How many pianists here stick to the editors's fingering? I am becoming increasingly dismayed by some of the fingering suggestions that certain editors suggest in some pieces and find that I am ignoring them more and more.

It would be good to know people's views.

It depends really. If it's something that involves a lot of chords/broken chords, I tend to stick to the fingering suggested. Sometimes I play around to find fingering that suits me. A lot of pieces I'm trying at the moment don't have much in the way of fingering suggestions.

Getting my students to use the correct fingering for scales is a never ending losing battle though!

Interesting this: I recently had my teacher explain the interpretation of Baroque counterpoint (specifically JS Bach) to me. Until then some of the two-part inventions had editors fingerings that seemed impossible, so I ignored them and used my own. Then I played it the way my teacher suggested and my own fingerings became awkard whilst the editors suggestions became entirely natural and sensible.

Whilst I definitely think that editors occasionally take liberties (Craxton and Tovey with Beethovens piano sonatas, for instance), by and large I think it is a mistake to think they are idiots: They were emminent musicologists in their own right, after all.

If their fingerings dismay you, ask yourself - why? What would you have to do to make the editors ideas make sense? In short, not the incredulous "What did he think he was doing?" but the genuine "Yes: What was he thinking?" Only when you've worked out what was the idea behind a suggestion can you afford to dismiss it.

I don't think I've ever done a piece using completely editor's fingerings... sometimes they don't allow for a pure enough legato and sometimes my hand just does not fit the editor's suggestions!
A lot of times though, the fingerings suggested are good and make the piece easier than it could otherwise be!
Good luck!

i tend to write the fingerings for almost every piece I learn. I'm a little over-obsessive about it. It just means that i can go back to the piece in months and it seems to fall back into place a lot quicker. I always check the suggested fingerings if there are any, but if they don't suit me, then i'll just write over 'em, but a quite a lot of the time I'll stick to what the editor suggests if it seems right. For me , sitting with a pencil and eraser, and figuring out how i'm going to play a piece is half the learning of it, no matter how long certain ones take. I do know what you mean though, when the ones given don't seem suitable.

I find editors' fingerings don't always suit me as I have small hands and a lot of editors are male and use 4th fingers more than I would naturally (due to the generally slightly different lengths of 4th fingers in men v. women......) but often much of the editors' fingering is good. When I don't use it, I always make sure I write my own in and stick to it..........

My piano teacher has reasonably often worked out a different fingering for me for something when something just blatantly has not fitted under my fingers - even if for him it was a logical fingering.

I learnt in my studies that to make a good authorative edition like the Urtext it is necessary to collect evidence from different sources. For example, the original composition made by the composer (not always complete and sometimes unreadable due to crossings out, damaged or lost pages etc) and a published version by an editor. Preferably this should be a first publication or it gets like a game of Chinese Whispers as any differences or mistakes could be replicated next time. The musicologist/editor responsible for the brand new Urtext then makes informed decisions based on careful evaluations of the sources.

I think the Urtext editions tend to be quite sparse with fingering and are generally less cluttered with performance directions than a very old edition, so that the performer/teacher can make their own interpretation of the music. We have too much old music in our house passed down through the family - I must invest in some new Urtext too.

Didn't mean to sound all academic I'm suffering from too many OU TMAs!

These are very interesting replies. I remember last year at the Chethams piano summer school when I was talking to a world renowned concert pianist who was one of the teachers for the course. I was discussing with him the fingering suggestions in a section of one of Beethoven's Sonatas. It was an Urtext edition and this pianist told me he was going to write to the editor of this edition because he was so frustrated at some of the fingering suggestions that were given throughout the whole volume!

Here at the Kodaly Institute in Hungary, we have a wonderful library and there are many different editions of the same music and I have been very interested to see how many different suggestions the different editors come up with.

My own feeling is that we all have different hands and different fingers etc and we must find what works best for us as individuals. It will sometimes be the case that the best way is the way that the editor suggests but my teacher here likes to ignore the fingerings completely at the start of learning a piece and work out herself what is best. I am finding myself following this way now as it provides a certain sense of freedom and in fact, I have sometimes disagreed with her when she has given me fingering suggestions!

With my teacher being an experienced concert pianist who performs regularly, it is with great ease that she can just do things where as my experience is different and the wonderful thing about her is that she recognises that we must do what is the most comfortable for us. That is her feeling anyway.

I have so far only used one finger differently in a grade 1 piece, but there again I have only been learning 6 months so far! I still cannot make sense as to why they asked for the original finger instead of the one I use! Thanks for sharing your views as I didn't think about writing the fingering on the score when I change and use my fingering instead of the editor's...it did not click in my head that if I left the piece for a while then got back to it I may not remember how I 'edited it'.

I suppose one of the problems when learning a piece is that the editor's fingering suggestions don't always make sense and feel awkward at slower speeds but when the piece is up to tempo sometimes the fingering which has seemed silly comes into its own and is the best fingering for the required tempo....... (not saying this is always the case, but it's something to bear in mind too.......)

Yup - smaller (or larger) hands than the editor might well be a good reason for doing your own thing.


this is another reason for changing.

Like I said, the editors aren't idiots, so their ideas should be taken seriously, but that doesn't mean you have to do it their way if there is a good reason not to!

I usualy TRY to do the suggested fingering...

I can never remember which way fingers are numbered, so I tend to ignore anything and make it up as I go along...Then practise until an appropriate fingering is etched into my hands! I am very sparse with writing on music anyway, especially things which don't 'fit' like random circles/words. Numbers above notes fall into this catagory, so it drives me mad!

Lol, I really hate writing on my music! But I think printed fingering is OK, I just don't like my scrawly handwriting all over the place! That's why I refuse to write anything on my music, unless I'm forced to - I had to do it once when I was in part of this group learning thing, and the tutor told me to circle something on the music!

I tend to follow fingering only on particularly difficult sections of pieces and almost always in Baroque pieces. That's what always annoyed me about Baroque pieces - you always had to invest the time into learning the fingering properly, otherwise it sounds all jerky!

~Wobby~

Hi

Does anybody know of any good fingerings for the blues scales?