Do you follow the fingerings?

[Melanie]

I've always wondered....how many people follow the fingerings that they give in the music?  And why/why not?

Same about dynamics?

[thierry13]

Well the fingerings depends of the edition. You must make the fingerings that come the most natural with your hands. Sometimes the fingerings will suit you and sometimes not. It depends from the editions. It's sure that you must follow some bases in the base piano technique but you are really not obligated to follow each fingerings.

[JK]

Generally speaking you are under no obligation to follow the fingering that an editor suggest, you should use a fingering that suits your hand span etc. But that doesn't mean that you should always use the easiest fingering, for example if notes need to be played legato then you must play them as legato as possible even if the fingering for this is hard work! As for dynamics there are always different ways of interpreting them and you must remember that a lot of them, for example in sonatas by Haydn, are not actually the composers' but editorial, if you have interesting ideas for different dynamics you must definately try them, after all it helps develop your imagination and your teacher will always tell you if they don't really work!

Hope this helps!

[willcowskitz]

Fingerings are meant to be tips of how to most effectively get through certain part in the piece, they're directions given by the editor/composer (rarely the latter) to help the player figure out the technical demands and nature of the part they're presented in.

"Following the fingerings"  as you put it is absurd, unless of course, you're not technically developed beyond the piece and could benefit from these markings.  Even then, you only need to learn each technical trick once and all the future fingerings dealing with the same finger order become obsolote.  There's not much more to "secrets" of fingerings than using the thumb's special features to warp the other fingers over it on the keyboard.  This is the 1+1=2, and should help you figure out that 1+1+1+1=2+2=4, and so on.

[Shagdac]

I generally try to follow suggested fingering when possible, however what is most comfortable for my hand always takes priority....except....when the fingering is written to achieve a certain result or sound in the music, and then I find that even though "my" fingering feels better...the fingering given "sounds" better!

S

[Tash]

i sometimes don't follow the fingering and it usually leads me to disaster because my choice of fingering tends to be bad and then takes me forever to fix it again. when i do follow the fingering it's usually under guidance of my teacher who will sometimes change what the editor of the music has put. so my advice would be to generally follow the fingering unless you think something else is better and then check with your teacher to make sure it's ok.

[ted]

I always try any indicated fingerings but 90% of the time I end up rejecting them and devising my own. This is particularly so with ragtime, stride, swing and any music where discontinuity of sound is vital. (In much of classical the object seems to be smooth continuity, which is a lot easier to work out fingerings for) In rhythm music, the whole feeling can change consequent to a seemingly trivial alteration in fingering. Worse still, the effect varies from person to person, and a really silly looking fingering might be just right. Then again, I suppose that's what makes it so interesting, among other things.

In general I find fingerings to obtain continuity or legato require much less thought (not necessarily easier to play though) than those involving many jumps and position changes, or where you have to finger to suit rhythmic groups and accents.

A case in point is Johnson's Carolina Shout. The few indicated fingerings of Scivales are absurd for me - perhaps he's never played it up to speed. Unless they are printing errors, he seems to have just plopped a few numbers in here and there at random. The same goes for my edition of the Chopin study in thirds. The indicated fingerings would be all right if I never wanted to go faster than around a fifth its usual speed.