Some idiot gave my kids recorders. I think the recorder must be the most terrible sounding instrument ever. (Those Japanese flutes are a close second though.)
There's good reason you never see a lead recorder in music these days. The only decent contemporary recorder playing I've heard is on the Red Hot Chili Peppers' BloodSugarSexMagik.
Those plastic recorders given to kids in primary school music classes are the worst sounding of a terrible instrument. They're shrill and kids don't understand the subtlety required to blow on them. When you factor in that kids can hear higher frequencies than adults, you must acknowledge how cruel it is to make entire classrooms of children inflict these piercing sounds on each other.
I distinctly remember hating music classes as soon as they introduced recorders. I loved singing but recorders scared me away from learning music until I got my hands on a guitar in year seven.
