piano-virucide - Tumblr blog

[piano-virucide]

Blogpost Addendum:

It turns out I was right about David Dushkin's non-recorder instruments sold under the Wurlitzer name. The clarison and clavalum are Wurlitzer-manufactured instruments, though David Dushkin did manage to talk about them briefly in one of his books. It's a bit of a funny irony that the book in question is called "Fun With Flutes". ಠ◡ಠ

I do suspect the brief blurb about the clarison and clavalum was purposely added as a means of advertising (maybe for Wurlitzer or for the Winnetka school program or both, who knows) as the book includes a handful of pieces intended to be accompanied by a keyboard.

Speaking of which, the pieces in the book also fit the range of a soprano or tenor recorder, and might be worth a gander if you're looking for simple pieces that have with piano accompaniment. You can grab an electronic copy of the book on Archive.org.

Other Dushkin instruments?

No, this is not a post nerding about recorders again, haha, though it is slightly adjacent. Last February (2024), woodwind player Brian Blauch (reedplayerncnc) who I had mentioned in some of my previous posts, had posted on his blog about a mysterious keyed Dushkin alto that came into his possession. It piqued my interest since I've never seen anything like that before in my research into Dushkin recorders in general.

While looking into this mystery, I ended up coming across information pointing to David Dushkin being capable of manufacturing other instruments, as well as teaching students how to manufacture their own.

... David’s shop, where he designed and manufactured musical instruments, first in collaboration with the Wurlitzer Company (31 December 1934, DDSD), but then independently, particularly high-quality recorders. In the basement workshop, the Dushkins’ students and their own children visited, studied, and learned how to make a variety of musical instruments: not only recorders, but dulcimers, marimbas, and xylophones as well (Polikoff 2006, 7).

Source: Briggs, Kaitlin. "Caught in the “Language Forest”: Dorothy Smith Dushkin’s Diary (1919–1988) and The Glassy Interval Manuscript." Lifewriting Annual: Biographical and Autobiographical Studies 4.1 (2014).

Which leads to my next point. As one might guess from my online moniker, I play the piano. David Dushkin's wife, Dorothy, wrote an article ("Making Musical Instruments in School Shops"; published in Industrial Education Magazine, Volume 40 in 1938 by Manual Arts Press or Manual Training Magazine, Volume 40, published in 1938 by University of Chicago Press), which gave a non-exhaustive list of example instruments that David and his students worked on. There are two keyboard-like inventions on this list that stuck out for me:

11. Clarison - Invention combining reed wind instrument with keyboard facility of playing. Range from one octave below middle C to two octaves above. Tone resembling clarinet and French horn, according to register and breath pressure used. Is capable of very great variation in nuance and phrasing. Beautiful tone for solo and ensemble. (Undergoing revision.)

My guess is that "clarison" is a mix of "clarion" and something else. For me, the description read like something similar to a melodica at first, but my guess is that this is something different entirely if register and breath pressure is involved.

12. Clavalum - keyboard invention resembling celesta, adding great flexibility of action, dynamic variation and damper pedal. Five octaves. Liquid, clear tone, admirable to develop clean touch. Excellent for children, as well as an opportunity for adults to get a refreshing lightness of tone in classic compositions. Sounds extremely well with piano and orchestra instruments.

A clavalum is a lot more easier to imagine, but I wonder what makes it different than a celesta. Based on the name, I would assume it might be a mix of a "clavichord" and something else.

If information about Dushkin recorder manufacturing wasn't obscure enough, information about Dushkin keyboard instruments and non-woodwinds are even more obscure - though I suspect many of them were probably sold under the Wurlitzer name than David's own. It would be interesting if I ever come across a Wurlitzer instrument made at or around the 1934s, that would be the most likely period Dushkin would have made them.

[piano-virucide]

Other Dushkin instruments?

No, this is not a post nerding about recorders again, haha, though it is slightly adjacent. Last February (2024), woodwind player Brian Blauch (reedplayerncnc) who I had mentioned in some of my previous posts, had posted on his blog about a mysterious keyed Dushkin alto that came into his possession. It piqued my interest since I've never seen anything like that before in my research into Dushkin recorders in general.

While looking into this mystery, I ended up coming across information pointing to David Dushkin being capable of manufacturing other instruments, as well as teaching students how to manufacture their own.

... David’s shop, where he designed and manufactured musical instruments, first in collaboration with the Wurlitzer Company (31 December 1934, DDSD), but then independently, particularly high-quality recorders. In the basement workshop, the Dushkins’ students and their own children visited, studied, and learned how to make a variety of musical instruments: not only recorders, but dulcimers, marimbas, and xylophones as well (Polikoff 2006, 7).

