Fingering

[rosalind-beck]

Lots of very valid comments from everyone. Note-learning speed vs. “real life” speed:

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Well, here’s how my teacher would have forced me, if necessary: not letting me play a single note with a different finger, stopping me, holding my hand if necessary so it comes out right. That is how I learned good position and technique, and it was the only thing that worked for me. Holding the student’s hand is essential, basic, primal, and most effective. I have tried using a conductor’s baton, which is good for reaching between the strings, but it was a little too pointy, perhaps.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

There’s also writing the fingerings you want in a red pencil, Prismacolor Crimson Lake is the proper color. One just does not tolerate or one loses the ability to really direct the student, if it comes to that, but you must be prepared to be strict. If a student always uses their own fingerings, they will never learn good fingering.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Which is a point in itself, the necessity of teaching how to finger music. It’s also like when a student wants to “interpret” a piece they don’t know yet.

[diane-michaels]

I was poked constantly on my RH with the eraser end of a pencil while I began working on hand position.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Yes, the other end tends to make a mess!

[Mel Sandberg]

Carl, I am very interested in your reference to the Mozart concerto, and the broken thirds.

[Karen Johns]

Oh goodie, Mel, another small-handed harp player! We should start

[carl-swanson]

Mel- For most harpists, repetitive patterns are difficult and tiring. The longer they go on, the more the hand wants to seize up. In that Mozart passage, most people, by the time they get to the top of it doing 212121, are slowing down because the hand and fingers are getting tired. Alternating 2 and 3 eliminates that problem. I’m not sure what you are referring to about the left hand. I don’t have the music in front of me, but my memory is that the left hand is written in broken octaves which everyone plays as octaves. I’m guessing that you play the left hand part there as a scale which would be a little more confusing. Read my post on the trill thread, which will explain the physiology of some of this.

[Mel Sandberg]

Karen, not only are my hands so small, but I can’t stretch them wide.

[Karen Johns]

Same problem here-

[Mel Sandberg]

That same thing – the DADF, I can only have two fingers on-string at a time.

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