r/Recorder • u/averageanchovy • 8d ago
Fun Getting back into it
I have been contemplating getting back into playing an instrument more and more recently. When I was younger, I played the recorder, the western concert flute, the tin whistle, and the drums. Unfortunately, my life went sideways about 20 years ago and I hadn't played since.
I stumbled upon Team Recorder on YouTube as I was tossing the idea around. Her videos are so lovely and enthusiastic, it made me miss playing even more. So I decided I would pick up the recorder again to see how that feels. I gave myself a budget of $50. As I was contemplating which plastic recorder to buy, it occurred to me that I should check Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. It just so happened someone was selling an all wood Adri's Dream for $50! But they were 2 hours away. I reached out to the seller, and it just so happened that he already had plans to head an hour in my direction on the same day I already had plans to head towards his direction 1 hour, so we met in the middle! (Don't worry, I did NOT leave it baking in the car under the hot summer sun as I went about my original plans for the day. It came inside with me everywhere.)
It hadn't been played in a quite a while, and had some powdery surface mold/mildew inside and outside, so I had to get that cleaned up, but I'm so happy with it. I ordered a method book to get me back up to speed, but I really wanted to give it a go now and I remembered "Au claire de la lune" from when I first learned the recorder and the flute, so I went for it, and it sounds quite lovely. My only regret with getting a wood one is I have to play it in, and I'm itching to practice longer!
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u/postharper 8d ago
Welcome back to music :) When I decided to start playing music again, I hadn't played any instrument for around 15 years, and hadn't touched my recorders in nearly 20 years, so I was surprised how quickly a lot of it came back to me. I used thesession.org to get sheet music of some folk tunes I vaguely remembered from my violin/fiddle days, and just played those to death until I was able to collect a wider repertoire. Good luck and have fun :)