Editing Recorder (musical instrument) (section)

=== Historical recorders ===
The earliest known document mentioning "a pipe called Recordour" dates from 1388.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Rowland-Jones |first=Anthony |date=Autumn 2016 |title=The Invention of the Recorder |magazine=The Recorder Magazine |volume=36 |issue=3 |page=81 |publisher=Peacock Press |location=[[Hebden Bridge]] }}</ref>
Historically, recorders were used to play vocal music and parts written for other instruments, or for a general instrument. As a result, it was frequently the performers' responsibility to read parts not specifically intended for the instrument and to choose appropriate instruments. When such consorts consisted only of recorders, the pitch relationships between the parts were typically preserved, but when recorders were combined with other instruments, octave discrepancies were often ignored.{{sfn|Baines|1957|page=242}}

Recorder consorts in the sixteenth century were tuned in fifths and only occasionally employed tuning by octaves as seen in the modern C, F recorder consort. This means that consorts could be composed of instruments nominally in B{{music|flat}}, F, C, G, D, A and even E, although typically only three or four distinct sizes were used simultaneously. To use modern terminology, these recorders were treated as transposing instruments: consorts would be read identically to a consort made up of F<sub>3</sub>, C<sub>4</sub>, and G<sub>4</sub> instruments. This is made possible by the fact that adjacent sizes are separated by fifths, with few exceptions. These parts would be written using [[Chiavette|''chiavi naturali'']], allowing the parts to roughly fit in the range of a single staff, and also in the range of the recorders of the period. (see [[#Structure 2|Renaissance structure]])

Transpositions ("registers"), such as C<sub>3</sub>–G<sub>3</sub>–D<sub>4</sub>, G<sub>3</sub>–D<sub>4</sub>–A<sub>4</sub>, or B{{music|flat}}<sub>2</sub>–F<sub>3</sub>–C<sub>4</sub>, all read as F<sub>3</sub>–C<sub>4</sub>–G<sub>4</sub> instruments, were possible as described by [[Michael Praetorius|Praetorius]] in his ''[[Syntagma Musicum]]''. Three sizes of instruments could be used to play four-part music by doubling the middle size, e.g. F<sub>3</sub>–C<sub>4</sub>–C<sub>4</sub>–G<sub>4</sub>, or play six-part music by doubling the upper size and tripling the middle size, e.g. F<sub>3</sub>–C<sub>4</sub>–C<sub>4</sub>–C<sub>4</sub>–G<sub>4</sub>–G<sub>4</sub>.<ref name=":13">{{Cite web|title = Adrian Brown Recorders: Recorder Types|url = http://www.adrianbrown.org/recorder_types/index.html|website = www.adrianbrown.org|access-date = 9 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160303184153/http://www.adrianbrown.org/recorder_types/index.html|archive-date = 3 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Modern nomenclature for such recorders refers to the instruments' relationship to the other members of consort, rather than their absolute pitch, which may vary. The instruments from lowest to highest are called "great bass", "bass", "basset", "tenor", "alto", and "soprano". Potential sizes include: great bass in F<sub>2</sub>; bass in B{{music|flat}}<sub>2</sub> or C<sub>3</sub>; basset in F<sub>3</sub> or G<sub>3</sub>; tenor in B{{flat}}<sub>3</sub>, C<sub>4</sub> or D<sub>4</sub>; alto in F<sub>4</sub>, G<sub>4</sub> or A<sub>4</sub>; and soprano in C<sub>5</sub> or D<sub>5</sub>.<ref name=":12">{{Cite web|url = http://www.adrianbrown.org/cgi-bin/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&view_search=1|title = Renaissance recorder database|last = Brown|first = Adrian|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160216033730/http://www.adrianbrown.org/cgi-bin/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&view_search=1|archive-date = 16 February 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The alto in F<sub>4</sub> is the standard recorder of the Baroque, although there is a small repertoire written for other sizes.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web|title = Catalogue of Recorder Repertoire: Advanced search|url = http://www.blokfluit.org/historical/search/advanced/|website = www.blokfluit.org|access-date = 4 February 2016}}</ref><ref name=":10">Andrew Mayes: "Carl Dolmetsch and the Recorder Repertoire of the 20th Century", Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2003, {{ISBN|0-7546-0968-5}}: p. 241: "Prompted by the scarcity of solo music for bass recorder, Carl Dolmetsch has written this lively gavotte..."; p. 248: "There appears to be so small a repertoire for tenor recorder that I decided to write this 'plaint'."</ref> In seventeenth-century England, smaller recorders were named for their relationship to the alto and notated as transposing instruments with respect to it: third flute (A<sub>4</sub>), fifth flute (soprano; C<sub>5</sub>), sixth flute (D<sub>5</sub>), and octave flute (sopranino; F<sub>5</sub>).<ref>{{IMSLP|work=Recorder Concerto in F major (Sammartini, Giuseppe)|cname=Recorder Concerto in F major (Sammartini)}}</ref><ref>{{IMSLP|work=6 Concertos in 7 Parts, Op.3 (Babell, William)|cname=6 Concertos in 7 Parts, Op. 3 (Babell)}}</ref> The term ''flute du quart'', or fourth flute (B{{music|flat}}<sub>4</sub>), was used by Charles Dieupart, although curiously he treated it as a transposing instrument in relation to the soprano rather than the alto. In Germanic countries, the equivalent of the same term, ''Quartflöte'', was applied both to the tenor in C<sub>4</sub>, the interval being measured down from the alto in F<sub>4</sub>, and to a recorder in C<sub>5</sub> (soprano), the interval of a fourth apparently being measured up from an alto in G<sub>4</sub>.<ref name="ReferenceB2" /> Recorder parts in the Baroque were typically notated using the treble clef, although they may also be notated in French violin clef (G clef on the bottom line of the staff).

In modern usage, recorders not in C or F are alternatively referred to using the name of the closest instrument in C or F, followed by the lowest note. For example, a recorder with lowest note G<sub>4</sub> may be known as a G-alto or alto in G, a recorder with lowest note D<sub>5</sub> (also "sixth flute") as a D-soprano or soprano in D, and a recorder in G<sub>3</sub> as a G-bass or G-basset. This usage is not totally consistent. Notably, the baroque recorder in D<sub>4</sub> is not commonly referred to as a D-tenor nor a D-alto; it is most commonly referred to using the historical name "[[voice flute]]".