… but this is something which I think is going to help my flute playing in general, so I’ll ask it anyway. And it’s a simple question, really …
I’ve been trying some Grade 3 pieces, including a fair few Baroque flute pieces, some of which are in G minor. [“The story so far”: n00b, playing 8-key 19c English flute bought from Jem last Christmas]. Now, these pieces frequently have phrases with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between Bb and Cnat. I seem to have discovered a ‘new’ (to me) fingering for Cnat in trying to do these pieces, and it helps a lot. It involves depressing the thumb key for Bb, and covering the second hole down, whilst lifting the left hand index finger. In other words, it’s the same as Bb fingering, only with the left hand index finger raised.
Is the above a ‘legitimate’ fingering for Cnat? If it works, does it matter whether it’s legit or not? Are there any other alternative Cnat fingerings out there that might be useful?
Ben, on my flute that fingering gives a very sharp Cnat of sorts - that you could get away with in certain situations, I suppose. It wouldn’t appear on any Baroque fingering chart however full of variants because a Baroque flute didn’t have a Bb key. Of course, on a Baroque flute you would be cross-fingering the Bbs with xox xoo or xox xxo in the lower octave and xox ooo in the upper.
Without hearing you and trying it myself on your flute, I couldn’t sensibly comment on the quality of the note you are producing with that fingering, but I would be surprised if it is truly satisfactory. Also, without seeing the specific musical contexts in which you are using it, it isn’t really possible to make very useful suggestions… but in a general sense I don’t understand the issue too well. Bb to Cnat using either the long C key or the orthodox C nat cross-fingering (oxo xxx, on your flute) is not normally particularly awkward - and learning to use those fluently without going for fudges would be more sensible at your stage, especially for Classical purposes (not that your average grade examiner is likely to know anything at all about 8-key flutes!). Especially at speed and in trills, you can just open the long C while keeping the full Bb fingering (xx,o ooo,) - the C will be a tad flat, but likely better in tune than your experimental fudge-fingering
If you want to tell me what pieces you’re playing that raise this - better still scan and zap me the dots, and I’ll have a gander…
Yes! Exactly that. Play Bb (xx,o ooo,), trill long C with R1. No problem whatever and works pretty well. No harder than a B-C trill. And easier than trilling L1. I just did it to check. You wouldn’t try the trill with the (any) cross-fingering, though, if you have the C key.
BTW, on my R&R your “new fudge” really gives a flat C#, not anything that sounds remotely acceptable as a Cnat.
???
Send the pieces when you can, though tell me what they are just in case I already have dots for 'em.