Recorder notes: which one was that?

How the note checker works

Tap a note at the top. Mika shows which holes to cover (black) and which stay open (white); the hole drawn on the left is the thumb hole at the back. Hold the recorder near the phone, tap the button and play the note for two seconds, nice and long. The page listens like a tuner and says which note came out: the one you wanted, a little high, a little low, or another note. It starts on B, the first note most children learn, and covers the nine notes from low C to high D.

Every note that comes out right fills one of four boxes; a miss never empties them. After four you hear them back as a little tune, and you can take it into Brumm Kids, where a marimba plays your notes over a beat and you can sing along.

How to play the recorder for beginners: the first notes

Left hand on top, right hand below, for left-handers too: the left thumb covers the hole at the back, the right thumb rests behind the instrument between the fourth and fifth holes. The front holes and the little window under the mouthpiece face away from you; the thumb hole faces you. The right little finger covers the bottom hole. If the recorder comes in pieces, line the window up with the front holes and turn the foot a little so the little finger reaches its double hole. Cover the holes with the soft pads of your fingers, not the tips. Put the mouthpiece between your lips, not your teeth, and start each note with your tongue, as if you were whispering "doo". Then blow gently, like warm breath on a cold window. That breath is why the page says "more gently" instead of "wrong": on a recorder the air changes the note. Blow harder and the note goes up, much too hard and it jumps to the high note, too softly and it sinks. Start with B (thumb and the first finger), then A (add the second finger), then G (add the third).

Recorder notes chart (soprano, also called descant)

● covered, ○ open, ◐ half covered. Thumb and the second finger alone is high C, not low C; low C covers every hole. Read each row from the thumb hole at the back, then the seven holes on the front from the top: three for the left hand, four for the right. On the bottom two holes, ◐ means you cover one hole of the pair and leave the other open (on a recorder with single holes there, cover half the hole). On the thumb hole, ◐ means you pinch it: bend the thumb so its nail leaves a small gap open. The usual order: B, A, G, then high C and high D, then the right hand down to E, D and low C, then F♯ and F.

Baroque or German fingering?

There are two fingering systems for the same recorder. Most recorders in schools in the US, the UK and Australia are Baroque (also called English fingering); German fingering is common in Germany and Austria. Many makers say which on the recorder or the box: a B, "Baroque" or "English", or a G or "German". Not sure? Play F both ways from the chart: the fingering that gives a clean, steady note is yours. Of the notes in the chart, only F, G♯ and high F are fingered differently; everything else is the same.

For parents and teachers

The page only listens when your child taps, and only for two seconds. The note is read in the browser and forgotten straight away: no recording, no account, nothing is sent. There are no points and no comparison with other children; a note that comes out a bit off gets a breath tip and another go. It is made for the soprano recorder in C, the one most schools use. For an alto, or to check a whole recorder's tuning, use the recorder tuner.

Easy recorder songs with letter notes

The easiest song to play on recorder is Hot Cross Buns: three notes, B, A and G, with the left hand alone. Au Clair de la Lune uses the same three. Each letter below is one note from the chart; a comma is a short breath.

• Hot Cross Buns: B A G, B A G, G G G G A A A A, B A G
• Au Clair de la Lune: G G G A B A, G B A A G
• Mary Had a Little Lamb (adds high D): B A G A B B B, A A A, B D D, B A G A B B B, B A A B A G
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (low notes D, E and F♯): D D A A B B A, G G F♯ F♯ E E D, A A G G F♯ F♯ E, A A G G F♯ F♯ E, D D A A B B A, G G F♯ F♯ E E D
• Happy Birthday (low D up to high D): D D E D G F♯, D D E D A G, D D D B G F♯ E, C C B G A G (in the third part the third D is high D; both C's are high C)
• Ode to Joy (high C and D): B B C D D C B A G G A B B A A, B B C D D C B A G G A B A G G
• Jingle Bells, the chorus (high C and D): B B B, B B B, B D G A B, C C C C C B B B B B A A B A D, B B B, B B B, B D G A B, C C C C C B B B B D D C A G

The two D's that open Happy Birthday and Twinkle Twinkle are low D, with every hole covered but the last one.

Recorder notes on the staff, and in Do Re Mi

Recorder music is written in the treble clef. B sits on the middle line, A in the space below it, G on the line below that. Going up: high C in the third space, high D on the fourth line, high E in the top space, high F on the top line, high G just above the staff. Going down: F in the bottom space, E on the bottom line, D just under the staff, and low C on a short extra line below it. The soprano recorder sounds an octave higher than it is written: its low C is the C at 523 Hz (C5), one octave above middle C.

Some schools and songbooks use Do Re Mi instead of letters: C is Do, D is Re, E is Mi, F is Fa, G is Sol, A is La and B is Ti (Si in many countries). So B, A, G is Ti, La, Sol.

How to play G♯ and the other sharps and flats

A sharp or flat is the same hole pattern shifted by a finger or two, often with a gap in the middle (a fork fingering). G♯ (the same note as A♭): thumb, first and second finger of the left hand, the third hole open, then the first two fingers of the right hand. In Baroque fingering the right ring finger also covers one of the two small holes of hole 6, as the chart shows. B♭: thumb, first and third finger, then the first finger of the right hand. F♯: thumb and the whole left hand, the fourth hole open, the fifth and sixth covered. C♯ and E♭ are the half-covered double holes at the bottom. The chart above has every one of them.

Why does my recorder squeak?

• A hole is not quite covered. The most common cause. Press the soft pads of your fingers flat and check the thumb at the back; on the low notes, check that the left hand did not lift a little when the right hand went down.
• Too much air. Low C and D need the least: blow as if you were fogging up a window. If low C comes out an octave too high, it is almost always one of these two.
• Teeth on the mouthpiece. The lips hold it, lightly. Biting changes the sound.
• The thumb on the high notes. High E, F, F♯ and G need the pinched thumb hole and a little more air. A gap that is too big or too small gives a squeal; move the thumb a tiny bit.

Soprano, descant, alto: which recorder is this chart for?

Soprano and descant are two names for the same recorder in C, the school one (soprano in the US, descant in the UK). The tenor is fingered the same way, an octave lower. The alto (treble), sopranino and bass use the same hole patterns but name them differently: with every hole covered they play F, not C, so the alto's B-A-G fingering plays E, D and C. A song learnt on the soprano works on the alto with the same fingers; it only sounds in another key.

A soprano recorder plays a little over two octaves, from low C to the D two octaves above it (sounding C5, 523 Hz, to D7, 2349 Hz). The chart stops at high G, the top note of most school books.

Is the recorder hard to learn?

The first three notes are easy: most children play a clean B, A and G within a lesson or two, and Hot Cross Buns right after. The hard parts come later: the low notes, where every finger has to seal and the air has to be very soft, and the high notes with the pinched thumb. Children can usually cover the holes of a soprano from about six or seven, which is why many schools start recorder between about seven and nine. Five to ten minutes most days does more for a six- to nine-year-old than one long session a week; older beginners can go to 20 minutes. Stop while it still sounds good.

To find the note of a song you only know by ear, sing it into What note am I singing? and look the note up in the chart. The frequencies of every note are in the note frequency chart.

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