Source: Briggs, Kaitlin. "Caught in the “Language Forest”: Dorothy Smith Dushkin’s Diary (1919–1988) and The Glassy Interval Manuscript." Lifewriting Annual: Biographical and Autobiographical Studies 4.1 (2014).

Which leads to my next point. As one might guess from my online moniker, I play the piano. David Dushkin's wife, Dorothy, wrote an article ("Making Musical Instruments in School Shops"; published in Industrial Education Magazine, Volume 40 in 1938 by Manual Arts Press or Manual Training Magazine, Volume 40, published in 1938 by University of Chicago Press), which gave a non-exhaustive list of example instruments that David and his students worked on. There are two keyboard-like inventions on this list that stuck out for me:

11. Clarison - Invention combining reed wind instrument with keyboard facility of playing. Range from one octave below middle C to two octaves above. Tone resembling clarinet and French horn, according to register and breath pressure used. Is capable of very great variation in nuance and phrasing. Beautiful tone for solo and ensemble. (Undergoing revision.)

My guess is that "clarison" is a mix of "clarion" and something else. For me, the description read like something similar to a melodica at first, but my guess is that this is something different entirely if register and breath pressure is involved.

12. Clavalum - keyboard invention resembling celesta, adding great flexibility of action, dynamic variation and damper pedal. Five octaves. Liquid, clear tone, admirable to develop clean touch. Excellent for children, as well as an opportunity for adults to get a refreshing lightness of tone in classic compositions. Sounds extremely well with piano and orchestra instruments.

A clavalum is a lot more easier to imagine, but I wonder what makes it different than a celesta. Based on the name, I would assume it might be a mix of a "clavichord" and something else.

If information about Dushkin recorder manufacturing wasn't obscure enough, information about Dushkin keyboard instruments and non-woodwinds are even more obscure - though I suspect many of them were probably sold under the Wurlitzer name than David's own. It would be interesting if I ever come across a Wurlitzer instrument made at or around the 1934s, that would be the most likely period Dushkin would have made them.

[piano-virucide]

Blogpost Addendum (3):

Okay, perhaps I may have jumped the gun about no longer posting about Dushkin recorders, as I have yet more news to report: I have managed to successfully pry the mouthpiece of my alto apart!

Now that I have a closer look at the windway, I could see that the ramp is flat and not concave. A full look at the entire block now also shows there is slight evidence of chamfer, it's just very small and perhaps a tiny bit degraded due to time. (And on a side note, do as I say, not as I do - if you have a Dushkin recorder whose mouthpiece you pried apart, don't place the outer mouthpiece as I have pictured here because you risk damaging the upper chamfer if you place it on a non-smooth non-clean surface).

Unlike typical wooden recorders, Dushkin's blocks are carved from a square rectangular prism and not a cylindrical prism. Notably, Duskin's blocks sits in a square rectangular prism cavity surrounded by the the body of the recorder (walnut in my case). I wonder if this has any effect on how the block "breathes" when under the stress of hot saliva-humidified air.

I don't wish to attempt to knock the block out to see if it's removable, (edit 3/24/24: it's not intended to be removable; if it is, then it means the glue has failed), but it would be interesting if it could be removable (and possibly replaceable), as it would have made it much easier to experiment with windway designs - after all, carving experimental blocks from a wooden square prism is significantly easier than carving a cylindrical prism.

Dushkin recorder musings

Despite my name and majority of my posts on Tumblr alluding to piano, I do also play the recorder.

Originally, I was playing on a cheap soprano recorder made of wax-impregnated maple that utilized German fingering (a bad "habit" from my school days that I put up with for some time). However, I did promise myself that I would switch over to Baroque/English fingering if I stumbled across a reasonable vintage alto recorder at an affordable price. And last weekend that promise came to fruition at an estate sale. Behold, my new alto!

It's a Dushkin, purchased for quite a steal ($20 USD!). No information was provided about its original owner, but whoever previously owned it seems to have been a woodwind enthusiast (the sale included various woodwinds) and likely played the Dushkin alto a lot (the thumbhole in the back looks fairly worn and could benefit from a bushing).

About Dushkin recorders:

There seems to be very limited information about recorder maker David Dushkin. The Powerhouse Collection in Australia has a Dushkin soprano recorder in its collection and helpful anecdotes on Dushkin's work along with links to its sources - David Dushkin, it appears, was the first recorder maker in the USA. Beyond that, searching up Dushkin recorders is more likely to show a variety of online sale listings, though one listing on Etsy was very useful as it provided images of the original fingering chart and instructions for use.

A look at the instructions say to oil the recorder with olive oil (a non-drying oil) or linseed oil (a drying oil) once a month or so. I used neither when oiling the instrument after cleaning (opted for a seed-based oil instead, so non-drying oil). The fire hazards of linseed cannot be emphasized enough (spontaneous combustion!); I think if I had to go for a drying oil, I'd opt for walnut oil because the recorder's wood structure is, well, walnut!

