How to play FOLK ORNAMENTS | Team Recorder 

i respect recorders now. an instrument i once thought was used to annoy my mum with hotcross buns, is now sobering magical sounding. lotr much

Please don't ever stop being excited about music!

YOU are a GOOD teacher, Sarah! You isolate the variable and slow it down, then put it back in context; then offer suggestions and choices to make it musical, personal. Well done!

Sarah I have just bought a recorder. I haven't played in over 30 years maybe longer...Your videos are such an oasis in lockdown. Im actually really impressed with my progress in less than a week watching your videos. I only bought it because I'm doing a sixties covers thing next year and thought it would nice to have an actual woodwind instrument instead of playing my Nord Stage 2 flute sample(which is amazing). THANK YOU

Some of the techniques are very similar to the ones I am practicing with Chinese bamboo flute. Love the upbeat vibe when you talk about recorder. Thanks for sharing. :)

‘Bit of a weird key’ ‘Not to worry - G whistle!’ 😂🤣

For recommended books; I got a copy of "The Fiddler's Fakebook" some years back, so I could learn the songs local folk musicians were playing. It has nearly 500 jigs, reels, rags, hornpipes, and breakdowns, from many major fiddling traditions. Most are easily within the note range of a soprano recorder and work well with the ornamentation tips shared on this video. I have had lots of fun playing these songs. And I'll add; they've been well received when I play solo in public. Yes, I'm guilty of committing random acts of music in public. Binging memorable moments of joy to people I meet, young and old, on this journey called life.

hello sarah at age plus 60 as an old muso bluesy gtr etc last year I started Harmonica & tin whistle .. my wife has banished me from the house .. no I'm joking but becoz of nayboors etc I generally practice while on walks in the forest .. I love your enthusiasm .. two years ago I started learning keyboards .. & I can now play a slow blues 12 bars in 12 keys while going around in the circle of 5ths .. .. I'm not in a hurry to learn but I am looking forward to having fun .. cheers

I've been playing wind instruments for decades, went to school for saxophone and thought there was little left for me to learn. This is the most interesting music tutorial I've ever seen. I tried it last night and this works like a charm. I mean I hear the folk whistle and recorder and couldn't put my finger on what makes it sound 'folk'. You broke it down into ingredients beautifully and it really did sound like folk when I tried it even just 1 time!!

Wow, I just tried to do the articulation without the tongue but with my fingers. I really didn't expect it to be so difficult for a classical player. Respect for making it sound that easy.

It's nice to see that ornaments in folk music are used the same all over the world, I guess... I actually use the recorder for playing traditional Greek folk (which uses complex time signatures: 7/8, 9/8, 11/16, 15/16 etc.) and it blends just fine with the rest folk instruments.

I taught elementary music for many years and always loved working with kids on recorders. I wish I had known some of these tips then. Thanks for sharing. Now I am inspired to try these ornaments on my recorder!

Thank you so much for this. I am a RU-vid/self-thought flute maker. I kind of put my wife through the total agony of learning to build and tune as well as learning to play my traverse flutes (And she doesn’t even like flutes in the slightest, it goes without saying I have been testing my marriage quite a lot, not in the slightest because of my growing collection of ‘tubes’, waiting patiently to be freed into flutes of all sound colours and scales). Melody wise I am getting more and more proficient, the thing with the ornaments however has never been something natural to me, maybe because I started my musical ‘career’ playing euphonium in a fanfare. Thank you for explaining, it gives me something to practice and my wife to grumble about.

I'm so glad I found your channel, i'm getting my recorder out! I haven't played since junior school 😂❤ i'm actually excited to play again and learn traditional folk music

Fantastic insight and demonstration! and absolutely yes, the more you 'feel' the music (rhythm, phrasing, dynamics, ornaments etc) the the better armed you will be to deliver an expert performance, and, the more the audience is going to appreciate and connect to it. Listen, listen, listen and then listen some more.

You are just so full of LIFE LIFE LIFE!! Every thing in music you have made exciting. You are very real and a superb teacher Sarah.

