Importance of fingering

When I studied piano as a child, I never understood why my teacher, Mr. Barnes, would spend so much time writing down the fingering I should use on my pieces and technical exercises. I mean, what was the big deal? Why couldn't you just read the notes and then play 'em?

Mr. Barnes would painstakingly write down the little numbers over the notes then tell me to get off the piano bench so he could test it out. He might change a sequence or two, and then he'd test it again.

In this way, he'd work out the fingering that I would use to learn my pieces. Sometimes, in subsequent lessons, he made adjustments to fingering if he saw that I was having difficulties. Every once in awhile he'd let me keep fingering that I intuitively figured out on my own.

Little did I realize how important fingering is to a musician's ability to perform and memorize a piece well. If you've ever tried to change the fingering of a passage that you already memorized, you might have experienced confusion and forgetfulness. Why? Because fingering and muscle memory and confidence all work together. When you change one aspect of the formula, you risk forgetting the notes.

There's a science and art to working out fingering, especially as pieces become more and more difficult. Whether you're playing a flute, a violin, or piano, fingering is fundamental. Your fingers are doing so many things at once that the last thing you need to worry about is what finger to use on what note. Remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he plays the piano so fast that his fingers get all tied up in knots? Probably the result of bad fingering!

Well-thought out fingering will help you learn the swampy measures. There's something about playing a difficult passage the same way, with the same fingering, over and over that nails the notes in your muscle memory.

So the next time your teacher spends a lot of time on this, be patient. It will help your playing in the long run.