Recorder tuner

Recorder notes in Hz

Soprano (descant): the four notes the tuner asks for

Alto and tenor

At A4 = 440 Hz; the reference switch above moves them all.

How to tune a recorder with this tuner

Play for a minute first, then pick soprano, alto or tenor, tap start and hold the note asked for with the breath you play with. The soprano asks for G A C D as written (they sound an octave higher; the tuner names them the way you read them), the alto F A C F, the tenor C G A C. Flat on most of them: push the head joint in a little. Sharp: pull it out. That is the one adjustment a recorder has. It changes the length of the air column, so it moves every note at once.

Warm it first. An air column's pitch follows the speed of sound, which rises with temperature: about 3 cents per degree Celsius. A recorder straight from a cold bag reads 15 to 30 cents flat and climbs as your breath warms it, so a head joint set cold ends up sharp ten minutes later. And blow the way you play: harder pushes a recorder sharp, softer lets it sag, so tuning with a forced breath sets it wrong for the music.

Is it possible to tune a recorder?

Yes, within limits. The head joint sets the whole instrument. Each millimetre you pull it out lowers a note by roughly one cent per 100 Hz of its pitch: about 9 cents on a soprano's A (880 Hz), about 4 on an alto's A (440 Hz). So within the low octave the higher notes move more than the lowest ones. An overblown note moves about as much as the same fingering an octave down, since it is the same tube. A few millimetres is the range; further out, the gap at the joint leaves a step in the bore and the top notes start to misbehave. A one-piece plastic recorder can't move at all. Single notes are tuned by how you play them: breath, shading (a finger held just above an open hole lowers a note a little) and alternative fingerings. A maker can change one note for good, with wax in a hole to lower it or by enlarging and undercutting the hole to raise it.

Do recorders go out of tune?

Not the way strings do: the holes stay where they are. What changes is the player, the room and the windway. A recorder that suddenly sounds airy or stops speaking after ten minutes has water in the windway: cover the window, the opening on the front just below the mouthpiece, with a finger and blow one short, hard breath. A wooden recorder changes slowly over the years as the bore takes up moisture and oil; when one note has moved for good, that is a job for the maker, not the head joint.

A = 440, 442 or 415

Modern recorders are built at A = 440 or A = 442, often stamped on the instrument or printed on the box; press 442 above for a 442 recorder. Copies of baroque recorders are usually at A = 415, a semitone lower. This tuner has no 415 switch, and at 440 it shows a 415 recorder's notes about 100 cents flat of the note asked for. On the chromatic tuner at 440, every note reads one name lower and within about a cent: F as E. 415.3 Hz is exactly one equal-tempered semitone under 440 (440 / 2^(1/12) = 415.30), and 415 is 1.2 cents under that. No head joint bridges a semitone; a 415 recorder plays with other 415 instruments.

The recorder family: sizes and lowest notes

The switches above cover soprano, alto and tenor. For a sopranino or a bass, the chromatic tuner names any note.

Notes that stay out of tune

Some are built in. On a soprano or tenor, German fingering makes the F easy and leaves the F♯ out of tune; baroque fingering is the other way round: a forked F, and the F♯ and G♯ in tune. On an alto the same pair is the B♭ and the B. On many plastic sopranos the top notes run sharp: blow them no harder than they need, and try how far the thumb opens its hole. The fingering for every note in both systems is on the recorder notes page.

Tuning recorders together

In a group, tune to one recorder rather than every player to a tuner: one alto or the teacher plays an A, the others match, then check a chord. Sopranos drift sharp as they get louder, and a class that has just heard the needle swing on one hard breath knows what too hard sounds like. Singing rather than playing? What note am I singing? reads a voice the same way, without asking for a set note.

No app needed: this page runs in the phone's browser, and any free chromatic tuner app that shows cents does the same. A clip-on tuner hears little through a recorder's body; a microphone tuner works better.

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.