How can I find out which woodwind instruments have the same (or almost the same) fingering so it makes transitioning between those instruments easier?

Question

Just for fun, I want to begin learning woodwind instruments. Unfortunately, I have to put some financial constraints on that project. Therefore, I am looking into learning how to play the recorder, because it is a relatively inexpensive mistake to make - in case I fail. However, if I am at least semi-successful, I might want to get other instruments like a flute, clarinet or saxophone.

For this reason, I was thinking it would be a good idea to know which instruments share the same (or almost the same) fingering, so I will have it easier to transition between them. If I am getting a soprano recorder, for example, how can I find other matching woodwind instruments?

(Of course, I do realize that to know how to actually play an instrument, there is more to it than just the fingering. However, it has to make things easier, right? If I'm totally mistaken here, please let me know.)

Answer 1

Those wind instruments that are frequently "doubled" are usually the ones that have identical fingerings. For instance, the 2nd or 3rd flute in a professional orchestra will often alternate playing the piccolo part, because the piccolo is essentially a regular flute shrunk to half size (there are minor differences because not all parts of the full Böhm system can be miniaturized accurately). Similarly, the clarinet in B and A, but also in C and E flat and even the bass clarinet play almost identically.

In fact, not having to learn new fingerings when doubling is the major reason why many instruments use transposing notation in the first place - so whenever you find an instrument that is traditionally written as transposing, that is probably one of them.

Answer 2

Saxophones have the most similarities of fingerings. Alto and Tenor, and Bari, all have the same fingering concepts, and are widely used instruments. (Soprano seems to be an outlier in that family...)

Clarinets have similar fingerings, but the Bb clarinet is the only really common one of that family.

C flute and piccolo, as @Kilian Foth answered.

We could claim that, in principle, violin, viola, cello, and bass have the same fingering scheme... but, at the very least, the bass' open strings are a fourth apart, not a fifth.

I do not know about fingering system differences between "baritone" and "tuba/sousaphone".

Answer 3

Usually with most wind instruments the "basic" diatonic fingering is the same, but they will differ in how you play chromatic notes and how they overblow. Reed instruments with cylindrical bore like clarinets will behave like a closed flute and overblow into a 12th instead of an octave, which makes them somewhat harder to learn.

Thus regarding reed instruments I’d suggest going single reed (double reed is harder) and conical, which means something like Saxophone.

Answer 4

TLDR: get a good quality soprano baroque recorder. If at all possible book a few lessons with a teacher. And play at least 15 minutes every day.

The recorder family basically comes in two different fingering systems, generally known as the baroque fingering and the german respectively. There are subtle differences on some notes which may make you believe the German system to be easier, which is not. Tuning is generally better for the baroque fingering.

The recorder family basically comes in two different tunings, as a C instrument or as a F instrument. The F instruments are, in my mind at least, played transposed. So get a C instrument, a good starting point will be a Soprano recorder (the one about a foot long). It is tuned in C and when you see a C (sic) tone you play a C. The lowest note, all fingers is a C.

As for fingerings the second octave and above is different from the first octave, as for most wind instruments. And the recorders second octave is in my experience different from every other wind instrument. Meaning essentially that you should not take that into account.

One wind instruments that come closest to the recorder in fingering in the first octave is the flute. In the second octave and up it is different.

Another wind instrument that is close in fingering in the first octave is any of the saxophone family (alto, tenor, baritone and to a degree the soprano and bass). They come with a twist though, that if you read and play a C the sound coming out will be either a Eb or Bb depending on instrument -- this is very easy to get used to. From an acoustic "theoretical" point of view the Saxophone family is the "best" instrument with least problems in tuning and sound production.

The clarinet family of instruments have quite different fingerings in the lowest octave.

The oboe family of instruments have similar fingerings in the first octave. They take a lot of work on the double reed and you need a teacher to get you started there if you want to make any real progress (I know, there are exceptions of course, but very rare).

And the bassoon is very different in fingering (I play mostly bassoon and contrabassoon).

The whistle family has different fingerings, but I find it generally easy to convert.

There are further wind instruments but they are less common in Western music. I like the Ocarina as example.

Answer 5

I would categorize woodwind fingering systems into three main categories:

1. The traditional system, used by the recorder and more primitive instruments, which can still be recognized on the modern oboe and some clarinets
2. The Boehm system, originally developed for flute, which came to be used on most modern clarinets as well as the saxophone
3. Bassoon

The traditional system basically plays a D major scale when removing one finger at a time from the bottom. Originally, the oboe followed this fingering system exactly, but over time added keys to reduce the number of awkward cross and half-hole fingerings needed to play the full chromatic scale. In particular, pinky keys to achieve D♯ and G♯ proved immediately useful and simple to make.

Theobald Boehm invented a mechanism for flutes for automatically closing pads, and used this to convert the fingering for F♯ into F♮ (while leaving F♯ still easy to play). In conjunction with an extension to low C, this meant that the instrument tends to play a C major scale instead, which seems more natural. Adolphe Sax utilized this fingering system on the saxophone, and so did many clarinet makers. Oboists stuck to tradition.

So for most woodwind instruments, D, D♯, E, G, G♯, A, and B are fingered the same. There's a schism about what to do with F and F♯, there are a few different ideas about what to do with B♭ (with most instruments having multiple options built into their keywork), and C and C♯ at the top of the scale are also different across instruments.

And then bassoon is its whole own thing. It has a similar kind of shape in many ways, but it's shifted by a fourth and has confounding things like flick keys, the whisper key, and despite having an abundance of keys still uses half-holing sometimes. There's a reason that many people double on all of the treble woodwinds but won't touch bassoon.