Recorder Fingering Chart
Soprano recorder, baroque fingering · chromatic, first octave (C–C) · ● = covered
How to play
- Tap a note to see which holes to cover and hear it.
- The diagram is the recorder held facing you: the thumb hole is on the back (shown to the left), then holes 1–3 for the left hand and 4–7 for the right hand. A filled circle = cover fully; a half-filled circle = cover only half the hole (roll the finger to leak air).
- Start by covering everything for low C, then lift fingers to climb. The naturals are simple; the sharps and flats use trickier cross and half-hole fingerings. F is a famous forked note (hole 5 open, 6&7 covered), and C♯/E♭/G♯ need a half hole.
- Play note repeats the selection; Play all runs up the whole chromatic scale. Vol sets volume. Keyboard: Tab + Enter/Space.
- Tip — the soprano recorder sounds one octave higher than written; cover holes fully (or half, where shown) or the note will crack.
The widget below is an interactive fingering chart for the soprano recorder. You can navigat it with your keyboard or click the notes with your mouse. Each note play out loud so you can hear it, and you can see visually how it should be covered in terms of holes. There is also a grid of buttons representing all the notes from low C through to high C on the main interface. You can then click on whichever note you want and it will sound for you. Note that the chart follows the baroque fingering system so there are some specially designed cross fingerings shown for flats and sharps alongside more conventional ones.
On the right is a large panel containing a diagram of the recorder and the selection made. If you like to have physical control over the grid then you are able to navigate around using your computer keyboard. To cycle through the notes of the sequencer just hit the tab key until you get to the one you want to play, then hit space bar or enter to choose that note and play it back. It’s a really fast way to explore without having to pick up the mouse. The cursor immediately updates visual highlight as you make selections.
How to Use the Interactive Recorder Chart
The recorder diagram below show which holes need to be closed for your chosen pitch. These are represented by filled circles if they’re fully covered or half-filled circles if there’s a gap to let air out. If no circle appears then the hole stay uncovered. The T is used to indicate thumb hole at the rear of the instrument. In this instance, it’s placed on the left-hand side.
The Play All function will play all the notes in the chromatic scale for you. You may wish to listen to that from start to finish to get an idea of range and also to see what happens to the fingering as it progress note-by-note. If you click on it a second time, it will stop playing straight away giving you back control again. This is a handy option to check if you have the order right before trying it on the actual instrument.
To adjust the volume, use the slider located near the playback controls. This adjusts the overall volume of any audio created by the widget, so reduce it if you’re in a communal area and increase it if you want to hear quieter sounds. It will immediately take effect and not affect what’s currently playing.
To see how the instrument works, just click on the How to play button to open help panel. This panel provide a detailed explanation of the symbols used, including hints about forked fingerings and half-hole technique. You can then close the help panel again by clicking on the button once more. By default, it remains collapsed to ensure a clean look.
To make it larger and more readable, push the Fullscreen button, expanding it to fill full size of your screen (removing any distracting clutter around it). That’s great if you’re working with a smaller laptop screen or want to project the chart onto a whiteboard during a lesson with multiple students. Clicking the button once more will exit fullscreen mode.
Half-holes are also important and shown in the diagram with a split color fill, like for example G sharp or C sharp. On this occasion, instead of covering the entire hole, you must only play across half of it. This is easy to see in the diagram above where there is a split color fill to indicate just where to put your finger for best sound.
Smooth movements from one position to another are recommended in normal recorder playing. Other variations include forked fingerings such as F natural where you cover some lower notes and leave the middle hole open. You may be thinking this sounds odd, but this is how you get a clear pitch on the recorder. In the chart, they are highlighted visually so that when you try them out, you will know which pattern you need. Hearing the note also confirms that you are getting the right sound from your chosen fingering.
Alternate the use of both manual selection and play all. Get comfortabley with how you are going to hit these notes by manually selecting them first then switching to automatic to compare your performance to a reference. You will be building up muscle memory but also strengthening your ability to know each note by its sound when played in this scale context.
Before reaching for your recorder, use this guide as a handy reference point. Going through it online can help you remember where to hold the recorder. Soon, with frequent practice, remembering odd fingerings will become second nature in real playing scenarios. You should of practiced this often. Start from the bottom of the soprano recorder’s range beginning on low C and cover all the notes as indicated in the diagram above. Take it slowly and experiment with each fingered note until you are confident that you can navigate up the scale a note at a time.