Tuesday, February 25, 2014 by Hamdani, Laurie | Technique

Fingering refers to the positioning of fingers on an instrument. When learning piano, students begin in what is known as a 5-finger position, meaning that the fingers of each hand are placed on 5 adjacent keys. As the students progress, they must learn to gradually move their fingers to keys which are non-adjacent. After all, a piano has 88 keys and the pianist must eventually learn to move their 10 fingers across the keyboard in order to play those keys.

Fingering cues are used in the written music to show the most efficient manner for moving the fingers and hands across the keyboard. Surprisingly, students often ignore this vital information. The pitfalls of this are many. Here are just a few:

The student is inconsistent in their approach to reaching the appropriate keys, i.e. they use a different fingering combination with every performance. This generally causes inconsistent performance with frequent striking of incorrect keys or poorly executed articulation (smoothness, accents, etc). It is a formula for playing a piece with several mistakes, perhaps never fully attaining accuracy.

The student fails to learn technical skills related to fingering which enable them to perform new music successfully. For example, becoming facile in using correct fingering when playing a major scale will greatly improve the student’s ability in executing scale-like passages in new repertoire.

Students naturally favor their stronger fingers (the thumb, index, and middle fingers of each hand) and fail to develop strength and dexterity in their weaker fingers (ring and pinkie fingers). This necessarily limits progress to longer and/or more complicated pieces of music.

Fingering is context specific, meaning it is important to look at the notes or chords both preceding and succeeding a note or chord which has specific fingering noted. When taking the given note or chord out of context, it may not be clear why the given fingering was used. However, when looking for contextual clues (where the hand has been and where it’s going to), the student can usually understand the reason for the particular fingering notation.

When discussing this with a student recently, she realized that reading fingering in context was just as important as taking sentences in context with the greater whole of a paragraph (or chapter), or even taking quotes from people reported by the media within context of the greater story being reported. Context matters!

This being said, I occasionally disagree with the fingerings used in a particular piece of music. This is sometimes (rarely) due to obvious editorial mistakes. Or, it may be that the indicated fingering is for a fully developed hand and therefore won’t work for a hand which is not yet fully grown. In those cases, I work with the student to find fingerings which will work for them.

Friday, February 21, 2014 by Hamdani, Laurie | Technique

Students learn early on that the white keys on a piano keyboard are named using the letters of the alphabet. Except, only the letters A - G. This is due to the repeating pattern of keys on the keyboard:

So, there are multiple keys named A, B, C, etc. Students often recognize that they should play an A or an F (or B, C, D, E, or G) when reading the music but sometimes get confused as to which A or F (or B, C, D, E, or G).

This is where the Oreo comes to the rescue. We all know what an Oreo cookie looks like:
a chocolate cookie layer on the bottom and top and a tasty white creamy filling in the middle.

I compare an Oreo to the musical Grand Staff. The Grand Staff holds all the notes a student can play. The upper staff (Treble Staff) holds the notes which represent higher sounds and the lower staff (Bass Staff) holds the notes which represent lower sounds. Higher sounds on the piano are from the center of the keyboard moving to the right and lower sounds from the center of the keyboard moving left. Think of the Treble or upper staff as being the top chocolate cookie layer of the Oreo and the Bass or lower staff as being the bottom chocolate cookie layer.

Students learn early on that the white keys on a piano keyboard are named using the letters of the alphabet. Except, only the letters A - G. This is due to the repeating pattern of keys on the keyboard:

So, there are multiple keys named A, B, C, etc. Students often recognize that they should play an A or an F (or B, C, D, E, or G) when reading the music but sometimes get confused as to which A or F (or B, C, D, E, or G).

This is where the Oreo comes to the rescue. We all know what an Oreo cookie looks like:
a chocolate cookie layer on the bottom and top and a tasty white creamy filling in the middle.