Great video. I gave a 7 yr. old musical fun stickers for her to put on music she has done well on. I really expected to see the stickers all over the place, but she made a big production of picking the sticker and placing it on for her self. I remember doing this with stars on my first piano book, I was 4 yrs. old and it was such a big deal for me. I finished that book fast, also it had pictures you could color in, that was a real treat. I still have that book, I'm 78 yrs. young now. Love all your great ideas and will give them a shot. From Kay in the Florida Keys, US

As a whistle/ highland pipes / uilleann pipes player it is really interesting to see how a classical musician looks at folk music and ornamentation. On a whistle I would usually do a cut with my B finger if I am playing an A or a B (on a D whistle) I will usually play all my other cuts with my G finger. It is quite interesting that in highland pipe music the ornamentation is actually written down. This is because all the pipers in a pipe band need to play the exact same ornamentation or the tunes will sound messy. Some highland pipe ornamentation can consist of a lot of cuts and taps following each other. For example the crunluath exists of 7 cuts and taps. An another interesting piece of highland ornamentation that would be nice to adapt for recorder/whistle are doublings. They consist of two cuts following each other. The most common one would be a doubling with an B cut followed by an A cut. Sorry for the long post I could go on and on about this. :P

I'm learning the whistle, not the recorder, yet this video was exceedingly helpful in learning how and where to put the ornamentations, thankyou.

Great tips for soprano recorder regarding taps, cuts, rolls, vibrato, and slides. The charm and humor of the host made the learning really enjoyable. Thanks, Sarah!!

Oh, I totally loved this video! When I decided to order a cheap tin whistle I never expected to find you talking about them here. What a hoot , I feel vindicated and excited to be getting my first (playable) plastic Yamaha recorder in the mail and felt guilty for straying when I also ordered a whistle, but now ALL is right in my world. 😊 Thank you so much!

Oh my word, you're adorable. I'm a new whistle player in the Chicago suburbs where no one even knows what a tin whistle is. I've been hunting down ornamentation tutorials and yours is definitely the most entertaining. Very helpful too! Thanks!

From one woodwind player to another...many thanks for your clips. Look forward to more in '17

Yes I LOVE your enthusiasm!!!! Never stop being YOU

Hi Sarah, I know this is strange but I play the highland bagpipes as I was a Royal Marines bandsman who met a piper from the Scots guards whilst station in Arbroath Scotland. Cut a long story short I was so impressed I self taught the pipes I have now moved on to the tenner rechorder so I can play things like The monarch of the Glen and last of the mohican because I find it has a more positive tone Your teaching videos are so encouraging and my challenge is to play as perfect as you. Ofcourse it's a completely different technique but keep doing the brilliant videos. They are really good fun. Dave

I don't even play the recorder but I always come here for the accent! Really love it hehe

This video was very helpful with understanding the ornamentations.

I learned these ornaments by playing the recorder along with Irish music like the Chieftains and Zoe Conway. I love having names to go along with them now.

Fine video, Sarah! I've been playing early and classical music on recorder since 1980, folk dancing since the 60's. Way back when, I decided that if ever I couldn't dance any more I was going to play music for dance. Happily a couple of years ago I found a Celtic band named Hammer'd (we have four hammered dulcimers) and have been playing for dances ever since. I love it so much! Your video really helps me understand what I have been picking up intuitively. Thank you very much!

This video blows my mind , I had no idea about all the jargon to do with recorders whistles etc with folk music etc , the wellerman comes to mind and sound beautiful , loving your videos , I’ll be binge watching all your videos , big hugs , whistles and recorder I’ll be buying them , I’m converted lol. Thank you. Xo

Wonderful channel thank you so much! I played recorder as a child and am looking to pick it back up again. I was very intimidated about where the heck I would start. So thankful to have found you.

As a guitar player, I found this video very useful. Thank you so much.

I started playing a month ago today. My inspiration was "Fjelltrall" by "Egil Storbekken". Your videos really helped me out, I can already read sheets. Thank you so much for all the teachings!

