Commonly-fudged woodwind fingerings

ByBret Pimentel

Beginning woodwind players, including doublers, sometimes cheat a bit on fingerings, using fingerings that are almost right. If you’re doing this, it’s likely that you have notes with poor tone, intonation, and/or response. If you think you are getting away with it, you’re probably mistaken, and you may be cementing bad habits that are going to become even more apparent as aspects of your tone production improve.

Flute

The most common culprits at a beginning or intermediate level are the right-hand pinky and the left-hand first finger.

  • The pinky should stay down for virtually every standard fingering, with the exceptions being anything below the low D, anything above the high (4th-ledger-line) A, and the D in the staff. This is not only crucial to the pitch and tone of many notes (you’ll hear it as your embouchure improves!), but also helps to stabilize the instrument.
  • The left-hand first finger must lift for second-octave D and E-flat. You can probably make the notes respond without doing so, but you’ll sound better and struggle less if you do it right.

Make your own diagrams with the Fingering Diagram Builder

Oboe

It’s tempting to be a bit lazy with the various octave mechanisms: the half-hole, the first (thumb) octave key, and the second (side) octave key. Practice slowly and carefully:

  • Open the half-hole (and no octave keys) for second-octave C-sharp, D, and E-flat.
  • Press the first octave key (and close the half-hole) for E through G-sharp.
  • Press the second octave key (and release the first!) for A through C.

Clarinet

  • Be fastidious about using the pinky A-flat/E-flat key in the altissimo register (third-octave D and above). Remember not to use this key for the C-sharp, as it makes this note much too high. Practice slow high-register scales to solidify a good altissimo pinky habit.
  • Also, break the habit of using more pinkies than necessary. It’s common in beginning band method books to teach that B above the break requires the left-pinky B key and the right-pinky C key. It doesn’t. It’s a convenient shortcut when playing a C-major scale, but for intermediate and advanced clarinet playing, you will need to be more thoughtful and efficient about how you use your fingers.

Bassoon

The bassoon’s tremendous flexibility is a blessing and a curse. In many cases, if you get a little lost in the maze of fingerings, an almost-right fingering will sort of work, but if you create a habit of sloppy technique you’ll get stuck on slurs that won’t quite connect, articulations that won’t respond clearly, or notes that are out of tune or lacking in resonance.

  • Be very aware of the left-hand first-finger “half”-hole technique. It’s not as simple as opening 50% of the hole—the actual amount varies with the note you are playing. Experiment to find optimal placement for response and pitch.
  • Watch the left-hand E-flat key and the whisper key—these can be mistaken for optional on some notes, but they really do contribute to reliable response and tuning.
  • Brush up your flicking technique, and use it religiously.

Saxophone

The saxophone’s relatively modern keywork provides some advantages in terms of simplicity and clarity of fingerings, and in most cases an inaccurate fingering will be noticeable enough that beginners are unlikely to develop more than a few habitual fingering mistakes.

  • Do be certain to add keys in the range just above C-sharp: add the D key for D, plus the E-flat key for E-flat, and so forth. Pressing the high E-flat, E, F, or F-sharp keys without the supporting palm keys in place results in flatness.

It’s much easier to set good habits now than to break them later. Take your time developing solid, clean, accurate finger technique.

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    My answer to this is simple.

    If it’s a good day, then my favorite is the one I’m playing.

    If it’s a bad day, then my favorite is any one but the one I’m playing.

  • Woodwind instrument “care kits” are bad news

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    Congratulations on your new student-level flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, or saxophone! Your music store’s friendly sales associate (or your online retailer’s auto-suggest software) is probably insisting that you purchase a “care kit” as well. This kit ostensibly contains all the items you need to keep your new instrument working well and looking shiny. I recommend that you do not buy it, because it is, at best, a waste of your money, and, at worst, a hazard to the instrument’s wellbeing.

    photo, Greg Williams
    photo, Greg Williams

    Here are some of the items that frequently appear in these terrible kits:

    • Polishing cloths. Chemicals or polishes (liquid or embedded in cloths) can gum up pads and mechanisms. Students can “polish” their instruments with a soft, dry cloth, like a piece of an old t-shirt. Your repairperson can remove the keys and do a more thorough polishing safely.
    • Swabs. Woodwind instruments should definitely have swabs, but beware the kinds in these kits.
      Silk is preferable for pull-through swabs (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone) because it is absorbent and compressible, so it’s less likely to get stuck inside the instrument than a cheaper felt swab. Even for a student instrument, it’s worth a few extra dollars to get silk.

      "headjoint swabs"
      “headjoint swabs”

      For flutes, avoid “headjoint swabs” that are little oddly-shaped pieces of chamois (or a synthetic version), unless you want to have to fish them out of the headjoint every time you try to use them. Instead, use the cleaning rod that came with the flute, plus a strip of fabric cut from an old bed sheet.
      The fuzzy “cleaning” brushes that look like giant pipe cleaners, that you insert and leave inside the instrument, do exactly the wrong thing by keeping all the moisture inside the instrument, instead of wiping it out like a good swab does.

