The Whiteladies Road Shop is now closed. I am working exclusively from home. Please talk to the answering machine if I do not pick up the phone. My presence here is not guaranteed. If possible, use email to contact me.

This is a 'one man' business. If you are planning a visit, an email or phone call beforehand is now essential. The preferred visiting days are Monday and Tuesday. I am not available to answer the phone personally on Wednesdays.

There is an answer-phone/fax on the line, + 44 (0)117 9735149. Take heed of the outgoing message, there is nothing wrong with the machine. Please do not leave spoken orders unless you know exactly what you want and have ordered in the past 4 years. I will be happy to ring you back... please let me know when you will be in, otherwise I will end up talking to your machine. A fax is preferable, you may press "send" at any time. The present machine will accept computer generated faxes. If your fax is handwritten please take care to ensure that your message survives the transmission... write boldly and fairly large.

To make things easier for me please take note of the following points.

• If you have ordered before, please be sure to quote your surname and postcode and let me know of any changes.
  
  
• Payment details are not essential if you are already "in the computer".
  
  
• If you have ordered before, goods will be sent with an invoice unless you give me a clear instruction to charge a card used previously. It is possible for me to recover card details from recent payments. Please quote the last four digits of the main card number, the expiry date and also the security digits. The security digits are essential.
  
  
• Tell me if there is a real deadline.
  
  
• Ask for exactly what you want and use Edition Numbers as well as Composer and Title if possible.
  
  
• It is very difficult to identify works that appear in collections. Please quote the title of the volume required.
  
  
• Do not leave advice requests on the answer-phone, email me or try again.
  
  
• Please use email or snail mail in preference to the phone. Now that I work from home I frequently work what might be termed 'unsocial' hours. Email can be answered at times when a phone call would be very unwelcome.
  
  
• My email address is:-   john@saundrecs.co.uk
  
  
• The web-site url is:-   www.saundrecs.co.uk
     now aliased from     www.saundersrecorders.co.uk
                         and     www.saundersrecorders.com
  
  
• My mailing address is now Unit 205, 179 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 AG

Saunders Recorders
News Page

john@saundrecs.co.uk

The important news is that I have revised the recorder prices to reflect the December VAT reduction from 17.5% to !5%. This was not an automated exercise! Except for low priced items the reduction is roughly 2%. There are likely to be more changes as I book in new imported stock.

In a change to my previous practice I have added details of some privately owned instruments to my used stock. There is a separate page listing these (only two at the moment, but nice, and unusual). I look upon this as a 'small ads' page and will be happy to expand it (for a negotiable fee, depending on the amount of work involved). It is linked from my used recorder list but you can go to it directly by clicking here.

I have also bought another box of used music. It is all'good stuff', mostly for solo recorder or recorder and piano. There are some out of print editions. Click here for my used music list.

I have added a pdf version of the latest Trinity Guildhall diploma lists to the folder of Trinity Guildhall information. My version includes edition numbers. It has taken hours to produce, I hope you find the information useful.

Some of you may have noticed a general tidying up of my linked pages, its taken me a long time, but I think it has been worth doing. It makes navigation easier. While I've been at it I've expanded a few pages. There is now more information on my recorder qualities page, the valuation page and on my flute page.

As a result of an awkward encounter on the phone regarding the playing of high quality trebles I have added to my comments on top notes, top F# in particular. Perhaps I should have taken this this bug bear more seriously. It has previously been 'off my radar'. If the recorder is not your 'first instrument' it is hard to appreciate that even a high quality treble is not guaranteed to produce this note. This situation is not unique. An experienced flute player shopping for a piccolo will always ask 'Will it play top B?'. Most of them don't! I have four piccolos and only one will produce top B. Its not my first choice instrument, but if I ever have to play for the Shostakovitch piano concerto again it will be the one that I use.

Brian Blood of Dolmetsch Musical Instruments has sent me a very nice tit-bit of Java Script that enables me (us!) to automatically date our web pages. You will now be able to tell whether a page has changed recently. Of course, all the ones carrying the new script have changed, but the visible content is unaltered. I don't expect that condition to endure for very long. I set things up on the 19th. Sept. You can see for yourself how quickly things change. It has been quite a hard job adding the coding and I have concentrated on the 'sales' pages. Some of the others are modified, but generally, for the descriptive pages there doesn't seem to be much point. I am also dropping in little 'back' buttons that may make navigation even easier.

The business phone now rings at my home. I am still in a state of partially organised chaos (I think I always will be!) but I am now back up to my former standard of delivery (usually the next day). There is an answer-phone/fax connected as before. Be prepared to be greeted by it. I cannot delay its pickup by more than four rings. Please listen to the message, it gives me an extra 16 seconds to get to the phone, or find the cordless extension. (Like the TV 'remote', so aptly named, it is often out of reach.) I work at the top of a very tall Victorian house and running up and down three flights of stairs is doing wonders for my figure. Please do not use my private line for business purposes. If at all possible, place orders and make enquiries by email, fax, or ordinary mail.

