Piano Forum

Haha… Who's getting their knickers in a twist? Not me. I happen not to agree with you and posted a meme as a joke. I assumed that with all the sh*t you've given other people on this forum you'd be able to take a joke. I'll guess know better next time.

If you want to joke you can do that but I'm sure it's only you laughing at your own joke. This thread is somewhat serious since there is not many places on the internet where we discuss specific fingerings within a musical context and in a concrete manner, so how about you take it more seriously and not just say YOU'RE WRONG, EVERYTHING IS WRONG!! Makes you sound like a cry baby not a joker. FWIW I don't have any aim to give people "sh*t" I call them up on what they say, people need to be more accurate with their opinions, if they get upset I call them up on that then it's their own fault.

To be honest, I didn't argue my case because I didn't see the point. I already said what was I thought wrong with your fingering. I didn't want to have to say it all again. If you disagree with me, fine. As long as others reading this thread don't get the impression that your answer is the one correct answer, then I'm happy.

How about you contend with my rebuttal of your critique? It is all up there. Instead of saying its wrong if you don't understand it you say you don't understand it. If you say it is WRONG you need to prove your point, so far your points have all been quashed.

Here you are spreading the work of four fingers over three. Try giving 3 people the work of four and see how they go.

This has no point, what is your point?

If repeating 34 3231 4 over and over is causing you tension then try adding some circular motion in the wrists.

No circular motion to the wrist is required. I can do your fingering perfectly fine but it is inferior to my solution. The idea of optimal fingerings is to COMPARE, and the logical solution which is rather mindless does not stand up to the more fluid solution I have provided.

But the truth is, you only play this once so then is no reason it should cause any tension, unless you are holding tension in your hands unnecessarily.

Perhaps you have not tested fingerings before, repeating them over and over again to determine which one feel better is a common tactic. You need that repetition over and over again to feel the compounded effects of the inferior logical fingering you provided, where my solution always feels supple and comfortable, no problems with multiple repeats thus pointing in the direction of being much better.

Ditto

You cannot say ditto because I didn't say your fingering was WRONG and BAD and a FAILURE like you expressed about my optimal solution which is best. If you think my solution is wrong it is because your technical capability is failing simple as that.

About the thumb on the black key;
Yes, it feels fine but it's unnecessary and inefficient. In order to get the thumb on the black key, you have to move your hand up on the keyboard (since the thumb is shorter than the other fingers) and then quickly back down. That is two movements you could avoid by using a different fingering. There is a reason why a B Major scale is easier to play than most other scales. It fits beautifully under the hand. The long fingers play the black keys and the short fingers play the white keys.

You fail to express your argument with context of the music at hand. Try again. There is nothing wrong with a thumb playing a black and moving to white, surely you have come across it before, unless all you play is basic stuff. You said you have to MOVE YOUR HAND UP for the thumb to play the black note, I contend that your technique is inefficient, if your hand is held high the whole time the thumbs position does not require any major positional change at all, and in fact the thumbs movement promotes a small anticlockwise type motion (which makes the final 4 feel very natural as your fingerings are moving in that direction) within the fingerings which is much more relaxing than the weaving between the fingers.

This fact should inform much of your fingering choices when it comes to playing music and is also the reason why it is best to cross the hand over the thumb onto a black key (descending in the right hand and ascending in the left hand). It fits better under the hands, requires the hand to move a shorter distance and is therefore more efficient.

What are you talking about "is best to cross the hand over the thumb onto a black key"? You are placing a restriction here without any reasoning with the actual score at hand. It is up there so you need to explain with the actual notes not just talk in generalisations. You need to also notice when the LH chord comes together with the RH, you still have no answer that the THUMB in the RH works much better with the chord in the LH.

About crossing over off the beat;

Yes, but why make it harder for your self. You have to consider the music when choosing fingering and if a fingering makes it easier to put the accents in the right place then you should choose that fingering (all else being equal, of course)

Again you failed to notice how the LH is interacting with the RH, the LH plays on an offbeat thus the thumb in the RH works much better and your fingering does not.

About the thumb moving from F# to E;
"Weaving between the fingers" as you put it shouldn't be a problem. It's grade 1 Czerny. Again, add some circular motion in the wrist and any tension you have will vanish.

No need for any circular wrist motion at all. Thumb from F# to E is no problems at all and the weaving solution you provided is much more tense than controlling the thumb movement by comparison. You do realize that the passage I posted is rapid, it's not a slow movement. With appropriate technique your hand position does not change as the thumb moves from black to white, you keep your hand position high it's no problems, if you play excessively low then of course it will feel like your thumb climbs up onto the F# and then back down to the E, that is a failure in execution not the fingering.

I did, and a disagree.

You were too strong in your disagreement which prompted me to believe you don't have the technical capability to actually test the two in a correct manner. Perhaps you are too stuck in logical fingerings, that is a tough one to break away from but I hope one day you do since you merely will make your students play with tension when they need not to.

I don't expect any of this to convince you, of course. You seem pretty confident that your fingering is the best. If it works for you then great, use it. But like I said initially, I just don't want others reading this thread to think that there is no disagreement and no alternative.

I completely encourage debate of fingerings that is what the point of this thread is about. It risks people getting hurt when pointed out solutions they didn't know, you do have to sacrifice your babies to develop, staying stuck with only logical deductions causes you to miss out on a whole world of unintuitive fingerings in piano which is very important for developing pianists. I might come across as overly confident when discussing fingerings but it has been my job for almost 30 years now so I feel I am an authority on the topic, teaching optimal fingerings is the bread and butter of good piano technique education.

My fingering is the best, I have provided a lot of information as to why, anyone with the technical capability to play my solution vs the inefficient logical solution will admit my solution is better. It is just the science of the fingerings, there is no opinion about it. It's not only worked for me but other people too, you can see the reddit link I provided where this question as posted. The reddit OP called me a "genius" (a bit of an over reaction) so there you go lol.