Piano Video Lesson: Fingering Tips for The Piano

Hi, I'm Robert Estrin and this is livingpianos.com with seven fingering tips on the piano. Fingering on the piano is as much art as science and it is a complex subject. And there isn't one right fingering for everyone, but there are a lot of fingerings that are definitely better than other fingerings, so I'm going to give you some general guidelines. And keep in mind that there's a deep subject and these are guidelines that you can take to heart, but finding fingering solutions is something that is a lifetime of discovery.

The first thing is in define appropriate fingering, try to cover as many notes in a passage as possible. In other words, avoid unnecessary finger crossings. If you can accomplish a bunch of fingers by being over a whole chord and then just having the fingers play those notes rather than having to cross over unnecessarily, that tends to work well.

Now, there are some exceptions to this. Sometimes you might find that by playing over a cord it's hard to get enough power and speed and you might find you want to do finger crossings, but generally get over a cord because it's easy to play once you're over notes. Thumb crossings and third and fourth finger crossings can be difficult to be able to achieve, so get over as many notes as possible.

Now, black keys, unless you're playing octaves or chords, generally you avoid the thumb on black keys. And, of course, every single rule I'm going to tell you has their exceptions. If you're playing a Bach fugue for example, where counterpoint is very complex, you'll have the craziest fingering you could ever imagine that breaks every single rule I'm going to tell you here today. So these are only guidelines that you try first. If you can accomplish fingering without using the thumb on black keys, do so. Now of course, if they're in chords or octaves, that rule does not apply.

Now, on repeated notes you must change fingers. Obviously, for fast repeated notes it's essential.

There's no way anybody could play that with one finger, you have to. But what about repeated notes that are slow? Well, in order to get a true legato out of repeated notes, you must change fingers, so one finger is going down while the other finger is going up. So for example, the beginning of the second movement of the K 330 C Major Sonata of Mozart. It starts off with three notes. Without changing fingers, this is what would happen.

Now changing the fingers on those notes, listen to how much more legato they are.

Now, I'm not using any pedal. You can add pedal to enhance it, but that beautiful legato.

You can achieve that just with your fingers by changing fingers for each note.

Now, another thing to realize is that there isn't just one fingering for all players. People's hands built differently. Not just the size, but the angle the thumb creates here. Some people the thumb goes more straight than others. The length of the different fingers. So every player has to discover what fingerings work for them.

Which comes to the next point, which is find the fingerings that work for you. You must experiment with different fingerings in order to find what works for you. In fact, I will go so far as to say that whenever there is a problem, a technical problem, search for a fingering solution.

Which brings us to our last tip, which is reference different scores that are edited with different fingering suggestions. Because you'll find if you have more than one edition of a piece, the fingerings are not the same. Different editors have different ideas about what fingerings were going to work. And sometimes you're tearing your hair out, not able to play a passage, and then you find another book that has a different fingering and boom instantly solves the problem for you.

So those are seven tips for fingering for you and I'm sure there are others. If anybody has any more tips, leave them here at livingpianos.com or right here on YouTube as well. Again, I'm Robert Estrin here at livingpianos.com, your online piano resource. Thanks for subscribing and ringing that bell. See you next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/fingering-tips-for-the-piano/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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