Help! I am constantly struggling to get my pupils to understand how useful it is to follow the fingering that I or the editor have suggested in the music. They seem tothink that it's just there for fun, rather than to make playing the music a) easier and b) sound fluent.
Am I being rediculously fussy? But it seems to me that without being pedantic about it they won't develop their technique properly.
Any suggestions?

I once told a teenager who wouldn't take notice over this issue that he could practice his pieces with his own fingering and if it produced the right result I'd have no problem with it.
Guess who won?
The other thing I did was to make sure i never said 'because I say so' but demonstrated the difference between what he was doing and what I would do to show that my way was much more energy efficient and less open to error.

If it is REALLY persistent there always pointing out that if they are happy to just play in their own way and not take advice from you (which is fine if that's what they are happy with) then don't they think it's a bit of a waste of money paying you.

I have the opposite problem - I have several pupils who are addicted to the fingering, so much so that they cannot see the note itself.
To take an easy example, if they play A with the r.h. thumb and the next note is G with the second finger, they will sit and stare for years at an end, wanting to play B (where their second finger is) but confused. And these are not beginners but Grade 2 ish students who've been out of 5-finger positions for a good couple of years.
It drives me mad. I just want to shout 'play the ruddy note with your nose if you want, just play G!'.

yes, agreed

I try to avoid talking in terms of right and wrong fingering.

I point out that the best fingering is one which WORKS - ie which gets the notes you need under a usable group of fingers, and preferably means you don't run out of fingers before the end of the phrase - ( and how much easier that is than having to think again halfway along, which is similar to sbhoa's last point).

Also that once established, notes + fingering make a sort-of partnership, and if the fingering slips the notes often do as well - particularly true in scales but also in pieces to some extent.

There are always those who remain to be convinced, however!

I think this is something the pupil has to learn for himself. I'm afraid I was very naughty over fingerings as a girl, and it wasn't until I'd advanced a few grades that it finally dawned on me that some of my fingerings were never going to work at speed. They seemed easier initially, because more natural to me, and at early grades it's easy to get away with it, but once pieces get faster proper fingering is essential.

You could try asking a pupil to see how fast they can play a phrase using their own fingering, paying particular attention to achieving a legato result, and then get them to try again with the suggested fingering. Like many things in life, I think it's something which you have to experience for yourself; being told just doesn't have the same impact. Actually the suggested fingerings sometimes don't work for everyone - the teacher has an important role in helping the pianist decide which fingering is best for him. But once that's decided, it should be adhered to each time the piece is played.

I tell my older/more advanced students this it's okay to use their own fingerings, as long as they work. After all, we all have different sized hands (mine are very small) and what suits one may not suit another. But with beginners, it's good discipline to get used to using what's suggested on the piece and using the same fingering every time.
One of my best students has always been a little 'creative' with scale fingerings and I always point out that wrong fingerings in scales can lead to wrong notes!

This one couldn't keep the same finger on the same notes in a 5 finger exercise!!

Some teachers are addicted to fingering too. I once had a piano teacher who insisted that I sit at the piano and write all the fingering in during my lesson. At that particular stage, I was approx Grade 4 standard, knew the piece concerned well, had practised it and religiously used the same fingering every time, and this was committed to muscle memory. Her philosophy was that lots of fingering meant fewer mistakes. But I am always careful about fingering, and write my own in where necessary as a reminder. It was a complete waste of time to have to undertake this exercise. I also find that to have numbers (and various other "graffiti") scrawled all over the page is distracting and - maybe I am a bit strange - it also causes me anxiety. I would rather work from a cleaner copy with only the necessities marked in.

For the reluctant adherents, I usually point out that the fingering is there to HELP them, not as some sort of additional hurdle for them to overcome. Use the suggested fingering and hey presto! - it all makes sense...

All of the above I do try to do - but I think some of them just think oh blah blah .. but it's probably right they just need to work it out with maturity. I can't remember that far back - far too old

You can lead a horse to water...

you are quite right
brick walls and banged heads also spring to mind - that's how I feel!