I think anyone familiar with wooden recorders will agree that walnut is a very unusual choice for recorder construction. An educated guess of mine is that Dushkin opted for walnut due to accessibility of this particular hard wood in North America (some Native American flutes are made of the same material).

Also unusual was Dushkin's mouthpiece design, which supposedly could be dissembled to some degree to remove the block.

The instructions on the Etsy listing indicate the mouthpiece can be pulled off when cleaning. During the cleaning process I was able to wiggle the outer wood sleeve by about a millimeter before it would not budge anymore - caution made push it back into place. I don't think it would be worth the risk of trying to figure out how the mouthpiece is supposed to be removed, and I'll settle for dripping alcohol into the windway if/when necessary.

Overall, it seems to be a well-made collector's item instrument that is sought-after for its historical value.

How it plays:

Brian Blauch's blog (online moniker reedplayerncnc) gives a brief firsthand description on its playability - "The alto has a beautiful tone, but it's super quiet. And you need to blow extremely hard." My experience was not quite the same as Blauch's - I needed to blow more softly!

Though, for full disclosure, I have a tendency to overblow so I could be biased. My particular Dushkin alto seems to be fairly forgiving at the upper registers for both overblowing and underblowing, but the lowest note requires significantly slow air flow, so much so that I have to drop my jaw when playing he lowest note, otherwise the note is at risk of squeaking.

An unusual one-time observance was that I somehow managed to get lowest note, 'F', to emit a wolf tone despite the bore being conical, but I've only been able to recreate this once during my very first play during the break-in period, and I have not gotten a wolf tone since then, just squeaks from bad fingering or overblowing.

An eBay listing mentions "the sound is a bit airy and responsiveness is on the slow side", which is more closer to what I experienced. When comparing the head of my alto to Blauch's photo's and the eBay photo, I noticed my alto's head more closely resembles the eBay listing, and that the head of Blauch's alto is different around the base of the mouthpiece (slightly more fancy) - so therefore Blauch and I have different models. My suspicion is that the models might also have some variation in bore size, maybe mine might be an older model given how less fancy it appears (and the poor placement of the stamp!).

Sadly, this is where my research into Dushkin recorder models comes to a dead end. Dushkin is mentioned in a few old articles published by the American Recorder Society, and one PowerPoint presentation in particular shows a few more of his recorders, but no documentation online exists regarding how Dushkin's recorder models changed over time.

Perhaps when I have the recorder fully played in and have sufficiently practiced enough, I'll do a reblog of this post with the sound of my Dushkin alto.

In the meantime, if you wish to follow in my footsteps down the Dushkin research rabbit hole, my sources are below.

Sources:

Powerhouse Collection listing: https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/407869

Etsy listing (with images of instructions below) https://www.etsy.com/listing/1538597243/vintage-dushkin-tenor-recorder-1950s-era?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

Brian Blauch's blog post on Dushkin recorders: https://reedplayer.info/2021/12/29/dushkin-recorders/

eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266504730326

American Recorder Society PowerPoint presentation containing images of some Dushkin recorder models. https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=011443274990293341649:ouyrdo9fbeu&q=https://americanrecorder.org/docs/von_Huene_ARS_FIN.pptx&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj19bOz64aEAxUwD1kFHTsIA3AQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw21O3FmjQIOBp2lcz2bmuiR

[piano-virucide]

Blogpost addendum (2):

One more reblog before I get back into my normal music shenanigans. I did a much deeper dive into David Dushkin's recorders, looking into scholarly resources I could access without having to physically go to a dedicated library. And I found quite a few interesting things!

Of notable case is Consumers Union Reports (1940, Volume 5) which compares different recorders available for purchase in the USA. One of the recorders mentioned is a Dushkin alto made in rosewood. It seems Dushkin did make recorders with other woods aside from walnut after all!

The same report also mentions about Dushkin's plastic recorder. A picture view of that snippet is not viewable directly, but it does come up in the Google Scholar search engine description, and reads as follows:

Dushkin Soprano (made in U.S.A.). The Dushkin soprano is the best of the plastic recorders and the only one (with Schott below) that can be taken seriously as a musical instrument. Double finger holes on C and D are included.

Like with lot of plastic recorders made at that time, it seems that many of the plastic Dushkin recorders have not survived to present day. One known existence of a plastic Dushkin recorder is in the Bate Collection in Oxford University in Britain - though, sadly, not on view right now and there's no picture available of it. We are lucky to at least have the museum's description of the item:

Descant recorder of dark brown plastic with white plastic on the mouthpiece and the bottom of the foot. The block has a layer of wood.