This video had bring me memories of my intrincate story with the recorders and the whistles, that in fact is the opposite of yours jaja: ironically I started with the recorder when i was a child, BUT trying to play irish music with it (beacuse at that time i don't even know what a tin whistle was, cuz here in spain are rare instruments even nowadays, so i supossed that it has to be a recorder jaja), and i remember me trying to figure out all the ornaments by myself, not knowing that it was a different instrument , AND with a different key (the clasic C of the recorder instead of the D of the irish music), and i play by ear, and like i've said, i was a child, so you can figure out that it wasn't an easy path to adapt all of that not having a clue about music beyong my ear.... . Then i started my search of what the hell was that "low tune flute" that sounds in a lot of celtic songs (yes, i neither know that a low whistle was even a thing jaja, in my world, the recorders were the only flutes that ever existed!), and as a result, i've purchased an alto (plastic) and a tenor (wooden) recorder!! jajaja, thinking that, by logic, if the soprano recorder was the sharp noise, the alto and tenor had to be the severe ones xD, and of course, i was wrong againg, but dont't get me wrong, i don't regret those purchases, they both have an incredible sound, and for years they were the most similar sound to the low whistle i had, and they make me happy. But luckily , a couple of years later, one friend found out a tin whistle in a folk music here in barcelona, and later also a low whistle, and since then i've been playing celtic and irish music, but also, videogames, films music etc, and i have a collection of a 20 tin and low whistles, my 3 recorders , one ocarina etc, and beliebe me, specially in those dark times with the coronavirus and so, i am very gratefull of have been persistent as a child, and found and learn by myself the music that i've allways love and that makes me company in this quarentine :)

I love Celtic music. Thank you for the tips on how to do and where to add the ornaments! I realize really good players add them in wherever they feel like it, so they never sound the same.

You explain fun, fast and understandable not easy tricks. For 16 minutes I learned more than one year of my own training. Folk is my favorite genre of music. Thanks for the video and good luck to you! Hello from Russia, we love recorder too :)

A good source of fully notated ornaments is highland pipe music. The ornaments are written out in full and sometimes are quite complicated. (From memory, the crunluath has 7 gracenotes before the note it is attached to.) Some of these translate to whistle, some don't, but it's interesting to see what sheet music looks like when you write out the ornaments explicitly.

That was AMAZING! You're sooo funny, I laugh watching you self-deprecate. It's so adorable. I really love old world music from everywhere around the world: China, Arabia/Persia, Irish/English folk, Spanish, Indian.... but god I love folk music from the UK (maybe it had to do with that 16 hour layover in Dublin I did, without sleep, but drinking guiness and doing karaoke and pretending to folk dance in the street). Thanks for the websites. I just started playing the recorder (I took it from my 5y.o. nephew who was using it as a rocket for his toy soldiers and I... breathed life into it--don't mind the corniness). I wasn't so serious a year ago when I first started. I just fiddled with my flute (why does that sound bad), trying to play All of Me by John Legend... but recently, about two months ago, I REALLY became obsessed with playing the recorder--like spending 3-6hours nonstop! I've kinda mastered all of the songs which were difficult in the beginning, painstakingly learning new fingering/notes to play and repeating if I mess up...then got to the point when I just "get it", I learn the song, then saying to myself, "I can't believe I found that song challenging a week or two ago. I swore it was virtually IMPOSSIBLE!" (My new "impossible song" is See You Again ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YqV0hjrY36w.html it's beautiful to listen but damn challenging!) I have learned some pop tunes like Wrecking Ball, Say Something, Titanic (was wondering how to make Titanic sound more Titanicky, the slides! the slides!). I still need the alphabetic notes written under the quarters and halves and such, as a cue. (I'm hacking into the recorder, so I guess it doesn't matter how you start, right?) Ok,I'm being long-winded. Getting to the point... I will go to folk music and start trying to play my own tunes or adlibbing to folk music. I will practice the ornaments you've taught. I'm hoping I can really learn some good techniques, and attempt to take things I learn from folk playing and bring it to soul or jazz.... From Jazz, go to Arabia... picking up and borrowing and mixing from all cultures. I've seriously become your biggest fan and I'm a bit geeking out! I just subscribed 3 days ago and love watching your vids. If you can make a video for beginners... like, OH! Some scales which I can do as a warm up before I start practicing/playing on my soprano recorder, plastic Yamaha (I have a Woodi maple wood baroque soprano coming in the mail from Amazon arriving in a day or two). Yes, scales and runs! Because I have some trouble still changing octaves mid phrase, or I want to increase the speed of the muscle memory for changing notes and keys faster, like typing without looking. Anyway, sorry for so much chatter! Just really excited. Ok, I'll go to my corner now! Cheers from Atlanta, Georgia, USA! P.S. Why did I become a recorder learner/player or whatever I am? I have this weird idea that, if one day, all of the electricity is knocked out due to an EMP weapon...all electronics are fried, and people must revert back to basic means of survival, there will be no radio or MTV or Eurovision or whatever. Small groups of people will come together to create communities and they will need something to cheer them up. So if I learn some pop tunes and other worldly music, I can help them reminisce of what was, forget about what is, and hope for what will be...all around a campfire or something. I'm such an empathic twit!

