# Is fingering important?



## tomhh

Hi everyone.Everytime I play a same piano piece,the fingering might not be the same.But all kinds of fingering I've used are worked.Do I need to care about it? Thanks.


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## Taggart

Yes. Consistent fingering helps build a memory of the piece - your fingers know where to go without too much effort. Then you can start to concentrate on phrasing and dynamics because you're not having to think (too much) about where your fingers are going next.

Consistent fingering helps you move easily between passages where hand positions change again because your fingers know what they are doing.

One of the points of doing scales is that they teach consistent fingering and help you work out finger patterns for passages ina particular key.


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## MoonlightSonata

Fingering is not only important in making the piece easier, it sometimes makes the result sound better by putting the stronger fingers on the more important notes.


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## PetrB

All the above is true, and I would near vehemently support that in practice _for beginners through intermediate,_ at the least. That said, to be able to use a different fingering for the same piece or passages is also vitally important, because you may just slip and then you are not 'frozen' to the one fingering, able to think on the fly and still render the music well.

Too, some 'eccentric' fingering is often best for a really fine-tuned articulation of a particular phrase or passage.

Even when you are more advanced, with it is to be hoped very even strength and use of each and every finger, the physics involved will have one finger still sounding a note differently than the other, partially due to their innate strengths, regardless of how even you've managed to get them. Too, a choice of a different finger of course also alters the disposition of the hand, which also has an affect on the outcome of the tone and delivery.

Fingerings, for you as a beginner, are best set, with perhaps making an exercise in isolation of practicing some passages with different fingering. This will be very telling, and you will be able to hear weaknesses or uneven qualities where you thought you had 'gotten those down.' An old trick is to practice every scale with the fingering for the C major scale -- a true feat and tremendous exercise -- but I would recommend trying that not now, but much later.

I hope you are working with a teacher, because until you develop a very good sense of how to make your own fingerings, all the fingerings in any particular edition -- though generally good -- are more suggestion than rule or law.


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## Krummhorn

Learning the correct fingering along with learning the new piece is a good habit to get into. My teachers would mark up my music (in pencil) to indicate correct fingering as well as pedalboard marks (for organ: heel/toe; left foot/right foot).

I still do the same today on those rough passages. One of the most difficult fingerings that I had to work out was for an 8 measure sequence in the first movement of Sonata II (organ) of Hindemith where the left hand is directly over the right, and both hands play alternating notes right next to each other.


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## appoggiatura

Fingering is not important, it's vital. 
But it's good to be flexible too. I got lessons from several teachers. One teacher insisted on me playing this fingering, the other said another fingering was better etc... That can be frustrating as a student, but as I said, being flexible and being able to play things with different fingerings is very good! For advanced students / pro's it's good to experiment with fingerings. You kind of figure out which one is best, then you absolutely stick to it! Otherwise you're going to crash in a concert. 

If you have a flexible teacher, he or she will provide maybe an alternative fingering that is good too, and let you choose which one is more comfortable to you. 
For beginners.. I think it's just best to stick with your teacher's fingerings to be honest.


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## Animato

I do agree with all others that fingering is very important, so I need not to point out again the reasons for that.

you see, there is a kind of 'standart' fingering for scales, for chords (with no black key, with one black key and with two or more black keys). You can apply this kind of 'standart' fingering to all works in which such scales or chords appear. So that I would say that there is a 'ideal' fingering for a lot of piano pieces. but when you start to play the difficult pieces, you really have to spend some time to find a good fingering for you. I still didn't find my favorite fingering for Beethoven's Waldstein-Sonata, I think it is bar 24. There are several possibilities and since you have to play this bar very fast, you will probably change you fingering when you realize that you are not able to play this part very fast with your original fingering.

Yes Tomhh, take care with your fingering!


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