Im talking about super ultra lighting speed chromatics that only elite pianist can pull off. How do they do it? how do they practice it? I find practicing at the maximum speed (playing sloppy)is maybe the way to archive such incredible speeds. Super speeds in such pieces as rhaspody no.2, la campanella, heroic and so on.And Chang's method of the 1234,1234,1234 method is so amaturish. i like to see him do it , all talk.
i believe that chromatics are not only a matter of how fast your fingers are moving, but also how the arm is leading the hand up and/or down the keyboard and if all is synchronized, your "super ultra lighting speed chromatics" could be acheivable. idk how else to explain it, but it works.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the 1234512345. I read recently that this is what Liszt used for fast chromatics. At first I was shocked, but then I tried it in the left hand chromatic scale in Chopin Opus 25 no. 11 (winter wind) and amazingly it works better than the usual 12313. It works much better than 12341234 too because the thumb always plays a white key. It is also rythmically invigorating because the accent (if you're accenting on the beat) shifts to each finger in turn. Try it!Rich Y
And sadly enough, I have never seen ANYONE do the 1234, 1234, 1234 fingering, and to be honest it does sound incredibly stupid... (Sorry lufia) but when you do that chances are that you will have to put your thumb under the 4th finger to hit a black note at some point during the scale, and believe me, trying to put your thumb under your 4th finger to a black note has to be one of the most uncomfortable things in Piano Playing.
If you want really fast chromatic scales then use 123-1234-12345 starting from E, going up. Going down (starting from C) use 4321-4321-321-321-4321-321-4321, etc.
yup marik's is definately the best. by the way if you use 12345 your thumb will eventually end up on a black note.
the stupid thing is that you have different fingerings for each octave... In the first octave (C - c), you have 4321 4321-321-32 which takes you to c, but then for the next octave, you start the c on finger 2-4321-321-4321...It just seems dumb to have a fingering where it changes each octave...
But then, many pianists don't like to use the mind in the physical act of turning movement into sound (those who practice hanon, czercy, pishna, chopin, et al...).
i've just spent 15 mins practicing it. it seems ok, but izzz doubtful. i havn't seen any concert pianist use this method. 23131231234 is the one im using and its super but not ultra sonic ><