, rather than in two separate sentences?) The several oddly worded claims (such as the one about having "the same form as the soprano") can be addressed in several ways, one of which would be to provide a citation to a source where they may have an explanatory context.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:22, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure, it would read better that way. These were mostly taken from the German Wikipedia (a few from the Dutch), machine translated (for speed), and then cleaned up by me. (One of the articles has some sentences I didn't clean up, I think.) Bt that "same form bit" was just taken over from the other article. I agree, it's not very good. But it's a start. -- Evertype·✆ 20:27, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Aha. I read German fairly well, and Dutch with a little more difficulty. I will check the parallel article(s) and see what I think though, in the long term, this is the English Wikipedia and slavish translations of other Wikis should not be necessary. The concept of "form" in German is, as I'm sure you know, rather complicated.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:38, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

(After a whirlwind tour of the German and Dutch Wikipedias): There is no separate article on the alto recorder on the German Wikipedia, where the term Altblockflöte is a redirect to the main Blockflöte article. It appears that, in this case at least, you must have used the Dutch Wikipedia, where the (perfectly correctly) translated sentence reads, "Deze heeft dezelfde vorm als een sopraanblokfluit, alleen is de altblokfluit langer en heeft hij een grotere diameter." The word "vorm" can only be translated as "form", so it is just as vague in Dutch as it is in English. (I had suspected there might have been a problem with German words such as Aufbau, Bauweise, or Gestalt.) From this I gather that whoever wrote the Dutch articles regards the soprano as the basic type, against which all others may be understood. This is of course the way the instrument is regarded in school-music circles, and there is nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. For the player of high-baroque repertoire, however, it seems rather odd, since there is very little music for the smaller recorders, compared to the huge amount for the alto. The statement therefore sounds a bit like explaining the violin as being a small viola (etymologically accurate though this is). In any event, this article above all the others on the sizes of recorder needs expanding the most. In the process, I think we can disregard this particular sentence from the Dutch Wikipedia and simply replace it with a better-formulated (and referenced) paragraph.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:00, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Fingering

I don't quite understand your comments about the picture caption, Jerome. Modern recorders pretty much have either baroque fingering or German fingering. I guess the former is sometimes called "English" but Dolmetsch and Mollenhauer and Moeck use the terms Baroque and German. So I don't see how the caption suggests that the instrument might be hundreds of years old. -- Evertype·✆ 20:49, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Amongst professional recorder players a distinction is usually made between the fingerings used on 18th-century instruments and accurate copies (generally with single-fork for low B♭ and half-hole fork for the upper octave, though in fact there is no such thing as "standard" 18th-century fingerings) and the fingerings created by Arnold Dolmetsch in 1919 (see Brian Blood's article on recorder fingering on the Dolmetsch website). The latter are called (in careful usage) "neo-baroque" fingerings or, to avoid ambiguity altogether, "English" fingerings. Not all makers are this careful, of course. The various Wikipedia articles on the recorder are unfortunately rather sloppy in many dimensions, in part because any old published source may be regarded as "reliable", without discrimination. This is one reason I have been quoting directly from Praetorius's 1619 edition of the Syntagma Musicum, relying on modern translations (some of which are far from reliable) only where absolutely necessary.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:33, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Dimensions

The following dimensions were taken from a descant and a treble recorder both made by Adler in the 1960s. It is to be hoped that using two recorders from the same manufacturer eliminates style differences. However the descant was in two sections with a bulbous foot whilst the treble was in three sections with a flatter foot. The descant's holes were all normal to the bore, the treble had holes 3 and 5 angled to make playing easier. Lip to foot was measured using a ruler, other dimensions were measured using a vernier calliper. Calliper measurements are in units of 1/128"

Measurement	Dimension	Descant	Treble	percentage increase
1	Lip to foot	11 1/8"	16 9/16"	49
2	Window height	17	21	24
3	Bore (at window)	71	100	41
4	Bore (at foot)	36	63	75
5	Holes 1 to 2 (inclusive)	130	170	31
6	Hole 5 diameter	28	34	21

These are wooden recorders, and so surface effects may explain the small increase in measurement 6. 1 is the critical measurement for pitch, and not surprisingly it is the closest to the theoretical. The bore at the window is close, but the larger change in the bore at the foot betokens a more gradual taper on the treble.

Now, this is all WP:OR because I made the measurements. I would suggest that it does support the "approximately 50% larger in all dimensions" statement. I'm inclined to suggest that the loose wording used (intentionally) means that WP:SNOW applies, one look at the instruments supports the approximation, as Jerome accepted in his comment. I'm now too close to the research, perhaps you, Jerome, would review your {{cn}} tag and edit the paragraph. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:47, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

I am genuinely interested to know whether the statement is true or not. Even this original research suggests it may not be. From just two measurements it cannot be reliably determined what the tapers of the two bores really are (though the comparative percentage changes of 41 and 75% are not very close to one another, nor is 75% even loosely comparable to 50%), and the foot measurement is particularly unreliable, since the narrowest point of the bore will be found some distance further up. What is really needed is a book or article by an experienced maker or organologist (I am neither of these, but an experienced professional-level player of the instrument) who has been able to amass enough evidence to draw meaningful conclusions. Without this, I do not see how the paragraph can be improved. I shall see what I can find, but it may take some time.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:18, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 19 January 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move (non-admin closure) >>> Extorc.talk 20:47, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

---

Alto recorder → treble recorder – More common name, as per Google Ngrams. Theknightwho (talk) 01:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). UtherSRG (talk) 12:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• @Theknightwho: Hrm... by a bare margin, and only in a small range of smoothings. Given this, and the fact that the other recorders are in their "voice name" title (tenor, soprano, etc.) I'm going to say this is WP:PCM and so requires a full WP:RM discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 02:03, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

  @UtherSRG That's okay. From my anecdotal experience, "treble recorder" is much more common, but the Ngram is admittedly closer than I expected. Theknightwho (talk) 02:04, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Musical Instruments has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 12:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment – The Ngrams don't look compelling to me. Many manufacturers describe them as "alto" or "alto/treble" or "treble/alto", but only few as "treble" only. The same applies to exercise and sheetmusic books. I also agree that "alto" fits the naming system "soprano/alto/tenor/bass" better; in the context of voice types, "treble" for this range is a bit confusing. (I so wish we could draw on Jerome Kohl's expertise.) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:27, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Comment – I notice, looking at the main article Recorder the phrase "alto/treble". So, why not call it the Alto/treble recorder? Jacqke (talk) 03:54, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
• Comment – Treble is more common in British usage and alto in American. The same goes for descant and soprano, so any action with the one needs to be paralleled with the other (and in succession all articles that would be headed differently depending on national usage). The predominant form on Wikimedia Commons is alto. I disagree with the proposed move. Futhark|Talk 10:06, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose – Accept the name more common in America. No need for a change. Dicklyon (talk) 05:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose – The terms are used fairly equally, so I will have to go with both the status quo and the one that looks nicer for Wikipedia lists (by listing their ranges sequentially). Why? I Ask (talk) 02:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Standard range seems rather arbitrary...

In the first paragraph we read: "Its standard range is F4 to G6." Why should this be considered the standard range of an instrument that can be chromatically played to A6? The upper A is no more difficult to play than the F sharp (both require covering the bell hole). 89.247.174.203 (talk) 15:10, 28 February 2024 (UTC)