Video transcript
Festival of Instrumental Music 2023 - Recorder repertoire - 02. Marche Militaire teaching tips

[intro music]

SUSAN SUKKAR: For the solo descant part in 'Marche Militaire,' I'd like to just point out the grace notes that happen at bar 79 and then at 85. So after letter D. So I'm just going to go from 77 and play it for you so that you can hear how it sounds.

[playing notes]

That's going to need special attention. There, the F sharp to E, as a grace note. And then the D sharp, which is the top finger and thumb off. And then back to E. It's a little bit tricky.

[playing notes]

And again.

[playing notes]

For a solo descant player, most of the rest of the music is very achievable.

HANS-DIETER: Just a few points about the treble solo part. The most important part of this piece, technically, really is that the tongue has to be working properly. I tend to say 'do' rather than 'to,' but keep it really light and bouncy. There are a few extra signs in this, sharps and naturals, that you have to watch really, really carefully. The most important one of them is C sharp.

[playing C sharp]

You will notice that I cover half of this bottom hole as well, because otherwise, it's out of tune. Make sure you do that. The top C sharp easily squeaks. So don't blow too hard on that one. If you want to play loud, tongue harder. If you want to play soft, tongue more softly. Have fun.

ALEXEI: In the descant recorder 1 part, there are 2 leaps that might take a bit of practice. So the first one starts from a B and goes up to a E.

[playing notes]

So with that, it's important to leave a small gap in the thumb hole and not squeeze-- press down on your fingers too hard. And the last one is on the last 2 bars from a D to a G.

[playing notes]

And same thing goes with that. Relax the fingers and leave a small gap in the thumb hole.

MIKAELA: For the descant 2 part, I would like to point out that there is a lot of repetition. So once you have learnt from the beginning up until B, you've basically learnt the whole piece because that material gets repeated throughout. So that's very good and exciting. Another thing I'd like to point out is to make sure that you are tonguing with your tongue, not with the air in your mouth or with your cheeks. For example. I will tongue incorrectly first with just my air so you can hear.

[playing notes]

Does not sound good and not clear. So please use your tongue. Like we heard before, we want to say the word 'do.'

[playing notes]

You shouldn't see your cheeks puffing.

FIONA: So we've got 3 things to focus our attention on to make sure our treble part sounds really good. So the first thing is a rhythmic motif that comes back again and again. It first arrives at letter A, and it's the little syncopated quaver rest at the beginning of the bar. So you might like to start by actually saying a 'sh' sound when you're learning it. So 'sh'.

[playing notes]

Sh.

[playing notes]

And then once you've internalised that rest, you might just do a little nod or tap your big toe inside your shoe.

[playing notes]

So that rhythm is accurate. The second point is at letter B. We have some F naturals. So that's that fingering, whereas before we were playing F sharps. So letter B, F natural. And then one more chromatic note to notice is our C sharp. So we want to have the first 2 fingers and our thumb. Then fingers 4 and 5 and half of 6. And that will make a really beautiful C sharp to blend in with the tuning for all the recorders.

TRACY: I'm just going to point out at letter B, the articulation is 2 slurred, 2 slurred. And this occurs in the bass and the tenor and the treble part. So Fiona, Alicia, and I are going to demonstrate that for you just so you can hear that beautiful articulation.

[playing notes]

And just after that bar, we have a C sharp in the tenor part. So 2 fingers on top there. Like an A but with no thumb. I hope that helps.

ALICIA: For the bass recorder part, you actually have a lot of staccatos on low notes, such as your low A and low G. You'll find if you use a 'to' or an aggressive articulation, you're just going to get a chuff or a squeak at the start of the note. So when you're doing your staccatos, you might want to use more of a 'doh', 'doh', 'doh' articulation for those low notes. So if you're getting any squeaking on those bottom notes, just soften that articulation a little bit.