Q: My family is gathering over Christmas as usual and we will probably end up singing carols together. I wondered if I could play along on recorder. Which recorder should I use?
This question, or one of its variants, pops up every year. Answering it properly takes a few minutes, however, because we need to consider voice ranges, recorder ranges and key signatures; perhaps who is singing and who is playing; and maybe just what is a carol.
(1) Voice ranges
Nearly everyone can sing in a range from C to C’ – children and women in the octave above middle C on the piano, with men an octave below them. Most people can extend that range by a tone in each direction (i.e. singing Bb, – D’) and many can extend a little further (e.g. A, – E’) but communal singing gets steadily worse as these limits are approached.
(2) Recorder ranges
The soprano recorder’s comfortable range is C – G’. That matches well with the C – C’ of the singers’ most comfortable range, except that it’s the weakest (softest) part of the recorder’s range and its sound is easily drowned out by the singers. And as soon as the song’s melody is greater than an octave, we want low B, Bb or A but we don’t have them.
The best solution is to pick up an alto: Bb – D’ is right in the middle of the range, so it’s strong and reliable. However, it’s rare to find carols written out in alto range, so the player has to “read up” from vocal (or soprano recorder) music, or play by ear.
If we haven’t got an alto, we can get by on soprano for many carols but may find ourselves asking the singers to stretch for high notes beyond their comfort zone.
(3) Key signatures
(If you’ve forgotten this bit of music theory or never knew it, look at the table below.) Singers can (and do) start on any note that comes to mind but instrumentalists need to know which fingers to use – “which note to start on” – and, following from that, “which sharps or flats”.
The starting note determines every other note of the song but it’s easier to talk about keys and ranges first, then find the starting note. If we’re in the keys of C, G, F or D we will play quite comfortably. As we add sharps or flats (or drinks!), things get tougher: Bb major is okay for most of us, A and Eb are challenging, Ab and E are approaching “I think I will just sing along with this one” territory.
From the singers’ point of view, however, the key signature doesn’t matter at all: the range is all that matters. B major might suit them perfectly well – but the recorder player needs to say (quickly!), “How about a little higher or lower?” and get them to sing in C or Bb.
Let’s make that perfectly clear: you, the instrumentalist, need to choose the key but you have to choose a key that puts the tune in a singable range. Arranging the keys as I have done in the chart makes it clear that avoiding the worst key signatures is usually a matter of going one semitone higher or lower, which the singers will hardly notice.
Putting that all together
Let’s sing “Away in a Manger”
Range: one octave and one note, so C – D’ is ideal and D – E’ or Bb – C’ are okay. That would put it into F, G or Eb major and it’s playable in all those keys on alto, but only in F or G on soprano. But how do we make sure the singers start on C, not C#? We play them an introduction, of course – usually the last couple of bars of the melody. Oh – and how many verses are they are going to sing?
Okay, how about “Silent Night”?
Range: one octave and four notes. C – F’ is the only option for soprano and it’s a little high for some singers. Bb – Eb’ on alto is more comfortable for them, if we have an alto handy. The key will be C or Bb; both are okay.
Preparing
If you know the event is coming up, you can prepare the most popular carols from books.
- If you only have recorder versions, you will need to check that they are in singable ranges. If they aren’t, you might be able to transpose them by playing on alto using soprano fingerings, or vice versa.
- If you have vocal versions, learn each of them on whatever recorder suits it best – soprano reading normally, or alto reading an octave up. If any of them are in really awkward keys, see if you can play them a semitone higher or lower.
- In either case, try to play them at the speed you would sing them – some of them are very lively and will need practice to get up to speed.
One final word of warning: twentieth century American Christmas songs (they are not really ‘carols’) are often significantly harder to play than the traditional carols, with all sorts of chromatic notes and odd rhythms. Singers think they know them but usually, in fact, need someone to keep them on track.
Merry Christmas!
• This article was written for the Christmas 2015 newsletter of the North Queensland Recorder Society and published to this site in December 2022.
