My teacher has set me E flat minor as one of the new scales/arpeggios I need to learn for next time. The scale is nice but the arpeggio is one of the most horrendous things I have seen in my life. How do you guys do it? The fingering is 1-2-3 which is normal for a lot of arpeggios but seems really weird for this one, and my fingers seem to keep slipping off onto the white keys. Advice would be much appreciated as it's two weeks until my next lesson so I can't ask my teacher until then. Is it just one of those things that will come to you eventually or is there a simpler way of doing it that I haven't figured out?
Also I find that with RH arpeggios, especially when the fingering is 1-2-3 my thumb starts to feel weird after a while from constantly tucking under my hand. Is there any way to avoid this? The 3 to 1 bit always feels like such a massive leap.

x Bass Clef

1-2-3 is perfectly common fingering for this arpeggio, as is 1-2-4, but if you are finding it difficult, you could try 2-3-1 or 2-4-1 Those are the fingerings I use and teach.

Some arpeggios do seem more difficult than others and I'm afraid it is just something that you have to work at and practise. I suggest breaking it up, doing it slowly, and just working on the first 3 or 4 notes until you have the thumb tuck done well. Then work from the 2nd note to the 5th note a few times until that is smooth until finally you work on 1 complete octave.

Perseverence is key!
C x

I guess its a hard one because its all black notes. G flat major is similar, but surely 1-2-3 is the easiest way !

I don't know whether it is "correct", but when I play black keys, my hands are flatter, and I play more on the pads of my fingers, rather than the tips. More contact area means better grip for me...

The action is not a lot different than a C major Arpeggio, and the fingering is the same, but as the black keys are smaller your finger placement has to be more precise. Also the feel of the black keys is a little different (tactile surface, shape, weight, amount of movement). The different feel is only "really weird" while the sensation is new. After a few days (or years!) of practice it comes to feel normal.

As for the greater precision that is needed - it is something you just have to practice until you get it. As usual the secret is in doing it slowly over several days, or even weeks, resisting the temptation to speed up, so as to burn into your brain the exact distances it has to judge in moving from key to key.

It is possible to cheat by taking black notes with the fingers at a slight diagonal. That gives you more security - you are less likely to miss the note. It is a useful technique for taking single notes at the end of big leaps (you can even take such notes with two or more fingers to make really sure that you don't miss) but in standard arpeggios it is not such a very good idea. For optimum control each finger needs to be aligned with the key just before it makes its downward movement. Just as in scales, it is the job of the arm to bring the finger into such an optimum position, without too much side-to-side to-and-froing of the wrist. In fact arpeggios are nothing more than sparse scales with widely spaced notes.

Now I'm just the opposite - my fingers are even more rounded and sort of tiptoe up the arpeggio (just tried it to remind myself).

Nice one, Cadence. Good to see someone else actually thinking about how to finger arpeggios. Having said that, it doesn't take much thinking about, does it? I am sure that your are as confused as me as to why successive generations of pianists have been forced to suffer ludicrous arpeggio fingerings. Hey ho.

The 'perfectly common' fingerings are often ridiculous. Take the C major arpeggio and the usual RH 1 2 3 1 finger pattern. This involves passing the thumb a ridiculous distance to reach the next C. Starting with 2 on C, then 4 on E and thumb on the G makes far more sense.

Transpose all this to Eb minor and the problems\solutions are magnified by the fact that black notes are so much narrower that white ones.

So, adapt Cadence's suggestion and your problems will be much alleviated. They will not disappear altogether - black notes are still quite narrow, after all. After that, console yourself with the thought that the Eb minor arpeggio is purely an exam requirement. Ok, so there may be an ascending\descending 4 octave Eb minor two hands arpeggio in the piano repertoire somewhere (mind, I doubt it), but I have managed to avoid it so far. .

You wouldn't be saying, would you, that this type of thing is an exam requirement that is devoid of musical usefulness?

Who? Me? Shame on the very idea. Only an idiot would think that a 4 octave two handed Eb minor arpeggio with lousy fingering is not the single most useful musical thing an individual could do.

Get a grip, D.

Thanks guys!

x Bass Clef

When arpeggio-type passages crop up in real music they actually rarely work with - never mind require - the standard fingering that we're supposed to teach for this section of an exam. Go with what works, because fingering in these things is only a tool to producing the required aural effect. I only ever had a pupil criticised once for poor fingering in an arpeggio (It was F# major, so similar story) but he still only lost one mark overall in that part of the exam. If he blundered in that particular arpeggio it will have been coincidence, because he never did when he played it for me.

This is a very good point. It is even more true when you play scale and arpeggio passages as part of a piece, rather than as stand-alone technical exercises. A good example is the last page of Chopin's first Ballade, where there are two dramatic rising scales passages in G minor. The second is played with the hands a 10th apart, starting on G in the LH and Bb in the RH. This is all but impossible to play smoothly at the required speed with the "standard" fingering, but becomes much easier (though at first unfamiliar) if you adopt the principle of always passing the fingers over to a black key when the thumb is on a white key.

The "standard" fingerings can be helpful semi-automatic actions when you have to give a performance by sight-reading (like when accompanying people at auditions) but when you are studying a piece more thoroughly there is nearly always something better.

Everything said above by Mad Tom and PianoDoodler is very true. In fact, as Mad Tom said, even scale passages rarely use the very prescriptive fingering cited for use in ABRSM testing. Even on a fairly basic level - think about "Never Vex A Tyrrannosaurus Rex" in the Grade 1 book - the chromatic elements in the left hand wouldn't make sense if using the 2-1-3-1 upwards from B that so many students are drilled into using. Rather 4-3-2-1 is so much better. On a more advanced level, in Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu, there is a descending chromatic scale that also warrants so called "alternative" fingering.

What is often seen as 'standard' fingerings for chromatic scales (with similar problems in other scales) include shifts in hand position for the sake of only two notes, using the fingers 2-1 going down. I don't think there is any justification for this clumsy practice except the "rule" or common conception that you should keep the fingering exactly the same throughout the scale, no matter which octave it is in/how many times you repeat it. I always encourage students to use their imagination when thinking about their fingering in passages - be sensible and apply a coherent pattern - but use your imagination and listen to your body and fingers to think of a practical solution that can be maintained.

As an example, I sometimes ask people to do this:
Start on Bb and descend chromatically with the following fingering

4-3-2-1
3-2-1
4-3-2-1
3-2-1
4-3-2-1
3-2-1
3-2-1

which then brings you back to finger 4 on Bb after two octaves. This is important, because sometimes you do need to use different fingerings over more than 1 octave, even for something as repetitive and mundane as a chromatic scale, especially if the fingers that are not playing the scale are doing other things, such as in the 1st Visions Fugitives.

I strongly believe that it is important to teach students how to come up with logical fingerings. And in answer to the orignal post, the "correct" fingering is that which produces the required result, aiding you to produce a clean line and a good quality of sound whilst being comfortable for your hand.

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 have learnt alot about fingering here Will go back and test them out.

Indeed there have been many scales/arpeggios which once set me thinking, "Is this humanly possible?", but it didn't hit me that perhaps it is possible because the others are using different fingerings!

,

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.