Two octaves run fingering

[bertbrud]

Today my friend gave me some sheet of music eh wanted me to play (since he was not able to, and I'm said to be the better piano player at my school ). The sheet showed a run starting with g flat then jumping to d flat and hitting every key (black+white) for two octaves, up to e flat, where one was supposed to run all the way back down to c1, all on 178bpm. The run itself was not much of a problem, but when I tried it again at home, it was more of a challenge than in school. I started the run with the 3rd finger, and then alternated between 1 and 3, but then it was kind of hard to play the return clearly, so I instead played the return with 4, then going back down with 3 and 1. Is that correct, or should I use another fingering?

Greets, Bert

[johnmar78]

Bert, are you talking about doing Gflat major scales, well 45 is sufficient, peopel with samller hands HAD tom use 5. I have seen peopel using 5th only acheived at awesome speed just as good as 4 and 5 or yours 3,4,5. By Looking at the  natural hand form and structural, that using 5th finger DOES reduce tensions as compared to 4,5. Either will do. I hope this helps..

[quantum]

Can you scan or take a photo of the section of music so we have a clearer idea of what you are talking about. 

[bertbrud]

I hope I am not mistaken, but major g flat scales are not what I am talking about. What I mean is pressing ALL keys of the octave e.g. Csharp - d - dsharp - e - esharp - fsharp - g - gsharp - a - asharp - b - c - csharp - d - dsharp and then hoing back the same way. I play it with 3 and 1, returning dsharp with 4, not using 2 and 5 at all. I hope I did not misunderstand you

Greets, Bert

[patrickd]

This sounds like a chromatic scale, if you start on g flat, use fingering 3 1 for each black and white key respectively. Until you get to either b or e, then use 1 2 3 for b c c# and for e f f# for right hand, use 2 1 3 for left. So the fingering starting on g flat should be 3 1 3 1 3 1 2 3 1 3 1 2 3.

[bertbrud]

Here is one of these phrases, the one I am talking about is the same but instead of ascending one octave you ascend 2 and vice versa



One other way I could think of is to play 123454321 starting from the b near the returning key, but I am not sure which one would be basically better. It is not like I am trying to learn the piece (I do not even have the complete sheet), but I am interested in general.

Greets, Bert

[iansinclair]

At the risk of stating the obvious... use whatever works most easily for you.  The warning that goes along with that, however, is that sometimes what works at one tempo simply won't work at a faster tempo, so you may have to experiment some.  Make sure that the result is even with regard both to tempo and to volume...

[bertbrud]

The tempo is 178bpm, for me using the 3rd for returning did not work out, while the 4th does basically. The question is, if using 123454321 (or something completely different I did not think about) starting from said b would, generally, be the more effective way. Another way of asking: How would you guys play this?

Thank you for all your replies so far and
Greets, Bert

[unimaster]

Yep—that's just the chromatic scale. Patrickd gave the right fingering: going 3-1-3-1 between black and white keys, and switching to 1-2-3 for the gaps between E/F and B/C (and obviously making it the reverse on the return journey). It's pretty easy to run this scale quickly with this fingering—so long as you remember to use that second finger on the fly.

I don't disagree with what iansinclair said. If you can find something that works better for you, then by all means go with it. But in this case I have a hard time believing you could find a more efficient method for running the chromatic (no need to use more fingers than necessary).

[bertbrud]

I think the Problem is just that my piano at Home is much harder to press down than the one at my school, at the given speed my thumb is not able to play the Double d at the end fast enough, which results in the d only sounding once... I thank you all for helping me

Greets, Bert