I compare an Oreo to the musical Grand Staff. The Grand Staff holds all the notes a student can play. The upper staff (Treble Staff) holds the notes which represent higher sounds and the lower staff (Bass Staff) holds the notes which represent lower sounds. Higher sounds on the piano are from the center of the keyboard moving to the right and lower sounds from the center of the keyboard moving left. Think of the Treble or upper staff as being the top chocolate cookie layer of the Oreo and the Bass or lower staff as being the bottom chocolate cookie layer.

Students learn early on that the white keys on a piano keyboard are named using the letters of the alphabet. Except, only the letters A - G. This is due to the repeating pattern of keys on the keyboard:

So, there are multiple keys named A, B, C, etc. Students often recognize that they should play an A or an F (or B, C, D, E, or G) when reading the music but sometimes get confused as to which A or F (or B, C, D, E, or G).

This is where the Oreo comes to the rescue. We all know what an Oreo cookie looks like:
a chocolate cookie layer on the bottom and top and a tasty white creamy filling in the middle.

I compare an Oreo to the musical Grand Staff. The Grand Staff holds all the notes a student can play. The upper staff (Treble Staff) holds the notes which represent higher sounds and the lower staff (Bass Staff) holds the notes which represent lower sounds. Higher sounds on the piano are from the center of the keyboard moving to the right and lower sounds from the center of the keyboard moving left. Think of the Treble or upper staff as being the top chocolate cookie layer of the Oreo and the Bass or lower staff as being the bottom chocolate cookie layer.

Some notes on the Grand Staff appear in the white space in between the Treble and the Bass staff. These notes represent sounds in the middle range of sounds and quite literally near the center of the keyboard. Think of this white space in between the Treble and Bass staffs as being the tasty white cream in the center of the Oreo cookie.

Quite literally, if notes are written on either staff near this white space in between the two, or are actually IN the white space, those are keys very near the center of the keyboard.

As notes climb higher on the Treble staff, they move higher in sound and further to the right of the middle of the keyboard. Conversely, as notes step lower on the Bass staff they are lower in sound and move further to the left of the middle of the keyboard.

Students can quickly begin to grasp whether a note on either staff which represents the key A or B (or C, D,E, F, or G) should be near the middle of the keyboard or higher or lower.

If they are playing an A but not the correct A, I can simply ask them which layer of the “Oreo” that note is on!

Some notes on the Grand Staff appear in the white space in between the Treble and the Bass staff. These notes represent sounds in the middle range of sounds and quite literally near the center of the keyboard. Think of this white space in between the Treble and Bass staffs as being the tasty white cream in the center of the Oreo cookie.

Quite literally, if notes are written on either staff near this white space in between the two, or are actually IN the white space, those are keys very near the center of the keyboard.

As notes climb higher on the Treble staff, they move higher in sound and further to the right of the middle of the keyboard. Conversely, as notes step lower on the Bass staff they are lower in sound and move further to the left of the middle of the keyboard.

Students can quickly begin to grasp whether a note on either staff which represents the key A or B (or C, D,E, F, or G) should be near the middle of the keyboard or higher or lower.

If they are playing an A but not the correct A, I can simply ask them which layer of the “Oreo” that note is on!

Some notes on the Grand Staff appear in the white space in between the Treble and the Bass staff. These notes represent sounds in the middle range of sounds and quite literally near the center of the keyboard. Think of this white space in between the Treble and Bass staffs as being the tasty white cream in the center of the Oreo cookie.

Quite literally, if notes are written on either staff near this white space in between the two, or are actually IN the white space, those are keys very near the center of the keyboard.

As notes climb higher on the Treble staff, they move higher in sound and further to the right of the middle of the keyboard. Conversely, as notes step lower on the Bass staff they are lower in sound and move further to the left of the middle of the keyboard.

Students can quickly begin to grasp whether a note on either staff which represents the key A or B (or C, D,E, F, or G) should be near the middle of the keyboard or higher or lower.

If they are playing an A but not the correct A, I can simply ask them which layer of the “Oreo” that note is on!