Bach Fingering

[asuhayda]

Question...

Does anyone find it helpful to write ALL of the fingering in for a piece written by Bach?  It has been taking me a painfully long time to learn some of his pieces and most of the time it's because I am not playing the fingering consistently.

Seems like a pain to write all of it in, but it might help me to learn it faster in the future. 

Thoughts?

[p2u_]

Question...

Does anyone find it helpful to write ALL of the fingering in for a piece written by Bach?  It has been taking me a painfully long time to learn some of his pieces and most of the time it's because I am not playing the fingering consistently.

Seems like a pain to write all of it in, but it might help me to learn it faster in the future.  

Thoughts?

First of all, you may want to have a look at the topic of fingering in general.

If you mean by "ALL of the fingering" every finger on every note, then that seems like too much visually. For Bach it is important to realize that an otherwise technically correct fingering may not be the best one for the piece. I, for example, prefer fingerings that reflect the motives, the musical ideas, in the music, and not always the technically easier ones.

Paul

[asuhayda]

If you mean by "ALL of the fingering" every finger on every note, then that seems like too much visually. For Bach it is important to realize that an otherwise technically correct fingering may not be the best one for the piece. I, for example, prefer fingerings that reflect the motives, the musical ideas, in the music, and not always the technically easier ones.

Agreed.  I'm not looking for the easiest fingering per se.. I'm just asking about the approach that people use to help remember.  I find it difficult to remember fingering with Bach.  So, I play passages inconsistently, which ends up adding time to completion.  But I also agree that writing in all the fingering might be a bit overwhelming to look at.  It was just a suggestion that someone made to me, but I am skeptical of its effectiveness.

Thanks.  I'll check out your link.

[lostinidlewonder]

Does anyone find it helpful to write ALL of the fingering in for a piece written by Bach?  

There is absolutely no need to write ALL the fingerings for a piece no matter who it is composed by. Often you need to write fingering which are crossing a position, you should also write in the fingers that evade you naturally finding them. If you are learning a piece where you do not know any of the fingers without having to read a command telling you which finger to play it might be important to notice groups of notes at a time, a pattern that you can observe. This does not necessarily need to be single hand positions. I would make a habit to writing in your fingering with a pen/pencil which can easily be rubbed out. You need to remove unnecessary fingerings as you become more familiar with certain groups of notes.

It has been taking me a painfully long time to learn some of his pieces and most of the time it's because I am not playing the fingering consistently.

Exactly, if you constantly use different fingers or find yourself doing strange fingerings then you simply will require a lot more repetitions before you learn the piece. If your fingering is constantly erratic and you find there are not many parts where you naturally can solve the fingering, you will never learn the piece in an efficient time. This often is a sign that you are learning a piece too difficult for yourself.

Seems like a pain to write all of it in, but it might help me to learn it faster in the future.  

You may feel insecure about leaving out some numbers, but if you experiment writing all the numbers in first then slowly rubbing out the ones which are obvious to you when sight reading, then you may learn to reduce your fingerings markings naturally.

Good luck

[asuhayda]

This often is a sign that you are learning a piece too difficult for yourself.

haha.. NO!  I have a YES I CAN mentality..   I'll see you at the next piano competition buddy!

I'm simply trying to streamline my process.  I do not have this problem with any other composer.  I find that fingering in Bach is often counterintuitive.  Technically speaking, I do not have difficulty playing his music.  It's memory thing.

[lostinidlewonder]

But as Liszt said, "Technique is fingering". If the fingering is completely evasive then this says something about the technical ability level to control it. You probably then know much of the fingerings and just need to work out which ones trick you and get them written in.

If you see me at a competition it will be only to adjudicate you or be a quiet audience member

[asuhayda]

But as Liszt said, "Technique is fingering". If the fingering is completely evasive then this says something about the technical ability level to control it. You probably then know much of the fingerings and just need to work out which ones trick you and get them written in.

If you see me at a competition it will be only to adjudicate you or a quiet audience member

Haha.. I'm just teasing you. 

Usually, I would agree with you on this..  but Liszt and Bach are different animals.  It's ironic considering that I have much more command over the fingering in Liszt's music than Bach.  Mostly because I feel like I have more options.  It's more opened.  Bach feels confined to me. I'm working in a smaller space and there are layers on top of layers.

Keep in mind that I'm teaching most of the time. So, I don't get time to practice like I used to.  So, when I say it's taking me a long time, I mean because I don't get to practice my music every day anymore.  So, like I said, I'm just trying to make the most of what little practice time I have by employing any tricks that people use to help memorize fingering quickly. 

What I'm saying is... I'm impatient and want to learn music without really having to work that hard!

[lostinidlewonder]

Bach feels different because of his part writing and how tight positions can be. The intricate fingering really does test your fingering understanding but it plays a huge part in the art of keyboard fingering. I find if I sight read Bach for extended periods then go to other music, the other music always feels so much easier. Bach has an amazing ability to effect all the music you play, if you crack all his fingering patterns and make it a natural response in you, it helps playing other styles. Bach is amazing!

[brogers70]

I do write in a fair bit of fingering for Bach, particularly for the fugues. I end up using a lot of finger swapping to maintain the continuity of individual lines, and there are a lot of 3 over 4 or 5 under 4 fingerings when there are two lines going in the same hand. So I write the more difficult fingerings into the score. Usually, though, those are also the bits that I have to practice a lot anyway, so I end up memorizing the fingerings naturally. Still, it's nice to have them in the score to look at if I forget what I meant to do.

Bill

[j_menz]

In my experience, the issue is not with Bach per se, but with any piese with 3 or more polyphonic voices. Mozart, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Handel, Schumann - look at any of their fugues and you'll see the same issues.

Part of it is that because of the nature of the pieces you need to use different fingering for quite similar passages, and part of it is that one's "natural" fingering simply doesn't work in context - all because there are two or three (or more) lines going on that necessitate other fingers doing things that restrict their availability.  And don't get me started on transcriptions of Bach's organ works!

I never write them out, but if that helps you remember them then do so. Consistent fingering is what makes these pieces managable.

[ajspiano]

It would depend on the exact work..

I must admit that after having spent time with derek's baroque improvisation exercises.. and especially after starting to do 3 voice improvisation, and/or 2 voice improv within the one hand this kind of thing is considerably more manageable.