How recorder making came to me

Career aspirations and no real plan

I graduated from high school in 1972. At that time, young men were still required to do either military or civilian service - the latter only after an extensive "examination of conscience" - incredible!
In fact, I managed to do both!

So I had some time to think about which direction I wanted to take.

All I knew was that I didn't want to become a pharmacist like my parents. I have always been grateful to my father for never pushing me towards that.

Tinkering with electronics - that was always the thing for me. So - electrical engineer? Maybe...

Another better idea: sound engineer? Combining technology with music? Sounded great. Even today, I don't really understand why I didn't pursue it further back then. Although... Would I be writing this text now if I had?

I was really overrun by the conscription - smelly uniforms, nasty weapons, drills and weird marches. The happiest day of that time was when I left the barracks after nine months with the certainty. Never again!

I drifted around a bit, then I was called to do some civilian service for the rest of the time. How I enjoyed doing that - something with sense and reason among civilized people!

One of my "side jobs" was in contact with mentally handicapped pupils. That felt good. So working with disabled people - social pedagogy? Maybe...

New ideas began to spread around me, inside me. Moving to the countryside, living self-sufficiently, self-support, something crafty - pottery - natural wood carpentry or whatever...

Yes - you're reading correctly: I was a bit disoriented at that time.

Somebody has a suggestion

Pharmacist's family, small town, A-levels: "Well, you have to go to university!"

Veterinary medicine - because of the countryside and all that? I even got a scholarship - in (then West) Berlin. That was too far away from my home in southern Germany. It was another decision I later had to shake my head about.

In the end, I did what everyone around me was doing: I became a teacher. Those who had already done so considered dropping out and going to the countryside - somehow I was in the right place.

Ludwigsburg College of Education. Primary school studies. Initially handicrafts, later music and German. My secondary instrument was the flute - the transverse flute, which was also very interesting.

There was only one lecturer for the flute - Bernhard Böhm also taught recorder to students of major instruments.

We chatted time and again, also about my unclear career aspirations. I mentioned that I could possibly be a wood turner.

His reaction: " Why don't you make recorders?

Click!

That was it!

Why didn't I think of that myself?

Thank you, dear Bernhard Böhm - I am eternally grateful to you for this impulse!

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Recorder making is a very romantic affair.

You sit at the workbench next to a roaring stove (what was that again about fire protection in workrooms?), a blackbird sings outside and the master carves a recorder.

Yes, it became something like that at some point. Only with a radiator instead of a stove, sometimes with a cat on the windowsill (who would look at me with indignation when I started to play the recorder and would leave the room in a huff)

And of course you learn to make a flute from a master and not in a factory.

However, I didn't know that many masters. There weren't that many in Germany either.

I didn't know anything about Martin Skowronek at the time.

I wrote to Rudolf Otto - various flute ladies at the university thought highly of him.
His reply on a postcard: he would rather leave something like that to the state.

Then I made a pilgrimage to Tübingen - to Joachim Paetzoldt. Among the players I knew at the time, he was responsible for the "really good" recorders.

There was a note on his workshop door: "Due to absolute work overload, my workshop remains closed. Japanese plastic recorders available from stock".

I rang the bell anyway.

A friendly older gentleman let me in.

After listening to my request, he said that he didn't have the time at the moment. But I could come back sometime if I already knew something.

I knew that you have to do a proper apprenticeship in Germany. But I had never thought about the fact that the trainers also needed a permit.

So the big companies after all.

At that time, there was actually only one company in Germany with a great reputation: Moeck in Celle. They had such a wonderful, elegant catalog in which, in addition to recorders, all kinds of other historical woodwind instruments - from the crumhorn to the baroque oboe - were illustrated and explained.

So - if there's one, go there.

After a brief exchange of correspondence with Dr. Hermann Moeck, I was on the night train to Celle. I was excited - he had invited me!

I was allowed to take a look inside the - what now - workshop or factory? There were so many people sitting there doing exactly what I wanted. But without an oven and a blackbird.

I drove home full of hope. And then found out that a trained turner had been taken on as an apprentice instead of me. I later found out that they might have made a better catch with me after all - well...

I tried the second company in the sector: Mollenhauer in Fulda. And once again I received a postcard saying that I was fully booked for the next two years.

A few weeks later I received a letter. No longer signed by the secretary, but by the boss, Bernhard Mollenhauer himself.
Unfortunately, they didn't have any apprenticeships at the moment, but they were urgently looking for young people to make recorders.
At that time, there was only a proper apprenticeship in transverse flute making - which the company still practiced at the time. In recorder making, people worked "just like that".
They needed someone who could play the recorder. Ok... could I do that? I then took a few recorder lessons with Bernhard Böhm instead of flute lessons. So maybe I had the chance to become something like the one-eyed man among the blind.

That was my chance!