Recorder
About me
Where do I begin? Well, here I go. I was brought up in Northern Ireland I started playing the recorder at Primary School, alongside the Cello and Piano.
I went to an all-girls’ state comprehensive school in Bangor, County Down, which had a fabulous music department and a dedicated team of music teachers who from the time I joined the school to leaving gave me every opportunity to learn, play, laugh and live music.
I performed at the Belfast Music Festival and throughout Northern Ireland playing recitals and concertos.I trained with Keith Rogers and Fiona Donnan, annually played at recorder play days at QUB Early Music Society where Philip Thorby and others tutored. I finished my studies at Stranmillis Teacher Training College, Queens University, Belfast. I gained my LTCL in Recorder Teaching in 1987 and have been using it ever since. The minute I could, I got on the boat and came to England. So that was that was 35 years ago.
I joined u3a in October 2019 as I was caring for a friend with dementia and thanks to the wonderful Sutton Coldfield Recorder Group, found a home for my recorders and I. Since then, I have assisted at our meetings, arranged music on musescore for the group through lockdown and beyond, tutored some of the other members online and face to face.I helped arrange our first playday with Helen Hooker, July 2023.
I am a member of the Society of Recorder Players and have attended the annual festival for the last couple of years which is always fun.
My role as Subject Adviser
My role therefore as a recorder subject advisor is to be there for all members of u3a, no matter what your level, beginner to the more advanced.
I am hoping to talk to all the recorder leaders about their groups in the coming weeks and see where we all are at. Especially, as post Covid things have changed across a number of groups.
I am happy to share my scores with all u3a groups and to assist sourcing music etc for you. I am available for all members especially if you are a beginner and need a hand to get started through two weekly online sessions.
I’m going to be available for anyone who has a query and needs assistance. Be it learning the treble/ descant/ tenor/ bass/ how to read music or tips on articulation and styles etc.
I will be setting up through the online learning platform through u3a Recorder Assist and learn area where scores at all levels can be accessed. Duets/Trios/Quartets and larger forces.
Recorder News - from me and other u3a groups
I spent the most fantastic day with the ladies and gentlemen from across the Midlands u3as and some West Midlands SRP members in the company of Michael Graham, our guest conductor/ tutor for the day, playing fantastic recorder music!
Michael, who is based in Edinburgh, came down the night before and spent the evening with the Sutton Coldfield u3a reception committee. We learned about his many different roles as a conductor, arranger, composer and recorder ensemble leader and his new role as in charge of the Recorder Magazine centrefold new recorder music section.
He was making his first visit to any u3a group in the UK and he came to our u3a at Sutton Coldfield. His approach to leading our recorder playing day was to make it accessible from the least experienced player to challenging the more advanced recorder player. He showed us how to warm up physically before playing and encouraged us to use this across all our practices, to help prolong our playing days.
We then sat down and started to play music from across the musical eras from Medieval to contemporary Jazz pieces.
The sound of 30 recorders playing together was wonderful as we worked through the Pavans and Galliard from the earliest printed book – Mulliner Book. We played through each piece and then were directed, with Michael’s guidance, to develop our use of articulation, breathing and performance of this type of piece.
By lunchtime, we had worked on music composed by Marg Hall and Michael respectively. Marg Hall’s Caprice was lively and required us to use our sight-reading skills to their fullest and we definitely were having to focus on dynamic contrasts and listening skills. Michael’s piece the Divertimento was good fun to play and everyone was having a very interesting and informative day.
In the afternoon Michael reset the room so that we could experience playing music for 2 Recorder Choirs. This type of music went back to Venice in the 15th/ 16th Centuries. We moved round to play in our new positions and started work on Canzon - La Bevilacqua by Floriano Canale , arranged by Michael Graham himself. The sound was amazing and musically it was extremely satisfying to play such a complicated piece. Michael followed this up with a piece by Steve and Ann Marshall called Double Vision which was also for 2 choirs but composed more recently.
We completed our afternoon with the best afternoon tea and cakes, provided by the members of the Sutton Coldfield u3a. Finally, to finish Michael directed us back into our normal playing positions to play Swing Easy, a jazz suite by Marg Hall. This piece came in 5 sections and was really fun to play. All of us were “swinging” musically by the end of the afternoon.
I thank Jenny for organising the event, Heather for looking after the finances and the entire Sutton Coldfield u3a recorder ensemble for making it an event to remember. I do promise next time to see if we can have all the u3as in the Midlands Trust together for a huge recorder play day!
It was lovely to see our fellow u3a players and group leaders from Lichfield, Uttoxeter, Bromsgrove and Ashby de la Zouch.
Val McCarroll
Recorder Adviser u3a UK
Sutton Coldfield u3a Recorder group member.
The 5 free lessons offer is working!
