some doubts about porper fingering

Hi there,

I'm an adult amateur piano player and one of the compositions I'm working on at the moment is Keiko Matsui's "Forever". I reckon I play the entire piece quite acceptable just except some bloody passage (to be more precise just three heck notes of it) I can't get through. I'm capable to play it at a tempo which is a bit slower than normal one but as soon as I start playing the passage at its normal rate I get stumbled because I cannot relocate my either index or longer finger from F over the thumb to B flat as quickly as necessary. Since I've learnt to play piano on my own I had to develop my own fingering layout for this piece as well that is one of my weakest spots. Hence I'm still not sure whether I've done it properly, so I would be very grateful if somebody have a look at my layout then share their opinion regarding that.


Thanks,
Rostyslav

I tried playing both fingerings and both seems to work ok. have you done arpeggios or chromatic exercise before? They might help. Check that you are not holding onto the note longer than necessary, let go off the note as soon as you can as you ascend.

Thank you for your prompt reply. It makes things much clear now. I suspected the issue is more about technique rather than fingering order. Yeah, that was an accurate observation I shoudn't "hold the note longer than necessary" and after doing some analysis I realised that I really cannot relax my hand muscles in time that in turn makes my hand suffering from lack of flexibility resulted in poor speed. Well, now I know what I have to work on. Thanks.

Suggest you play at a slower rate then, until you don't get stumbled any more. Vs. trying to get un-stumbled at a quicker tempo.


Good, as you should. The fingering in the score are just a suggestion of the composer, or that of a friend they know. Don't ignore them and try and see if they will work for you. But, don't put too much weight in them either.

This was the advice I was given and it works for me. As a result though, I almost always ignore them and use my own.

+1 to this
Another thing that might help is to play the notes together--infinitely fast--and then slow them down.

Some context to that would be great; no point in blowing away some beginner's mind with words like "infinitely fast"? I highly doubt that's the right approach here anyway, seeing as it's just 1/8th notes etc..?

I'm not familiar with that piece, but one thing that I have found when I run into that sort of thing (where you can play the notes but when increasing the speed, it's hard to get there) is this:

Try taking the two or three measures, and play the LAST measure that is troublesome and get the fingering for it right. Then play the previous measure, and get the fingering.

For me, this helps, because I have found that the fingering that feels right for measure 1 might set me up to be in a bad place for measure2. Sometimes the earlier (less complex) measure may give you time to do a finger change or move that puts you in a better position to deal with the "problem" measure. but that's hard to figure out if you're not sure what the fingering needs to be for the "problem" measure. And this sort of thing might not be evident at slower speeds, when you have time to adjust but it causes trouble when you speed up.

Hope this helps!

floyd: I think malkin refers to the "chord attack" from Chang's Fundamentals of Piano Practise (p33). It's a way to learn playing very quick triplets, quadruplets, broken chords, etc. by playing block chords first. In a block chord you play all the notes at the same time, hence "infinitely fast". Chang suggests it is easier to slow down from infinitely fast than to speed up from a slow speed, as with the latter you may eventually hit a speed wall where you can't seem to go any faster.

(Is it okay to quote from the book? The author explains it so well.)

Yep. Aiming for the triplet as a block might help you see if you can get your hand to the right place.

Besides, I just like to imagine doing anything 'infinitely fast.'

Yeah, I know, not sure the OP did though.

It makes things much clear now. I suspected the issue is more about technique rather than fingering order.