Hello,
how do you play e d B ? I have so much trouble coming from the e with R3 up to d with L1 up and all others down, then to B with R1 down and all others up. Second measure of Gravel Walk for instance.
Cheers,
Steve
Well,
here is were there is a difference in opinion. For me I just keep the L1 down for the D since you are blowing by that note anyway. Some argue that it still needs to be vented but I personally don’t agree. See what you think about the choice to not vent the D.
I play it like Josh. (Gee, it felt good to say that! 
).
Sure, you can fudge it without noticeably deleterious effect, but just a little perseverance and practice will get you able to use the vented 2nd 8ve D “correct” fingering in almost all contexts and passing combinations, just as you can learn Eb key little finger technique etc… Although I never went beyond beginner’s level on it, the fact I learnt Boehm flute first meant I already had those habits firmly ingrained when I approached whistles and simple system flutes - and I sure saw no reason to drop them. They are after all the historically standard things to do…(no, I don’t mean Eb key on whistle, before anyone chips in 
), not just Boehmian aberrations. Let’s face it, every quasi-competent school-band 8-14-year-old little girl flute player who’ll never touch a flute again past age 16 and who can only play from the dots can do those fingering combinations…they’re no big deal. If you work at making them habitual both in specific excercise type practise (not absolutely necessary) and in tune contexts consciously and meticulously for a couple of weeks, maybe less, they’ll crack for you and you’ll be able to do 'em ever after - like riding a bike.
I must say I find myself baffled by folks’ common wimpishness on things like this. They’re basics that are only “difficult” briefly if you apply yourself to them. Why fudge something that is an elementary part of playing your chosen instrument? In the longer term you need to conquer these kinds of complex, high-speed co-ordinated finger patterns to play proficiently - so work at it - you won’t regret it! If, once you CAN do things like this, as a more advanced player you find specific contexts where a deliberately chosen “fudge” is beneficial, that is a rather different position from just not bothering to learn “properly” because you find it a bit tricky at an early stage in your development… If you don’t work yourself through problems like this (which are common and which we all encounter, if not all of us exactly the same ones), you will actually preserve them in your playing and build up a barrier to progress.
P.S. I just checked, and I do play the standard, vented D fingering in The Gravel Walk context mentioned. Those finger-swaps are so ingrained they take no thought whatever - and I’m no genius flute/whistle player! You just have to do the work to get them ingrained. All the usual slow practice repetitions etc. and the stuff I said above… One other after-thought, though - the old standard, oft-discussed issues with postural tension and lack of confidence in the security of your support of your instrument (whatever it is) are particularly injurious to over-the-break fingering changes and L-hand mobility - so if a bit of serious practice of the finger changes still leaves you struggling, you may benefit from self-analysis/obesrvation on those points, and/or from a lesson or two to examine them.
Well, I figured that was going to be the result… 
I did try the unvented method, works well… but as Jem said, I should play it the right way, and I should just practice getting it right, because after all that is the way it is meant to be played. I just need to work that into muscle memory also.
Thanks to everyone that responded.
Cheers,
Steve
I stuck to it last night for a bit of intense practicing, and found that the combination will work at speed just fine. But it was frustrating as anything at first.
I suppose that one can play it either way, and most will not notice it.
I did find that I noticed a bit of difference though, and will try to play as it should be played.
Cheers,
Steve
Attaboy! 
As I hope I implied in my previous contributions here, it’s not so much whether it sounds noticeably different or that it matters to be “correct” for the sake of that itself that is significant here, but rather that as a player you develop the control and facility with the norms of the instrument as a foundation for and to have options within advanced technique, and in order to be able to do things the optimum way when when a fudge is noticeably inferior.
A bit more practice like last night’s over the next week or so, and then being conscious of similar patterns in other contexts when they crop up and being sure to apply your new technique to them, and you’ll have cracked it permanently. You’ve done the first hard part - and I guess it wasn’t sooooo bad? The next hard thing is to apply it in your existing repertory where necessary - using it in new-learn won’t be such a problem.
I understood what you meant, and I should have known better, but I wondered what others did in that case.
I don’t think it was that difficult at all, when I started to practice just that combination and work it until it was easier, it fell into place in the tune quite easily.
Cheers,
Steve