Around February-March 2024, I ended doing a fairly extensive deep dive into Dushkin recorders and posted/reblogged about it (of which, if you want to read the post with all the addendums, you can read it here).
After that, I found nothing else, but would do regular searches every few weeks to see if anything new cropped up. I ended up stumbling across a few interesting auction listings as of late.
First was for a Dushkin alto that had a beak with an outer plastic sleeve
It's very reminiscent of the Dushkin soprano recorder in the Powerhouse Collection in Australia.
Oddly, this alto and the Powerhouse soprano are the only ones I've seen with that beak design. My Dushkin recorder and other pictures I've seen of Dushkin recorders use an inner plastic sleeve for the beak, which could either mean that beaks with an outer plastic sleeve design did not have much lasting power or that few of them survived plastic degradation. Notably, take a look at the following close-up pic from the auction listing:
How... icky.
Second was a mundane auction listing for a tenor that included a sales receipt from 1953 and a sell pamphlet.
Other auction and sell listings I've seen only guess of the instrument of being from the 1950s, but since this listing had a provenance receipt from 1953, we can assume that the models in the pamphlet are also from around the early 1950's.
Last would be a listing for a fully plastic Dushkin soprano recorder.
My previous research into Dushkin recorders did reveal that he sold plastic recorders, but I could never find a picture of one until now.
I did mention in an older post that I suspected not many survived, and well, this one looks rather… bowed... and I hesitate to guess how it would sound today.
Sources:
Dushkin with plastic beak: https://www.auctionzip.com/auction-lot/lot_D91437F8E9
Dushkin tenor recorder with provenance (receipt) from 1953: https://blueboxauction.hibid.com/lot/105151679/vintage-1950s-dushkin-wood-recorder?ref=catalog
Some UnderTale-themed designs for recorder flutes that I’ve thought about (but probably won’t be able to make because I don’t have the tools to pull it off). If you’re a craftsman and want to try your hand at making these feel free to do so, so long as credit is given where credit is due.
Gaster Blaster Model:
My idea was to take a clear plastic blue model (such as the YamahaYRS-20 or similar) and mold a Gaster Blaster over the head joint. While simple-looking, is actually the more complicated of the two designs because of where the jaw sits, making the jaw prone to breakage if not handled with care.
Photoshop Flowey Model:
The “Photoshop Flowey” recorder is just a painted recorder, and would be much more easy to pull off. My idea was to use cheap wooden 3-piece recorder (such as the Eastar-DonnerMusic ERS-31 or similar), sand off the finish, and then paint over the wood or using a wood burner to draw in the designs.
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.
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
If you have been following me for the past few years, you have likely already noticed that I've went into a rabbit hole research about Dushkin recorders, with my last post being about different models produced by David Dushkin. One of those models was an alto with a plastic sleeve for the beak, sold on AuctionZip.
Today I've located another Dushkin alto with a sleeved beak, on HiBid. Unusually, this one came with a fancy case.
Looking further into the photos, I immediate noticed that the HiBid Dushkin recorder has single holes instead of double holes for the bottom notes. (HiBid auction image below)
At which point, I had to go back to the AuctionZip listing, and whaddya know, it also had single holes! (AuctionZip auction image below)
Now, my Dushkin alto and others I've seen online where only the tip and windway roof are in plastic have double holes.
So at first I thought: "Could the Dushkin recorders with full plastic sleeves on the beak have been an earlier model for the Dushkin recorders? After all, double holes are more 'modern'* in terms of recorder history". (*I say this with knowing the nuances of historical recorders with double holes from around the late 1600-1700s).
But then, I immediately remembered the Powerhouse Dushkin soprano recorder also has a plastic sleeve, and double-checking myself, I saw it has double holes! (Powerhouse museum image below)
I'm curious if this would be indicative of Dushkin recorders being available in both single-hole and double-hole models, and I wonder how different the single-hole and double-hole Dushkin recorders are like in terms of sound and ease of playing.
Source:
HiBid Lot #112 Vintage Recorder Flue in case: https://hibid.com/lot/243818316/vintage-dushkin-recorder-flue-in-case?ref=lot-list
Nieuw bericht op https://www.haarlemupdates.nl/2020/01/18/concert-lucie-horsch-blokfluit-en-alexandra-nepomnyashchaya-klavecimbel/
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