I suppose this question could apply to any woodwind instrument, but in my case it's about the recorder. As I begin to struggle with Baroque concertos and sonatas, I'm starting to realize that I really need a comprehensive knowledge of all the many alternate fingerings for the recorder. I have the charts, etc., but the prospect of stuffing all these patterns into my head is a daunting one, especially knowing which fingering makes sense for a given situation. And there's not enough free margin in the world to scribble all those little drawings onto my sheet music....

What has your experience been with learning alternate fingerings? Did you just pick them up on a need-to-know basis one painful moment at a time, or did you make an effort to learn every fingering for each note all at one go so you could simply go forward and sight-read with ease?

I've played the recorder only a little, but the only time I really took note of alternate fingerings is when I tried to play a legato passage that was just awkward with standard fingering, i.e., it required lifting and lowering fingers (maybe all) simultaneously instead of just lowering OR lifting, which is easy. Then I looked at the charts and figured something out.

On the tin whistle, this would be sometimes cross-fingering C-nat or half-holing it. Or raising the top finger (or not) for middle D.

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Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. (Anything is more impressive if you say it in Latin)

As you play what you will discover is that your mind and fingers will both accommodate and remember these fingerings without anything from you other than trying them out repetitively. Some call it "muscle memory', but it's more accurately named autonomic response, like blinking your eyes or breathing. It's like when you've peeled an orange often enough you don't need to look at it anymore to do it.

This comes up more with recorder than whistle IMHO and having matriculated from recorder to whistle many years ago, after suffering through that same struggle with renaissance and baroque music you mentioned, I speak from some experience. The first of two ways I found to learn these alternate fingerings was to break the tune/song down into sections while learning or relearning it. I'd play say two to four bars at a time and whenever I came to a tricky transition between notes I'd insert one or more of these alternate fingerings and try it a few times to see if it made the transition easier. As I felt comfortable with the change, I'd put the earlier learned sections together with the new fingering to see if it felt more natural.

The second way is to find experienced players commentary about playing complex tunes. One may find these during interviews, seminars or recorded/transcribed master classes or even album liner notes. I found this very helpful at times.

good luck,
ecohawk

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"Never get one of those cheap tin whistles. It leads to much harder drugs like pipes and flutes." - anon