Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Teaching scales, what method...

In the beginning the concentration on finger X or Y has to do with getting the fingering right. For the most part you are thinking about which finger crosses when moving in, either hand, but where the thumbs "cross" when moving out.

I would do a separate group for the LH for G, D and A because the general rule of turning from a black note to a white for the thumb is broken, and students should really know why. We do not use those scale fingerings for passage work.

G in the left hand turns from D to E and from G to A
D in the left hand turns from A to B and from D to E.
A in the left hand turns from A to B.

So these three scales fall into the group of "3 always together", but they are less intuitive in the LH. And in all of them the 4th finger is on a white key. The other 9 scales are not that way. C does not count as "odd" because there are no black notes for the 4th to fall on.

The Ab scale is unlike the other scales where 3 is always together because the fingering is not the same in contrary motion. It is for C, D, E, G and A.

In most standard editions there is a tendency to mark the thumb AND the finger that crosses in scale passages going both ways. Going outward you only need the thumb marked, and coming in you only need the "crossover" finger. Where the thumb goes becomes obvious going in that direction.

In any instruction I have read or been given previously, the thumb was never emphasized in any way. Obviously when you get 1-2-3 / 1-2-3-4, the thumb is the "1", but it is part of the group. The emphasis was always on the 3's and 4's (groupings), so I find your focus on the thumb in what I quoted previously to be an actual change of focus - a paradigm shift. I'm thinking that this may not be a small thing.

The big thing is to stop people from doing horribly tense and crippling movements with the thumb because they don't release 3 and 4 comfortably while moving to the thumb.

Thanks AZN. We don't live in CA. My question was one of curiosity only. My son will be participating Guild and based on his experience last year, his scales don't have to be learned in a particular order. For Guild at his level, his SCA's are presented only in the key of the pieces that he plays. It is just interesting to learn a little bit about how different types of piano assessments compare.

When I was still stuck with self-teaching, I followed an old book that had the instruction to suddenly snap the thumb under 3 or 4 - the "snap" itself is a tense movement. I've seen a video where (fortunately only one) teacher** does that movement which I adopted. I stopped doing scales cold turkey when my hands were going numb. There were a lot of other things going on, but that thumb-snap under an immobile hand and thus tight fingers was a big part of it. The thumb has a huge muscle, and apparently has more nerves going to the brain than anything else does. It's an awesome digit, to be treated with respect.


** What that teacher doesn't say, but you can see if you know about it, is that he also has a flexible responsive wrist, his fingers are relaxed, his forearm is not rigidly fixed.

Would that be Leschetizky?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Leschetizky-Method-Correct-Playing/dp/0486295966

Finger centric to the max! Abby would have shot him, if she were in a good mood.

No, a fellow called Cooke. There are two writers called Cooke and he is the other one, not the one who talks about easy. I've put out a warning a couple of times in the ABF when the book gets recommended, since it's a free download with expired copyright. That part is dangerous - otherwise there is some good information.

I actually have a printout of Leschitisky - never used it - but the FIRST thing that he wants is for students to learn to acquire a flexible wrist, before even playing any notes. That doesn't sound totally finger-centric to me. But I'm out of my depth here.

No one has actually ever played that way. At full speed for something as basic as a C scale the thumb begins to move in by the time the 2nd finger goes down. I don't know why anyone would teach that way.

Here's another approach. It seeks to maximize the efficiency of each hand separately, which as Gary pointed out might have a flaw for HT. But it's easy to remember.

A small snip:

Here's the problem with this, Tim, and probably the reason I have never seen anyone practice scales with this alternate fingering.

In the LH play F to F and then back down again several times and as quickly as you can. One octave. The F major scale.

Using the alternate fingering you will now be passing over and under the thumb twice, once from A to Bb and then from E to F. For this particular movement it is inefficient. Even for two octaves it does not work well. The fact that it might be more efficient for the thumb over several octaves is getting very theoretical and impractical.

A normal one octave scale fingering only passes under and over once, and that makes it faster and easier for that specific technical demand.

