Why Finger Choices Are Musical Decisions

Convenience

Many players will have experienced that moment when you're playing something and you suddenly run out of fingers and seemingly have no way of playing the next notes. You may have landed on a little finger and then need to reach notes that are beyond that, or you may have notes that are spread out on the piano and don't know how to navigate playing them all. While it may be tempting to do a quick Google search to see if it's possible to attach a prosthetic sixth and seventh finger to each hand, for those that are stuck with just ten fingers, like myself, this is an inevitable part of learning the piano.

The problem is that the fingers that are used to play any particular section of music on the piano are often not considered at all. At the start of learning the piano, we tend to have our hands in one hand position (one finger per key), and in many editorial beginner to intermediate pieces (for grades or in edited books), fingers are often suggested. This means that, from very early on, fingers aren't really a big consideration.

However, in Urtext editions of pieces (original, authentic versions with no editorial decisions), fingers are typically never provided by the composer themselves, and as you get better and better at the piano, Urtext editions of pieces become the best option for really understanding a piece of music, very much like when we take stabilisers off a child's bike. That's not to say that editorial versions of pieces are necessarily bad, but even if you are using an edited version of a piece, the finger choices are often choices that suit the editor but may not be the most conventional or the best for you.

Having said that, this comes with the problem that you need to learn by yourself how to choose fingers that will work well for whatever you're playing. So how do you do that?

Criteria

There is actually very rarely one set of fingers that will work. There are typically several options, and you have to use your existing knowledge of music, along with what the music is trying to do, in order to help you determine what fingers should be used. If every section of a piece of music had one available set of fingers to use, then there would be nothing to decide or no editorial suggestions needed.

The best way to help you understand why certain fingers are decided is to first ask: in a piece of music where the left hand is playing single notes at a time and the right hand is also playing single notes at a time, why would we not want to use just our index fingers to play all of those notes? You can reach all of those notes with your index fingers. It's much less to think about, and you have more control over just your index fingers, so what's the problem? Why doesn't every pianist play like that?

The answer is musicality. Musicality really just refers to how something sounds. It perhaps feels somewhat intuitive that if you played an entire piece of music with just your index fingers, it would sound "less polished", which leads to the question: why?

The answer is that by doing that, you are preventing yourself from being able to include many other features of the music, perhaps most obviously playing the notes joined up vs detached. Not to mention that, if you did have to play multiple notes in one hand, you would be unable to do it.

Now, of course, this is a rather extreme example; however, the same applies to choosing fingers when you are able to use all ten fingers. Some fingers will allow you to execute things in the music where other fingers would not allow you to do so, in very much the same way as using two index fingers prevents you from joining notes up.

Let's say we have a section of music where, in the right hand, we are supposed to hold one note with our thumb and play several notes over the top of it with the rest of our fingers. If you choose a set of fingers in the upper part of your hand that means you run out of fingers, then you may be forced to let go of the note with your thumb in the lower part of your hand. In another example, let's say you have a set of notes in the left hand that are one after the other, spread across the piano, and are meant to be connected. Well, if you choose a set of fingers at the start of that pattern that means you run out of fingers, you may be required to jump with your hand and therefore lose that connection between the notes.

There are countless examples where finger choices prevent the music from conveying what it potentially could if fingers were considered. So, what needs to be considered in order to choose fingers?

1. Joining the notes - this is perhaps the most obvious because it has a more direct impact on the sound. Finger choices often come from scale and arpeggio practice because these are standardised finger patterns. However, there are some situations where these may need adapting in order to keep the notes joined where necessary. Many players try to use the sustain pedal to cover bad finger choices, however, the pedal itself should typically not be held over chord changes. So, a poor finger choice can lead to a poor pedalling choice. There is a little bit more room for manoeuvre when it comes to staccato notes or notes where we have rests afterwards.

2. Weight and tone quality - different fingers have different capabilities, and if we are trying to play something that requires a particular weight or particular tone control, we may have a preference for fingers that allow us to provide that (fingers 1, 2 and 3 typically). However, this cannot be to the detriment of joining the notes.

3. Movement - if we are playing a series of notes, playing all of the notes with our index finger requires us to move an awful lot, as well as to detach the notes, and therefore the notes will have less cohesion. They will sound less like one gesture. In this case, we would typically opt for consecutive fingers, as we can treat these as one gesture.

4. Consistency - this is largely why we practice scales and arpeggios, because we are aiming for a consistent set of fingers in the vast majority of cases. If you see a particular pattern within a piece of music and you have already practiced that pattern before, then the fingers will come naturally if you use the same fingers every time. Using the same fingers for the same type of thing within a piece of music each time will help you make finger decisions quicker and quicker the more pieces that you play. This will also largely help with determining where you need to cross over with your fingers (e.g. thumb under or third finger over).

Decision

So, what does that mean for what you are doing at the piano?

If you are playing a piece of music and you find that you have run out of fingers at any moment, then the mistake is typically earlier than you think it is. You may have made a mistake 4 or 5 notes before that needs navigating around. The way to work out which fingers to use is to try and default to scale fingers as much as you can, and keep an eye on where rests are, because these are your moments where you can reposition your hand if required.

It's also very useful, in any given phrase within a piece of music, to look for the highest note and the lowest note that you need to play in both hands, because these will more often than not be played by the outside fingers on your hand.

I would also recommend often practicing the piano without the pedal at all if you are someone that is likely to cover finger choices with the pedal.

When you are learning a piece of music, it's a great idea to write fingers in so that you can stay consistent and train them into your hand as you work out what will allow you to include all of the musicality within the music. One of the largest contributors to finger problems is inconsistency and using different fingers each time. This will also help sight reading because, although, while sight reading, you don't have the opportunity to prepare which fingers you're going to use, the more patterns that you come across in pieces of music where you have really considered which fingers you're going to use, the more likely they are to be automatic when it comes to sight reading.

So, while fingers can feel like an added extra, something that doesn't really need to be considered, often bad finger choices are what make a piece of music sound much less musical, as you are unable to include the features that make the piece of music what it is. The next time you are learning a piece of music, consider what fingers you're using and whether they truly allow you to include all of the features of the music.

Matt