I am visitable (by appointment, Mondays and Tuesdays are preferred) and live not far from the location of the old shop (now a barber's shop). The rail service to the nearby Clifton Down station seems good and several visitors have used it. I will happily let you know my address, but I do not want to publish it on the web. If you need something urgently please telephone me. I am prepared to deliver goods myself, without charge, within the Bristol area and perhaps further afield, depending on where you are.

I now have a new postal address. You can find it on the overview page. Do not try to visit me there. The 'Unit' in question is (literally) about the size of a shoe box!

There is a very good chance that the difficulties with LPM/Dolce Edition are over. I have ordered new stock and most of it has arrived.

Indulge me for a moment! I am feeling rather pleased with myself. As a compulsive hoarder of 'useful' bits and pieces I have always felt a twinge of guilt when disposing of yet another of the plastic pin protectors supplied with the UK 13A mains plug on new electrical devices. In this case a coffee maker. As my hand hovered over the bin (plastic is not recycled here in Bristol) I was struck by a rare flash of inspiration. A quick check confirmed my brain wave. It is only a few seconds work with a sharp knife or strong pair of scissors to turn it into... replacement feet for a music stand!

If you fancy combining recorder playing with a holiday in France you may be interested in the courses run by one of my clients. Click here for details.

The prices for imported recorders and music are increasing as I have to re-stock. The current unfavourable Euro exchange rate is now having an impact on the goods I buy with sterling too. There will be changes to the prices of Mollenhauer recorders in June. There are also revised ordering notes and prices brought about by the annual Royal Mail changes. Please check them before emailing me. The 3 digit security code for card payment is now essential.

I have found that my stock list in pdf format works very well indeed with Acrobat 6 and presumably later versions. Do try it, if you are looking for something but don't know much about it. (Click here.)

Having discovered a new procedure for managing email quickly the chances of my deleting mail unread (because I thought it was spam) are now very greatly reduced. I now get about 200 spam messages a day. The system I used before I got a broadband connection was very time consuming, but less so that down loading it all.

One 'advantage' of working from home is the regular company of Stanley, who has cottoned on to the idea of being not only an evening lap-cat, but a day time one as well! New picture.

I am receiving music orders for holiday courses and summer schools. Please bear in mind that this is an unusual and fairly unpredictable demand. I may not have sufficient copies in stock to provide my usual almost instant service. Indeed, at times, not even the publisher's main UK agent has sufficient stock. When the date of the course gets close do not rely on me, or any other dealer, to be able to supply you without delay. Sometimes the music is not actually printed when the set works list is published. Be prepared, order early, and do some practice! If you are a course organiser, for goodness sake, find out what the supply position is before setting the course music. You can run the list past me first, for me to check out if you like. It will save a lot of agony in the long term.

Should you have a problem viewing my site you will find a 'cut down' version of this site at
www.saundersrecorders.freeserve.co.uk.
The information pages are be the same, but there is insufficient web space for the detailed product lists and pictures. In their place I have copied the pdf complete list of products. It has not been easy to design a partial site with no broken links! Some will take you round in a circle if you do not heed the appropriate text. It might be a good plan to visit the alternative home page now, and book mark it. As soon as I am aware of any server trouble the available site will be updated.

As a result of having to field queries on the pitch/tuning of recorders I have prepared a page of sample notes. The pitches have been generated by a Korg WT-12 carefully set to A=440. The files are heavily compressed mp3 and last for about 5 seconds. The 'page' producing them repeats indefinitely! (Don't worry, I have remembered to provide a 'STOP' button.)

I've been able to get some more A=415 tuning forks (at £14.95). More expensive than my last stock, but if you want one, nothing else will do.

Please let me know if you find misprints in any of my listed music. I have learned a little more coding and can add correction notes to the listings. The first of these at the end of the study section. The popular 11 Studies by Ton v.d. Valk, HU 3237 has several. You may like to check your opinion against those of other musicians.

Several times I have been asked for advertising copy to go in programmes and such like. To make everyone's life easier I have produced some standard advertisements, in pdf and Word format, and uploaded them to my web site. The link is on the overview page, or HERE. Select the format best suited to your needs. V is portrait and H is landscape format. Please do not be afraid to approach me for payment in respect of advertising.

I have a small pile of the current ABRSM syllabus and also the new Trinity Guildhall syllabus. You may request a (free) copy with music orders. The recorder pages of the Trinity Guildhall diploma syllabus are available from a link in my Examination Publications page.

Please follow my advice regarding emailing sensitive information. (See Mail Order. Read it all, it is not difficult to understand or carry out.) I do store email. My attention has been drawn to the facility to password protect Word documents. This is a very good option indeed. (It is in the "Save As" > Options menu.) If you are stumped for a password, use the name of my cat, in lower case, hover over him to find it. (Its appropriate, he gets into everything!) Mozilla (Firefox) users need to right click on the image and select 'properties'. The info is 'alternate text'.

Do please explore the site by checking "Other Topics" or other pages on the menu provided. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time answering queries for which links to complete answers are already in place. All my pages link back to a central selection menu.

I would like to state my support for the AB's on-going campaign reduce the illegal reproduction of copyright music. Their attack is a bit too strong for permanent inclusion on this page, click here to find out why!

Best Wishes

John Everingham FTCL

john@saundrecs.co.uk