The deeper search does not reveal much more on Dushkin recorders, other than advertisements from companies who distributed Dushkin recorders or from people who were looking to resell their Dushkin recorders. Of the most interesting is a direct advertisement from the Dushkin Recorder Company (found in the magazine The American Recorder, Winter 1960, Volume I, No. 1), and it seems the Dushkin recorder here was mentioned as a "Kinhaven Recorder".

The advertisement mentions about the Kinhaven recorder being comparable to major woodwind instruments. It is known that the recorder lost favor at one point due to it being soft in comparison to the transverse flute in terms of orchestra groups, and so I wonder if this Kinhaven recorder is the model referenced by Kaynor, as he mentioned about the recorder being quite loud.

Sources:

Consumer's Union Report 1940: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Consumers_Union_Reports/g8vgAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Dushkin%20alto

Bate Collection: https://www.bate.ox.ac.uk/recorders (https://www.bate.ox.ac.uk/files/recorderspdf)

The American Recorder (Winter 1960, Volume 1 No. 1) https://americanrecorder.org/docs/AR_Mag_Winter_1960_Multipage.pdf

Dushkin recorder musings

Despite my name and majority of my posts on Tumblr alluding to piano, I do also play the recorder.

Originally, I was playing on a cheap soprano recorder made of wax-impregnated maple that utilized German fingering (a bad "habit" from my school days that I put up with for some time). However, I did promise myself that I would switch over to Baroque/English fingering if I stumbled across a reasonable vintage alto recorder at an affordable price. And last weekend that promise came to fruition at an estate sale. Behold, my new alto!

It's a Dushkin, purchased for quite a steal ($20 USD!). No information was provided about its original owner, but whoever previously owned it seems to have been a woodwind enthusiast (the sale included various woodwinds) and likely played the Dushkin alto a lot (the thumbhole in the back looks fairly worn and could benefit from a bushing).

About Dushkin recorders:

There seems to be very limited information about recorder maker David Dushkin. The Powerhouse Collection in Australia has a Dushkin soprano recorder in its collection and helpful anecdotes on Dushkin's work along with links to its sources - David Dushkin, it appears, was the first recorder maker in the USA. Beyond that, searching up Dushkin recorders is more likely to show a variety of online sale listings, though one listing on Etsy was very useful as it provided images of the original fingering chart and instructions for use.

A look at the instructions say to oil the recorder with olive oil (a non-drying oil) or linseed oil (a drying oil) once a month or so. I used neither when oiling the instrument after cleaning (opted for a seed-based oil instead, so non-drying oil). The fire hazards of linseed cannot be emphasized enough (spontaneous combustion!); I think if I had to go for a drying oil, I'd opt for walnut oil because the recorder's wood structure is, well, walnut!

I think anyone familiar with wooden recorders will agree that walnut is a very unusual choice for recorder construction. An educated guess of mine is that Dushkin opted for walnut due to accessibility of this particular hard wood in North America (some Native American flutes are made of the same material).

Also unusual was Dushkin's mouthpiece design, which supposedly could be dissembled to some degree to remove the block.

The instructions on the Etsy listing indicate the mouthpiece can be pulled off when cleaning. During the cleaning process I was able to wiggle the outer wood sleeve by about a millimeter before it would not budge anymore - caution made push it back into place. I don't think it would be worth the risk of trying to figure out how the mouthpiece is supposed to be removed, and I'll settle for dripping alcohol into the windway if/when necessary.

Overall, it seems to be a well-made collector's item instrument that is sought-after for its historical value.

How it plays:

Brian Blauch's blog (online moniker reedplayerncnc) gives a brief firsthand description on its playability - "The alto has a beautiful tone, but it's super quiet. And you need to blow extremely hard." My experience was not quite the same as Blauch's - I needed to blow more softly!

Though, for full disclosure, I have a tendency to overblow so I could be biased. My particular Dushkin alto seems to be fairly forgiving at the upper registers for both overblowing and underblowing, but the lowest note requires significantly slow air flow, so much so that I have to drop my jaw when playing he lowest note, otherwise the note is at risk of squeaking.

An unusual one-time observance was that I somehow managed to get lowest note, 'F', to emit a wolf tone despite the bore being conical, but I've only been able to recreate this once during my very first play during the break-in period, and I have not gotten a wolf tone since then, just squeaks from bad fingering or overblowing.

An eBay listing mentions "the sound is a bit airy and responsiveness is on the slow side", which is more closer to what I experienced. When comparing the head of my alto to Blauch's photo's and the eBay photo, I noticed my alto's head more closely resembles the eBay listing, and that the head of Blauch's alto is different around the base of the mouthpiece (slightly more fancy) - so therefore Blauch and I have different models. My suspicion is that the models might also have some variation in bore size, maybe mine might be an older model given how less fancy it appears (and the poor placement of the stamp!).

