Flute Fingering Chart

How to read this chart

Filled circles are keys you press; open circles stay up. The diagram is drawn vertically with the head joint at the top and the foot joint at the bottom, so it reads the way the flute lies across you: the two thumb keys are on the back at the top, the left hand’s three keys come next down the center with the G♯ lever beside them, then the right hand’s three, and the little-finger keys sit at the bottom. The two small levers offset to the right are the trill keys.

The one convention that catches every beginner out is the E♭ key — the pad under the right little finger. It opens a tone hole instead of closing one, so pressing it makes the pitch go up. That is why it is drawn down on almost every diagram from E♭4 upward: it is the little finger’s home position, not an extra. It lifts for D4 and D5, gives way to a foot-joint lever for C♯4 and C4, and comes off again for the very top notes B♭6, B6 and C7. If a low note keeps arriving a semitone sharp, that little finger is the first thing to check.

First, second and third octave — what actually changes

The flute has no register key. Octaves come from the air: a faster, more focused airstream through a smaller lip aperture, aimed a little higher across the lip plate. Most of the second octave therefore reuses the first-octave fingering exactly — E5 is the low-E fingering overblown, F5 is low F, and so on up to C♯6.

The exceptions are at the bottom of the second octave. D5 and E♭5 lift the left first finger, which vents the tube and lets the second harmonic settle. Leaving that finger down is the single most common second-octave fault on flute: you get a stuffy, flat D that cracks the moment you push. It is worth drilling low D → D5 slowly, watching only the left index finger.

The third octave changes again, and this time properly. From D6 upward the fingerings are harmonic venting patterns — high D is the third harmonic of G4 with the left first finger off, high E-flat is every finger down plus the G♯ key, high F leaves a gap in the middle of the left hand. They look wrong and they are right. Trying a second-octave fingering up there produces a squeak, not a note. The whole register is covered in detail on the flute high notes chart.

The two B♭ fingerings — one-and-one or thumb B♭

B♭ is the first note where flute players get a genuine choice, and both fingerings are on the chart above. The method-book fingering is “one and one”: left first finger plus right first finger, with the thumb still on the B key. Learn this one first. It lets you move freely between B♭ and B natural, and keeping a right-hand finger down balances the flute better.

The alternate is the thumb B♭, or Briccialdi lever — the second, lower thumb key. The thumb simply lives on it for a whole passage, which is a gift in flat keys like B♭, E♭ and A♭ major. The catch is B natural: if one turns up while your thumb is parked on the B♭ lever, you get B♭ instead. Use the thumb lever when the passage has no B natural in it, and use one-and-one everywhere else.

Common flute fingering mistakes

• Leaving the left first finger down for D5 and E♭5. That finger is the register vent. Down, it gives a flat, stuffy note that cracks; up, the octave arrives on its own.
• Playing F♯ with right 2. F♯ is a cross-fingering that uses the third right-hand finger. Held, right 2 gives a badly out-of-tune note (keep it for the fast E–F♯ trill only), and since F♯ appears in every G-major and D-major exercise, the wrong reflex gets learned early.
• Forgetting the E♭ key — or forgetting to release it. Held for D4 or D5, it turns them into E♭. Missing from anything above E♭4, the pitch collapses and the tone goes dull.
• Blowing harder instead of faster for high notes. Volume is not speed. More force spreads the airstream and drops the note back an octave; a smaller aperture with the same amount of air is what actually lifts it.