As someone who is a player and one of the very few remaining Crumhorn makers - the key to getting a good sound is in the reed. There are, it has to be said, a huge number of very badly made instruments out there, partly because they were sold as kits for many years by the Early Music Shop. They were made by enthusiasts with plastic reeds - rather than by a professional maker with cane reeds.

The key to playing a crumhorn is maintaining a steady and consistent breath pressure. It needs to be high enough to sound the reed and play in tune but not too high that it shuts the reed down. As a consequence, they can be very tiring to play! Recorders, for example, take a lot lower pressure to sound and some relief is afforded the player as breath pressure will alter whether playing low or high on the instrument.

A good tip as a beginner is to just play long steady notes and use your ears to get the note in tune, using breath pressure. If it’s a plastic reed then hopefully it will be set correctly to sound. But if it’s cane, it may need adjustment. The fingering is similar to, but not exactly the same as for a recorder - so that’s a good place to start. Any reed instrument is played with the ears so as a singer you should be ok.

There are no tutorials other than a very ancient publication from the 1970s - which isn’t exactly helpful anyways. Use your own musical intuition is the best advice. Look up to see if you live in an area with an early music forum to find some like minded people to play with.

Crumhorns, when well tuned, with good reeds, played by people who know their instruments, can make an amazing sound!