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Historical Fingerings, Practical Choices
There is rarely just one way to finger a note on the traverso.
Historical fingering charts — from Hotteterre and Quantz to Tromlitz and later nineteenth-century methods — reveal a remarkably varied world of solutions, shaped by different instruments, pitches, temperaments and musical styles. Not every historical fingering works equally well on the modern copies we play today, but this variety remains one of the traverso’s great resources: a different fingering can change intonation, response, resonance and colour, or simply make a difficult passage work better. The Traverso Fingering Hub brings these possibilities into everyday practice. At its centre is the fingering app developed by Karl Kaiser and Benjamin Mordmüller, combining evidence from historical sources with practical solutions tested on modern copies of one-keyed flutes. Start with the Basics, then explore Alternatives and Specials when a note, trill or passage asks for something different. Rather than prescribing one “correct” fingering, the aim is to give you a practical set of options — and encourage you to try, listen, compare and choose what works best on your flute and in the music you are playing. And this is only the starting point: the Hub will gradually and collaboratively bring together further practical ideas, historical insights, examples and contributions exploring the many ways fingering can become an active part of traverso practice. |
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Listen to the same note or passage played with different fingerings, and compare colour, response, intonation and character.
Alternative fingerings need not be only solutions to technical or intonation problems. They can also become expressive choices.
Listen to what changes when the fingering changes while pitch, dynamic and articulation remain as similar as possible.
The same pitch is played here with three alternative fingerings.
Compare pitch, resonance, attack, resistance and tonal character rather than looking only for the most “in-tune” option.
Two historical fingerings for the same note can produce noticeably different results.
Listen for differences in colour, stability, intonation and response — and for the way each fingering connects with the surrounding notes.
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Explore different fingering solutions for a note, trill or passage, and see how each choice can affect intonation, articulation, fluency and expression.
A fingering that works beautifully on an isolated note may behave very differently when that note becomes part of a rapid passage.
Here we compare three possible solutions, looking at finger movement, response, intonation and the musical shape of the passage as a whole.
The most convenient fingering for a sustained note is not necessarily the best choice when the note carries a trill.
Compare alternative fingerings by considering not only the main note, but also the speed, clarity and character of the ornament.
There may be no single “best” fingering for a note. The notes immediately before and after it can change which solution works most naturally.
Try the alternatives in the complete phrase and notice how each affects connection, articulation, colour and ease of movement.
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Go further with historical sources, unusual fingerings, practical observations, new experiments and updates from the Fingering Hub.
Historical fingering charts are more than lists of ways to produce particular pitches. They can reveal how players understood the possibilities and limitations of their instruments.
Compare charts from different sources and look for both recurring solutions and significant differences.
Different eighteenth-century sources do not always give the same fingering for the same pitch.
Putting those alternatives side by side can reveal differences in instrument design, musical priorities and the practical choices available to historical players.
Alternative fingerings were part of the practical vocabulary of the one-keyed flute, helping players negotiate intonation, tonal colour, technical situations and differences between instruments.
Exploring them can therefore tell us something not only about fingering, but about how the instrument itself was expected to behave.
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Benjamin Mordmüller
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