Takahiro Sonoda Lecture 9 (English) / Concert Hall ATM

1-6-8 Goken-cho, Mito-shi, Ibaraki-ken, 310-0063 Japan
Mail to: webstaff@arttowermito.or.jp / Phone: (029)227-8111

Takahiro Sonoda
Mini-lecture #9: About Fingering
Open Seminar for Piano Feb. 12, 2000 (Sat.)

Today, as I was about to leave my house, I reminded myself not to forget my notes for this lecture. However, I laid them to the side as I put on my shoes, and as I had feared, I left them at home (laughter)!

Today I planned to talk to you a little bit about fingering. Whenever you play the piano and press down on the keyboard, there are different ways of fingering that have been written -- I'm sure you've had trouble with fingering before. If you think about it, your hands have to be a certain size in order to play the piano. When I visited the Liszt mansion in Weimar a long time ago, I saw a plaster cast taken of Liszt's hand on the second floor. It was huge, and his fingers were particularly long. My hands are not so small, but the fingers on Liszt's hand were at least 3cm longer than mine. And they were really big, too. I heard that his hands could stretch across more than octave and two keys -- in fact, an octave plus 3 keys or 4 keys, from C to F an octave higher. Even inferring from his pieces, he could play across ten keys like this (explains while playing the piano). So you could say that God had bestowed wonderful hands upon Liszt. Both of his hands were that way. "Daah, da-dah, dah, da-da-dah" -- he could play an octave and two keys easily in the key of A major, which is the broadest and therefore the toughest. Well, enough of that.

I also had a chance to see a cast of Chopin's hand, and it was extremely slender and delicate, but also long. His little finger was especially long. That means that it was a breeze for him to play his Etude Op. 10-1, for example. I have particular trouble playing that Chopin piece, having to slide my wrist sideways like this, but he was able to pull it off easily without needing to do that. Also, the 20-year-old male pianists these days, who come out of such places as the (former) Soviet Union and Hungary, all have big hands. They can play everything without needing any special effort, or worrying at all about such things as fingering. My teacher, Leo Shirota, also never had to worry about fingering. He would say, "Oh, I can play it this way, or that way, or this way, or that way." When I would ask him which one would be best for me to use, he would tell me, "Well, you have small hands, so maybe this would be best," and would then write it down for me.

Well, after that, my hands got bigger and bigger, too. When I started to be aware of what was going on around me, and looked at various pieces, I realized that pieces from earlier eras, including those from the Baroque era, didn't have any fingering marks at all. For example, Bach gave no performance indications at all. Not even dynamics. That means we are free to play with whatever fingers we want. Now, so that we can play his pieces on the modern piano, several respected experts have written various annotated works that giving all sorts of instructions. That means that although some fingering is inevitable, the reality is that for the most part it's up to you which fingers to use.

Something else that is quite surprising when looking over the literature is that the thumb was not used at first. The little finger was not used either, except in cases where it was unavoidable, such as octaves. Most of the fingering involved only the middle three fingers, with an occasional little finger thrown in here and there. Apparently the people who wrote down such fingering thought that it was vulgar to use the thumb. Moreover, such fancy techniques as having one finger go over or under another, or having fingers cross, came much later. Well, since pieces by Chopin and Liszt are so difficult, as may be expected, that I think it's better to use the annotated editions to find out the best fingering to use. I've even seen such unique fingerings as this. Even Beethoven's pieces hardly have any fingering marks at all. What you should think about this, then, is that the strict words you have been told about fingering, and the problems you have had in learning it, are just what people have come up with later, saying this style or that style of fingering.

Another problem you are going to face when playing music is articulation, which means the way of dividing up a piece musically. These divisions have something to do with fingering. In other words, in the case of Bach, for example, I think he probably played in this way, since he didn't use the thumb, but just the middle three fingers, and sometimes the little finger as well (plays the piano as he explains). Also, (playing some more) there's a slur here, and then a part like string instruments, which would all be legato if you used the thumb as usual. Also, (playing some more) you could play it like this. So you can understand that articulation has something to do with fingering. That means that fingering comes into play when you play successive octaves with slurs, or when you play like "dah dah," or when you play melodies from above, such as "do, so la ti do, la ti do re, ti do re mi" (plays as he explains), or when you play by moving the bass. Articulation thus is related to fingering.

If you understand that, then it gets interesting. That means that the joy you get from playing Bach is sort of a professional joy, I think. Some people don't think that way, probably. However, if you decipher it that way, it resolves the problem of articulation. However, since you are in the process of learning, we use the thumb and the little finger, and cross over and go under, etc. This means that are a lot of different types of fingering -- and it's not true that any one of them is mandatory. Anything goes -- I say that, but that doesn't mean you can just use a fingering like "2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3," or like this. I played them here in a row, so maybe it was "2, 3, 4, 4," three times in a row, or maybe it was "2, 3, 4," then "2," then "2, 3, 4," twice again. That's what I wanted to tell you.

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