Recorder (musical instrument) Dolmetsch in 1957, he first used the bell-key system publicly in 1958. Recorder (musical instrument) The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument in the group known as "internal duct flutes"—flutes with a whistle mouthpiece. A recorder can be distinguished from other duct flutes by the presence of a thumb-hole for the upper hand and seven finger-holes: three for the upper hand and four for the lower. It is the most prominent duct flute in the western classical tradition. Recorders are made in different sizes with names and compasses roughly corresponding to different vocal ranges. The sizes most commonly in use
Recorder (musical instrument) "silently practicing a tune" or "sing or render in song" (both almost exclusively referring to songbirds), long after the recorder had been named. Thus, the recorder cannot have been named after the sound of birds. The name of the instrument is also uniquely English: in Middle French there is no equivalent noun sense of "recorder" referring to a musical instrument. Partridge indicates that the use of the instrument by "jongleurs" led to its association with the verb: "recorder" the minstrel's action, a "recorder" the minstrel's tool. The reason we know this instrument as the recorder and not one of the