Music, amateur style

I've been busy in real life lately, what with one thing and a thousand others, but there's been time to play recorder with more than one group.  I have one that's more sociable than musical, old friends from decades back, and one that's seriously musical and friendly but not old friends. And then there's the big group, the official chapter of the Recorder Society, conducted by pretty much famous conductors, great learning.  And a daylong workshop coming up soon, a test of stamina among other things but a great reunion of friends in music, too.

Here are most of my family of recorders -- in size order from small to large, soprano, alto, tenor and bass. I also have a sopranino (that plays up in the stratosphere, like the bird sounds in Magic Flute) and a better soprano, wooden and handmade, lovely.  So this is all you need to have a full life in amateur music of the early medieval all the way to baroque eras.

My favorite is the Elizabethan  era, full of mournful songs of love gone wrong.  Very much like country western today, except then it's the man complaining that his woman done him wrong, leaving him to die of a broken heart.  After partying on for a few years, though.