YAMAHA Recorder - Soprano Recorder, German fingering, Translucent Blue

I bought this recorder in order that I could perform a piece to my fellow travelers on a bus to Rimini, Italy. The package arrived promptly- a week before departure- so that I was able to learn the titanic theme tune in time. You may be impressed by my ability to learn in such a small time frame, but make no mistake this was all down to the German fingering and the fact I'm twenty years old with a lot of time on my hands. However with such a great product comes a down side, my musical ability did not impress many on the ferry across the English channel and with a mild amount of force the recorder can unfortunately be taken into its component parts and very easily chucked off the side of the vessel. Its blue transparent colour although very aesthetically pleasing also means that any possibility of recovering my beloved recorder were minimal.Overall my experience was 5/5.

Reasonable price and quality

Great product my little boy was very happy, fast dispatch.

Packaging had no padding so the hairline cracks on every hole could have happened in transit. Yamaha usually make good quality instruments, so I doubt the cracks are the fault of the manufacturer. However, it still sounds good and looks nice so I'm not going to bother sending it back. Mine came with a very thin plastic cover, so I need to buy a proper hard case to protect it, but I appreciate that it came with some sort of bag to protect against dust. I think it's good value for money, it seems like it's built to last so unless you're upgrading to a significantly more expensive wooden recorder or something, I can't see you needing to buy another. I bought this to see if my penny whistle skills transfer to recorder - I actually want to learn shawm but didn't want to buy something as expensive as a shawm without knowing I might be able to play it, recorder seemed like a good step between penny whistle and shawm. If you already play recorder it's probably easy to use. However, it does have more holes than a penny whistle and the spacing is different, so although I could pick it up and play songs straight away, the different spacing takes some getting used to. Overall, happy with my purchase. I gave 4 stars instead of 5 because of the hairline cracks. I'm sure my cat will knock it out of my hand at some point and it will get cracks from that, but it shouldn't have arrived cracked.

My son loves it

a little expensive for the function but my daugter liked the style and colour