Recorder
Tuition
in the
Staffordshire Moorlands
area
My
private lessons take place above the Glen Titmus
Violin Shop www.glentitmus.co.uk
in Leek, Staffordshire and I also teach the
recorder in several schools in the Moorlands area.
This involves basic recorder tuition for younger
students who are too small to stretch the width of
the flute, following a set course using the 'Red
Hot Recorder' Tutor by Sarah Watts mixed with many
popular tunes from other repertoire books and
arrangements that I have written
myself.
Tuition
for the Associated Board practical examinations is
also available for the more advanced
student.
Tuition
for the Trinity College of Music practical
examinations
is
also available for the more advanced
student.
Theory of
Music
Tuition
for the Associated Board Theory examinations will
be included in the lessons if
required.
Fees
£12.50
per 30 minute lesson subject to an annual review
each September.
Cancellations
All
lessons cancelled within 24 hours of the arranged
time are charged for at the full rate unless the
absence is due to illness, please telephone or
email for further details.
The
Recorder
I started
to play the recorder, like many 7 year olds, in
1972 and was fortunate enough to have a private
tutor called Mrs. Denny. She gave me the musical
grounding needed for the playing and teaching that
I do today. When I moved from primary to middle
school, I made the natural progression from
recorder to flute and started practising for my
grade examinations.
The
Recorder is a much-belittled instrument. When you
mention to people that you play the Recorder, they
often think of when they played the Recorder when
they were in primary school and learnt the notes B,
A and G. The Recorder has a bad reputation because
of this but if it is played well, it is possible to
produce a very beautiful sound and some very clever
finger work. I was brought up in Windsor in
Berkshire and I attended Clewer Green Primary
School. This was a friendly school and very
disciplined as I remember. Our music was encouraged
at the school and I remember singing a solo of "In
The Bleak Mid-Winter" during one of the Christmas
concerts, it was my first ever solo performance. I
also attended many Recorder Festivals and was quite
successful with those. When I was about 8 or 9
years old I had a small, mono tape recorder and I
used to put a blank tape in to the machine and
record myself playing one half of a duet. I would
then play it back and play along with myself
playing the other part. Nobody told me to do this;
it was just something that I wanted to do. I wanted
to make music but there were no other members of my
family who played instruments. Looking back at my
family tree there are very few references to music,
there was a choirmaster which was George Horsfield
(1841-1915), who was my great-grandfather and
Caroline Elizabeth Horsfield (George's eldest
child,1863-1939) who is down on the 1881 census as
being a graduate in music, she was 17 at the time.
On the two subsequent census returns she is just
listed as 'wife' so I suspect that the music was
put aside, professionally at least, to bring up
children.
I have
quite a family of recorders, Sopranino, Descant,
Treble and Tenor. I like the Tenor Recorder and its
low, mellow tones but I also like the Sopranino
Recorder because it is so lively and so easy to
manoeuvre quick finger work on.
