Hi!
I've began learning piano about 2 months ago and i need your advice regarding the following:

1) Are there some general guidelines regarding the fingering? I'm on my way to learning sightreading and most times im just not sure what fingerings to adopt in order to acquire good tehnique....

2) For the long term i would like to be a fairly skillfull player in terms of improvisation. Can you recommend me a sound path towardsthis goal? I started learning the scales and my mind is set on memorizing the major and minor scales and after that getting into chords...Should i approch chords sooner? What else should i do for that goal?

Thank you!

It's not so easy to sum up all of the fingering rules in a few sentences as different pieces present different fingering challenges. I would suggest working from a beginners instruction book which shows which fingers to use. Once you get more advanced the Czerny exercises are very good for learning fingering technique and cover a lot of different situations.

As for improvising there are various activities which will help you on your way which include creating a melody in your head and then trying to play it, transcribing piano solos and reading books on improvising, such as the ones by Tim Richards. Most people use some combination of the methods.

I like to be able to relate what I hear and what I play to a theoretical framework so it helped me a lot to read books on music theory so that when I transcribed a riff I could see what scales and chords were being used.

What I would strongly advise as a beginner, is to get some books that have a fingering guide in place, and work through these songs. I find that if you get correct fingering in place as a beginner it will help you follow suit and give you an advantage in more technical pieces.

The Kenneth Baker books on Piano are a great place to start with this. Another little tip, I show my pupils is how to make the most out of each finger and not try and struggle, to change awkwardly to use a stronger finger, to kind of think of your fingers as numbers and look at the piece and try and think of it as a simple scale, so to turn on a 3 or change finger on the same note to give you more fingers to expand your hand and play higher or lower notes!!!

Keep going with scales, as I really do believe that these give you brilliant technique and eventually your fingers will feel more natural with where they should play the notes, and it won’t feel uncomfortable for example to use your fifth more frequently or your 2nd.

Improvisation is something that does require practice, but what I would suggest to improve your skills is to learn blues scales and to learn some 12 bar blues progressions, as this style of music can be placed in a variety of different styles and the blues scales will help with solos if you were to play in a band.

A simple 12 bar blues can be used in so many rock and roll songs as they normally originate from this formula, and will help you with your improvisation. Start in simple keys and then try out different key signatures once you are familiar with one.

Another good exercise book is the Hanon exercises these work on controlling technique and strengthening up each finger.

Hopefully there's plenty for you to go on there

I have a useful 'Contrary Motion Exercise' video which is fun and very good for practice that I can send you. Just PM me if you would like it. It's free by the way, but my students use it for home practice.
Samantha