Recently I received a question from a colleague regarding B-flat fingerings:
“I was taught to use the one and one fingering as my primary fingering for B-flat. I cannot recall a single instance of any of my flute teachers ever even suggesting the use of the thumb B-flat for use as a primary fingering. After much thought, I decided to try teaching the thumb B-flat as the primary fingering for B-flat for everything except chromatic passages. Should the B-flat thumb be used for chromatic passages instead of the one and one fingering?”
My answer went something like this:
The one-and-one fingering (left hand index finger and left hand index finger) is the basic fingering for B-flat and should be used in all instances except when it behooves the player to use the B-flat thumb, for instance when playing in a key with no B-naturals or third octave F#'s.
The history of the key dates back to the 1840’s. Most of us know the name Theobald Böehm (1794-1881) who’s mechanical discoveries of a key system for the flute were so important that they continue to be used to this day. Born in Munich, Böehm was a talented goldsmith and skilled at the mechanical arts. He also served as a flutist in the Royal Bavarian Court. His workshop was in his own home and he worked to design and build a more mechanically superior flute. By 1847, his flutes were being imported to New York City and were adopted as the official instrument of the Paris Conservatory. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Böehm flute provided musicians of the time the means to advance technically. Composers such as Brahms, Strauss, and Tchaikovsky utilized the flute in their scores. This was also a time of rapidly expanding solo literature and showpieces becoming the fashion.
Guilio Briccialdi (1818 – 1881), composer and flute professor in Florence, invented the B-flat key and Böehm added this feature to his flute. I heard a story when I was in school that the professors at the Paris Conservatory would not allow the students to use this new gimmick until they had mastered the use of the usual one-and-one fingering of the B-flat. I can’t find any information to substantiate this claim, but it is an interesting idea.
There of course is the B-flat lever to really screw things up too! I use this fingering in many instances because it seems a bit more in tune and I can play certain phrases more smoothly. I always play this key with the side of my right index finger rather than the tip so that I don’t pull my fingers out of position to reach the key.
Fingerings on the flute are often a suggestion rather than mandatory. For instance, I always play my third octave A-flat adding right two and three. It's in tune, it's easier and has a clearer sound. I have shared this fingering with students as an alternate or suggested fingering and we check how it works for them on their flute. It's impractical to expect a band director to teach all of the alternate fingerings, but it might be useful to give the “standard” fingerings and then suggest that there are alternates and they can be used. The three B-flat fingerings, however, are not alternates but all true fingerings so it is a matter of what sort of technique one wants to teach.
If a student were taught to use the B-flat thumb fingering all the time, they would need to learn to slide the thumb along the two keys of B-flat and B-natural. My personal feeling is that sliding is not such a hot idea. The left hand is already under a lot of stress from it's awkward twisted position. A flutist runs the risk of cramping and causing pain to the left hand and we need all the strength from the left hand thumb that we can get. It is interesting to note that Böehm’s original flutes had a crutch built on the flute for the left hand to create even more ease and fluidity in the use of the fingers!
So to (finally) answer this question: do teach all three fingerings for B-flat. Demonstrate the use of them and their advantages in certain passages. Encourage the decision-making processes of your students to find these places in the music they are learning and mark in which fingering they will use.
