Wooden recorder - three-piece, with cleaning rod

Description

A recorder in light, pale wood, built from three parts that push together: a head joint with the mouthpiece and the windway, a middle joint with six finger holes, and a foot joint carrying the lowest hole and flaring into a bell. In the photograph you can follow the grain and a few knots running through the wood.

A plastic cleaning rod comes with the flute: a thin stick with an eye to thread a cloth through, for wiping the moisture out of the bore after playing. On a wooden flute that is the piece of maintenance that really counts.

The recorder is the instrument that music lessons at school usually begin with. You get a note straight away, the holes fall naturally under the fingers, and there is no tuning and no reed to deal with. Anyone already taking lessons often keeps one like this as a second flute at home, so that the school flute can stay in the school bag.