Hey there everyone! My name is Evaldas, and I’m from Lithuania, I’m about to get my piano and start learning. I’m so sorry if a similar thread exists, but I just couldn’t look through all the posts as there are so many. My question is about scales and fingerings. I know two people who play piano, one of them has played piano for I don’t know almost 40 years, and the other is my cousin who finished music school. I bet you start thinking “why don’t you ask the guy who played for 40 years to teach you?” trust me I would, but he lives on a different continent. And my cousin is too busy so I have to stick with a book for a while, later if I’m good I will get a professional teacher. So back to scales and fingerings, back to the book (by the way it’s called “Piano for Dummies” ), back to why those two people tell me totally different things. Ok so last weekend I was talking to my friend (the one who played piano for 40 years… ) and started bragging that I’m about to start learning, so I asked him some tips, and he said that the most important is fingering based on scales and I was like “shouldn’t you play how it’s more comfortable for you?” and he said that it’s important to stick to standard fingerings, as it’s very hard to unlearn later. Well I thought “ok, I should find all the scales with the fingerings”, but I had no luck, because I found all these odd scales ‘harmonic, melodic bla bla bla”, which I didn’t need, I just wanted simple major and minor scales. Anyways, so later I talked to my cousin about this all, and she said “forget those scales, you should play how it’s more comfortable for you”, so now I’m so confused, do I need to worry about those scales, or should I play how I think it’s more comfortable for me? And like let’s say I must stick to the scale fingerings, so for example if a song is in key of F major, and RH fingering for F major is 12341234, right? So does it mean that I only use the four fingers for a song in F major? I’m so confused! By the way neither “Piano for Dummies” nor “Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course” doesn’t talk much about this, just few scales are given. Help me!
ok, well first off, GET A TEACHER! they can explain all of this much better face-to-face than anyone could through type. but anyway, that is ONLY the fingering for the scale, wjich as far as i know you SHOULD be following. if you havent been plaing that long and dont fully understand the concept of scales, i would not recomend just jumping into an F major right off, as they are one of the more confusing major scales. start with a nice, easy, C scale. the fingering for that is 1231234 and coming down is 4321321. I have personal experience witht the "alfreds" book; its what i learned out of. and as for your question about the fingerings for in just a normal peice of music, you will use ALL your fingers regardless of the key signature. the key signature is only there to tell you which notes are sharped or flated in the peice. for instance, if a peice is in the key of D, then you sharp all of the Fs and all the Cs, but you can play them with wichever fingering is applicable to the piece.you DO NOT have to always play D with your thumb, sometimes you might use your pointer, your pinkie, or any other finger.
Jst another word of advice: if you are trying to play without a teeacher, then in all likelihood you are playing virtually every bit of music you come across incorrectly. i dont say this to be mean, i say it as a fact. you are probably missing notes, rythms, the whole works. do you have a metronome? if not, (or if you do but dont use it) you might be speeding up or slowing down in the middle of a peice. always count out loud when you get a new peice, and, in the absence of a teacher, i would suggest going over it note by note to make sure you are playing everything correctly. dont guess; be sure you are hitting the right note before you hear it. its also a good idea to write in the sharps and flats to serve as a reminder and so that you do not get into the habit of missing one or two on a peice. writing in the rythms is also good to do so that you can see it visually so as to aid you conting. some rythms, like, say, 1 2 + a 3 + 4e+ a (quarter triplet eighth eighth dotted-eighth sixeenth) can be rather difficult to play meerly by thinking them or even saying them out loud, especially when you add in another hand with different rythms.
Finally, SLOW DOWN! without a teacher to regulate you, you are probably breeezing through songs, thinking them simple, and being exyremely careless and missing heaps of notes and rythms. you may think you have a song down perfectly, but that doesnt mean that you really do. you need a teacher to point out your mistakes and make sure you dont develop and bad habits like pausing before the next phrase or before a difficult section or fingering. you need someone who will notice rythms or articulations (staccato, longetto, accents, etc.) included in the music that you may miss.
to sum it all up, get a teacher. Dont wait untill you re "better"- its easier for a teacher to nip a bad habit in the bud than it is for them to cut down a full-grown tree. you cant build a house without giving it a foundation first. and, based on the question you aksed, foundations are what you need.
(oh yea one other thing i forgot to include: when begining a peice, concentrate on notees and rythms. go as slowly as necessary to get those down. dynamics and articulations should always come LAST.)
it's best to learn the scales first.. especially beginners..
only people who already know the scales can modify and improvise and play the way they want...
afterall, u got to learn the rules first before u break them.
fingering is a guide of how to play the piece and it's best to follow it first before you do anything else.
doing a scale isn't hard. What you should do is 1-2-3 put thumb under 3rd finger(1)-2-3-4-5. If you want to go to the next octave, instead of 5 put your thumb under 4th finger and start over. Start on C major, and play no sharps/flats. Then move to D major, C sharp F sharp, and continue with each figuring out how it should sound along the way. B and E major start on flats. I never paid much attention to minor keys, sorry.
Everyone is right, including the teacher! There are also books out there for scale work.
Plus, almost all the scales have different fingerings because there are many sharps or flats. So depending on the scale there maybe confusing fingerings to you.
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