> I never know when I might turn up in Montreal. I get around.
>
Well please let me know if you're coming my way. I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to sit down and chat with you over coffee or whatever you drink. My treat.

> I think temperature and humidity changes mess up most wooden instruments. The problem is more serious with newly made instruments, but less serious as they age. Or is it the other way around?
>
I don't know, but I do know that wood instruments get "character" as they age. Plastic instruments (flutes and whatnot, I've never seen a plastic dulcy) sound exactly the same their entire life, which is more consistent but less interesting.

But the biggest problem is that you have to tune every note, and every note has two strings. So it's quite a job. I've heard that pretty much every piano tuner eventually goes nuts, because it's such a maddening job to tune that many strings in one sitting.

> We are keeping it on an antique sideboard in our living room where temperature and humidity conditions are fairly constant. I can already play a scale and the first part of "Joy to the World."

My first song on the recorder was Frere Jacques. Pretty simple. You might want to try "Happy Birthday" just in case it comes in handy, and some simple kids' songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Once I was playing my recorder outside, and a "kids on a string" field trip settled nearby. I started playing Frere Jacques, and in no time they were all singing along.

I have a wonderful little program called Melody Assistant that converts .wav files to sheet music. You have to register it to be able to print the sheets, but it will display them on screen and play them for you. So in theory you can play anything you can download, and write your own scores too.

^v^:)^v^
F"you're never too old to discover your musical talent"B