Learn to Play Recorder

Lesson 44: Introduction to the Alto Recorder

  • Hold an alto recorder comfortably and play a one-octave F major scale.
  • Play a Baroque sonata movement written for alto recorder, at pitch.

The Baroque recorder is the alto. The soprano is the children's instrument.

The alto sounds a fifth lower than the soprano: soprano-C fingerings produce F major. Most canonical Baroque solo repertoire — Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi — was written for alto, so if you want that music at original pitch, you need an alto in your hands.

You have been playing alto since Lesson 0, so this lesson is mostly review: confirm that the F major scale (the alto's home key) is even, and use the new repertoire below. Soprano players are doing for the first time what you have been doing all along.

Holding and fingering

Keep the fingers curved — do not flatten to span the wider holes. The patterns are identical to soprano; the pitches come out a fifth lower.

Your hands already know the alto's wider holes. Keep the fingers curved and read at sounding pitch as you have been doing.

Same fingerings as the soprano C major scale; the pitches that come out are F major.

Confirm your home-key scale is even, both directions.

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Play: a Baroque sonata for alto

Handel's A minor sonata, HWV 362, was written for alto and sits in its most resonant range.

Now play these

Handel: Sonata in A minor, HWV 362
On alto, the pitch Handel wrote.
Telemann: Sonata in F major, TWV 41:F2
F major sits beautifully on alto.
Vivaldi: Concerto RV 443
Written for sopranino, often played on alto. Try it.

When you can hold the alto in playing position for five minutes without re-gripping and play the F major scale at quarter = 96, both directions, with no audible dip on B-flat (a cross-fingering on alto), move on to Lesson 45.