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.

Lesson 48 — French Baroque ornamentation practice.
Lesson 43 — Baroque adagio movement and ornamentation.
Stable sustained tone production on A, B, and G.

Finger vibrato (flattement).
French Baroque slow-movement style.
Ornament placement at points of repose.

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

The Baroque recorder has a vibrato that is not in the breath. Flattement — literally “flattening” — is produced by rapidly half-shading the next open hole below the sustained note. The pitch dips a few cents on each shading, sounding like a soft pulse on the note. Jacques Hotteterre's Principes de la flûte traversière (1707) is the source most modern players cite; his notation for it is a small wavy line above the note. The technique is the standard French Baroque ornament on any long note — cadential whole notes, the head of a slow movement, the resting points between phrases.

Breath vibrato — the kind a flautist or singer uses — was not the Baroque recorder's default. It exists, but it is for late nineteenth- and twentieth-century playing. For Hotteterre and Loeillet, the long note breathes through the fingers.

The mechanics

Pick any sustained note — A in the middle of the staff is the easiest to learn on. The note A is fingered with holes 1, 2, and 3 closed; the next open hole below A is hole 4. To make the flattement: keep the A fingering, and rapidly tap hole 4 with the ring finger of the right hand — not closing it fully, just half-shading. The pitch dips, then returns. Repeat the tap at roughly five times per second. The result is a soft pulsing on the A.

Two things to watch:

The breath does not change. The flattement is in the finger, not in the diaphragm. If your air pulses, you are doing breath vibrato; reset and let the finger do the work alone.
The shading hole varies by note. The rule of thumb is: shade the next open hole below the note. For B (1 closed), shade hole 2. For G (1, 2, 3, 4 closed), shade hole 5. Some notes (low D, low C) have no hole below; on those, flattement is impossible and a different ornament is needed.

Drill — a sustained A with flattement

Hold a whole-note A. Start the flattement at the second beat — the first beat speaks plain, the next three pulse softly. Try five pulses, then six, then seven, and stop when one of them sounds natural.

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

The notation above looks identical — that is the point. The flattement is not a pitch change, it is a colour applied to a held note. You will not find it in the part. You apply it.

Application — a French Baroque cadence

A cadential whole note in a slow movement is the textbook place for a flattement. The note below is the dissonance resolving, the held note is the resolution — and the flattement gives the resolution texture instead of letting it sit dead.

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

Where flattement does not belong

The single most common mistake is to flatten every long note. Hotteterre is explicit: the ornament is reserved for points of repose — the final note of a phrase, the resolution of a dissonance, the long note at the centre of an affect. A flattement on a passing whole note in the middle of a fast movement is wrong style. So is a flattement on every cadence in a piece; vary it, save it for the cadences that matter.

Now play these

Loeillet of Ghent: Sonata in F major, Op. 3 No. 3: Use the slow movements. Pick three sustained notes across the whole sonata and apply a flattement to those three only.
Loeillet of Ghent: Sonata in A minor, Op. 3 No. 4: The Adagio rewards flattement on its cadences. Record the movement with and without; listen for which version is more French.
Galliard: Sonata in D minor, Op. 1 No. 1: An English contemporary of Hotteterre, writing in the French style. Apply flattement only where the affect is grave; the faster movements stay plain.

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, and you can name three places in a sonata where you would choose not to apply it, move on to Lesson 55.