If you assume that the 4th finger of the LH should always be on a black note then the result becomes ridiculous. A melodic minor LH C scale would be: 2 1, 4321, 21 (or 23), one octave.

No one is going to start the Beethoven 3rd Concerto with that fingering. It doesn't work well.

Instead we switch to the "4th finger on black notes" idea in passage work where the first and last note of any scale pattern is not the tonic but can be any note in the scale.

Here is a concrete example:

Suppose you want to play from F# down a couple octaves in the D scale and end on A, LH. Then you WOULD put the thumb on E and B. But that is the standard fingering for the D natural minor scale.

You have to use some common sense for scales otherwise they become theoretical and useless for real-life technical problems.

I am not sure that I have ever run into an example where music I actually play uses scale fingerings, either the orthodox or the ones recommended by this particular teacher.

By the way, this is different from the way I approach scales on the trombone. There, each scale has a preferred choice of fingerings. I've patiently worked through all the scales, doing one scale a week and repeating, doing two notes at a time for the whole range, three notes, etc., and arrived at preferred fingering choices for each scale, and 99% of the time those are also what work in any given repertoire in that key.

I defer to your demonstrated expertise - I am not arguing with you.

For the purpose of scale playing as an end in itself, I find that other teacher's approach convenient. It meshes with the way my brain works.

I'm going to include another snip from that other teacher, who also has a significant level of respect:

Try teaching other scales first that have the thumbs together. You can teach them easily by rote. Db and Gb are easiest because they never use the 5th finger in either hand.

Then B. All these scales use all the black notes. You just move the thumbs from B E to C F to B F (Cb F).

Then try teaching the F scale, also thumbs together. Same as Db except with 4 fewer black notes. That gets you all four scale with thumbs together. THEN teach C, and stress F-G are always 1 against 2.

I would not compare trombone and piano. You choose positions on trombone by which are closer - 6 for F, 5 for Bb, 4 for upper D, and so on. #2 and #3 for high F# and G. It's logical and simple.

Piano is different.

You consider the number of notes in any kind of passage.

Example, you are in F, and you LH needs to start on F and go to E, 7 notes. 321, 4321 is an excellent choice.

Change the number of notes: F to G, 9 notes. Now 54321, 4321 is the best choice if you need to do to it really fast. For one hand by the time you go more than two octaves, especially if you are not starting and ending on F, other solutions are better. 10 notes, F to A, probably 321, 4321, 321. In this case you would be using the alternate fingering suggested.

Passage work involves scale patterns that sometimes skip notes, that double back, and so on. Handy dandy scale fingerings are a start, but you have to learn to think out of the box.

I would stick with traditional fingerings for all standard scales, then completely change fingering as necessary when appropriate.

And then there's Bach, where there's only one fingering that will work (and sometimes not even one) and there's no way to figure it out.

Smiley.

Is this the finger number of G Major one octave scales for piano?

No. The LH is a theoretical fingering for two or more octaves, non-standard, perhaps for passage work, and I would never teach this to a beginning or intermediate student.

The interesting thing to me is the way the fingers line up for HT. Well, the really interesting thing is that I've seen this before and my brain never noticed it before, but none of you care how my brain works. <smiley>

With that unorthodox fingering, 1 will always line up with 3, 2 with 2 and 4 with 4. The argumentative Nyi who's no longer with us was adamant that unorthodox fingerings could not be used because 3 had to line up with 4, IIRC.

Don't worry, I won't teach this to a beginner. <grin>

May I ask who is this "other teacher, who also has a significant level of respect"?
Thank you!
You should include his or her name too or other wise maybe other people will accuse you of "plagiarism"
<Grin>

It comes from a different forum. It is generally bad manners to mix forums and I was treading on thin ethical ground just with the snip. If you're interested PM me and I'll send you a link.

If the ideas don't stand on their own, well then they don't. I mentioned the teacher only so you'd know this wasn't another one of my personal hairbrained schemes, of which there are unfortunately no shortage.

If you search the web for this key phrase you will be able to find the source easily.