Sadly, this is where my research into Dushkin recorder models comes to a dead end. Dushkin is mentioned in a few old articles published by the American Recorder Society, and one PowerPoint presentation in particular shows a few more of his recorders, but no documentation online exists regarding how Dushkin's recorder models changed over time.

Perhaps when I have the recorder fully played in and have sufficiently practiced enough, I'll do a reblog of this post with the sound of my Dushkin alto.

In the meantime, if you wish to follow in my footsteps down the Dushkin research rabbit hole, my sources are below.

Sources:

Powerhouse Collection listing: https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/407869

Etsy listing (with images of instructions below) https://www.etsy.com/listing/1538597243/vintage-dushkin-tenor-recorder-1950s-era?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

Brian Blauch's blog post on Dushkin recorders: https://reedplayer.info/2021/12/29/dushkin-recorders/

eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266504730326

American Recorder Society PowerPoint presentation containing images of some Dushkin recorder models. https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=011443274990293341649:ouyrdo9fbeu&q=https://americanrecorder.org/docs/von_Huene_ARS_FIN.pptx&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj19bOz64aEAxUwD1kFHTsIA3AQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw21O3FmjQIOBp2lcz2bmuiR

[piano-virucide]

Blogpost Addendum:

I attempted to pull off the mouthpiece again. I still wasn't able to pull it all the way off, but I was able to pull it out more significantly than before, giving a nice partial view onto part of the block underneath.

You might have noticed there's no chamfer on the block (or, if there is one, it's barely visible). I took a look at the windway of my alto again and realized there's no visible chamfer on the roof of the windway either; this windway design could explain the sound of the alto being described as "super quiet" by Blauch and "airy" and "slow responsiveness" in the eBay listing mentioned earlier (chamfer design affects both of these qualities).

An article on the Kinhaven Music School website (Kinhaven being a school founded by David Dushkin and his wife) has the following quote from former student Chapin Kaynor that describes this removal process, as well as some information on the recorder sound:

"Dushkin developed a unique design where the fipple could be pulled apart. He lined it with ivory and you could slide it apart to clean. I played in many ensembles that included recorder and loved using his recorders. They were very loud ‐‐ great solo instruments."

Kaynor's description of Dushkin's recorders being loud is quite a huge difference compared to Blauch's description of the recorder being "super quiet" and the eBay description of "a bit airy", but perhaps Kaynor's description could be about Dushkin's soprano recorders or a recorder model different to the ones currently described on the internet.

While many of the Dushkin recorders are made out of walnut, Blauch's blog mentions that the tenor "looks like rosewood, with a little walnut on the beak", and there are a few sale listings of Dushkin tenor recorders that mention other woods (plumwood and cherry). These woods can't be verified, but if true then it could be indicative of Dushkin working in other woods (at least for tenor recorders only).

Not directly related to the Dushkin's recorders, but still relevant: David Dushkin's wife, Dorothy, wrote a book called "A Method of Study for the Altor Recorder".

Lastly (and I think this is kind of funny in an ironic way), David Dushkin had an older brother (Samuel Dushkin) who is heavily suspected to be the author of the musical hoax "Sicilienne in E-flat Major by Maria Theresia von Paradis", and this piece is found in Sarah Jeffery's "My Favourite Melodies 14 Selected Pieces for Soprano (or Tenor) Recorder and Piano".

Sources:

Kinhaven Article on former student Chapin Kaynor: https://kinhaven.org/chapinkaynor/

Sale listing of Dushkin plumwood tenor: http://buyrecorders.com/tenor_recorders.htm

Sale listing of Dushkin cherry wood tenor: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-cherry-wood-dushkin-recorder-3900442510

Dorothy Dushkin papers: http://infomotions.com/sandbox/liam/pages/mnsss14.html#series3

Wikipedia entry on Samuel Dushkin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Dushkin

Dushkin recorder musings

Despite my name and majority of my posts on Tumblr alluding to piano, I do also play the recorder.

Originally, I was playing on a cheap soprano recorder made of wax-impregnated maple that utilized German fingering (a bad "habit" from my school days that I put up with for some time). However, I did promise myself that I would switch over to Baroque/English fingering if I stumbled across a reasonable vintage alto recorder at an affordable price. And last weekend that promise came to fruition at an estate sale. Behold, my new alto!

It's a Dushkin, purchased for quite a steal ($20 USD!). No information was provided about its original owner, but whoever previously owned it seems to have been a woodwind enthusiast (the sale included various woodwinds) and likely played the Dushkin alto a lot (the thumbhole in the back looks fairly worn and could benefit from a bushing).