NEWS FROM THE RECORDER ADVISER’S FRONT LINE!
Dear u3a members I kid you not, it is working!
I put this offer out there is February or March to all the u3a groups. I have found out there is a need, and the uptake has been growing steadily.
The range of players is as I hoped from the absolute beginners to the learning the treble for the first time.
I think the leaders thought I was joking; I promise you I was not. The use of Skype has been the saviour. I can hear you and as some of the wonderful people I am currently teaching will tell you I do pick up on what needs to be worked on. Articulation, breathing, hand positions on the instrument, thumb hole problems and most importantly how to really play a recorder for enjoyment.
My proudest moment has been when somebody who has been going to a u3a group for a couple of years, now is finally producing a musical recognisable and lovely tone. She herself has said, I just didn’t want to make any mistakes at group, so I just moved my fingers. Now I can reveal she is playing Van Eyck pieces and able to make a good go at the different rhythms that she had feared before. Also, she has a new confidence about her playing. That’s what can happen.
The hour lessons can be taken when you are free, I seem to be free at those times too thankfully. I never realised my u3a recorder players actually did other things! Well maybe I’m the one with nothing better to do than teach and arrange music.
I do hope more u3a members would sign up. I am now hearing we have two new recorder groups starting soon. One near Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire and another in Wrexham.
If you want to start a recorder group and need advice please do contact me. I will call you back for a chat and email etc.
If you need music let me know I believe I am facing the Worthing challenge of Abba music – copyright to be sorted later!!! However, particularly challenging your recorder adviser this week is Waterloo with 20th Century recorder playing techniques to create the drum beat etc unless they have a drum machine to hand. (I do hope not!)
So, you can see I do nothing really, but if you need me, I will be there. Nanny McPhee to the uninitiated.
Any more performances completed, playdays, I need your story and more importantly to hear about your groups and news from across the different trust areas. It would be lovely to start next academic year with here is our group, come and join us!
Final points for this round up on last three months.
Music scores are also available to have. Please contact me for the most up to date list.I have added quite a few new scores to my original list. All scores come with PDF parts and full scores and also is on muse score.
If anyone knows of any other u3a Recorder Groups, ensembles, Recorders for fun or Consorts, please send them my way. I really want to contact you and add you to my Map data base, there is a joke there somewhere, as I am getting queries from the Pennines and also from Inner London. Names of Leaders and when and where the groups meet is growing but it would be lovely to include you all.
Well today I met IGO. - Interest Group On-line
That would sound funny, apart from the part it was virtual not reality!
I need the members of u3a recorder players to know that there is the most amazing group out there to join.
As your Recorder Adviser, it is an honour to play with such agreeable and recorder savvy players. You can be at home isolated. However, you can play with the loveliest people!
You can do it, whatever your standard, Peter caters for all players!
From across the country these fantastic people, meet regularly on line . Play together, laugh together and more importantly work together to make music.
It all started through COVID.
I can’t find the words to say how much they welcomed me in, many were surprised I was a Recorder Adviser for the u3a , but happy they had one!
Peter Stephenson is the Star!!!
His choice of music is fantastic. Totally different to other u3as but delightful.
His understanding of the repertoire and conducting of the group was sublime.
His knowledge impeccable.
If you are a member that cannot get to a meeting locally. Please join Peter on IGO
Intermediate recorders as it is well worth it at £12 for the year. You can join on the main website u3a.
Wonderful comradery, they really know the ways to play as one.
Peter has sorted the way to play on line and more importantly, if you are stuck without a local u3a recorder group, it is a great way to get playing!
In fact, in my own way, I can find this group a go to if I ever found myself without a u3a to go to!
They are meeting regularly. Go to u3a main website look for IGO.
Subscribe I think its £12 and sign up for the Intermediate Recorder Group.
I am sending special thanks to the group for welcoming me in!
I want all u3a recorder players to try this wonderful group if you have the chance,
Val McCarroll
Recorder Adviser u3a UK
Devotion to Recorders in Uttoxetter
In August 2023, we were just beginning to enjoy our summer of relaxing music following our successful
performance at that year's u3a "indoor Garden Party"!
Then I managed to fall over and develop a very painful back. Being unable to get out of bed for a month or two, I had to ask the group to run themselves for the foreseeable future and, to their great credit, they
managed to keep themselves going for the rest of the summer, sharing music and supporting each other!
Come October and it was time to start thinking about a programme to entertain the rest of the u3a again, at Christmas. I was still out of action, so Carol stepped in and planned an entertaining programme, working out who would be able to join in the event and who would play which instrument.
By December, I was just about able to get out of the house and Jane was able to pick me up on her way to our venue as she went along to the group to "polish up" their performance to concert standard and to conduct them! So I managed to return to the fold and was very pleased to find that I could play my descant, treble and tenor but wasn't feeling quite up to the bass yet, and certainly not the Great Bass. I would be able to join in with Carol's well planned programme without having to take any sort of "leadership" role.
