These are passages from J.S. Bach's St. John Passion. We often have to play in flat keys in this piece, and should you have problems with the high Bb that it's too sharp, especially when you want to accent it, try using a kind of tonguing that's further back in the mouth to minimize the "explosion". Use a "D" and experiment with how far back you'd tongue and compare the effects. Also, a very slight nudge or "pump" of air would suffice and imagine using "warm" air rather than just sheer blowing "cold" air (the point is to decrease unnecessary pressure). There's no need to make this huge and it's more fun to be in tune with your oboe colleague.👌
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Another option might be even using A#, which will be lower in pitch. It'll probably be less useful here, but keep it in mind in other places and find out what works for YOU. Everyone and every flute is different, but knowing your options and finding your solutions is what makes baroque flute playing so exciting!🥳

We are once again slowly approaching the Easter season! I thought it would be useful to share one alternate fingering which I feel is an absolute must-know for baroque flutists. Namely, the second octave B-natural fingered as such: xoo xxx x

X means the hole is closed, which means for the key, you must not press on it.

When fingering this B with the standard fingering xoo ooo o, this note can be a little flat. The alternate fingering gives a higher pitch, and also allows us to play it with very little air, which makes blending with other instruments a lot easier. Make sure to bring down the pitch somewhat (using slow air) and since it speaks very easily, it's a great fingering to enable playing pianissimo AND not worry about being flat. The B can sit relaxed on top in delicate situations.

​One such delicate situation is the opening chorus of J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion, where the first flute part of both orchestras are in unison with the first oboe. We'll look at the bracketed passage specifically. Because of the quite exotic harmony and the presence of notes like A# and G#, this passage deserves special care in terms of intonation and sound color. It works best if you can imagine you're wrapping around the oboe sound or dissolving into it. I've found myself using the alternate fingering for all of the B's here, and sometimes also in m. 6. Practice this passage with a drone on B. If you can play it soft, well in focus, and in tune, you'll be on the good way to playing well with your oboe colleague. Your lips should feel overall soft, relaxed, and no need to squeeze or pinch. I imagine it might be similar to walking on a tight rope with much confidence. If your lips end up trembling (or also your airstream for that matter), it means that you haven't developed the necessary fine muscles yet. Be patient with yourself and just keep practicing to build up this inner strength, your body will need time to trust and internalize all this coordination between embouchure and air moderation.

I would also suggesting using Gb instead of F# when in combination with G#. (xxx oxx o, another great fingering to discuss another time!). This gives you the chance to use similar techniques for groups of notes so that you can play efficiently and not needing to adjust much. We can thus define this passage as generally needing very little air, slow air, drawing the lips forward for focus and bringing the pitch down. You may have to watch that the A# is not too low, it should suffice if you'd aim a little higher with your lips. Due to the nature of this note, keep it soft and diffused so that you're not competing with the oboe on it. It works best to just stay in the background. 

If you substitute the B natural with the regular fingering or use the regular F# along with G#, you'll have to make huge adjustments to compensate along the way, making this passage a clumsy act. We'd lose pureness, homogeneity, and flexibility in sound, which then causes difficulty to blend well with others. We always want to achieve the maximum with the minimum. 

Here's ​that (in)famous Nr. 26 in Bach's Christmas Oratorio III - so what's happening here is that the shepherds say to each other "Let us now go to Bethlehem to see what God has made known (the birth of Jesus)." It should show the joyful expectation of the people. The general performance tempo can vary quite a bit here and there are some very tricky passages for the flutes, which are in unison with the strings. So here are some of my tips for all flutists playing it this season, which I hope can help one or the other! 

- It's not a solo, but a musical backdrop that shows the excitement of the people. I personally don't think it should be super fast, but you may not have a say about that. There are many nice details in the entire passage, beautiful and surprising turns both in the harmonic and melodic material, which would be a pity to just rush and gloss over. The dynamic should be a very exciting piano, using articulation to delineate and carve out the fun shapes. Think of it like people chattering and getting ready to go to see something amazing. (perhaps also consider, the text says "go", and not "hurry" or "flee")

​- Make sure to keep the air flow constant, smooth, and slow enough for sound production. Due to nerves, we can easily tense up in the throat and then the air becomes kind of "crumbly", resulting in a loss of sound and ending up with only dull-sounding articulation noise. This may be hard to control and comes with performance practice, as the air speed goes easily up when we're stressed! 

- Don't forget to look up and breathe, always. 

Easter Season is in full swing and that means playing passions in Germany. This season I've got only J.S. Bach's St. John Passions, which has allowed me to look at the work in closer detail. Compared to the St. Matthew, the St. John is really "action-packed" and has a lot of rewarding passages for the flute. One of which is the famous (or infamous) 16ths which often accompany the crowd scenes in the storyline:

I believe amongst flutists, you're either in the camp of finding Nr. 16d (the longest of this kind of passage) really exciting or you loath it. I happen to find it exciting, but then again maybe it's because with the greatest luck so far, I haven't felt challenged by the tempo wished by the conductor (fingers crossed!!!). Listen on YouTube and you'll find a wide range of tempi, as well as tempi differing within the various moments that these 16ths appear in the entire work. 

I find it exciting because beyond the fact that the 16ths go on forever, it's such a great moment for getting your sound, breath work, and articulation right in line with each other. In my opinion, I don't think this should be super fast, because it would be such a pity to not be able to hear and be astounded by what incredible harmonies Bach has embedded here. Hence, it should be at a tempo where one could still single tongue, with lots of variety to create a wonderful light and shadow effect. 

I could easily write many entries about this passage, but let me get to the reason why I wanted to post today, which is about using the alternate B-natural fingering in the second register. It's fingered as such: xoo xxx x
An x means the finger is down. (and remember on the traverso, that means the key hole is open instead of closed)

The reason why this popped into my mind is because at our recent Matthew Passion workshop, we talked about how useful this fingering is, especially if one wants to have a very piano B-natural that blends well and is in tune with the others. In this particular passage in the St. John, it's useful because it's similar to the fingering of the neighbor note C-natural, notice how many right-hand notes can stay put between those two fingerings, including going on to the next note D-natural.

One aspect about finger technique to keep in mind is that anything involving the 4th finger can be a little challenging. This would be a great spot for the application of that B-natural fingering, and I just discovered it this season! However, understand also that using alternate fingerings is a very personal choice, what works well for one person won't necessarily mean the same for another. There are other times when I prefer to use the regular, perhaps somewhat more cumbersome fingering, because it helps me to slow down and not rush. Mostly, technical problems occur because we rush with our fingers.  

When making fingering decisions, whatever you decide, make sure you commit to your decision unless you have a very good reason to change it again. Don't confuse your fingers with too many options!

What's a favorite alternate fingering you like to use in this passage?