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0:39

Liz Stevenson grew up in a suburb outside

0:42

of Boston, and at her elementary school, you

0:44

always did this one thing come

0:46

third grade.

0:47

You always learned the recorder.

0:49

You know, this recorder. I

0:59

learned to play the recorder in fourth grade,

1:01

and learning to do so is a common elementary

1:03

school experience, even

1:05

if it is not always a mellifluous

1:08

one.

1:09

Instead of going to the regular music classroom,

1:11

we would do this in what was called the multipurpose

1:14

room, this big open room

1:16

where they would put in, like, risers. I do

1:18

remember thinking we sound bad.

1:20

If you played the recorder or know someone who did, you

1:22

can probably imagine the sounds emanating

1:25

from the multipurpose room.

1:28

All I remember learning is hot cross buns,

1:30

and, like, camp town races. I

1:37

think the only one that I mastered was hot cross buns. I

1:39

think it's fair to say that Liz's childhood experience

1:41

did not leave her with any lasting knowledge

1:44

of the recorder as a musical instrument. I

1:48

don't even remember how many holes there are. But it did leave

1:50

her with questions. What's

1:53

the history of the recorder? Like, when was it invented?

1:56

Who invented it? Why? How is it used?

1:59

in the past and then also

2:02

did it become popular at a certain

2:04

era and then also like are

2:06

there any people who are like talented at

2:09

the recorder who play the recorder and like show

2:11

off how good they are at the recorder? So I'm

2:14

going to tell you this

2:14

one thing yeah which is

2:17

that Vivaldi and Bach and

2:19

Handel all wrote recorder

2:22

music. Oh wow. This

2:31

is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin.

2:33

We get a lot of fantastic emails

2:36

from our listeners suggesting ideas

2:37

for the show. We feel extremely

2:41

grateful for each and

2:42

everyone and in this episode

2:44

we're going to dive into

2:45

five of them. First we're

2:47

going to continue with the history of the recorder

2:50

which

2:51

surprisingly involves Henry the Ace

2:53

and the Nazis. We'll also be looking

2:55

at the rise and fall of the stretch

2:57

limo, the incredible versatility

3:00

of the word like, the meaning of the

3:02

baby on board sign, and why

3:04

on earth it took so long to develop

3:06

luggage with wheels.

3:08

So today on Decoder Ring we're

3:10

rifling through our mailbags.

3:11

Thanks to you.

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Apple Card is the

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credit card created by Apple. You

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earn 3% daily cash back up front when

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you use it to buy a new iPhone 15,

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AirPods, or any products at Apple.

3:42

And you can automatically grow your daily cash

3:45

at 4.15% annual

3:47

percentage yield when you open a high yield

3:49

savings account. Apply for Apple

3:51

Card in the Wallet app on iPhone. Apple

3:54

Card is subject to credit approval. Savings

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is available to Apple Card owners subject

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to eligibility. Savings accounts

4:01

by Goldman Sachs Bank USA

4:03

member FDIC. Terms

4:05

apply. So

4:09

we're gonna pick up where we left off with Liz's questions

4:12

about the recorder. And to answer them, I

4:14

reached out to Robert Erlich. I

4:17

am a professional recorder player. So right

4:19

off the bat, that's one answer. There are

4:22

professional recorder players. Robert

4:24

also teaches at the Leipzig Conservatory

4:26

in Germany and is the co-author of a

4:28

definitive history of the recorder.

4:30

He was first introduced to the instrument

4:33

himself when he was in elementary school

4:35

in Belfast. I think we all know what

4:37

that sounds like. And

4:40

that wasn't the reason that I got into playing the recorder.

4:43

Instead, he re-encounted the instrument

4:45

as a teen. My dad

4:48

gave me an album by

4:50

Franz Brigan. Brigan was a

4:52

touch recorder player. Just

4:55

masterly playing. It was a Vivaldi

4:58

concerto. And it's just so exciting

5:00

to hear this instrument played in a way that

5:02

I'd never imagined it could be.

5:04

The recorder actually seemed kind of rebellious

5:07

to Robert. It wasn't an instrument that

5:09

people took that seriously. It wasn't the violin

5:11

or the piano or the bassoon.

5:14

And he liked that about it. It was like

5:16

an underdog. So he learned

5:18

how to play it. Like,

5:20

really play it.

5:28

That's Robert playing. And learning how to play,

5:31

he also became very interested in its history.

5:33

It turns out that for most of its

5:35

existence, the recorder was not

5:37

for children.

5:38

So the golden age of the recorder was

5:42

really the 16th century. So

5:45

if you think of King Henry VIII of England, and

5:48

that was the guy with all of the wives, quite

5:50

early in his reign, he employed

5:54

a professional recorder ensemble.

5:56

Henry VIII liked the instrument so

5:58

much, he wrote a recorder song.