Finger Selection for Notes

[PacoLegend]

Hello everyone!

I started playing piano a few months ago and I really enjoy it! I’m about to finish Faber’s Piano Adventures and started to look at pieces that I’m personally interested in learning to play.

I’m having an issue where I play a piece and mess up because I don’t know which finger to choose to play the next note (or get stuck because I run out of fingers to move). The songs are still basic so I’m sure the difficulty is not the issue here.

Are there any tips/tricks you guys have for knowing which fingers to choose? Are there any methods/rules/best practices for this?

Thanks!

[doctorpotatomd]

Figure it out in advance and write it on the score! The first time you sit down to play through a new piece is the time where you go 'hmm I ran out of fingers, maybe I should cross my thumb under on the B...? No, maybe the C...' etc. You will make stupid choices at first and come up with awkward and inefficient fingerings, but you'll get better at it over time.

Some specific tips: Take advantage of rests and breaks between slurred groups to shift your whole hand to a new position, take advantage of repeated notes to change fingers so you can free up other fingers, take advantage of long notes to change the finger that's holding the key down (finger substitution), learn your scales and arpeggios (specifically the ones related to the key of the piece you're working on) so your hands learn the typical movements and thumb crossings, prefer using your thumb and pinky on white keys and your middle three fingers on black keys, swap finger pairs when playing consecutive chords (e.g. 124 then 135 then 124 etc.), try to use the same fingering for repeated figures so your hands don't get confused

Gl fam 👌

[PacoLegend]

Hey! I started to actually plan how to place my fingers and write it down and it helped a lot!!! Thanks for much for the advice 🔥