E Flat Minor Arpeggio, Please help! Options

[Cadence]

Reaching for this month's Piano Professional mag again.. article by Penelope Roskell on Fingering scales and arpeggios. As she points out, 'all exam boards now make it clear that any fingering can be used, as long as it produces a smooth, fluent result.'

Most of her principles are really obvious once you think about it, as cadence has done ( have you read her book, cadence?) . 'The thumb and 5th finger prefer white notes'; 'the thumb passes more easily under black notes' etc. We have probably all come across students playing C and F minor descending who instinctively want to put the LH thumb after every black key - the Eb in C minor; the Ab in Fminor, and so on. After all, this is what the LH does in the relative majors. In the interests of logic, I used to 'correct' this, even though it felt slightly ridiculous to do so. Now I just point out that while this won't work when playing contraries, or Russian style, if it works for them, that's fine.

By the way, LH D major is one of the worst if using 'conventional' fingering - to quote Penny again, 'the hand keeps twisting out of alignment, the elbow will jut out', etc. Instead of starting on 5, starting on 2, and playing 214, with 4 on the F# and C#, produces a far smoother effect.

Maybe as teachers we tend to teach as we were taught, and having had these fingerings drummed into us, and encouraged by the AB, we continue to perpetuate this uncomfortable and awkward stuff. And, as others have pointed out, there is little if any relationship to anything in real music.

I haven't read it actually, it sounds interesting - people on the forum keep mentioning Piano Professional, but I haven't been able to find it in the newsagents or bookshops near me; do you have to subscribe?

About D minor - totally agree. It was actually this arpeggio that prompted me to start some arpeggios with my second finger, much to all my teachers' chagrin, but as a kid I un-ashamedly stuck to my opinion that if the way I do things (not just in music!) works for me, then I don't see why I should be forced to follow the "norm". Of course, I did eventually find that a lot of things are very usueful, but things like fingering remained firmly on my territory. When I started teaching, I was concerned that bringing my "unconventional" fingerings to my students would be bad teaching practice, so I spent time making sure I knew the AB fingerings to teach them. But after a few weeks of seeing children trying to contort their arms and complaining that "my hands don't twist like that", I remembered why it was in the first place that my 8 year old self refused to play them like that and just decided that my way was better!

[HelenVJ]

The 'AB fingerings' are just suggestions, rather than being written in stone. Trouble is, most people teach them as they were taught themselves, without stopping to think what might be best for the student's hand. I did this myself for rather too long, before eventually seeing the light.

Piano Professional is the EPTA magazine - comes 3 times a year with the EPTA subscription - which is around £62 for a year - less than half the price of the ISM, and with almost identical benefits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cadence]

The 'AB fingerings' are just suggestions, rather than being written in stone. Trouble is, most people teach them as they were taught themselves, without stopping to think what might be best for the student's hand. I did this myself for rather too long, before eventually seeing the light.

Piano Professional is the EPTA magazine - comes 3 times a year with the EPTA subscription - which is around £62 for a year - less than half the price of the ISM, and with almost identical benefits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Can you subscribe to the magazine and not be a member of EPTA? I'm waiting for my diploma to come through before I can apply. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

[HelenVJ]

I think you must be able to buy it separately, as there is a cover price - a very modest £3.75!

Oh - I've just looked up the details inside - you can subscribe annually for £12 including p&p.. Contact the administrator: admin@epta-uk.org. Also, I'm sure you can become a student member or something before getting a diploma.

[chocolatedog]

Whatever fingering is learned then needs to be learned thoroughly so that it doesn't come apart later in the grades when having to play scales in 3rds and 6ths.

[Bass Clef]

One thing that I find difficult is choosing the right fingering for me. How are you supposed to know if a particular fingering feels awkward because it really is, or just because its new and unfamiliar? I want to practise it a bit to see if it will work but if I try out too many fingerings in this way I just get confused! Sometimes when I turn up to a lesson and play an arpeggio / scale for my teacher and I get it wrong she'll say 'Ah, well, that's because you're doing the wrong fingering' but I think it could just be that I got it wrong that time or I didn't know it enough. I don't know. Its tricky, innit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[sbhoa]

One thing that I find difficult is choosing the right fingering for me. How are you supposed to know if a particular fingering feels awkward because it really is, or just because its new and unfamiliar? I want to practise it a bit to see if it will work but if I try out too many fingerings in this way I just get confused! Sometimes when I turn up to a lesson and play an arpeggio / scale for my teacher and I get it wrong she'll say 'Ah, well, that's because you're doing the wrong fingering' but I think it could just be that I got it wrong that time or I didn't know it enough. I don't know. Its tricky, innit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Even if you aren't yet fluent your teacher will be able to see if the fingering you've gone for looks right for you and if you are being consitent with it.