Yep, that’s a noise. High pitched, reedy, and about on par with a recorder on pitch and timbre. He does his best not to wince, and suspects he does an admirable job of it. Relatively.

“There you go. That’s how you blow on it. So you’re gonna use your fingers to change the note.” The recorder is significantly easier to learn than a flute or, god forbid, a clarinet. “Covering different holes gives you different tones. Here, I’ll show you the, uh...we call this the ‘root’.”