Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner 64 53 Fingering

Out of interest how many of you would use this LH fingering for this common cadential pattern?

Mozart K330, 3rd mov.

Wow, it's hard to imagine a circumstance where I would have 5 and 4 in my left hand span a fourth. And coming from the previous chord where the third finger is on the A, this looks like some sort of special torture technique. You can count me out.

runs to the piano and tries it

Ok, it's not actually that bad, but it's definitely not comfortable. It does allow you to play the C-E to D-F smoothly, but I would definitely do 5-3-1 to 5-2-1 to get most of that smoothness without doing something so unnatural. But… maybe if I had a much bigger hand and spanning a fourth with the 5 and 4 was fairly comfortable for me?

That's what I thought. It can be unhealthily done.

As my paws are the size of a koala bear's rather than a polar bear's (which I saw for the first time in Scotland two weeks ago - so huge that if it had swallowed me whole, I wouldn't have made a dent in its belly), I'd never have contemplated using 2-4-5.

And looking at my ancient score (from my teenage years, when I learnt it by myself), I can see that I wrote down 1-3-5.

But with advanced age, I must have become more flexible (or more tolerant of discomfort, which amounts to the same thing ) because I've just found that 2-4-5 is actually playable, even at speed, such that if I was re-learning it now, I might actually use it......

What if you held your hand like this?




And who wants to guess what Mozart did?

Nope, that's too much awkward twisting.

When I play it with 2-4-5, my hand is comfortably flat.

Does the pinky need to play so deep into the key like that? If you play on near the tip, you might have a better position.

Well, he used a Walter fortepiano, which has narrower keys, so anything is possible.......

Now see, that is weird.That is the natural position of the hand, not pronated (i.e. using the pronator musculature) as in your 'comfortably flat'.

The "natural position" of the forearm when standing/walking is semi-pronated, with palms facing inwards. (The "anatomical position" as in Gray's Anatomy, is supinated, with palms facing forwards - but nobody walks like that, not even catwalk models.)

When playing the piano, the "natural" position is almost (but not quite) parallel to the keyboard.

So, what did Wolfie use?

Not sure I know what 'semi-pronated' is. The playing you've described is pronated. I'm referring to a position on the keyboard with neither pronation or supination muscles active.

That would be a karate chop position. Same as when your arms are relaxed by your sides when standing.

If you don't believe me, sit on your comfy sofa, and lift both hands up to 90 deg at the elbows.
You can't play a piano (not even an unweighted keyboard) with hands in that position.

But you might be able to play a bandoneon (if Piazzolla is your thing) or bagpipes.......

No, I have to place my hands in karate chop position. The weight of the thumb side of the hand naturally pulls it over. On the topic of Mozart, as far as I know he had no piano lessons only what his father could glean from CPE Bach's book.

You are thinking "Playing piano". If someone plops your baby onto your lap and you raise your hands to pick him up, what positions are your hands in?

The relaxed position, when both supinators and pronators are relaxed, is semi-pronated. Stand up, and swing your arms back & forth with forearms relaxed, wildly enough so that your forearms swing right up to 90 deg at the elbows. Do they suddenly pronate at the top of the swing?

I think you're saying that the knuckles are naturally horizontal when at the piano. This is not correct.

Playing the piano is totally unnatural.

And I didn't say that the knuckles are horizontal when playing. The 5th knuckle is "naturally" lower because of the weight of the pinky .

I think you'll find each knuckle is lower than its neighbour.

I think most would find that the most awkward fingering that had ever used. Even the "reason" for using it(I assume it's to get perfect legato on the thirds) seems silly. The second hand position would also extremely awkward for most.

In that case, no knuckle is lower than any other......

Actually, thinking of how those pre-Baroquists play their keyboards (sans thumbs), with thumbs out of the way (probably strapped to their palms with Elastoplast), their knuckles are more horizontal. That's probably why my teacher's teacher's teacher's teacher's teacher (ad nauseam) used to put coins on top of their pupils' hands when they play Bull or Frescobaldi.

This pianist obviously didn't listen to his teacher's teacher's teacher's.....

I solemnly swear: No performing pianist in the world will play these notes with this fingering - at least not on stage.

Any particular reason why you want to use that fingering ? If it works for you at tempo and in a reliable way, does it matter what others may think of it ?