MUSI3041 A4: the recorder and sustainability (Cheung Chit)

The recorder is one of the most well-known instruments as it was taught in music lessons in primary schools, following composer Carl Orff’s book Orff Schulwerk that encourages using the soprano recorder for school-aged children to learn music enjoyably (Roberts, 2020). As a kid, I have questioned many times why the recorder we play, as a “wood”-wind instrument, was made of plastic! Are there no more wood recorders?

Traditional wooden recorders

It turns out there are indeed still wood recorders used for serious, concert-level learning and performance. The history of (wooden) recorders began in Renaissance, with its popularity peaking in the Baroque period following the rise of virtuosity and several redesigns that altered and improved the recorder’s capabilities. Composers that wrote for the recorder at that time include Monteverdi, Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, etc. (Powers, 2003) Data for deforestation in Renaissance and Baroque periods is unavailable online, so sustainability issues regarding wooden recorders are inferred from lecture readings and the types of wood used.

Renaissance recorders are usually made of maple, plum or other fruit tree woods for a soft delicate sound. They are commonly used in other purposes or woodwork too. The only sustainability issue here is possible difficulties in finding large pieces of wood from fruit trees – most renaissance recorders are made from a single piece of wood – as most fruit trees now are “espalier trained” with narrow trunks and arms. Below is an example of an espalier trained pear tree (Higgins, 2011):

Wooden recorders manufactured in other periods and today are usually made from hardwood, with European boxwood being the most common type. This type of wood from south Europe has no known sustainability issues, being unhazardous and not endangered in any way. However, other types of common hardwood used for woodwind instruments before the 18^th century are now endangered and listed under CITES or IUCN, ranging from the near vulnerable grenadilla (Meier, 2021) to the endangered Brazilian rosewood (Allen, 2012) and ebony (Meier, 2017). These hardwoods are usually durable, hard and dense, producing powerful and carrying sounds suitable for concerts (Wood and Materials - Wenner Flöten, n.d.). Now, the production of recorders from vulnerable woods are restricted resulting from regulations and documentations like CITES.

Wooden recorders must be oiled on the inside using linseed oil (Recorders, n.d.) to prevent the wood from absorbing moisture as we blow into it. Linseed oil is manufactured from flax seeds, which is highly renewable. It is non-toxic in the workshop or the finished recorders. It is also highly reusable by sanding and repainting, though I doubt there are any workshops recycling musical instruments. Apart from reusing issues, the production of linseed oil requires a lot of non-renewable energy, resulting in high embodied energy and environmental footprint (Sustainability and Linseed Oil (Boiled) - Woodguide.org, 2014) - its energy content and greenhouse gas and volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions are the highest among all coatings listed in Häkkinen et al. (1999) – such emissions contribute to climate and smog formation. I would deem it moderately sustainable to be used in recorders as the amount used as coating should be relatively insignificant, given that wooden instruments are less common now.

The joints of wooden recorders (Recorders, n.d.) are made of soft cork – another form of wood – and cork grease – a combination of plant oils (White, 2022), both of which are highly renewable and biodegradable. Corks are extracted from the bark of oak trees without killing them or damaging the regeneration site of the cork. Each tree can withstand 15 debarking passages in its lifetime spanning as long as 1.5 centuries – it would resource-consuming to mass-produce cork (Ciancio, 2021). On the other hand, cork grease’s sustainability is more guaranteed as plant oils are mass produced with less resources, also without killing any plants.

For more expensive recorders, sometimes the joints were strengthened using ivory. In rare instances there were also whole recorders made of ivory before elephant hunting and international trade of ivory became forbidden or highly restricted (Trivia: White Recorders Made From Ivory, n.d.). Most workshops (About Recorders, n.d.; Wood and Materials - Wenner Flöten, n.d.) would use synthetic/imitation ivory made of resin, cellulose or the milk protein casein – plant-based (except casein), highly renewable, not costing lives. The development of more sustainable and efficiently produced synthetic ivory continues to this day, with examples being a type of bio-inspired synthetic ivory for piano keys that may serve as an inspiration to recorder joints (Fischer et al., 2019), and 3D-printed synthetic ivory (Rath et al., 2021).

Modern plastic recorders

Plastic recorders are commonly used in schools for their much lower costs of production and maintenance - suitable to be kept by non-serious young learners yet producing a decent sound without much effort. The plastic of choice is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (Recorders, n.d.) – a polymer derived from petroleum, which is non-renewable. It is tough, corrosion-resistant and easy to process as it can be melted and molded – plastic recorders are injection-molded this way, making them recyclable (Learn More About Your Plastic Sheet: 7 Facts About ABS Plastic, 2017). However, as with most plastics, ABS is non-biodegradable (Scott, 2017).