Omg i never thought about looking up Recorder Videos on RU-vid when i was playing it🤦‍♀️ great Channel😍

Gosh you are a breath of fresh air and so inspiring.

Whooaaaa! What a volcano of a positive energy You are! Bought a tin whistle just for fun some time ago (I play guitar mostly (and rather poorly too :) ) ), and stumbled upon this vid, when trying to figure out how to play that newly acquired sophisticated piece of musical equipment. Amount of positive energy that flooded me from that video made my sub You after barely a minute of watching it :) I'm not sure what the rest of Your videos is about and if they are related to tin whistle or not :) But I will be coming back here anyway just to recharge my positive energy batteries. Potential tin whistle knowledge gain (if any) will be just a side effect of that :) All the best from Poland!

great video! thank you! I recently purchased a tenor recorder because I was inspired to play by your videos. I would've just used a suprano.. but I tried that in elementary school and I sounded squeaky lol.

I just logged on your videos I love the way you teach me how to play the Yamaha recorder I learned a lot since I been on your videos playing keep up the good work you doing a good job love you love you love you love all the girls from England yes you're beautiful

A perfect introduction. I absolutely love Celtic folk music, but never played it, and have chosen an Irish piece for a performance exam. At first I was kind of wondering what I'd let myself in for, but now starting to enjoy learning a whole new style from Baroque, modern, Japanese, jazz. Really interesting.

This video was refferred by youtube and I just suscribed when I saw your whistles.. Also I love that Folk Tradition that UK and most Keltic countries have... Im from south america so its really different here, you will never see something like a penny wistle or Traditional Celtic Folk Music, I will stay in tune, im seeing that all of your channel is a big deal to me, its not bullshit.. you are my hero! thanks for the ornaments, I'm a beginer of tin whistle :3 :)

Thank you for explaining it all. It was just what I was looking for. Been looking at some of your video's for a few days now and I really love them. I picked up my recorder after not playing on it for at least 30 years (can you imagine?).

"Low G" sounds like a great hip-hop name

I just subscribed because I love your vibe and professionalism. I think you are a great musical person and I am sure you have no idea how much you are doing for your specific craft and music in general. Best to you!

Thanks for the video! I learned the tin whistle with a combination of RU-vid and The Clarke Tin Whistle by Bill Ochs, which did a great job explaining ornaments in the more advanced sections of the book.

Hey Sarah........ Love your videos. I've been playing the tin whistle for about 21 years....... and in the past year I got a tenor whistle (a.k.a low whistle) that also doubles as a flute because you can change the head on it and blow it sideways (giving it a really different sound). Today I bought a second-hand recorder in a charity shop for £4. I'm gonna boil it in a pot of water at home before I play it though :) It will be interesting to see how the fingering goes and if it's much like the whistle.