    • Cork grease. Yes, for instruments with parts that friction-fit together with cork, such as clarinets, oboes, and saxophones. Flutes don’t have any corked joints (though some piccolos do). Some bassoons have corked fittings, but some have thread wrappings instead. Use cork grease on cork only—never on thread-wrapped or metal-to-metal joints.
    • Screwdrivers. Yikes! Woodwind instruments often have “adjustment” screws. Bored students and well-meaning dads can’t resist just tightening everything up, just to make sure. This leaves the instrument in unplayable condition, and only a professional can put those adjustment screws back just right.
    • Reed guards/cases. Yes! Keeping reeds in one of these generally keeps them intact and in playing condition for longer than the disposable ones that the reeds come in. Those little plastic or cardboard sleeves that clarinet and saxophone reeds come in don’t keep them flat when they dry. And oboe and bassoon reeds often come in tubes that are too flimsy for regular use, or hinged plastic cases that come apart in the instrument’s case, leaving the reeds to bounce around unprotected.
    • Mouthpiece brushes. These are basically little vegetable brushes, with scratchy synthetic bristles and the dreaded twisted-wire core, much too aggressive for cleaning clarinet and saxophone mouthpieces. Instead, try a gentle rinse with room-temperature water and a drop of mild dish detergent. Stephen Howard’s vinegar-and-cotton method is good for occasional deeper cleanings.
    • Neck or bocal brushes. Probably too aggressive for use on these particularly delicate and crucial instrument parts. Plus, a strong risk of getting something stuck.
    • “Tone hole cleaners.” These are usually garden-variety pipe cleaners. Tone hole cleaning isn’t a task for beginners to do. The pipe cleaners’ twisted-wire cores can damage toneholes, the instrument’s bore, or pads.
    • “Pad papers.” It’s really tempting to use a lot of pressure with these, which can distort pads and cause leaks. Some are coated with a powder—these operate on the same principle as getting some gum stuck on your shoe, then stepping in some dirt so the gum won’t keep sticking to the sidewalk when you walk.Pad papers and other powder treatments should be an emergency treatment applied wisely and carefully by a knowledgeable musician, not a daily treatment applied badly by a student.
    • Key-dusting brushes. Gently removing some dust from the instrument’s mechanism isn’t an all-bad idea, but be advised that it’s easy to knock springs and things out of place. The brushes in these kits usually have twisted-wire cores, which can scratch instruments’ finishes. Instead, consider using cheap kids’ watercolor paintbrushes. Or, even better, make sure the instrument gets professional maintenance and cleaning at least once a year.
    • Key oil. No, no, no. This is a job for a professional to do. Besides, the kind in these care kits is usually cheap 3-in-1-type oil. Even if applied properly, it tends to drip back out of the keywork onto fingers, or worse, pads.
    • Bore oil. Absolutely not. Using this at all (only in wooden instruments) is controversial. When you bring it in for its annual maintenance, your repairperson can apply bore oil properly and safely if they deem it necessary. (My opinion: if in doubt, don’t bother.)
    • Care manuals. These are generally provided to justify the other items in the care kit.

    Skip the care kit—they are a way for retailers to squeeze a few more dollars out of you at purchase, and then more when you bring the instrument back in to fix the damage you have done with your brushes and oils and screwdrivers.

  • What are registers?

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    “Registers” are a tricky concept in woodwind playing. Here’s how they work.

    For simplicity’s sake, let’s say I am playing a flute with a C footjoint. If I finger a low C, that closes all the instrument’s toneholes and produces a C4:

    Make your own woodwind fingering diagrams: fingering.bretpimentel.com

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    And starting the third register on D6 with an adapted “G” fingering raises this question again, but with an even larger gap. What about third-register notes using the fingerings from “low C” up to “F-sharp?” The answer is that those fingerings work, too (producing G up to C-sharp, an octave plus a fifth above the corresponding low-register fingerings). But, again, they aren’t as useful because of their pitch, tone, and response characteristics.

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    The flute and most of the reed instruments follow the same pattern of registers: the second register is an octave above the first, and the third is a fifth above that. Additional registers above those are also used sometimes, spaced with increasingly small intervals. This series of intervals is a naturally-occurring phenomenon known as the harmonic series.

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    Don’t get me wrong; I love the saxophone’s expansive palette of tone colors, and will happily flutter-tongue or play multiphonics or whatever. But it’s nice to play a melody once in a while.

  • Joe the Musician: the first rule of woodwind doubling

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6 Comments

  1. Just a few oboe comments:
    The first octave key can be left down when using the second octave key. The mechanism for them automatically closes the first octave vent. This also means less finger movement when changing between necessary octave keys.

    Also: Know your F’s. There are 3 fingerings and all 3 should be used. And if your instrument has a forked F resonance mechanism (most intermediate and higher models do) then DO NOT press the Eb key with forked F. Many beginning band books show it this way, but it makes the note far too sharp to be usable.

    Reply

    1. You are correct that, for the semi-automatic octave key system popular in the US, you can keep the first octave key pressed while adding the second. And in certain cases this does mean less finger movement, but in other cases it doesn’t—I suggest considering simultaneous use of the octave keys as an alternate fingering to be used only in cases where the technical advantage is clear and reliable.

      And you are of course correct about the many F’s; see my previous blog post on that topic.

      Reply

  2. Might I also suggest that flutists watch out for F-sharp? Students frequently play this note with the right hand middle finger instead of the right hand ring finger. They think it doesn’t make a difference, but it does.

    Reply

  3. Bret,
    Can you please explain the first part of your statement about Saxophone:

    “Do be certain to add keys in the range just above C♯: add the D key for D, plus the E♭ key for E♭, and so forth…”

    Maybe it is because I do these things that I don’t understand what you are referring to… I mean, is there another way to play the notes above C# other than the spatula keys? Thanks for the explanation!

    Reply

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