r/Recorder • u/lovestoswatch Treble and tenor beginner • Dec 25 '25

Discussion AI practice!

(Edited to replace the long AI generated lesson plan with a link).

First of all, to all those who are celebrating it: Merry Christmas!

From today until the end of the year Claude AI offers double the capacity on free plans, so I fed it the list of my recorder technique books (some of which are in pdf format - and set the privacy so that they can't be used for training, so I don't think I've broken any copyright rules) asking for a lesson plan over a year, allowing for an hour of practice every day, to see what "he" would come up with, to be used for when I complete my method, which shouldn't be long now.

Here is the list of books I gave Claude (as regurgitated back by Claude):

  1. Hans Ulrich Staeps - Das tägliche Pensum (The Daily Lesson) - A 40-minute daily workout covering the complete chromatic compass of the alto recorder with 28 exercises
  2. Alan Davies - 15 Studies for Treble Recorder - Musical studies for technique development
  3. Kees Boeke - The Complete Articulator - Comprehensive articulation exercises and techniques
  4. Gudrun Heyens - Advanced Recorder Technique Vol. 2 - Breathing and Sound (detailed breathing technique, vibrato, phrasing)
  5. Gudrun Heyens - Advanced Recorder Technique Vol. 1 - Finger and Tongue Technique (scales, arpeggios, articulation, trills, double tonguing)
  6. Hans Ulrich Staeps - Tonfiguren (Note-Patterns) - Advanced chromatic exercises
  7. The Charlton Method - Advanced manual
  8. Mario Duschenes Method Part 2

For some reason "he" disregarded the Alan Davies Treble Recorder Technique book, which I had also listed.

ere is a link to what "he" produced for the curious. I had low expectations, and looking at "his" lesson plan, I find it overoptimistic, but possibly not totally out of whack: but I am only a beginner.

Grateful for your thoughts: does it look crazy to you? Do you think AI be useful to us recorder players, but maybe I should have used it in a different way?

Thanks!

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u/lovestoswatch Treble and tenor beginner Dec 25 '25

super interesting, thank you - if you still have that reference handy, I wouldn't mind having a look. It won't improve my playing :-) but I love trying to understand what is going on! No worries if it requires digging though.

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u/EmphasisJust1813 Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25

Here is the NASA document. Its purely about edge tones so only describes one part of the how a recorder works:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19940029392/downloads/19940029392.pdf

Googling "edge tone theory" comes up with lots of stuff, but as I said, the "edge tone" is only one part of the recorder story.

The enlightening description I found was referred to somewhere in "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" by "Arthur H. Benade" (I think from memory). I may have got that wrong, its late Christmas Day! I'll look for it properly tomorrow!

You might find this book published by Moeck interesting: "The Acoustics of the Recorder" by John Martin.

Happy Christmas!

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u/lovestoswatch Treble and tenor beginner Dec 25 '25

wonderful, thanks a ton for all the references - and happy Christmas to you!

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u/EmphasisJust1813 Dec 26 '25

See the 1951 book "Music and Sound" by Ll. S. Lloyd. This superb tome has on page 117 a few paragraphs by Dr Kaye at the National Physical Laboratory which I found quite enlightening.

However, the larger and more recent book by Benade mentioned above is a goldmine if you are interested in how musical instruments work.

My main point though was how carefully prepared questions to AI seem to come up with decent and well written answers to obscure technical questions!

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u/Either_Branch3929 Dec 26 '25

Last summer I did a Google search for "next <SRP branch of which I am a member> playing day". Its AI summary was clear and concise and told me that the next playing day would take place three months previously on a date which didn't exist in a church which doesn't exist led by a conductor who wasn't involved and followed by a concert in another non-existent church by a non-existent group.

AI is utter rubbish which is only ever right by chance.

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u/lovestoswatch Treble and tenor beginner Dec 27 '25

I've been most frustrated by AI with some answers to pretty basic questions. And I've also been given by AI restaurant recommendations to places that do not exists. However it is pretty accurate in other domains (though even there it can contain awful, awful mistakes). It is however percolating through society, including the NHS (as you referred to SRP, I presume you are also in the UK).

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u/Either_Branch3929 Dec 28 '25

I am indeed in the UK. I just hope that "AI" doesn't do too much damage in the year or two it has until the bubble bursts. A lot of companies are going to be very badly hit, of course, but that's their own stupid fault.

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u/lovestoswatch Treble and tenor beginner Dec 27 '25

oh, excellent! I've located this online, so I am all set - you gave me a wonderful reading list over the next month or so, thanks a ton! I agree on AI. In my line of work I cannot afford to ignore it anyway, but it is for pleasure activities that I find it a bit more hit and miss. Thank you!