51 exercises by brahms

[nakedape]

hey all. i'm trying to work on the brahms exercises and i'm already stuck on the first one. it's not because of the rhythms but my problem is in the fingering. how are they supposed to be fingered? it can't be just one pattern to do all of it of course. could anyone help me on this?

[mike_lang]

It is in fact one pattern for the whole exercise (two, really - one for each hand, plus inversions for the descent).  If my memory serves me, I use for 1a in the r.h.: 54212341234 and in the l.h.: 532121234.

This improves playing accuracy, in general, greatly - when you transpose the exercises, use the same fingering for the transpositions, and it will force your fingers to adapt to the contours of the various keys.  It is similar to the method of using the fingering of C Major for all major scales.

Best,
ML