So nice you used portuguese subtitles on the beggining! Regards from Brazil!

I've just stumbled across your videos, Sarah, and they're amazing! I've been playing around with recorders and whistles for years (although I'm still a novice on both), and have already learned so much from them, especially this one. I love your style, and more importantly you're a great teacher! Thanks so much!

Wow! A Whistle instrument! Now you've gotten me back into playing my recorder again and I need to buy the Whistle!!!!

Thank you for this very good introduction to folk music! Just a quick note adressing the roll: As an Uilleann-Piper I understand the roll to be an ornament seperating one tone into three similarly long melody-notes seperated by two rhythmic-notes (cut and tap) rather than a "turn" in the classical sense with five melody notes...

Thanks for your thoughts on that topic. As far as I have understood, Uillean Pipes and some others (like Northumbrian Pipes) use closed fingering. Therefore, you can always completely stop the airflow. So you can use this similar to the use of the tongue. Pipes with open fingering, however, sound all the way through.

Ah Derbyshire! I spent my Staffordshire University (Stoke Poly) days up in the Peak, the Roaches and those edges. An old buddy of mine lives in Matlock. Awesome region!

I taught myself a little penny whistle years ago and used a book 'Penny Whistle For Beginners' by Billy Ochs...was a kit with Clarke D whistle, cassette and booklet. It taught me not only about ornaments ie: taps, rolls, cuts, trills etc., but really helped to expand my musical abilities and ideas overall. I'd recommend that set highly for anyone (easy to follow and concise) playing Pennys...and I'd guess same techniques would work for Recorders...though Pennys aren't as complex, so some extra coordination and dexterity might be in order.

I’m so impressed by the amount of information I can find here! It’s all so clearly explained and with so much joy 🥳

Oh god! Your channel is what I was searching all this time!!! You saved my life🙏🏻😂❤️

Thank you, Sarah! You brought brightness to my somewhat gloomy day!This was all new and welcome and inspiring to me! I will see the video again, take notes and your advice, and start learning! And listenlistenlisten... Thank you, and have a lovely break!

Great video! Good explanations. Ornaments are clearer to me now. Thank you!

I love your humor so much lol. The end had me up in stitches.

your video editing is so crisp and keeps the energy going! i appreciate that!

Thank you so much for the instruction! Very usefull. Have not played much folk music on the recorder. Maybe now I will. You play the recorder beautifully.

Learned some Celtic tunes on the whistle and now I'm playing them on the recorder. Also trying lots of other things on the recorder. Tunes like Autumn Leaves, Take the A train and lots of others, IMHO they sound great.

Those resources you shared is what just made me subscribe. Dankjewel!!!!!

Another of the many reasons I appreciate you, Sarah, is the resources! woohoo! Thanks for another great learning experience. :-)

Thus is quite a lark, I actually played folk music on my Recorder long before i got my tin whistle or Irish Flute and still enjoy using my Recorder to do so .... I agree about the listening part because without informed intentionality using ornaments; placing ornaments willy nilly into folk music tends to make the Recorder stick out instead of feeling a part of the music ... my best tip for that for anyone is Record yourself so you learn to distinguish how you think you sound in the music from how you you actually sound ...sigh ... it took me a while before i could get over how inappropriate i initially sounded ... still working on it to be honest ... but gee to start off with am afraid i made things sound perpetually *Titanicy' - my reference books for folk music for anyone would be The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle by Grey Larson & The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tutor by Lee Mccullough

Of all the thing i did not expect in a recorder video, hearing Brackish by Kittie was one of them

this is very, very niche. i love it

You are ge nius Sarah, your passion of recorder goes viral 😁by the way you share it with passion and fun ;°); everyone will reconize you are awesome

my mind was blown by the accents on 1234 to change from classical to an upbeat. i always knew there was a difference but all this time i never really knew what. until now. WOW.

