I learned to play whistle anchoring the bottom of the
whistle with my right hand ring finger, not my pinky.
This worked quite well and often simplified fingering.
Now that I’m mostly playing flute I’ve switched to
my right hand pinky, however the ring finger sometimes creeps
in too by way of habit. Also when I play the Bb flute,
I find the addition of the ring finger a positive help
in handling the thing. I use both fingers simultaneously
This, of course, keeps alive
the habit when I’m playing the D flute.
I can’t see or hear any bad consequence of playing
this way, and I wonder if this is something I should
live with or break? Any of you more experienced
folks have some advice? Thanks
I hold the flute like this as well, there is enough venting on my large holed flutes, but I wonder if it’s enough when you go to a smaller bore? sooner or later I’ll play a flute that will need the Eb for tuning and it will suck, to have to relearn this.
I play my Baroque flute like this as well.
I drop the ring finger on whistles, but I keep my little finger on the Eb key on my keyed flutes. On keyless flutes, I drop the ring finger. With my hand shape and angle, I cannot get enough contact with the little finger without the key unless I significantly change hand position.
It took a little getting used to at first, but now I switch back and forth without even thinking about it.
Jim
I started out using my left pinky because I was too impatient to do finger stretches and now without having done any stretch exercises can play without the pinky if I concentrate . I need left and right pinkies for the Sunreed bamboo flute! However , now in an effort to learn the one keyed Aulos Grenser the pinky seems to need reprograming to get it to its appointed place on time{ the key }. The ring finger can now make the stretch but it needs to develop its "muscle memory " . On bamboo and my unkeyed flutes I let the pinky do its usual work on its E hole.
Best
Bruce