About Dushkin recorders:

There seems to be very limited information about recorder maker David Dushkin. The Powerhouse Collection in Australia has a Dushkin soprano recorder in its collection and helpful anecdotes on Dushkin's work along with links to its sources - David Dushkin, it appears, was the first recorder maker in the USA. Beyond that, searching up Dushkin recorders is more likely to show a variety of online sale listings, though one listing on Etsy was very useful as it provided images of the original fingering chart and instructions for use.

A look at the instructions say to oil the recorder with olive oil (a non-drying oil) or linseed oil (a drying oil) once a month or so. I used neither when oiling the instrument after cleaning (opted for a seed-based oil instead, so non-drying oil). The fire hazards of linseed cannot be emphasized enough (spontaneous combustion!); I think if I had to go for a drying oil, I'd opt for walnut oil because the recorder's wood structure is, well, walnut!

I think anyone familiar with wooden recorders will agree that walnut is a very unusual choice for recorder construction. An educated guess of mine is that Dushkin opted for walnut due to accessibility of this particular hard wood in North America (some Native American flutes are made of the same material).

Also unusual was Dushkin's mouthpiece design, which supposedly could be dissembled to some degree to remove the block.

The instructions on the Etsy listing indicate the mouthpiece can be pulled off when cleaning. During the cleaning process I was able to wiggle the outer wood sleeve by about a millimeter before it would not budge anymore - caution made push it back into place. I don't think it would be worth the risk of trying to figure out how the mouthpiece is supposed to be removed, and I'll settle for dripping alcohol into the windway if/when necessary.

Overall, it seems to be a well-made collector's item instrument that is sought-after for its historical value.

How it plays:

Brian Blauch's blog (online moniker reedplayerncnc) gives a brief firsthand description on its playability - "The alto has a beautiful tone, but it's super quiet. And you need to blow extremely hard." My experience was not quite the same as Blauch's - I needed to blow more softly!

Though, for full disclosure, I have a tendency to overblow so I could be biased. My particular Dushkin alto seems to be fairly forgiving at the upper registers for both overblowing and underblowing, but the lowest note requires significantly slow air flow, so much so that I have to drop my jaw when playing he lowest note, otherwise the note is at risk of squeaking.

An unusual one-time observance was that I somehow managed to get lowest note, 'F', to emit a wolf tone despite the bore being conical, but I've only been able to recreate this once during my very first play during the break-in period, and I have not gotten a wolf tone since then, just squeaks from bad fingering or overblowing.

An eBay listing mentions "the sound is a bit airy and responsiveness is on the slow side", which is more closer to what I experienced. When comparing the head of my alto to Blauch's photo's and the eBay photo, I noticed my alto's head more closely resembles the eBay listing, and that the head of Blauch's alto is different around the base of the mouthpiece (slightly more fancy) - so therefore Blauch and I have different models. My suspicion is that the models might also have some variation in bore size, maybe mine might be an older model given how less fancy it appears (and the poor placement of the stamp!).

Sadly, this is where my research into Dushkin recorder models comes to a dead end. Dushkin is mentioned in a few old articles published by the American Recorder Society, and one PowerPoint presentation in particular shows a few more of his recorders, but no documentation online exists regarding how Dushkin's recorder models changed over time.

Perhaps when I have the recorder fully played in and have sufficiently practiced enough, I'll do a reblog of this post with the sound of my Dushkin alto.

In the meantime, if you wish to follow in my footsteps down the Dushkin research rabbit hole, my sources are below.

Sources:

Powerhouse Collection listing: https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/407869

Etsy listing (with images of instructions below) https://www.etsy.com/listing/1538597243/vintage-dushkin-tenor-recorder-1950s-era?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

Brian Blauch's blog post on Dushkin recorders: https://reedplayer.info/2021/12/29/dushkin-recorders/

eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266504730326

American Recorder Society PowerPoint presentation containing images of some Dushkin recorder models. https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=011443274990293341649:ouyrdo9fbeu&q=https://americanrecorder.org/docs/von_Huene_ARS_FIN.pptx&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj19bOz64aEAxUwD1kFHTsIA3AQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw21O3FmjQIOBp2lcz2bmuiR

[piano-virucide]

Dushkin recorder musings

Despite my name and majority of my posts on Tumblr alluding to piano, I do also play the recorder.

Originally, I was playing on a cheap soprano recorder made of wax-impregnated maple that utilized German fingering (a bad "habit" from my school days that I put up with for some time). However, I did promise myself that I would switch over to Baroque/English fingering if I stumbled across a reasonable vintage alto recorder at an affordable price. And last weekend that promise came to fruition at an estate sale. Behold, my new alto!

It's a Dushkin, purchased for quite a steal ($20 USD!). No information was provided about its original owner, but whoever previously owned it seems to have been a woodwind enthusiast (the sale included various woodwinds) and likely played the Dushkin alto a lot (the thumbhole in the back looks fairly worn and could benefit from a bushing).

