C7 Recorder Fingering
How to play C7 on the soprano recorder: Thumb half-holed (pinched) · holes 1-4-5 covered.
Filled holes in the diagram are the ones you cover; a half-filled hole is half-covered. The thumb hole is on the back of the recorder, so it is drawn to the left. Holes 6 and 7 (the bottom two) are double holes — two small holes under one finger — and a half-filled double hole means covering only its lower small hole.
Hear C7 and try the fingering
Pick an instrument and a note and the diagram updates instantly — filled keys are the ones you press. The same finder sits on every note page, pre-set to that note.
The C7 fingering, step by step
- Half-hole the thumb: slide your left thumb so it covers only about half of the thumb hole, leaving a small crescent open at the top — this is the "pinched" thumb that speaks the upper registers. Roll the thumb rather than lifting it.
- Cover hole 1 with your left index finger
- Cover hole 4 with your right index finger
- Cover hole 5 with your right middle finger
- Blow gently and steadily — the recorder needs far less air than most beginners give it, and overblowing is what makes low notes jump the octave and high notes shriek.
In short: thumb half-holed (pinched) · holes 1-4-5 covered.
About C7 on the recorder
The third octave is specialist territory: the notes up here are played with pinched thumb and sparse, vented fingerings that bear little resemblance to the first octave. C7, the top of this chart, is where the standard references stop — beyond it, fingerings become a property of the individual instrument.
C7 is the top of the standard soprano chart — a curiously empty fingering (pinched thumb, holes 1, 4 and 5) for the highest note most students are ever asked for. Notes above C7 exist, but their fingerings differ from recorder to recorder, which is why the standard charts stop here.
C7 is note 25 of the 25 in the full recorder fingering chart, sitting between B6 below it. Like every fingering on this site, it was checked against the Woodwind Fingering Guide and the NoteAtlas recorder chart before publishing.
Practising C7
Approach this note by slurring up from the note below it rather than tonguing it cold, and give it fast, focused air. Third-octave notes are learned a few clean repetitions at a time — stop while they are still working.
Questions about C7
What is the fingering for C7 on recorder?
Thumb half-holed (pinched) · holes 1-4-5 covered. C7 is a third-octave note on the soprano recorder in Baroque (English) fingering. The full step-by-step is on this page, and you can hear the note with the Fingering Finder.
Does C7 sound as written on the recorder?
On this site, yes: the soprano recorder notes are named at the pitch students learn them by, so written C7 sounds as concert C7. (In traditional notation the soprano's part is printed an octave lower than the sound — one honest complication this site deliberately keeps off a beginner's page.)
Is there an alternate fingering for C7?
For C7, the fingering above is the one to learn. It is the basic fingering both reference charts give for this note, and the one teachers expect to see.
Think this fingering is wrong? Report it — every report is checked against the source charts.