I always explain to my students that playing a piece should be comfortable (like wearing soft old pjamas!) and that if you use complicated fingering unnecessarily, your hands are not going to be comfortable, so the piece will reflect that and sound uncomfortable.

I keep having students think fingering is to make things more difficult for them - its hard to get them to realise that choosing the best finger for a particular note is actually to help them and make it more fluid.

The most frustrating thing is that I find a lot of the ABRSM syllabus pieces have awful fingering that really complicate issues for students, as they tend to believe that what is put in print by an exam board must be the only way - even when I buy piees for myself that are produced by ABRSM publishing, I am amazed at their fingering choices.

Especially with younger students, although even with older ones at time, I show them how, if they don't need to move their hands - why do it? Part of choosing fingering I think, once they get to a certain level, is partly to do with their sight-reading/music-reading ability in general - if they are looking ahead and can recognise the musical shapes, they can understand which direction the music is going in, how far the jumps coming up are going to be, how long that scalic run is going to be ... etc, and judge how many/which fingers they will need accordingly.

I had a student who would use his hands in crazy ways, like crossing his 2nd finger backwards over the top of his 5th finger if he couldn't work out what fingers to use. He still has crazy fingers, but they're improving the more we play!

The problem is though, no matter what fingering they end up with, is that they rarely use the same fingering twice in a row, whether it's the one that's marked or the one that we've worked out together..... It's a matter of real discipline and concentration in practice - and most of them just don't seem to be bothered. So they end up never 'cementing' the piece properly as the brain gets confused due to never using the same fingering consistently........ and it drives me nuts! No matter how many times I tell them to learn the note and the finger together, they just treat the fingering as an optional extra....... ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

well at least I know I'm not alone in this!

nothing to add - just thanks for the chuckle

Yes - I inherited a student whose teacher would take a piece and mark in every single finger before she gave it to the student

I agree - I am always editing fingering to make it simpler or more logical.

I think the key thing to remember when writing in fingering is that frequently less is actually more.

I take a relaxed attitude towards fingering. After all, kids are flexible enough to do things that would land me in A&E with something dislocated.

Take any give passage and there are usually about five different fingerings that will allow them to be played equally well, so I mostly let the pupils do what they want.

The downside of this is some chaotic fingerings from time to time.

The upside is that I can occasionally say, "You must use this fingering because........." and they will take notice. When they try to ignore me, I can justifiably bang on about it until they stop ignoring me. This establishes in their minds the importance of my saying, "You must............."

This works a treat. On the odd occasion that only one fingering will work for a particular individual, he\she\it takes notice when I say so.

The problem with 'bad' fingering is that it's so damned hard to change once established. It's actually easier, sometimes, to scrap the piece in favour of something else, or else accept that certain passages will always be scrappy. I had to do the latter recently with a pupil entered for Grade 7, who only started contemplating in the last few weeks the idea that I might actually have been right that her fingering wasn't working with regard to achieving clarity. But rather than have the whole thing (Bach) unravel like a piece of knitting, we decided to let it go this time on the understanding that she'd listen to me next time!

So that's another way to make 'em listen! Let 'em learn by their own mistakes! This piece got a reasonable mark in the exam, but it could have been a whole lot better, and she realises now why, having thought I was being too fussy until we really started polishing the piece.

As a brass teacher fingering isn't an issue really, there are only 3 fingers and seven combinations of valves!When it comes to piano or clarinet then I can't really comment as I don't always follow the guides... However it is important to instill correct fingerings at first so pupils can try alternative ones. Certainly the unorthodox alternatives become very useful in the arban/clarke studies and such like in the higher levels. But I agree most of all with an early poster in that if it works then its right.

Hi all, interesting topic.

I used to be very bad and NEVER look at fingering, it just got in the way of MY way

However, after having to to grade 8 prelude and fugue by bach, I thought, uh oh

My new teacher emphasises that to play a fast passage, you MUST learn the fingering first, then it will easily go faster.

I've having to re-learn a LOT of fingering on pathetique, because it worked slowly, but faster I can't get it legato

Stable fingering is essential if you wish to commit music to memory securely ; try memorising any simple piece of Bach to test this assertion !