Bernhard's Speedy Scales: Forget about orthodox fingerings?

[bardolph]

I have been trying out Bernhard's alternative speedy scale fingerings and they are excellent! My question is, should one maintain traditional fingerings as well, or switch entirely to these more efficient ones?

[xvimbi]

It depends on what the goal is. If you want to play scales for their own sake, stick to the fingering that is most efficient for you. Real music, however, has scale fragments that require all kinds of different fingerings. No exercise will truly prepare you for this. You can only try to apply your favorite fingering as much as you can, but you may find that mastering a few different fingerings gives you a higher success rate. This applies to "scale turnarounds" as well, which you have asked about in a different thread, if I'm not mistaken. So, you might just as well practice those passages as the need arises with the appropriate fingering given the context of the fragment, rather than spending a lot of time on a single approach that may or may not be terribly useful in the long run.

Not to jump on you too much , it is always good to know several different approaches to a given problem. So, don't try to find the "magic bullet" that solves all issues. There is no such thing.

[Awakening]

Can someone give a link to Bernhard's fingerings?

[bardolph]

Thank you xvimbi, I believe I understand.

Bernhard's fingerings and discussion:
 https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2619.msg22756.html#msg22756

[oscarr111111]

The original thread is gone, does anyone have the fingerings saved?

[dorfmouse]

Is this what you want?
Bernhard Pearly Scales
Re: I hate scales
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2005, 02:46:24 AM »
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Smooth, pearly, flowing, fast scales (with slow scales you can get away with murder) depend on the co-ordination of four basic movements:

1.   Lateral shift of the hand/forearm
2.   Rotation of the hand.
3.   Slanting the hand in relation to the keyboard.
4.   Backwards and forwards movement of the arm

1.   Lateral shift of the hand/forearm

Start by placing fingers 1-2-3 on C-D-E. Now play these three notes together as a chord. Next, shift your hand laterally to the right so that your fingers 1-2-3-4 are on top of F-G-A-B. Play these four notes as chord. The fingers do not move at all. The arm does all the work by positioning the appropriate fingers in the corresponding keys. Do that all over the keyboard to get a feel for it. Soon you should be able to displace your hand sideways with great precision and accuracy. This will also teach you the scale key pattern, that is, which keys (notes) belong to the scale and which do not. This visual pattern is very important, so use the practice of this movement for that secondary purpose as well.
Now, break the chords (C-D-E) and (F-G-A-B) by “rolling” your hand to the right. Again , you are not really pressing the fingers, but rotating the forearm and using this movement coupled with the arm weight to depress the keys.  Incidentally, you have just slowed down from infinite speed (what could faster than together) to ridiculously fast. However, although playing C-D-E and F-G-A-B fast is easy, moving from E to F and from B to A is another matter altogether. So, the speed of your scale playing will always be limited by how fast you can accurately shift your hand from the C-D-E position to the F-G-A-B position.
As you can see, there is no thumb movement (under or over), the thumb stays quietly there and the arm repositions it.
The next step is to speed up the shift between E-F and B-C and slow down the fast C-D-E and F-G-A-B groups to the top speed you can manage the shift accurately. And this is one of the paradoxes of piano playing: in order to sound even you must move unevenly. Get used to it. It happens all the time.
So rather than practise the whole scale, it makes sense to practise only the difficult bit: the shift. So, put your 3rd finger on E and press the key. Now shift your hand and press the F with the thumb by using the arm to move the hand to its new position. This is not a jump, but a glide. Your hand should be so close to the keyboard as you move that it touches it lightly. Then do the same with the B-C shift. The temptation at this stage is to put the thumb on the F, the 3rd finger on the E and just switch between them. This is really practising thumb under. You don’t want to do that. Keep the thumb quiet in its normal position and move the arm/forearm/hand.
Now comes a very important step:  as you move from E (3rd finger) to F (thumb), when you press the F, fingers 2-3-4 should already be in place, on top of G-A-B. You want to avoid them landing in any random key, and then having to shift them around to find the G-A-B. Avoid this “finger reaching” by practising the accurate placement of these fingers as you shift from E to F and from B to C. I call this preparation, and without it no one can ever play fast and smoothly.
Now you have mastered the rolling of the hand (CDE and  FGAB) and the hand shifting (EF  and BC). So now start putting it together by playing CDE (123) and shifting the hand to F (1) but do not play GAB (234) yet, just prepare by placing the fingers on the keys accurately and without pressing them. Do the same for FGABC (12341), but do not proceed to DE (23), just prepare by placing the fingers on top of the keys.
Finally, just do the scale at top speed. If you have followed all the steps above and moved to the next only after you were satisfied that you have mastered the step you were in, you should now be playing the scale at unbelievable speeds, evenly and without fatigue – and with never passing the thumb under. (or over – although this hand shift is sometimes what people call thumb over).
One problem with this movement is that there is an audible break in the sound when you shift the hand. To achieve a legato sound you either will have to use the pedal in the spots where the hand shifts, or you will need to play at a very fast speed so that by the time the damper returns to the string you have already sounded the next note.
Which is why at slow speeds, many resort to thumb under to achieve a legato sound.
However, this is just one basic movement. The only reason to practise it in isolation is to understand the movement. In real life you are not going to play like this (there is no need to limit oneself unnecessarily). In isolation, this movement requires a huge hand shift. What we need is to combine it with another movement that will allow a physical connection between the relevant keys. And this is our next movement: rotation

2.   Rotation.
This means forearm rotation. Do not bring your fingers up and down on the keys. Instead use a rotation of the forearm to bring the fingers down. Put your right hand on a desk top. Keep the thumb in touch with the desk top, and now rotate the forearm towards your body (to the left) so that the four fingers go up in the air (the thumb remains in the desktop). Think of your hand like a door and the thumb as the hinge. The whole forearm/wrist/hand should be inline and move as single unit. Now bring the hand down by rotating to the left. Now go to the piano, press your thumb in middle C (keep it pressed) and use the rotation movement I just described to play D (2nd finger) rotate back, play E (3rd finger), rotate back , play F (4th finger) rotate back, play G (5th finger).
The only contribution of the fingers is to brace themselves at the moment they touch the keys so that they do not collapse under the weight of the arm.
There, you have just got rid of the need for any exercise whatsoever to develop the 4th finger ability to lift. All this stupidity with Hanon about lifting fingers high! First, you do not play the piano up, you play it down. And as far as going down, the fourth finger is as good as any of the other fingers (just try it, bend each finger in turn at the knuckle joint and see/feel if there is any particular disadvantage in bringing the 4th finger down). There is no need to equalise fingers as far as going down goes because they are already equal in this regard. But surely, in order to bring the 4th finger down, one must be able to lift it some will say. Well, first of all, no matter how many exercises you do, you will never be able to equalise the fourth finger as far as lifting is concerned because the 4th finger shares a tendon with the 3rd finger. So that is that. Don’t waste time. But most importantly, you do not need to lift the 4th finger independently: your hand can do it for you by using the rotation movement.
Now let us see how to play a scale using this rotation movement. Do this slowly to understand the movements. I will describe the right hand. The left hand is the same in reverse. Start by playing C with the thumb. Rather than pressing down with the thumb, keep your hand and fingers quiet and rotate the forearm to the left in order to bring the thumb down on the key. Brace the thumb and use the forearm/wrist/hand as a single unit to press down the key. With this first rotation, you have brought the second finger up as well, so now bring it down on the D by rotating to the right. For the moment exaggerate this rotation so that the second finger is almost on the side and your palm is facing your body (left). Now keep the second finger depressing the D, and rotate (pivoting on the second finger) back to the left in order to bring the 3rd finger up. Now your palm should be facing the right (outside). We are exaggerating these movements to understand what is going on. Later these movements will be so tiny you will not be able to see them. Rotate back to the right bringing the 3rd finger on E. Your palm should now be facing towards your body (to the left), and the weight of your arm should be resting on the 3rd finger which is slightly sideways and resting on the (depressed) E key.
Now look carefully at this position because here lies the key to everything. Your thumb should be in the air nail up, pad down, in line with the 3rd finger which is sideways resting on the E key. If you now rotate back the hand to the left (palm goes down) and do a minimal shift to the side (it is so minimal that you may not even need to do it) this rotation will bring your thumb right on the F with it never needing to be brought under the hand
As you bring the thumb down on the F, by rotating the hand to the left, the 2nd finger goes up again in readiness to press the G on the next hand rotation.
In the typical “thumb under” movement, you must rotate the arm (usually with the elbow shooting up in the air) to the left, so that the thumb can go under. Your palm will be facing away from your body and your thumb will be bent under the palm – a very inefficient and injury prone position.
In the movement I just described, exactly the opposite takes place. When the time comes for the thumb to press the F, the palm is facing towards the body, the hand/arm is rotated to the right, and the thumb does not need at all to go under the hand. Quite the opposite, the thumb is in a free, highly efficient and injury free position.
This is the basic thumb over movement. But as you can see, it has little to do with the thumb going over the hand.
As you get used to this movement, you will notice that to use it by itself is going to demand a lot of back and forth rotations. But, you do not want to use just that movement. Why should you? Never practise these movements isolation: They will destroy your co-ordination (the reason why any exercise that aims at training isolation – usually they call it “independence”, which is a very different thing – like Hanon, Pischna, Dohnanyi and the like, are to be avoided like the plague). The only reason to isolate rotation is to understand the movement. The moment you understand it, there is no need to practise it. Instead, move on to the next basic movement and master it. What you will be practising is the co-ordination of these four movements, not the isolated movements.
So if you now combine the hand shift with the rotation, you will be able to make both of them much smaller. The hand shift means that you do not need to rotate so exaggeratedly, and the rotation means that the hand shift does not need to be so large.

By successfully co-ordinating both movements your scales should start to sound amazing.

Now we must add a third movement: hand slanting.
3.   Start by working on this movement by itself, just so that you know what is it that we are talking about. But the moment you get the hang of it, immediately co-ordinate it with the two previous movements.
Place your 3rd finger on E. Now, keep your forearm/wrist/3rd finger all aligned (the 3rd finger should be in line with the bones of the forearm). You must keep this alignment at all times. Now slant your forearm in relation to the keyboard by pivoting on the 3rd finger, so that your 3rd finger/hand/forearm are not parallel to the keys anymore, but make an angle to the keyboard. Explore the range of “slanting” that you can do comfortably. It is very important that you keep the forearm/finger alignment – don’t let the hand twist at the wrist. Now as you slant your hand so that your elbow goes away from you, you will see that this brings the thumb to the F without any need to pass it over or under. So now start playing CDE (123). On C, the fingers will be parallel to the keys. On D (2), start slanting the hand, on E (3) the hand should be slanted enough so that the thumb is out of the hand (neither under nor over) and yet on top of the F. As you play the F, the hand goes back to parallel with the keys (do not break the alignment).
Now if you combine this new movement with shifting and rotation, each movement should have become so small as to be virtually undetectable by the eye: All you see is finger movement, but actually there is no finger movement at all! It is all rotation, slanting and shifting done by the arm.
The main problem at this stage is to keep the forearm/wrist/finger alignment. Because the thumb is shorter, there is a huge temptation to “reach” for the F/C with the thumb breaking the alignment (and increasing the risk of an injury).
So we need one last basic movement.

4.    Backwards and forwards movement of the arm
Put your 3rd finger on E at the edge of the key. The thumb should be out of the keyboard, and the 2nd finger almost off. If your piano thinking is finger oriented, you are going to twist your hand in order to play the C with the thumb. I call this “reaching for the key with the finger”. Never do it. You are setting yourself up for injury. And it is a very inefficient movement. I recently saw a recital where the pianist played like that. It was painful to watch and you could see he was really struggling.
Instead. bring the arm forward and in this way place the thumb in the C key. Don’t curl your long fingers as you do that. Keep them in their natural curvature. Once you play the C, pull the arm back again so that the long fingers don’t need to play too much into the keys. As you play there should be constant forward and backward movement of the arms to negotiate the different lengths of the fingers and the geography of each scale. B major requires the least amount of back & forth movement, C major requires the greatest amount. Before tackling any scale you must figure out the pattern of back and forth movements for that particular scale.
Finally add this movement to the previous three, and you will be amazed how invisible they all become since each movement helps the others.

continued ....

[dorfmouse]

Pearly scales continued (Bernhard)

These threads may also interest you:
https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2313.msg19807.html#msg19807
(Speed of scales –discussion on the important factors in speed playing and an alternative fingering for scales).
https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2983.msg26079.html#msg26079
(Best order to learn scales – what does it mean not to play scales outside pieces)
https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2998.msg26268.html#msg26268
(why and when to practise scales HS and HT – Pragmatical  x logical way of teaching – analogy with aikido – list of piano techniques – DVORAK – realistic x sports martial arts – technique and how to acquire it by solving technical problems – Hanon and why it should be avoided - Lemmings)
Here is a plan for learning all scales:
https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2533.msg21955.html#msg21955
(an structured plan to learn scales and arpeggios – includes description of repeated note-groups and other tricks).
Finally, for fingering, have a look here:
https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2619.msg22756.html#msg22756
(the complete unorthodox fingering for all major and minor scales plus an explanation)

Just one query:
For example for the C major scale the first group is CDE and the second group is FGAB.When playing extremely fast scales are there only two rotations per group of 3-4 notes?  When I play this rapidly it feels like I make the following rotation movements: rotate one way to put thumb down on C, rotate in other direction to sound D and then E, rotate back the other way to bring thumb down on F and then rotate in the opposite direction to bring down in succession G,A and then B. Is this correct? If so, then what is the purpose of practicing more than one rotation per note? In what instances would multiple rotations be used?
Regards, Will.

Yes, I understand what you are saying.

The original poster was clearly lost. So I gave a lot of detail so that he would understand the movements at a microscopic level. When practising slowly (not only scales) it is important to follow two principles: to practise in slow motion, that is, you use exactly the same movements you will use when playing fast, and to expand the movements. This expansion of the movement is important to fulfil the extra time you gain when practising slowly – this way your movements are not start-stop, but smoothly flowing and blending into each other.
Speed is then achieved not by performing these movements fast (you would never get away with it), but by decreasing the range of the movement. This is the main way by which speed playing can look so effortlessly: the sound is fast, but the player is not: the movements have become minimal to the point of invisibility.
So it is with rotation. (or slanting, or lateral shifts or back and forth movements). As the speed increase, these movements decrease in range, and because when co-ordinated one movement furthers the others, they become for all intents invisible. If I play a fast scale, all you are going to see are the fingers moving, But this is an illusion. In fact the fingers are barely moving. But the range of rotation (which is actually moving the fingers) has become so minute that one cannot see it. And the same goes for the other three basic movements. However there is an important point: The feeling is completely different when you use this co-ordination of movements from when you use “finger power”.
Your description of a single rotation for every group of 3-4 fingers is accurate as far as the sight goes. But even though it may look that way, the other rotations are actually there, but hugely diminished. One can go wrong by trying to rotate every finger in the manner I described for slow motion. One must decrease the range of motion. But one can also go wrong by trying to cut corners and not putting every rotation where it should be. The main difference is in the results. Scales played with the co-ordination I described feel easy and you can repeat them at top speed for literally hours (although I cannot imagine why anyone would want to do that) without fatigue. They also look easy and effortless to onlookers.
I must say at this point that I find discussing this subject in writing very difficult and with a huge potential of being misleading. A couple of minutes demonstration at a piano, and we would probably come to the conclusion that we are talking about exactly the same thing.
Best wishes,
Bernhard.

(I may have edited the original post, can't remember now)

[dorfmouse]

Or maybe this is what you wanted ...

To dispel all doubts (really you should all have been able to work this out by yourselves, you mentally lazy people! ) here are the fingerings for major and minor scales:
Major scales (over two octaves):

C
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 54321 321 4321 321
G
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 321 321 4321 321 43
F
Rh: 1234 123 1234 1234
Lh: 321 4321 321 4321 3
D
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 21 4321 321 4321 32
Bb
Rh: 4 123 1234 123 1234
Lh: 321 4321 321 4321 3
A
Rh:  123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 21 321 4321 321 432
Eb
Rh: 3 1234 123 1234 123
Lh: 321 4321 321 4321 3
E
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 54321 321 4321 321
Ab
Rh: 34 123 1234 123 123
Lh: 321  4321 321 4321 3
B
Rh: 123 1234 123 1234 1
Lh: 1 321 4321 321 4321
Db
Rh: 23 1234 123 1234 12
Lh: 321 4321 321 4321 3
Gb(F#)
Rh: 234 123 1234 123 12
Lh: 4321 321 4321 321 42


Minor scales (harmonic):

Am
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 321 321 4321 321 43
Em
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 54321 321 4321 321
Dm
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 54321 321 4321 321
Bm
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 1 321 4321 321 4321
Gm
Rh: 123 1234 123 12345
Lh: 21 321 4321 321 432
F#m
Rh: 34 123 1234 123 123
Lh: 4321 321 4321 321 4
Cm
Rh: 234 123 1234 123 12
Lh: 21 321 4321 321 432
C#m
Rh: 34 123 1234 123 123
Lh: 321 4321 321 4321 3
Fm
Rh: 1234 123 1234 123 1
Lh: 21 321 4321 321 432
G#m
Rh: 34 123 1234 123 123
Lh: 321  4321 321 4321 3
Bbm
Rh: 4 123 1234 123 1234
Lh: 21 321 4321 321 432
D#m
Rh: 3 1234 123 1234 123
Lh: 21  4321 321 4321 32

Best wishes
Bernhard.

[oscarr111111]

All the information I wanted and more.  Thanks  .

[timothy42b]

I use Bernhard's fingerings, though I'm sure I'll never find them in a piece.

However, in the interests of completeness, shouldn't we also practice the worst possible fingerings?  That will prepare you for those awkward places where there's just no choice. 

[faulty_damper]

I use Bernhard's fingerings, though I'm sure I'll never find them in a piece.

However, in the interests of completeness, shouldn't we also practice the worst possible fingerings?  That will prepare you for those awkward places where there's just no choice. 

No, I don't think it is even necessary.  What is necessary, if you understand and are able to realize how these movements are coordinated is that it's not just what fingering that is important but how you coordinate the other bodily elements that is much more important.  In this case, you can make even poor fingering easy, or easier, because you are not straining your fingers.

What is also important to realize is that there are many solutions to an awkward passage.  If you have rules like "don't put your thumb on a black key", you have automatically handicapped yourself to the possibility of something much easier.

This mental handicap affects the physical .  If such a rule is in conscious thought when you are attempting to find an effective fingering, you ignore the physical sensations of your body telling your mind what feels comfortable.  You end up forcing the fingers to do what they do not want to do.  This means endless hours of practicing, to "keep it up".

So is it necessary to practice the worst possible fingerings?  No.  It doesn't even matter at this point.  When you do come to it, you will know how to coordinate the bodily elements (not just the fingers) to make the difficult, or even impossible, easy or easier.  This is the point, isn't it?  This is technique.