An Allegory with Mercury and Erato

Artist: Antwerp School

Date: 16th century

Medium: Oil on canvas

lmao thank you for this, specifics are always better for me 😂

the short answer is, my recorder lessons ended with me buying two more recorders, bringing my collection up to four (plus a tin whistle):

my original soprano recorder that I bought to relearn recorder

a soprano recorder that's translucent and turquoise and looks like the recorder Ariel would play if they had recorders under the sea, because our instructor told us about translucent recorders and I think it's neat how you can see the music coming right out of it

an alto recorder I bought not long after our instructor brought in a bunch of his recorders (he has many) and let us try recorders in different sizes and styles (tenor and bass are out of my price range, especially the 3D-printed tenor he shared with us that was much easier for me to use than a traditional tenor recorder)

a 3D-printed dragon scale recorder made by a friend who gave it to me mostly to have an excuse to 3D print a dragon scale recorder lmao. it's very pretty but only makes a thin sound that doesn't vary much no matter which holes you cover, so this is an Instagram recorder, if you will

the lessons went well although I'm still sort of slow at moving my fingers, which makes playing anything quickly a challenge, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually

learning the alto recorder (from a book, the class was just for sopranos and is long since done anyhow) has really helped me with the soprano, because once you've had to stretch your fingers to reach all the holes on a bigger recorder, going back to a smaller recorder is way easier

and my favorite fun fact about the recorder (since we also got lots of history about the instrument) is that it was once considered a gentleman's instrument

thanks for your ask!

Basset hound

Bass hound