ABS is non-toxic, without any known carcinogens or toxic material inside (Learn More About Your Plastic Sheet: 7 Facts About ABS Plastic, 2017). However the production of two of its monomers – acrylonitrile and styrene – uses ammonia and ethylbenzene. Ammonia is a nitrogenous compound widely used in many industrial processes, with concerns raised on the excessive use of nitrogen since the discovery of nitrogen fertilizer and many other products produced using ammonia in farming in the 20^th century. Ethylbenzene could be vaporized into air during its use, then broken down to chemicals contributing to smog formation under sunlight. These are the typical environmental hazards involved in plastic production and industrial uses of petroleum and nitrogen compounds unlimited to musical instruments, but such popularization of the plastic recorder in schools may have inevitably contributed to such issues.

Recorder cream, also known as recorder grease, is used to oil the joints of plastic recorders, making them easier to be taken apart or put together. It is another petroleum product similar to Vaseline, in addition to the petroleum used in producing ABS (Scott, 2017). Much like other common plastic products, despite the lack of sustainability, plastic recorders are still widely used and impossible to be taken out of the system due to its prize and ease of production. Yamaha “Ecodear” recorders uses plastic made from resins. Its website states that such recorders reduce CO₂ emissions by 20% (Kerns, 2018).

However, I would deem waste a problem in such wide adoption of plastic recorders in education. Most people do not touch their plastic recorders after primary, or at most junior secondary, education. Early music education before school age is also common especially in more-developed places and middle/upper classes, making the wide adoption of recorders unnecessary somehow – it is just another rote-learning criterion for passing music in primary schools. In such places like HK, I would suggest schools to adopt plastic recorders selectively based on the demographic of students to reduce non-biodegradable waste – they could be adopted school-wide for schools holding mostly lower-class students, but such adoption would be unnecessary for other schools – the few without musical backgrounds could use more environmentally friendly alternatives such as singing, percussion or apps like GarageBand to learn music experientially.

References

About Recorders. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.vonhuene.com/t-aboutrecorders.aspx

Allen, A. S. (2012). ‘Fatto di Fiemme’: Stradivari’s violins and the musical trees of the Paneveggio. In Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century (pp. 301–316). Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford. https://www.ecomusicology.info/wp-content/uploads/Allen/Fiemme/26_Allen.pdf

Ciancio, F. (2021, September 16). Is Cork Sustainable or Is It Bad For The Environment? Mamablip. https://www.mamablip.com/en/blog/italian-wine-oak-cork-sustainability

Fischer, Parks, & Mannhart. (2019). Bio-Inspired Synthetic Ivory as a Sustainable Material for Piano Keys. Sustainability, 11(23), 6538. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236538

Häkkinen, T., Ahola, P., Vanhatalo, L., & Merra, A. (1999). Environmental Impact of Coated Exterior Wooden Cladding. In env_woodclad.PDF. Technology Development Centre (TEKES). http://virtual.vtt.fi/virtual/proj6/environ/env_woodclad.pdf

Higgins, C. (2011, November 25). “Doyenne du Comice” tree. Trained Fruit – in Pictures. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2011/nov/25/trained-fruit-in-pictures

Learn More About your Plastic Sheet: 7 Facts About ABS Plastic. (2017, August 30). https://blog.impactplastics.co/blog/learn-more-about-your-plastic-sheet-7-facts-about-abs-plastic

Meier, E. (2017, July 6). Ceylon Ebony. The Wood Database. https://www.wood-database.com/ceylon-ebony/

Meier, E. (2021, March 27). African Blackwood. The Wood Database. https://www.wood-database.com/african-blackwood/

Rath, T., Martl, O., Steyrer, B., Seidler, K., Addison, R., Holzhausen, E., & Stampfl, J. (2021). Developing an ivory-like material for stereolithography-based additive manufacturing. Applied Materials Today, 23, 101016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmt.2021.101016

Recorders. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.pslc.ws/macrog/kidsmac/polycons/recorder.htm

Roberts, M. S. (2020, August 14). Why did we learn to play the recorder at school? Classic FM. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/recorder/why-learn-recorder-school/

Scott, M. (2017, September 16). 5 Reasons Why ABS Plastic Needs To Go Away. All3DP. https://all3dp.com/5-reasons-why-abs-needs-to-go-away/

Sustainability and Linseed oil (boiled) - Woodguide.org. (2014, November 7). The Upstyle Wood Guide. https://www.woodguide.org/guide/linseed-oil-boiled/

Trivia: White recorders made from ivory. (n.d.). Musical Instrument Guide - Yamaha Corporation. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/recorder/trivia/trivia003.html

White, C. (2022, July 31). Cork Grease for Saxophone 🎷 FAQs answered by an Expert. Band Tuning. https://bandtuning.com/cork-grease-for-saxophone/

Wood and Materials - Wenner Flöten. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://wennerfloeten.de/en/main/info/wood-and-materials/