The difference between alto recorders and bass-recorders

Actually, the bass recorder is quite a lot more than a 'big alto'. It's role in a recorder consort, as the bottom line, gives it a role seldom played by a treble and it's quirky performance in the upper register makes it quite different when one wants to play musically throughout the full two octaves plus range.

Bass recorder players get used to the fact that there is a significant delay between tonguing the bass and getting the instrument to speak. This delay does not occur on the smaller recorders. A good bass player anticipates when bar lines are to be reached or when lines start and we all develop this 'blowing just in front of everybody else' technique to avoid being heard behind the beat, barline or whatever. This is best done by ear but intimate knowledge of one's instrument helps one to judge this 'just right'. Experienced bass players know about the problem and compensate as though it were second nature. Infrequent players may not even know what I am talking about!!!

The second problem with the bass is getting a sweet tone throughout the range. Most basses have a weak bottom or thin top - only the very best have both a rich bass and a full top. Here a good player favours the tone using a slight vibrato at the bottom to fill out the tone (although this vibrato should be hidden from the listener by being very discrete) and a careful match of tonguing stroke to instrument response characteristic to get a pleasant sound throughout the range. While players of smaller instruments have to do similar things for the bass recorder player the problem is greater, the required skill more important.

I have been a bass recorder player for over thirty years and it always surprises me when people talk of the bass as though it were just a large alto or tenor.

The greatest difference comes from how a bass line is played in a consort. The bass player lies at the bottom of chords, so a bass recorder player must have a very secure sense of pitch and interval. Chords are tuned from the bottom up (i.e. from the bass line upwards) and if the bass recorder player does not play in tune the rest of the consort is 'at sea'. The bass recorder player should keep the bass line rhythmically secure, light and when necessary, bouncy and precise. Here being late is death to the whole consort rhythm. Heavy bass line playing kills all the spring in the rhythm of the piece as a whole. There are many other important rhythmic matters that stem from the bass line but maybe I have gone on enough already.

I hope at least I have given the lie to the statement that a bass recorder is just a large alto - that it certainly is not!!!