Darwall's 148th

 a hymn from the School Recorder book 1 played on tenor Sigo. I used Open Camera for a change on my other phone and an not happy with how it looks. Keeps going dark then bright again for some reason.

A surprise recorder

 A Facebook friend kindly sent me a 3D printed stand for my Sigo tenor and along with it there was a surprise. A 3D printed copy of his 45 year old Hopf soprano. In gold plastic.

Looks and sounds great. Its single hole with a massive bore so is very clear and loud!

Sigo stuff

 So back in January before all this Myeloma crap came up I bought myself a Sigo tenor recorder, a new type of recorder made as a collaboration between the Kunath family who gave the world those weird giant wooden recorders, and Gerry Bollinger, a recorder designer. The internal bore is twisted back on itself and the outside bore is sort of square. As a result the tenor is about the size of an alto, but with finger holes closer together so its much easier to play than a regular tenor, although the low notes are a bit of a struggle; there's no foot joint. Just 2 pieces, headjoint and the body, is very lightweight, and is more versatile, giving the player more freedom to express him or herself.

Zoom forward to June and Jo Kunath heard about my cancer diagnosis and offered to send me a Sigo bass, for free. Like I'm gonna say no to that. I've long wanted to try a bass recorder and oh man is it good!

The instruments are 3D printed and made of something called Resona, which is basically wood particles suspended in modified vegetable starches. Pretty remarkable.

Here's the two side by side.

Anyway here's some videos of them. First the tenor

Now the bass. What a beast!

Ronde by Susato

 A Ronde by Susato from the Brian Bonsor alto book I've been working through forever! Played on my Aulos Haka alto. Practising playing high A properly, changing a bad habit where I would lift the thumb and just overblow. Also I must look for more of Susato's music.

Revisiting the soprano

 I began playing the soprano recorder in 2016 and I made my way through most of The School Recorder book 1. After a while I moved onto the alto and tenor and the little sop sat collecting dust. Till now!

Brian Bonsor double

 Two pieces from the Brian Bonsor book From Descant to Treble, book 1

Go Tell it on the Mountain and Suzie Little Suzie 

Mary Had a Little Lamb-recorder

I followed basic  instructions from a website, and had a go at a simple tune. I also watched a couple of Sarah Jeffery's videos on youtube-they really help, and are a bit of a laugh!