I think the anti-recorder meme is something that just happens. It's a natural joke here on the Chiffboard, and good fun. And once these memes take hold they're very hard to get rid of.
Here's an anecdote that may surprise some of our British and Commonwealth friends who are used to thinking of recorder as that thing tortured by generations of schoolkids under the lasting spell of Arnold Dolmetsch.
I first discovered the recorder in the 10th grade (~15 years old) around 1967. I was the top symphonic wind player in my grade of around 700 students. One day I was reading a book of music history, and came upon a description of this thing called a "recorder". And I was fascinated, as I had never heard of a recorder before. Enquiring with my music teachers and friends, it turned out that most were unaware of the recorder, and those that were aware had never seen or handled one.
So I trotted down to my local music store. And lo and behold, they had one Dolmetsch bakelite soprano in stock for the occasional oddball customer. It took me an hour to learn the fingering, and I was off to the races. At school the next day I was an instant celebrity with my odd little instrument. Everyone wanted to hear it and try it. And jamming jazz riffs on the recorder turned out to be a lot of fun.
Soon another music friend came forward as a secret recorder player, and she and I began performing Telemann duets and such. Then one day we got a call from a local teacher named Eugene Reichenthal, who had just founded the Long Island Recorder Society. We began weekly rehearsals with a recorder ensemble of 6 or so players playing Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern repertoire, and we put on several concerts in the area.
In short, the point is that playing the recorder was a high prestige activity from the start, and it was nothing but a genuine and challenging instrument. I went on to play at university with our "Stellar Consort" (modeled after the Deller Consort). I studied recorder for a year at the Camerata School in Boston, and another year in graduate school under Thomas Binkley, including a master class with Frans Brüggen.
So whenever the r******r meme pops up here on the Chiffboard, I chuckle along with everyone else. But recorder was definitely my secret weapon for quick mastery of the Irish whistle. And I feel a bit sad for all the people whose experience of this wonderful instrument was apparently ruined by their early music education.
Right! Old Neil kicked the bucket around 1807.
