Proper fingering. (On the piano you silly.)

I found out fingering is a very important aspect of playing the piano and I want to find out as much as I can about it.

Ill start of with a few question, I know finger numbers, and where to put them. But Ive seen two kinds of 'tuck'. One is 123-12345 the other one is 1234-12345, which is right, and is the other wrong?

Also - how do I know if my fingers are in the right position when playing e.g. arpeggios?

Im a fresh pianist, but a loving one. I dont want injures, and I want to be, not good, but goooooooood.

Well, the rule with fingering is to keep a flat hand, the tuck should NOT make you hand bounce, your hand should be relaxed and the best fingering is one with as little hand movement as possible. Look for the easiest way to do it and that is the best way until you find an easier way that is!

ALWAYS when you are learning a new piece KEEP the same fingering every time, and ONLY change it if you have a VERY good reason to. It's important to keep the same fingering so that muscle memory is able to develop for the piece.

So its basicly what feels comfortable?

I do alot of stretching when playing arpeggios and Im not sure if its "right". Cant find any info on it besides the 12345 and starting positions.

Hope Im not paranoid. I just dont want to get hurt.

First of all you'll try find a fingering thats comfortable, sometimes that's not possible ( only example I got is The Deer Hunter theme on guitar ),
but most of the cases it is. The second important thing is to find a fingering that have small movements...

Say if you play C-D-E-F-G <--- you'll prolly wanna play it with finger 1,2,3,4 and 5, not with 2,2,2,2 and 2.....
If you play with your index finger you'll have to move the whole hand to be able to hit the next key.
If you play with all fingers, your hand wont move at all, only your fingers.

Stretching is ok as long as it doesnt hurt ( and you scream in pain )...
As long as a move doesnt hurt it should be ok.

Alright. Good tips. I guess my fingering is not that bad. Any further advice is appreciated though.


And - What pain am I looking for though? Is it pain that makes you actually scream, twitch and turn? Because I am quite enduring to minor pains and aches.

Gaaah. Im growing paranoid. Better play till my hands fall off.

Well about pain. Like Andrew said in his Injury-Talk in his lesson, if you experience burns while playing, thats bad. If you got these burns 2-3 min after playing, that an indication you got grade 2 tendonites, and if it stays trough the night its grade 3-4 and then you are injuried bad!!

But I get a little stiff sometimes in my LH wrist, I got a couple of old injuries from soccer and snowboard. Where I have landed and hurt my wrist bad, and I can tell that that is still there in a way! So I try to stay as relaxed as possible, but I still get a bit stiff. I try to take breaks if I feel like it. I dont know, Im also enduring considering small pains an iches. I think if that is all you got, then its no big thing, But Im not sure though. I guess if it never get any worse, then its harmeless... If it one day is a little worse, then you might be building up something!

You usually dont scream in pain... Pain you notice when you do the fingering isnt usually a good thing, but it depends on how much you repeat that fingering...
But usually you dont do a move that hurts, so you would usually change the fingering if the brain is working ^_^

Most pain, pain in hands/fingers that use several weeks to develop is from over using the muscles/tendons, then the only thing you can do is to play less.
Pain in neck, shoulders and arms is usually due to wrong positure (right word?), and wrong positure leads to pain in non-relaxed muscles.

If steroids was without side effects I would suggest you take some if it's the pain in hands/fingers that are the problem, or something else that speeds up muscle recovery.


I was building this house a couple of years ago, and had a painfull shoulder, but after I stopped using the hammer,
and kept the shoulder/arm resting, it was as good as new after 2 weeks, I was pretty amazed...
A pain that I had had for 5-6 months was gone...

This is abit off-topic - but its a good discussion nontheless.

I have very bad posture. Its partly genetic and partly for playing to much with lego and in a later years to much computer for me. But its very very likely that I will start swimming, because its good exercise for posture and the body in general. Right now I have a "burning" in my left biceps. But I guess thats just because Im using muscles in a way they are not used too.

I have alot of experience infront of a keyboard, so my fingers are used to the motion. Not sure if its in any way comperable, but hey. If I get injured, Ill probably notice.

Silly me for being so enduring on minor aches and pains. Atleast Im not a simulant.

Christian wrote:This is abit off-topic - but its a good discussion nontheless.

I have very bad posture. Its partly genetic and partly for playing to much with lego and in a later years to much computer for me. But its very very likely that I will start swimming, because its good exercise for posture and the body in general. Right now I have a "burning" in my left biceps. But I guess thats just because Im using muscles in a way they are not used too.

I have alot of experience infront of a keyboard, so my fingers are used to the motion. Not sure if its in any way comperable, but hey. If I get injured, Ill probably notice.

Silly me for being so enduring on minor aches and pains. Atleast Im not a simulant.

The big difference between pc-keyboard and a piano is that the weightet keys demands better teqniqe so you wont get injured! But also to much typing can help you getting injuried, since I know Andrew Types as little as possible since he got tendonites!

About fingering for a certain piece...it's pretty much up to us which fingers we use for what keys right? I know it may be common sense, but I just wanted to be sure. I tried playing a song for the first time and wasn't sure whether I was putting my fingers in the right place.

I enjoy the puzzle of working out the fingering of a piece that suits me, when I learn a new piece I will re-write out the line im learning onto some music paper and go through the piece looking at my hand, when I am doing this I will see what note I am currently at then the most effecient way to transfer to the next note, If the transfer requires me to move my hand or of it requires me to move a finger to hit the key, I will mark down on the music the number of finger to use, and I wont mark down any more numbers until this changes so I can still use my intervalic reading, I dont know if this is right or wrong its just what I do I hope that makes sense!

Christian wrote:I found out fingering is a very important aspect of playing the piano and I want to find out as much as I can about it.

Ill start of with a few question, I know finger numbers, and where to put them. But Ive seen two kinds of 'tuck'. One is 123-12345 the other one is 1234-12345, which is right, and is the other wrong?

Also - how do I know if my fingers are in the right position when playing e.g. arpeggios?

Im a fresh pianist, but a loving one. I dont want injures, and I want to be, not good, but goooooooood.

I'm guessing you ran in to this problem with scales? If you're doing scales as 123-12345, that's how it is most keys for one octave, for two octaves you normally do 123-1234-123-12345, so really it's both ways, and with a few scales, such as i believe the B-minor, for the left hand it's 4321-4321, so that your thumb doesn't have to hit black keys. So in short, for one octave scales it's usually 123-12345, for two octaves it's 123-1234-123-12345. I had to get a scale book to figure that out, hope it helps!

Every time i see a tutorial to play scale there is associated guidance on which fingers to use. So does that mean there are fixed set of finger placement rules when playing scales but no rules when playing certain music piece?
I just started learning piano two weeks ago and practicing with scales. Can you guys please suggest what should i practice after scales? I have gone through Andrew's lessons on youtube but they tell little about what to practice on piano. At this moment, If i try to play some music piece i am not able to move fingers smootly across piano and end up having out of rythm/sync notes sound. i have run out of things to practice on piano.
Thanks in advance.