About Dushkin recorders:

There seems to be very limited information about recorder maker David Dushkin. The Powerhouse Collection in Australia has a Dushkin soprano recorder in its collection and helpful anecdotes on Dushkin's work along with links to its sources - David Dushkin, it appears, was the first recorder maker in the USA. Beyond that, searching up Dushkin recorders is more likely to show a variety of online sale listings, though one listing on Etsy was very useful as it provided images of the original fingering chart and instructions for use.

A look at the instructions say to oil the recorder with olive oil (a non-drying oil) or linseed oil (a drying oil) once a month or so. I used neither when oiling the instrument after cleaning (opted for a seed-based oil instead, so non-drying oil). The fire hazards of linseed cannot be emphasized enough (spontaneous combustion!); I think if I had to go for a drying oil, I'd opt for walnut oil because the recorder's wood structure is, well, walnut!

I think anyone familiar with wooden recorders will agree that walnut is a very unusual choice for recorder construction. An educated guess of mine is that Dushkin opted for walnut due to accessibility of this particular hard wood in North America (some Native American flutes are made of the same material).

Also unusual was Dushkin's mouthpiece design, which supposedly could be dissembled to some degree to remove the block.

The instructions on the Etsy listing indicate the mouthpiece can be pulled off when cleaning. During the cleaning process I was able to wiggle the outer wood sleeve by about a millimeter before it would not budge anymore - caution made push it back into place. I don't think it would be worth the risk of trying to figure out how the mouthpiece is supposed to be removed, and I'll settle for dripping alcohol into the windway if/when necessary.

Overall, it seems to be a well-made collector's item instrument that is sought-after for its historical value.

How it plays:

Brian Blauch's blog (online moniker reedplayerncnc) gives a brief firsthand description on its playability - "The alto has a beautiful tone, but it's super quiet. And you need to blow extremely hard." My experience was not quite the same as Blauch's - I needed to blow more softly!

Though, for full disclosure, I have a tendency to overblow so I could be biased. My particular Dushkin alto seems to be fairly forgiving at the upper registers for both overblowing and underblowing, but the lowest note requires significantly slow air flow, so much so that I have to drop my jaw when playing he lowest note, otherwise the note is at risk of squeaking.

An unusual one-time observance was that I somehow managed to get lowest note, 'F', to emit a wolf tone despite the bore being conical, but I've only been able to recreate this once during my very first play during the break-in period, and I have not gotten a wolf tone since then, just squeaks from bad fingering or overblowing.

An eBay listing mentions "the sound is a bit airy and responsiveness is on the slow side", which is more closer to what I experienced. When comparing the head of my alto to Blauch's photo's and the eBay photo, I noticed my alto's head more closely resembles the eBay listing, and that the head of Blauch's alto is different around the base of the mouthpiece (slightly more fancy) - so therefore Blauch and I have different models. My suspicion is that the models might also have some variation in bore size, maybe mine might be an older model given how less fancy it appears (and the poor placement of the stamp!).

Sadly, this is where my research into Dushkin recorder models comes to a dead end. Dushkin is mentioned in a few old articles published by the American Recorder Society, and one PowerPoint presentation in particular shows a few more of his recorders, but no documentation online exists regarding how Dushkin's recorder models changed over time.

Perhaps when I have the recorder fully played in and have sufficiently practiced enough, I'll do a reblog of this post with the sound of my Dushkin alto.

In the meantime, if you wish to follow in my footsteps down the Dushkin research rabbit hole, my sources are below.

Sources:

Powerhouse Collection listing: https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/407869

Etsy listing (with images of instructions below) https://www.etsy.com/listing/1538597243/vintage-dushkin-tenor-recorder-1950s-era?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

Brian Blauch's blog post on Dushkin recorders: https://reedplayer.info/2021/12/29/dushkin-recorders/

eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266504730326

American Recorder Society PowerPoint presentation containing images of some Dushkin recorder models. https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=011443274990293341649:ouyrdo9fbeu&q=https://americanrecorder.org/docs/von_Huene_ARS_FIN.pptx&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj19bOz64aEAxUwD1kFHTsIA3AQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw21O3FmjQIOBp2lcz2bmuiR

[piano-virucide]

@blu-orb By the Angel, I think you're onto something! I took a look at the "Justice" motif, it seems like the bulletin board notation is one note off from "Justice" (second note should be D, not C), assuming the notes are played at key of B major / G♯ minor.

Bulletin board could have a typo. Because if that second note is corrected, then it fits "Justice" nearly perfectly when played at the correct key! :D

An UnderTale Yellow musical mystery

I haven't had a chance to play the game myself due to personal obligations, but I was able to watch MysticSlime's playthrough of the game. During his playthrough, I noticed that the Wild East bulletin board contained a piece of sheet music.

