I bought one of those things with all the holes.
And I really like it. It sounds like what I wish my whistles sounded like. I just wish it was as easy to play. I might accidentally pour concrete down all the extra holes and see what happens.
PS…how do you pronounce Gill? Like a fish’s gills or like Gillian Anderson’s…gills?
Hi, Cranberry.
I don’t believe it’s an addiction. We humans like and need to feel that we are connected with other humans. Perfectly normal.
I, also like the sound of that other kind of end blown fipple flute. I don’t have either the brain cells or perseverance to learn the the cross fingerings needed for routine notes on them, however. So I looked into the difference between baroque/English fingering and German fingering instruments.
If I understand correctly what I read (searched for “German fingering recorder” or some such thing on ask.com), the German fingering is more like a whistle except that F# and C# require cross fingering or half holing.
That’s OK with me, because it’s intuitively easier to remember that the notes that need special fingerings are sharps.
Otherwise, on a key of C German fingering recorder, my impression was that the finger positions are pretty similar to those of a key of D whistle. If I’ve got this wrong, someone will correct me, but this was my impression.
I’m still too broke to buy even a cheap instrument, but Aulos brand German fingering soprano recorders are available at www.rhythmband.com for $4.25 to $8.50 plus shipping.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I bought this one from the same store where I bought my Sweetone.
I wanted a Sweetone, and they tried to sell me a slide whistle, and when I wanted one of those other instruments, they tried to sell me a flutophone.
You’d think if somebody owned a music store, they’d kind of know the difference…
Jerry, I tried you search on Google using the same keywords, however, I made a typo when entering the query and transposed the the “e” and the “r” in German giving me Greman. A single site came up. The title of the site as listed in Google (and I kid you not) was “NASTY FILTHY DIRTY WEBSITE FOR ADULTS ONLY”.
I didn’t bother to click on through.
BTW: I also like the sound of the recorder (uh-oh, I said a swear word) and have a couple of the cheap Yahama ones. I haven’t learned to play them yet. I’ll wait until I get better with the whistle. Trying to learn both at the same time would confuse my fingers WAY to much.
Try this:
http://www.dolmetsch.com/gfingeringchart.pdf
I found it searching for “recorder fingering chart German” on ask.com.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Isn’t that the strangest thing! When I went to buy my first whistle, I called ahead to the local music store and inquired to make sure they sold pennywhistles. They said “Sure we do!” After all, their tagline is “Everything musical” (or something like that).
I walk in and ask to see their pennywhistles and they hand me a freakin’ slide whistle! 
Bunch o’ morons…ruin my day. Waste my lunch time and all the senseless anticipation…the yearning to finally hold a tinwhistle in my hands. What do I get? Heartache!
Bitter? nah.
Bob
get a good teaching method book and work yourself through it lesson by lesson and the fingering will become clear and second nature.
A good, understandable one is the Trapp Family Recorder book. Yes, THAT Trapp family… just make sure you get the correct one for your particular recorder. C if it’s a soprano, F if it’s an Alto. Same fingerings, but you get different notes, just like in whistles.
Thanks for the link. I had actually been to that site before and printed their Baroque fingering chart. Comparing the English and German charts, the fingerings look very similar. The first octave has three notes with different fingerings and the second octave has five. Neither looks to be significantly more difficult than the other. Baroque fingering seems to be the standard for the higher end recorders. Given that and the ability of the Baroque fingering system to get half way into the third octave, I think I’ll stick with Baroque fingering when I’m ready for the recorder.
Let me through out another question. What is the difference between a Baroque style and a Renaissance style recorder? This question was asked by someone else in another thread recently but no reply was given. I’ll through it out here again.
According to The Antique Sound Workshop’s “Guide to Recorders”:
Renaissance recorders have wide cylindrical or slightly tapered bores with a choke toward the foot and large single tone holes, produce a full, rich tone in the lower and middle registers. The earliest modern reproductions of these instruments achieved only a limited range of an octave and a sixth; more recent attempts to reproduce these instruments, particularly the Mollenhauer Kynsecker renaissance series, have successfully expanded the range to over two octaves. The extreme high register in these instruments, while quite playable, is nevertheless not as secure as on modern recorders and some experience on the part of the player is necessary to control the response accurately.
Baroque recorders, in comparison to the earlier renaissance-type recorders in use until the mid-seventeenth century, have much narrower, more sharply conical bores, smaller tone holes, and extremely narrow, highly arched windways. The tone of these instruments is relatively quiet, usually quite reedy and complex, and varies in timbre and volume from the low through the middle and high registers. They are extremely sensitive to subtle articulation and develop highly individual characters. They are excellent solo instruments, contrasting greatly with other baroque woodwind, string, or keyboard instruments, but are not well-suited to recorder consort playing because of their individuality and lack of blending properties. The alto recorder was the predominant size in this period, and the other sizes were used only occasionally. Most advanced players own and treasure one or more baroque solo alto recorders for the authentic performance of the sonata and concerto repertoire of the early eighteenth century.
Finally, modern recorders are extremely diverse in tone and playing qualities, but it is possible to draw a few generalizations about them: they tend to be fuller in tone than baroque recorders, although not as loud as renaissance recorders; their tone quality may range from full and warm through open and clear to bright and reedy, but is invariably plainer and less complex than historical recorders; they have relatively larger windways, sometimes with some curvature but usually straight, and usually have less resistance; they are not as sensitive to articulation, have a more limited dynamic range, and are not as stable in pitch. On the other hand, they may be played for longer periods of time and are far less prone to clogging if correctly designed and voiced, and they do not require as much care and attention. Perhaps most important, they require less effort and control on the part of the player and tend to be far more forgiving of a wide spectrum of playing techniques and styles. Whereas historical recorders are more player-dependent and require considerable experience and skill to produce optimum results, modern recorders have more of the performance built into the instrument, are therefore more reliable and less dependent on the ability of the player. Most modern recorders are equally suited to both ensemble and solo use; they are the ideal instrument for a player who does not want to acquire a number of highly specialized literature-specific reproduction instruments for early music but rather one all-purpose recorder which can be used successfully for all literature.
The full article is available at http://www.aswltd.com/guiderec.htm
Tom
The short answer is, the Renn recorders have a wider bore and a somewhat different sound. They are louder in the lower octave but don’t have the resonance the baroque recorders do in the upper octave. (This info is second hand – I have not played a Renn recorder, although hope to do so at some point. They have a really lovely voice.)
Again I’ll say, don’t bother with the German fingered recorders. They were invented in the 1920’s or 30’s by a man who hoped to make recorder fingerings easier for children trying to learn recorder. They are easier to finger, but the upper octave is almost impossible to play in tune. Stick with the baroque. By the way, learning to play the recorder may seem more difficult than the whistle, but when you count in learning whistle ornamentation, and the tempos at which most whistle tunes are played, I find the whistle a much more difficult instrument. 
Starr