Cross fingering

Irish Flute
1

All,

I’m not sure how to word this correctly but here goes: I have a PVC flute, and I also have a cheap Clarke tin whistle. From what I understand the fingerings for both are the same. The Clarke came with a fingering chart so I’m starting to learn the fingerings for my flute (mainly because the whistle just sweaks). I’m having an incredibly difficult time trying to half-hole and was wondering if there are cross-fingerings for all notes?

On the low octave it doesn’t show a cross-fingering for the D#/Eb, F, or G#/Ab. And it shows a cross-fingering for an A# and half-holing for a Bb but I’m guessing they are close enough for government work?

On the higher register it doesn’t show cross-fingering for the D#/Eb, F, but it does for the G#/Ab (again assuming that they are close enough); this is the case for the A#/Bb in the higher octave as well.

Course I’m still having trouble getting past G in the high octave, but I’m working on it…

Thanks,
Tony

2

Hi Tony.
I don’t know what flute you have, but flutes with larger holes are generally quite tough to cross-finger nicely on. The old style Baroque flutes are better, they have smaller holes.
There is no way to cross finger Eb. There just isn’t anything to cross finger on. You would have to half hole that one. Then there is F natural. The only way possible would be:
X
X
X
X
O
X
But I don’t know how well that would work on your flute.
Keyless flutes are generally diatonic, so if you think you need to play strange key’s, your best choice would be to get a keyed one, or a good Barocue traverso.

3

I usually use
x
x
0
x
x
x
for G#,
x
0
x
x
x
x
for Bb

It works reasonably.

Cheers