Bass A dizi fingering without piper's grip

[Blue]

One forum member mentioned that s/he had problems with the Bass A dizi because of the position of the holes towards the end of the flute. Couldn't one still treat it as a type of 8-finger xiao or 7 finger dizi? One could use one's smallest finger on the right hand to cover the 6th hole and the finger next to it to balance the dizi. If it were a 8 finger hole xiao, it would be equivalent to the finger next to the smallest finger covering the dedicated half-tone hole except that in the 6 hole dizi, there wouldn't be such hole. Hope that make things clear.

[Blue]

But my logic doesn't seem to work well for a 5-finger xiao maybe because it's too much for my brain . . . . . . the difference between 6 fingers and 7 fingers isn't that bad. Additionally, the bass A dizi isn't that long compared to longer bass counterparts.

[xindi]

5 finger xiao = 6 holes [1 = thumb 5x for fingers].

Maybe think of it as a dizi, with the top hole on the back for the left thumb?

Alternatively, 5+1 holes - it's classic piper's grip for the right hand for most of us. If you have long fingers, it can look really elegant. Otherwise, it just looks like stubby spadehammers trying to move quickly enough. I don't think I play the xiao regularly enough to identify whether I prefer 6 holes; 7 holes, 8 holes, or more, but I preferred all of these over the shakuhachi's 5 holes (4 finger holes + 1 thumb) - the root xiao is much more affordable than the cost of some of these shaks.

Maybe if the sound signature from a flute is gripping, it's worth persevering with the fingering?

Oh. One advantage I find of the xiao over things like penny whistles are that the toneholes are the same size, rather than an extra large middle right finger hole which is a pain to seal for the small handed. Once the fingering gets too complicated, it's actually quite nice just to have just one key for a 6 hole flute, like a baroque traverso which affords chromaticism (and less mental arithmetic for those like me who run out of fingers to count )

[xindi]

From Donsiau's website. A hole in 5!