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left handright handthumb · behindT½123456½7½bellleft handright handthumb · behindT½123456½7½bell
C4sounds C5Thumb on

Baroque (English): F is a fork. On the recorder, hole 5 is bigger than hole 4.

SongsLinstead Market
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1 more song needs notes this instrument does not have. Changing the size or key brings some of them into reach.

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Jamaican traditional; as printed by Walter Jekyll in “Jamaican Song and Story”, 1907, No. 121. Public domain.

27 notes · C4–D6 written · sounds C5–D7 · 27 notes · The descant: the recorder in every school bag. In C, and it sounds an octave above its written part.

Tap a note, or slide along them to slur from note to note in one breath. On a keyboard the letters on the notes are the ones to press — Q is the bottom note and they climb a semitone at a time.

RecorderFree · printable · plays in your browser

Linstead Market — Recorder Notes

Linstead Market, written out for the recorder as letter notes with the fingering drawn under each one and set up above on the Soprano, an octave higher. Press Play to hear it, Practice to learn it one note at a time — the recorder waits for you — or Play along to keep time with it.

  • Notes58, 7 pitches
  • RangeB4–A5
  • Key hereC major
  • Tempo190 bpm · about 30 s
  • LevelIntermediate

Can a recorder play Linstead Market?

Yes — every one on this page plays it. The check is made note by note against what each one can actually sound. Where the tune does not fit as the library writes it, another key or octave is tried, and the table says which; where nothing fits, it names the notes that are missing.

  • Soprano↕ Plays, movedPlayed an octave higher: C major, B4–A5 · loaded above
  • Alto✓ Plays as writtenIn C major, B4–A5 · load it
  • Tenor↕ Plays, movedPlayed an octave higher: C major, B4–A5 · load it

Linstead Market: recorder notes

The large line is the note, and the drawing is its fingering — a filled hole or key is one that is down. A dash holds the note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and a dot beside a note makes it half as long again. Each line is one phrase.

▶ Play it above

Linstead Market — recorder notes (Soprano) · tonalics.com

The 7 notes it uses

Lowest to highest, with how many times each is played. Learn these 7 and you can play the whole tune.

  • BB4×2
  • CC5×6
  • DD5×9
  • EE5×15
  • FF5×8
  • GG5×14
  • AA5×4

What to expect on a recorder

  • It runs from B4 to A5, a minor seventh, using 7 different notes. That leaves 11 semitones unused below and 5 above.
  • 88% of its moves are a step or a repeated note. The widest is a major third, C5 to E5, at note 29.
  • E5, F5, G5 and A5 need the pinched thumb, the half-covered thumb hole that gives the upper octave.

About the tune

A Jamaican folk song about a market woman who carries her ackee to Linstead on a Saturday night and sells none of it. The tab follows the earliest printed version, No. 121 in Walter Jekyll’s Jamaican Song and Story of 1907.

Jamaican traditional; as printed by Walter Jekyll in “Jamaican Song and Story”, 1907, No. 121. Public domain. More about Linstead Market →

Linstead Market on other instruments

The same melody, in each instrument’s own notation. It is not offered for the guzheng or handpan, which do not have the notes.

More songs for the recorder

All 36 recorder songs · Christmas songs for recorder · The online recorder on its own

Playing it on a real recorder?

If it sounds wrong, check the instrument before the notes. The recorder tuner listens through your microphone and names what each note is actually sounding.

🎙 Open the Recorder Tuner