on flute meeting harry played barndance with high e note. wich is best fingering for this note? i never before need that note, and i am not satisfied with xxxxxo fingering and overblowing.suggestions?
marin
On some flutes xxo oxx works well. See also Terry McGee’s fingering charts on his web page.
Hugh
Just tried that fingering on my Doyle right now, and works great! That is about a poifect flute…
M
Edited to add that all these seem tough to get on my Hammy, but
Still working on toughening up the emboucher.
well ,here is midnight now , so i will must wait until morning to check your fingering..
marin
Another to try is xxo xxo , usually it will work if xxo oxx won’t.
If neither works well, there is still one more that may work: oxx oxo
–James
I would try Flutefly’s suggestion and go to Terry Mcgee’s site. Flutes may vary. XXOOOX is what I am use to from the fife and seems to work for me on the flute, but if that is way too sharp XXOXOX may also work but it is probably closer to D#.
F# Seems right with XOXXOO
and G at XOXOOO might be do-able, but A still seems out of tune for me and have yet to get B to work with XOXOXO. Not that there is any need to go above G (nor do I think the flutes were designed for such use).
Good luck!
Hmm, I’ll have to try peeplj’s XXOXXO
Does anybody know how to get the third octave Fnat?
How about G#?
JS Bach wrote in a 3rd octave A for the baroque flute, and his sons did too. It’s routine for baroque flute players to play all the chromatics to the 3rd octave G. My own Folkers and Powell after Thomas Lot (1720) does fine up to G, but I’ve never got anything but high hissing sound for third octave A. Remember that by the early 1800s we are talking the flutes used by Beethoven, Mendelsohn and early romantics. Flute players were expected to play up there. But also remember, they were playing on keyed flutes, and venting the keys can help a lot to bring wayward notes into pitch. So you should look at the charts on the McGee site for keyed flutes if you play one.
For a third octave F you could try xoxxox. It’s very muffled on a baroque flute, and likely not flat enough on an Irish flute, since its lower counterpart xxx xox is pretty hopeless on most flutes I’ve tried.
Jim, I’ll go look through my collection of baroque flute fingering charts to see if I can find a G# for a keyless flute, but don’t recollect one.
Hugh
For G# OOXOOO or OOXOOX is probally as close as you will get.
It seems the same for the fife and the traverso.
Thanks, everybody. I have to figure out how to
read Terry’s charts. Obviously people did
this on the old Rudalls. Chris N does it now.
I do have keys.
I use both XXO XXO and XXO OXX, depending on the flute.
I can hit a high A on most of my flutes using OXX XXO.
G#, OOX OOO
Fnat is a toughie. The only flute on which I can get it well in tune right now is the Noy with its (less than one-week-old, yay!) foot key. It’s perfect with XXO XOO k. I know the all-wood Olwell has a good third-octave Fnat, but I can’t remember what it is.
I can get a good high Bflat and even B on the Noy now. XXO XOO and XOO XOO k .
Thanks. Best wait till morning to try these.
What, ya mean ya don’t like having the whole neighborhood, not to mention untold cats and dogs, telling you to shut up?
Looking through more of Mr. McGee’s finger charts.
Some things I just have problems comprehending.
D4 to A7 for example. I don’t care where the cork is.
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/5keys.pdf
I really need a sound clip of that.
Just to agree with earlier posters:
G# oox ooo
F xxo xoo key open (not what I said previously…)
I have a French chart from about 1730 that optimistically gives fingerings above third octave A. It does say that these notes are only obtainable on
bass flutes or “flutes d’amour” (alto flutes), but some ordinary flutes will go this high (Les tons suivants ne se trouvent que surs les flutes d’amour et les Flutes de Baffe, quelques flutes ordinaires montnet jusqu’au si).
Bflat xxo xoo
B x half hole o xoo
C xox oxo
C# x half hole o xoo (yes, same as the B)
or oox oxo
D oxx xxx
Hugh
oh boy oh boy!
The thing I have found with my playing is that I do not like to use a higher notes in a tune unless I can hit a note or two above it. This may just be a learning thing for me, but if I cannot play hi B 95% of the time, I know that I will not have enough control over A to adjust its volume and perhaps I should only play tunes that go to G. So it is back to practicing the scales and arpeggios. I think that when I hit the third “C” or perhaps the fourth “D” on the fife I will have all the range a sane person could want.
Still trying to get the high B in song #1 to sound sweet on this page
http://www.fifedrum.org/resources/music/be/50.shtml
It is a fun tune do to having notes like A#, D#, and E# that are less common in other songs, but this also make it difficult to play in the lower two octaves.
I routinely play tunes that use the high octave and go up to G. I have played the high A but it’s very rare.
Ironically, it’s more common for me to play in 3rd octave on whistle than flute, going for a kind of fife and drum effect on a few tunes like Brighten Camp.
–James
No one has yet suggested the high Fnat fingering:
X/O OXO
/ = vented/ half-hole
(which is really just the High E with the 2nd hole vented)
Works on the fife, though a bit fuzzy, and I think I’ve gotten it out of my Healy flute as well (though I’m a bit fuzzy on that)
That’s the one I use unless it’s a simple system flute that doesn’t sound right. Even then it’s sort of a programmed thing and I find I’ll do it if I’m playing fast.