half holing G# and F-Nat

Irish Flute
1

I’ve been working on this since moving to a keyless flute as my session partner-of-choice. C-Nat I have a thumbhole for and the cross fingerings work well too, but F-Nat and G# don’t cross finger well on the large holes of my new Windward Prattenesque flute. By that I mean that the notes that come out are not flat enough… And I use those two regularly in our session repertoire. (Comes from getting used to a keyed flute first…)

(“A hole” means the hole which, when open, sounds the A)

So I’ve had to work on my half holing of these two notes and I’d like your opinions of what I do and suggestions for other ways to do it:

G# coming from above, I seem to have it most under control with my normal finger curvature, but extending the gap between my long and ring finger, ie opening the upper side of the A hole, on the side nearer my body.

G# coming from below, the same seems to work well, but here I also have some success with the straightening of my ring finger, so that the side of the A hole nearest my body is open. It does however require preparation, since it is a long way from my normal position on the hole to the point where the hole starts to be opened.

F-Nat - The only one I can get to work at all well is moving the ring finger up the flute towards the right long finger, opening the bottom edge of the F# hole. Works fine from below, but I can’t hit the F coming from above reliably. The distance between my normal finger position on the hole here and where a straightened finger would start to uncover is even further than on G#, so the straightening the finger technique doesn’t work well for me here.

(B-flat I rarely need, but works fine with the cross fingerings anyway. E-flat I am not even going to worry about trying to find…)

It is a big holed flute with slightly ergonomic offsetting and not a particularly long reach and I have quite large hands and use the classical grip on the flute. (because it works for me! :boggle: )

Thanks for any tips or advice.

'bye,

Chris.
:boggle:

2

Very much FWIW.

For Gsharp, I use your first method entirely. Works well
but takes practice. A scales up and down the flute
are helpful. This actually is kind of satisfying to
half hole.

F natural–I rock the finger forward on the outside edge
of the flute. I’m not too happy with the result and would
welcome options.

Bb is easy, IMO. I aim for the downside edge of the hole.
L2 comes rt down on that edge, smack dab in the
middle of the finger.
I find this perhaps better than using a key, because
I can shade the note by rocking on the hole, which is helpful cause I’m
sometimes playing blues.

Eb. I basically put R3 straight down beside the hole, just
below it, so that the low edge of hole creases the top
edge of R3. This does work. It takes a good deal of
patient practice, however a half-holed Eb is not
impossible.

My chief problem is F natural.

3

Hey Chris,

I consider G# the Achilles Heel of simple system flutes. :confused:

I have qualms with using half-holing. I can’t produce consistent results and often the tone when on pitch seems to weak.

What I’ve found working the best for myself is a combination of cross-fingering and “Veiling”.

What I mean by “Veiling” is a finger hovering above the tonehole (~5 mm) or laying my finger on the flute body to the side of the tonehole (like Jim describes doing for Eb), either of these very slightly flatten the note.

So for F natural on large holed flutes I use: XXX XVX where the typical XXX XOX won’t work.

And for G# I use: XXV XXX or XXV XXO if XXO XXX doesn’t work. I’m still not entirely satisfied by this result.


Even on keyed flutes I still use the veiled cross-fingering for F natural often. The B-Part of The Galway Reel comes to mind. I can’t play it smoothly with the short F-key and honestly I’ve never learned to use the long-F. Though I have tried to use it playing this tune, I still found the V-cross fingering works smoother.

Just adding another Wild-Card to your deck of playing tricks. See what works best for you.

All the Best!