Your flute players will sound better (and your local flute instructors will love you) if you are diligent about making sure your students use these correct fingerings:
- Teaching first finger up for middle D and Eb. Why? With first finger down, it is considered a harmonic fingering. There is an added undertone in the color of the note. Effectively, lifting the first finger acts as an octave key for these two notes resulting in a clearer and more open sound.
- Using the right pinky or Eb (D#) consistently, especially for E natural and F# (Gb), but also for every note except D. Two reasons: the E natural and F# will be flat and have a dull color without the Eb key, and the Eb provides a fulcrum to help balance the flute in the hands. Notice I didn’t say anything about “holding” the instrument. More on this in another post.
- Using the correct fingering for F# (Gb), which is T123|003Eb, not T123|020Eb. Why? As with #2, the middle finger F# has a duller color and is a little flat. Though it is the main fingering for F# on saxophone, it is primarily a trill fingering on flute. It is to be avoided for all but the fastest passages or trills.
- Teaching that third octave fingerings are different than the lower two octaves. Why? The cross fingerings of the third octave are actually combining the overtone series of two different notes (for example, the high E is a combination of the fingerings for E and A), thereby reinforcing the sound and stabilizing the pitch. In most cases it is completely unnecessary to teach so-called fake fingerings (harmonic fingerings) to play in the third octave through high school. The difficulty level of the literature simply doesn’t warrant using these fingerings.
- Correct fingering for D above the staff is T023|000Eb, never T023|123 or worse, T123|123. Same reasoning as #1. The incorrect fingerings are harmonics and drastically change the color, and sometimes pitch, of the note.
- One last weird one I run into sometimes in my studio — fingering high F T103|103Eb. I’m not sure where this comes from. Is this in a band method book? The correct fingering is T103|100Eb. It flattens the pitch some and seems to be an obstacle to facility in the third octave.
What references do I recommend regarding flute fingerings? The Woodwind Fingering Guide at http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/flute/ and the old standby “A Modern Guide to Fingerings for the Flute by James Pellerite, published by Zalo Publications.
If you find these entries helpful, please subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Comments and questions always welcome.
Dr. Cate's Flute Tips 
Hey Cate, in response, I often teach high F as T103|103 because T103|100 can be so ungodly sharp, especially on student and intermediate model flutes. It’s an intonation problem we always run into in my adult band when the flutes use the traditional fingerings. It seems like to amount of adjusting of the embouchure can get that note in tune.
Also third octave F# is better in tune with T103|020 on student and intermediate (and even some professional) model flutes.
Lastly, like a hundred years ago when the Rubank books were first published, the fourth octave Bb was indicated as T100|1’00 (that little tick is trill key 1), but it should have been T000|1’00. This mistake seems to be working itself out, but it was a pretty common error when I was in HS.
I know you were probably trying to stick to 5. I just thought those two are worth adding.
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Thanks, Laura, for explaining your rationale for using the T103|103Eb fingering. It makes sense. Hopefully as more beginner flutes improve their scales, this kind of cheat will become unnecessary. I think using this fingering dulls the tone color too much for my taste despite the pitch advantage. It’s about picking the lesser of two evils.
As for using middle finger F# in the third octave, I do prefer this fingering myself. Plan is to have another post on third octave fingerings to correct pitch.
And yes, I had to unlearn the old Rubank fingering for high Bb as well. I was weaned on those books, on my own and without a teacher before college. Problem with the Rubank fingering is the correct high Bb fingering is already flat and adding the first finger makes it worse.
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Agree on all points! But these days, when I’m working with in particular high school students who are excelling in youth symphony or they’re in leadership positions in their home band program, I teach them the when/why about alternate fingerings such as R2 for F#3; the R1+R3 for the F3, and no pinky on E3, for instance, so that they can help their sections (or themselves) find common intonation amongst other students (be they flute or other instruments in the band) who’s manner of creating their tone is not proper enough to make good intonation on problem notes so feasible. So, I’m there with you, Laura! There’s the big problem in the intonation in these developing groups: incorrect tone production. Fed by the matter that probably numerous of the other students are not taking lessons. So the best fix is actually changing how those students blow their instrument; in lieu of that especially with a concert or competition coming up … an alternate fingering. Hopefully we the teachers (of the ones who study) affirm to those students, and then our students to their colleagues, that this is alternative choice fingering, not the primary one!
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Re: #3, My teacher, who is a flutist with “the” large symphony in central TX, teaches all of her students to use the “incorrect” fingering, T123|020Eb because the correct one is too sharp. We just discussed this in lesson this week. I remembered reading this article last year (or the year before), so I asked her thoughts about it and she confirmed that the incorrect fingering is the one she herself uses for the most part as well.
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I should have read the other replies before commenting! I see you already addressed this!! 🙂
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Thanks for you comment. Yes, in the third octave, I use middle finger F# almost exclusively, though sometimes there is not way to avoid using the so called “correct” fingering. The sharpness of the “correct” fingering is almost unbearable.
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