Learn to Play Recorder

Lesson 54: Finger Vibrato (Flattement)

  • Produce a controlled finger vibrato — flattement — on sustained notes by lightly fluttering the next open hole below.
  • Choose where in a phrase a flattement belongs and where it doesn't — not on every long note.

The French played long notes that breathed. The breath was in the fingers.

Flattement is a vibrato in the fingers, not the breath: rapidly half-shading the next open hole below a sustained note so the pitch dips a few cents on each shading. It is the standard French Baroque ornament on long notes — cadential whole notes, the head of a slow movement, resting points between phrases.

The mechanics

Hold an A (holes 1–3 closed) and rapidly tap hole 4 with the right ring finger — not closing it fully, just half-shading — at roughly five taps per second. The result is a soft pulsing on the note.

  • The breath does not change. If your air pulses, you are doing breath vibrato; let the finger work alone.
  • Shade the next open hole below the note. For B, hole 2; for G, hole 5. Low D and low C have no hole below, so flattement is impossible there.

Drill — a sustained A with flattement

Speak the first beat plain, then pulse the next three softly. Try five, six, then seven pulses, and stop when one sounds natural.

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Plain note, then the same note with finger flattement, then a recovery.

Application — a French Baroque cadence

A cadential whole note in a slow movement is the textbook place for a flattement — it gives the resolution texture instead of letting it sit dead.

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The final whole-note G takes a flattement on hole 5.

Where flattement does not belong

Do not flatten every long note. The ornament is reserved for points of repose — the final note of a phrase, the resolution of a dissonance — and even there, save it for the cadences that matter.

Now play these

Loeillet of Ghent: Sonata in F major, Op. 3 No. 3
Apply flattement to three sustained notes only.
Loeillet of Ghent: Sonata in A minor, Op. 3 No. 4
Record the Adagio with and without flattement.
Galliard: Sonata in D minor, Op. 1 No. 1
Flattement only where the affect is grave.

When you can place a flattement on the final note of a slow-movement cadence at five-to-seven pulses per second without the breath pulsing alongside, move on to Lesson 55.