Re: Somewhere Duet
Walt - I am truly interested in what you have to say and your experiences. I must admit, my scoring for recorders is the equivalent of scoring for saxophones or clarinets, etc. My wife Cynthia and I have been playing recorders for only a little over 4 years, and are having a ball with it. My primary instrument was tenor saxophone, but I am self-taught on recorder and I am my wife's teacher. So, we didn't approach recorder from the traditional training side.
I didn't think your original post was confusing. I had given Jane the caveat that the Alto II part went below the range of the Alto. It was really just for her personal playing as a soloist playing the lead part accompanied by a second voice that I really should have changed to tenor recorder -- just a hurry-up job on my part.
I have a beautiful, mellow, Pearwood Hohner Alto, and I love the lower register. Admittedly, in a concert ensemble setting, the lower register wouldn't penetrate very well, but for just the two of us, it sounds quite nice. Writing for the alto lower register also helps to keep the soprano lower and more mellow.
For a short while at Berklee, we had a recorder quartet, led by my piano instructor. He had a bass recorder as I recall, although it was so long ago, I may be remembering wrong. Perhaps it was a tenor. So the four of us played some Handel and Bach and had fun with it. I imagine I was probably playing a soprano, so maybe it was 2 sopranos, an alto and a tenor. We only played a couple of times due to the other pressures of school work, but that was my only exposure to recorders before our current learning period.
I am glad that you are enjoying the duets. It is good to hear that there are actually some recorder players enjoying the forum. Until I heard from Jane, I assumed that the Forum followers were wind and brass players who would be transposing the parts as they required. The main thrust was to provide a harmony part for a soloist playing along with Notation. I was writing the duets for my wife and I, so why not share them with the Notation community.
Ralph
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