Recorder recommendations needed - moving on from beginner Yamaha

[Zooop]

My dd is largely self-taught on the recorder, after a few group lessons in Y3, and now plays it in the school orchestra. She’s having trouble getting a nice sound on the high notes (top As, Bs and Cs), and her music teacher suggested that something slightly better (she said £20-30 range) than her current basic Yamaha descant would help.

Does anyone have any experience of good recorders in this price range, and could recommend one?

An Aulos Bel Canto (the next one up from the basic Robin) should be fine for those top notes and good for G4 or 5. A Yamaha in that price range would also be a very sound choice.

We stuck with Aulos because that's what other children at school use, and the same brand tends to blend together better. You might want to stick with Yamaha for the same reason.

Aulos also do more expensive plastic recorders - in fact I've just bought one and it's lovely - but the Bel Canto is half the price, very nearly as good and will help her with those top notes. My daughter will be taking her G4 on hers.

DS3 has a yellow and white ‘baroque’ Yamaha which was approx £20 from amazon... it makes a warmer sound than the standard plastic one but he’s a beginner so not sure whether it would be ok for higher grades

Thanks, Quietly!

Would the Yamaha YRS 312BIII be the right sort of thing? It’s £23 on amazon, but I’m happy to pay a bit more if there’s a better but slightly more expensive option.

I think I will stick with Yamaha as all the school recorders are that brand, and she mostly plays it at school.

Yep, that's the one. They do it in a variety of different finishes. More than good enough for Grade 8... guess how I know? :D

Waffle Thanks! At least this is relatively cheap - dd has said she’s keen to learn woodwind (bassoon, or maybe oboe) when she goes to secondary school next year, and I suspect that will be a lot more expensive. Maybe I should encourage her to stick with the recorder and do some grades on that...

Looks great!

Might need to remortgage for a bassoon

I’m hoping she can hire a bassoon, at least to start with. Not least as she’s tiny, so I imagine she’s going to have to start on one that isn’t full-sized, which means at some point she’ll have to get a bigger one.

You might be surprised. I know of at least three 9 year olds of 4'4" to 4'5" on full sized ones.

Update for anyone who’s interested.

The Yamaha worked well, but then she went to secondary school and wanted bassoon lessons. She turned out to be too small to manage the instrument, so now we have hired a (still hugely expensive, but at least not as heavy or big to carry) tenoroon. Which I didn’t even know existed as an instrument.

Also now asking for a soprano recorder, as apparently the fingering for that and the tenoroon is similar.

My DD plays a mini bassoon, the recorder really helps. The fingering on the mini is more like a treble recorder I think, although being in bass clef it is most like a bass recorder ( don't show her them, they are £300+!) We have two in our school group, I love them!

Maybe she means a sopranino, the smaller one - fingered same as a treble I think. Soprano is another name for descant which is the one most primary kids start with. Nice to see a success story update.

She definitely means a soprano - one bigger / lower than the descant she’s played for years. It just arrived in the post, and she’s delighted with it.

Luckily school has its own bass recorders, and if she wants to try those she can use the school ones.

Odd, I thought soprano/descant were the same and the next one up alto/treble. As long as she's got the size she wanted all good!

And very cool that school have a bass! Our local recorder group have one but not seen them in schools, as horsey says, expensive! Though not compared to bassoons I bet.

Yes, it goes garklein (c fingering), sopranino (f), descant/soprano (c), treble/alto (f) tenor ( c), bass (f in bass clef). Don't know below that as I don't have them in my group! It's important to know as the c/f fingerings give different notes. IE all fingers down gives a c or an f, depending on which instrument it is.
You sometimes see bass ones on eBay fairly reasonably. We were kindly gifted them, it's a great incentive for the older kids to keep coming!

Ah, that explains why I was having trouble finding a ‘soprano’ recorder that wasn’t also a descant! I did buy one in the end, it must have been a treble / alto mislabelled as a soprano, as it’s bigger than the descant (which is what dd wanted). It’s confusing, as a singer I would have thought treble and soprano were the same, not treble and alto.

She is very lucky that school has an excellent selection of instruments, and a weekly recorder group, it’s really keeping her interest alive when I thought it might all disappear in excitement over the tenoroon.

No recorder group at DC secondary school 🙁. We also stuck with the Yamaha.