I ended up plugging the notes into the MuseScore software to see if it was a musical secret of some sort, but I didn't recognize it.

Sounds kinda pretty, though. I wonder if anyone else recognizes the tune? It's probably not some kind of secret (the second and third measure didn't make any sense in terms of time signature), but, who knows?

[piano-virucide]

An UnderTale Yellow musical mystery

I haven't had a chance to play the game myself due to personal obligations, but I was able to watch MysticSlime's playthrough of the game. During his playthrough, I noticed that the Wild East bulletin board contained a piece of sheet music.

I ended up plugging the notes into the MuseScore software to see if it was a musical secret of some sort, but I didn't recognize it.

Sounds kinda pretty, though. I wonder if anyone else recognizes the tune? It's probably not some kind of secret (the second and third measure didn't make any sense in terms of time signature), but, who knows?

[piano-virucide]

Did some changes to the site

I know, it's not the Polyphone/soundfont tutorial that I promised in an earlier post. However, I had an avatar that was based on a creepy drawing I did of Memoryhead amalgamate from Undertale, and I know going forwards that I may fall out of that fandom or want to explore other ideas, and for that, I need to design a more personal and fandom-neutral design.

Anywho, say hello to my new musician persona.

I decided to model it after a plague doctor as a bit of an indirect/roundabout reference to how "virucide" means "virus killer". The unwieldy piano weapon is actually modeled after the Roland AX-EDGE keytar but given a design to look similar to archaic surgical blades of the past (although not based on any specific type of surgical blade tool in particular).

The avatar change is accompanied by a new banner as well (which looks cool but uses a public domain image, so not worth sharing in a blogpost in my opinion). I encourage you to take a look if you're up to it.

[piano-virucide]

How I compose songs with Mettaton "singing" in them

For those watching my @nib-mettaton side blog, you may have noticed that I uploaded three songs with Mettaton voices (Moonlight Lover, Forget-Me-Not, Hard Drive (Virucide Remix). I thought I'd show you through a low-level informative visual aid of how I made them in MuseScore v3.

Ketcham1009's Metaton soundfont can be found here.

My custom soundfonts made out of Mettaton's dialogue voice I don't have uploaded anywhere, but I plan on doing a tutorial later on how to make custom soundfonts via Polyphone software (though, if you already know how to do it and want to proceed on your own, you can find Mettaton's voicebeeps here).

[piano-virucide]

Aurgh, I posted the wrong MuseScore link. It's been fixed.

The Spamton Sweepstakes is going on, and I figured today is the best time to be [re]-promoting the virtuosic remix of "Big Shot" I did about a year ago. Let's hope the little skrunkly man gets his freedom.

If you have a SoundCloud account, you can listen and add this remix to your playlist here.

If you have a MuseScore PRO account, the editable file can be found here.

Sheet Music under the cut:

[piano-virucide]

The Spamton Sweepstakes is going on, and I figured today is the best time to be [re]-promoting the virtuosic remix of "Big Shot" I did about a year ago. Let's hope the little skrunkly man gets his freedom.

If you have a SoundCloud account, you can listen and add this remix to your playlist here.

If you have a MuseScore PRO account, the editable file can be found here.

Sheet Music under the cut:

[piano-virucide]

July 13 is Papyrus Day. Here’s a reminder that I did a piano album for the Disbelief Papyus AU a while back. 

[piano-virucide]

Did some digging into YouTube and found some people posting Synthesia tutorials of some Mettaton-themed songs I arranged a while back. Someone took my first Power of NEO arrangement and also turned it into a chill remix by adding a percussion backtrack. 

(An updated and more intense-sounding version of “Power of NEO” can be found here).

[piano-virucide]

Did some digging into YouTube and found some people posting Synthesia tutorials of some Mettaton-themed songs I arranged a while back. This was an older version (and more simplified) version of “Oh! Once Upon a Time of True Love” (the more intense-sounding version can be found here). 

I thought it would be interesting to share some of the videos I found and pair them up with the corresponding sheet music so you could see the sheet music and the visual spread of the notes. 

[piano-virucide]

Power of NEOClassical: BONUS TRACK 

The "Power of NEOclassical" album is a collection of Mettaton-themed music set to classical piano. You can listen to the entire album on SoundCloud (download information is listed in the SoundCloud description):

https://soundcloud.com/user-45829841/power-of-neoclassical-cello-and-piano-duet

Sheet Music under the cut:

[piano-virucide]

Power of NEOClassical: BONUS TRACK - CORE Belief in Another Medium

The "Power of NEOclassical" album is a collection of Mettaton-themed music set to classical piano. You can listen to the entire album on SoundCloud (download information is listed in the SoundCloud description):

https://soundcloud.com/user-45829841/power-of-neoclassical-cello-and-piano-duet

Sheet Music under the cut: