“Pencil in your fingering for both hands. Use a pencil in case you want to erase later. Decide on the fingering. Practice with the fingering you wrote in the score.” Why? The students in piano and ukulele classes ask. Why is correct fingering important?
Correct fingering means using the correct fingers to play the notes you read in front of you. If the fingering is not specified in the score, you will need to write the numbers in the score.
Incorrect fingering risks mistakes in playing. No fingering means you have to instinctively know what to do or decide on the spot. If fingering is not marked on the score, you have to work it out through trial and error. The more advanced you are at playing the instrument, the easier and faster you can decide on the fingering.
In this blog post, I refer to examples from my Fingerstyle Ukulele Showcase and Piano Harmonization classes in Zoom.
Ukulele Fingering
For ukulele players, use the letters p, i, m, a for thumb, index, middle finger, and ring fingers of your fingerpicking hand (usually the right hand) respectively. The pinky is never used because ukulele has only four strings.
For the “fretting hand” (left hand for most people), they are 1 for the index finger, 2 for the middle finger, 3 for the ring finger, and 4 for the pinky. The left thumb is pressed behind the neck of the instrument and not used for fretting.
In the above example, I use only the strongest right hand fingers (p, i, m) to fingerpick, rather than resting each finger on a string and using i, m, a. The left pinky (number 4) doesn’t get used often because it’s the weakest finger but in this passage works better than the middle finger (3).
Piano Fingering
For pianists, fingering refers to the numbers 1 to 5 corresponding to your thumb, index, middle, ring finger, and pinky.
In the above example from Pachelbel Progression, there are three options for the left hand to play the bass line of Pachelbel’s Canon. Both the first (brown colored numbers) and third (in green) options require only two fingers – thus easy to remember. However, the fingers must cross in the last two measures. Adults have wider finger spans than children, so these two options are not difficult. The second option (in red) requires four different fingers, but no crossing. Which would you choose? I prefer the second (in red) to avoid crossing fingers.
I ask my piano students to try different fingering for comfort, convenience, and ease. After they practice several times, they will get used to it. However, if they practice the wrong fingering, they may risk making mistakes.
If you practice playing the scales long enough, your fingers will instinctively know what to do. In the above passage, crossing fingers is unavoidable. Using the correct fingering will enable legato playing, connecting the notes seamlessly, without gaps and hiccups.
Combining the single melodic lines in sections B and C requires a different set of fingering for legato playing. Crossing double fingers is much harder than crossing single fingers. Instead of 4-2 for the second C chord, it’s possible to use 2-1 in measure 30 to avoid crossing fingers a second time in that system.
In the above example of a broken F major chord followed by the C major scale starting on the note D, the fingering makes use of the strongest fingers for the scale. In general, try using the strongest fingerings unless you are deliberately practising using weak fingers. Your strongest fingers are the index and middle fingers.
In the above example, some pianists may prefer 2-3-5 for the block chord and 1-2-3 for the broken chord because the ring finger (number 4) is weak.
I have reached a point where I don’t need to see fingering markings in a piano score, but I do appreciate foot and heel markings for organ pedals and fingering for ukulele fingerstyle sheet music, especially for fast passages. For classical guitar, it’s critical to spend time annotating the fingering and practising what’s written.
Using the correct fingering will prevent and reduce mistakes when performing. The key is to practise with the correct fingering as marked.