Two weeks later, as we were leaving our weekly meeting, Carol fell over and broke her leg. I couldn't help much, but one of the others was able to gather her up and take her to the hospital! It was already clear that she wouldn't be joining in the Christmas performance. We were all very sad about that.
Undaunted, we carried on with our plans. One piece we had been planning and practising for some months was Praetorius' "Resonet in laudibus" with 4 descant soloists and a "chorus", we hoped, of at least four players. The soloists would stand one in each corner of the hall. Following Carol's disastrous fall, one of the chorus had to step up with only one or two rehearsals to play one of the solo parts. Everything worked out well, and we felt justifiably proud of ourselves. Those who were able to join the queue for tea or coffee said that quite a few members congratulated them. Others had plainly enjoyed "Rockin' around the Christmas
Tree" and "All I want for Christmas", complete with percussion instruments played by members of the
audience, rather more! We were very sad that Carol couldn't be with us, but I was very glad that I had made it.
Come January, I was able to make my own way to our weekly meeting, and at the end of that month was the first of our monthly "Renaissance one-to-a-part" sessions, held in the Community Room of a local
supermarket. This was Carol's first outing since her accident and it was lovely to have her with us again. We made quite a picture making our way through the shop to the Community Room! I tried to pull a trolley with Winifred's bass and great bass while Winifred pushed the wheelchair, which was a supermarket trolley with the front half replaced by a sort of chair with Carol perched on it, while 3 people's bags were in the back half.
Carol was tempted to wave like royalty, she was so high up! Then I had to give up the trolley to Beryl so she was pulling two trolleys, one with Winifred's instruments and one with her own, while I carried her bag of music. She's well over 80 with very arthritic hands, so she did well. I wish somebody had video'd us!!
We usually draw some strange looks as we progress through the supermarket to our meeting room - we're probably the only people who take a lot of luggage INTO the shop, but this was an even more unusual sight!
Now as we approach the spring and start to prepare for an "Evening Soiree" in July, a third member of the
group has fallen over and - guess what - broken her leg!! We're hoping that we shall all be fit and able to join in the summer event, although we do wonder whether we should consider issuing walking aids as standard equipment!!
It shows how devoted we are to our u3a recorder group!
Brenda Welch
Uttoxeter u3a Recorder Group Leader.
Well didn’t I have a lovely day, the day I went to Bromsgrove!
I know that I am not usually out on a Thursday. However, this week I was.
I had been invited to Bromsgrove by Jenny, who kindly picked me up at the station and we made our way to a lovely church hall where the wonderful u3a ladies had started to arrive half an hour early, (to get a parking space), but were all there wanting to play.
This u3a Recorder group is special. Most of the group do not live close by but drive to it every other Thursday for a 10.30 start. They play incredibly well, and they were looking for a few tips. We discussed articulation and dynamics.
Jenny has ensured that all the players had their music, it was the Recorder Adviser who was seen wanting.
They warmed up with Autumn from the Four Seasons. Then came my choice of music. Leopold Mozart Bourrée I and II, a Bach Chorale and finally Lord Willobies Welcome Home by Byrd. I was surprised the group were slightly worried about how they would do. They played beautifully and even the most difficult sections from C-F.
For future reference for myself and other groups, I’m coming to support you I do not conduct an OFSTED inspection!
I’m looking forward to meeting more groups over the coming months. I am so pleased to hear you play maybe I should have got a midi file to attach to this. There was a photo but that is on the Bromsgrove website.
I am still offering free recorder lessons on Skype, please just email me at
I know I am going to Norfolk in July and North East area in June.
Meanwhile I need to get back to my map.
I hope to have many more stories to share with you soon. If you have been out and about playing please let me know and I can publish it on the site.
Thank you again Jenny and her lovely u3a in Bromsgrove!
Events
To continue the series of Workshops Michael Piraner will now deliver a workshop on Double-
tonguing.
Articulation for Recorder Players Part 2: Double-tonguing Demystified Wednesday 6th November 2024 at 7pm more information here
Exploring further the relationship between language and articulation, Michael will guide participants through a series of simple exercises demonstrating that double-tonguing is a part of every-day speech, which we already frequently employ. These exercises help develop better synchronisation between tongue and fingers and show how to build up stamina. Historical musical examples will be employed putting the practice into context.
Photos from events in Walsall , Lichfield and Birmingham
Happy recorder playing!
Hopefully, anyone reading this gets the idea that I am really looking forward to meeting with you, learning how I can be of use to you. Hopefully learning, laughing our way through any problems and creating good recorder music playing together across the u3a UK.