Alternative Scale Fingering

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Christine sent me details of an alternative scale fingering some time ago. I have now used this very successfully with a grade 2 student who was experiencing enormous problems playing scales hands together. I have also used it with a 15 year old who is dyslexic. She has enormous problems learning pieces from music but plays with great ease from memory and by ear. This fingering has helped her to break down the mental barriers that had built up over many years of lessons with several different piano teachers. The major breakthrough occurs when you point out that the thumbs always play together. In addition the 4 and 3 pattern is exactly the same for both hands (you will need to play the scales to understand what I mean by this).
I believe that 'standard' fingering is a valuable discipline for young students. However this alternative is of enormous value to children who struggle with left/right differentiation. It is perfectly acceptable to play scales in exams with an alternative fingering. The key issue here is that the chosen fingering should be consistent throughout.

I would be very interested to hear of any other alternatives which may help with scales or any other aspect of playing.


Scale fingering

A few years ago I adopted a new system of scale fingering.
I did this after watching many of my students struggle for an inordinately long time to get their fingering correct when trying to play scales hands together with the traditional fingering:

RH 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1
LH 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1

In fact, my students who are now at the higher grades, who learnt this traditional fingering, often still don’t get it right!

This is the fingering which I now teach for all major and minor scales which begin on a white key (except F):

RH 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1
LH 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1

At first it may seem a little odd to start a rising scale with thumb in the LH. But the reason that this fingering works well is because the thumbs come together all the way. Students who have learnt this fingering with me from the beginning have had absolutely no trouble playing scales hands together, it just seems to happen naturally and they rarely make mistakes.

Another advantage of this fingering is that no-one has to be reminded to start B major and B minor with the 4th finger in the LH. The fingering on B is the same as all the others.

For F major and minor, I teach this fingering:

RH 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1
LH 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1

This matches the traditional fingering for F, apart from starting with thumb in the LH. This difference from the other white key scales does not seem to cause any difficulties.

So my scheme has only one exception (F) whereas the traditional scheme has two (B and F).

I did think at first that contrary motion scales starting on white keys might cause a problem, but this has not been the case. For contrary motion, I just tell my students to let the LH copy the RH, so both hands do 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 etc. as with the traditional method.

Christine

posted by Sharon @ 7:28 AM