h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is acheived by saying 'trrr' while blowing into the recorder. It sounds like birdsong - the kids have great fun trying this - but you might need to have some paracetomol handy....

Thanks, ChiKiSpirit! I know about flutter tonguing and had forgotten that I didn't mention it in the entry.

One of these days, I'll tidy up this entry and submit it to Peer Review.

I've only tried it out once - it was pretty noisy! Not really very musical as such, more of a sound effect...The piece of music was about a group of singing to let everyone know they were there. After a while a enters the garden and creeps up on them quietly. When they see the they raise an alarm call to warn the other birds, and that is where the flutter-tonguing happens! I haven't heard of it being used anywhere else, but my music dictionary says it is also a technique used with clarinets and flutes. Being a piano player myself I did not know that, and I only came across the flutter-tonguing when I was teaching a recorder group.

ChiKi