There’s nothing else in the world of piano pedagogy that is like Smart Scales. This is because Smart Scales is about learning to play music, not learning to play scales. Of course, we include scale reference pages at the end of each edition, but I’ve found that teaching scales is: 1) Not much fun, and 2) not very effective. So I created Smart Scales to give students lots of opportunities to get comfortable with the specific melodic patterns one finds in each key. But something that you’ll notice in using Smart Scales is that I purposely use comfortable piano fingering in places where the traditional fingering would cause difficulty or discomfort.
I want to explain why the topic of comfortable piano fingering is so important!
Fingering Has Changed Over the Centuries
Fingering of keyboard playing has actually changed over the centuries. It’s evolved and morphed. The first person to write a huge treatise on Keyboard Fingering was C.P.E. Bach who wrote his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments way back in 1753. Remember that everyone who has had an opinion about fingering had just that: an opinion. The player’s fingering is as valid as anyone else’s, because they are the one who’s going to be doing the playing.
What I’d like to do is encourage you to help your students become their own experts. Fostering an independent sense of comfort and responsibility for that comfort is one of the greatest gifts we can give our students. I teach many avocational adult students, most of whom were never taught about this awareness. If something didn’t work for them, they were usually told to just practice harder. They carefully obeyed each and every fingering in their music without a thought to whether or not it is actually serving them well.
So if you look at several editions of the same piece, you’ll find different fingering differences. Why? Because different fingerings feel good to different people. Hand size, skill, age, and so many other factors come into play.
Comfortable Piano Fingering Should be Prioritized!
First of all, all fingering choices should be made for comfort. You may not be aware that there are many other fingering systems that use a different set of criteria than what most traditional scale books offer today. Tobias Matthay comes to mind!
Let me give you an example of different ways you could finger a passage of music or scale:
For instance, if you don’t start with the assumption that all LH white key scales should start on 5, you can finger the A Major scale starting on 2 with far greater comfort.
Are the Fingerings in Black Key Minors Inconsistent?
The fingerings in the Black Key Minor Smart Scales may appear to be inconsistent, but they’re not. The criteria I used was this: If I actually USE the fingers (as in the excerpt below) so that it’s necessary to “start that scale” on finger 3, then I do so. If I’m not going down below that F double sharp, then I don’t. The reasoning is always exactly the same: Whatever creates the greatest comfort and ease.
My feeling is that this idea of “fingering for comfort” is something that is sorely lacking in the teaching of scales and fingering in general. Students are told what to do not because “it’s comfortable piano fingering,” but “because it’s right.” When I’m composing music for students, this is my top priority! There’s a reason that people like my student compositions, and it’s because of this specific thing. I have an innate sense of comfort and can translate that into music that fits into a student’s hands. I believe in creating this kind of discernment in students, even if it challenges the (I believe, often errant) assumptions of traditional teaching.
I’m trying to create comfort in a key. That’s my only goal.
Don’t We Need to Teach Traditional Fingering Though?
In the Reference Scales included with the Smart Scales, the “traditional” fingerings are noted in small numbers in case you wish to explain or teach them. My opinion, however, is that teaching students to prepare to use fingers they will never use will lead to poor choices. The purpose of Smart Scales is to facilitate comfort in a given key. That means that one should always use the MOST comfortable fingering for every single passage.
I guarantee you that there is not a virtuoso pianist on the planet who would ever use anything but the most comfortable piano fingering they can. There’s plenty of opportunity for teachers to use “correct” fingerings in the Reference Scales (and we show them on the page in smaller font.)
Unfortunately, if you take this to its logical extreme, everyone who plays a Right Hand B Flat Major scale would start on 4 every single time. As I’m sure you can feel by even thinking about that, it doesn’t make any sense. The most comfortable finger to start on is 2.
Take Hand Size Into Consideration
If you look at the editions of Artur Schnabel, who was the teacher of my teacher (Leon Fleisher) he made fingering choices that look nutty to most people. He was making fingering choices based on sound and articulation needs. This is a different level of choice than most of our students are making. There are also numerous fingerings that cannot be played by people with small hands. Since most of the editors of music in the last three hundred years have been men, the considerations of the comfort of women (and their usually smaller hands) has been sorely lacking.
I feel very strongly about this need of choosing comfort over tradition, especially true when talking about the most difficult scales we encounter. Of course only advanced students are going to tackle difficult pieces like Scriabin Sonata #2 (one of my favorite pieces to play) which is in G Sharp minor. But students at that level should be able to handle the subtle fingering changes required.
However, we have to teach students the art of finding the comfortable piano fingering, and we can do that at earlier levels. I think that the ability to make nuanced fingering choices is far more valuable than regurgitating learned scale fingerings without developing the ability to feel whether they’re truly comfortable.
Smart Scales can help students and teachers learn the art of finding that comfortable piano fingering!
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Questions for Diane?
Do you have any questions or comments about this blog post? Leave them in the comments below!
One Last Suggestion:
If you are looking for even more detail about the history of scale fingering and practical information about them, please look at Graham Fitch’s brilliant post about The Principles of Scale Fingering.
Your article gave me a lot to think about and now I realize why it is so hard to get kids to practice scales. I do believe that fingerings should be figured out by the person playing- but I wasn’t given a choice for the scales or arpeggios 🙂 If a student has an interest in professional competitions, do theory tests require traditional fingering?
Yes, usually a theory test or exam system would require traditional fingering. But most of the scale reference sheets in Smart Scales would use traditional fingering EXCEPT in cases where the beginning and ending fingering is more comfortable. And then the “traditional” fingering is in parentheses so you can just cross out the comfortable fingering if your student needs to practice for an exam. So for example, in B flat major, some exam systems might say that a student needs to start on a 4 and immediately cross to a 1 to be consistent with all the other octaves. However, we know that it’s more comfortable to start on a 2.
So glad the article gave you a lot to think about!
In the UK all exam boards state that the fingering (both in scale books issued by the board and exam pieces) are optional. The student may choose any fingering system. Evenness and articulation is what is examined. There is an excellent book on the topic by Penelope Roskell called ‘The Art of Piano Fingering’ .