A book I like is called The Whistler's Pocket Companion by Dona Gilliam and Mizzy McCaskill, published by Mel Bay. It is nominally written for tin whistle, but in my opinion a lot of the pieces work fine when played on recorder. I think all the pieces are in one or two or three sharps. Also, although I haven't tried it I suspect that something like The Fiddler's Fakebook (David Brody) would probably be useful for finding folk tunes to play on recorder. Again, most are written in one, two, or three sharps. Some of the tunes are in modes other than major or minor.

You're the bestest teacher ever! I learned so much 😃

What an enthusiasm.....so lovely Nice video Sara

Thank you so much for these videos. You make me smile and giggle and learn! haha I'm putting on a little show for Saint Patrick's Day at my church, and I thought I'd try to throw in a little Irish jig on the recorder. I'm not a recorder player, so it may be a disaster; but hopefully my years of clarinet playing and your fantastic videos will get me through! Thanks again!

A minor footnote: there are conical-bore whistles like the Clarke Sweetone, which, coincidentally, is a great budget whistle.

Definitely take time off Sarah! We will be here when you return relaxed refreshed and ready to go!

Thanks for this timely video, Sarah! I just got a whistle for Christmas. Coming from the classical world, I was struggling to understand some of the ornaments I was reading about in a book by L.E. McCullough called The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tutor. I am on the right track now thanks to your excellent examples.

Wow I love this video. Way to break it down, thank you so much 😊

The book that did the most for me is Geraldine Cotter's "Traditional Irish Tin Whistle Tutor"

You're so awesome! I love your channel and you really inspire me!!

i was so much reminded to titanic while you rounding... and than you mentioned ti :DD

I used to play a lot of folk, but mostly from mainland Europe. Been a while. I used most of those techniques quute naturally. Great overview! Have a great 2017!

This is so lovely! So much knowledge in this video!! Thank you Sarah

You explain very well! Congrats, teacher! I'm learning a lot with you. Now, I need to practice, practice and practice... Have I said "practice" already?? hahaha

How have I not found your channel before! This is sooo helpful, thank you!

The information is sooooo helpful. And you being a nut, made it fun to watch and to pay attention. Thank you so much!

Some of these I’ve learned by listening to folk music (mostly celtic, but occasionally japanese, arab, and peruvian) and just trying to figure out how they got that sound out of their flutes...but definitely not all of them, definitely not what they were called, and I’m giddy to experiment with all of them and check out the linked resources, too

Good video! I have found that good book to use for Irish folk is 'Ireland Best Tin Whistle Tunes 1' published by Waltons. It is graded for difficulty and comes with two CDs ( make sure you get the CD edition) so you can hear what the tunes are supposed to sound like. I have been using this book to learn how to read music.

Hey I don't know if you'll see this comment but anyway, I really love what you're doing and you make want to pick up the recorder ! Talking about folk music or kind of Celtic music, you should take a look into the Basque wind instruments. There's a recorder that I used to play which is called the txulule or txirula (depends where you are in the Basque country), there are also a lot more than the the txulule but I think you might like it (if you haven't tested it yet, I haven't watched all of your video yet) Well I hope you're doing well and I'm sending you lots of love from France :)

i love your english accent and your music accents too jajajja congrats

Been a huge fan a folk/medieval music all my life, just very recently bought a recorder (bc theres no cheap wooden flutes) and your video are helping a bunch in playing something more than green sleeves.

I kinda taught myself the whistle and the recorder. I based my recorder playing off of how I played the whistle and it’s interesting how much of what you’ve described in this video was stuff I did intuitively!

Best tutorials! And you are the best music master I've ever met.

Thanks Sarah,you are an axcelent teacher,and very helpful,thanks you for shearing to us

Thank you Sarah very informative & inspiring, and your also a true cutie to boot, bless you x🤓

Ive been to a few irish trad jams before and ive found that the whistlers often are able to talk with there music we dont need to reherse it just naturally comes together as were playing im sure it could possibly be the same with a recorder I'll have to check it out and give it a shot

Thank you for this video Sarah. I am starting to study folk music now on recorder.

Thanks Sarah, I have learned so much from this video. I'm going to start listening. Thanks for the source information.