| LearnJazzPiano.com archives: General Fingering Question | |
| bardolph -- 01/09/2005, 22:37:15 -- #10242 | |
| I'll have this question answered when I take my first jazz and improv-oriented piano lessons (hope to start in the next few weeks); but meanwhile I'd love to hear what any of you have to say. All the scales and arpeggios are typically associated with certain fingerings, and if that's all you know, it's quite limiting. How do jazz pianists solve tricky fingering situations in the heat of improvisation? Or do years of improvising and study finally make workable and efficient fingering instinctive, even when playing something totally improvised? | |
| Scot -- 01/09/2005, 23:21:43 -- #10249 | |
| Fingering is all instinctive. But fingering instincts are developed by practicing. So, obviouslly you have to know all the standard fingerings for your scales and arpeggios, right? Once you know those backwards and forwards and upside down, then you do something that I first read from a Claude Bolling jazz book. Play all 12 major scales using the C major scale fingering. Then play them all using the Db scale fingering, then the D fingering, etc etc. That will help train your hand to play anything, anywhere. Take it further. Play all arpeggios using the C arpeggio fingering pattern. Play all scales using 1-2-3-1-2-3 fingering pattern, or 2-3-4-2-3-4 Try it with arpeggios as well. Practice those alternate fingerings until they come naturally. Then when you are improvising and start somewhere "off balance", you can easily make what you want to play happen because you've practiced how to do it already. See, practice is the key. When you practice, you literally burn paths of motion in your brain. That's why practicing something wrong is so hard to fix- you're already burnt a path in your brain that you have to jump out of to fix whatever it was you were doing. | |
| ziggysane -- 01/09/2005, 23:36:35 -- #10254 | |
| However, I would add to that, don't get completely discouraged if you have learned something wrong. 7 gave me a very valuble piece of advice in a reply once when he said, "They say that it is three times harder to break yourself of a bad habit than it is to learn the good habits right off the bat. I don't believe that of course. But here's the way I look at it, and it works for me: Don't think of it as replacing an old "bad habit" with a new "good habit" - Think of it as developing a BRAND NEW BAD HABIT!" Works for me Danny | |
| 7 -- 01/09/2005, 23:53:39 -- #10256 | |
| Zig, Thanks for the mention. 7 | |
| bardolph -- 01/10/2005, 16:28:35 -- #10274 | |
| Thanks. I'm already starting to practice my major AND harmonic minor scales with C fingering; I believe in those Claude Bolling ideas and will try to continue on that path. Also great perspective on "learning brand new bad habits" -- perhaps what is a "bad" fingering or habit in one technical context is GOOD in another. Suppose you do an Eb maj arpeggio starting with the thumb; one teacher is probably going to say that's bad; but if you are equally comfortable doing it the conventional way, isn't it a bonus? | |
| Scot -- 01/10/2005, 20:01:10 -- #10279 | |
| Man, I just tried doing my scales with the C fingering like I used to practice a long time ago. It's actually kind of tricky :) I'm going to have to do that exercise again. | |
| Jazz+ -- 01/10/2005, 23:54:22 -- #10283 | |
| The secret is 8 tone Bebop scales with 1234, 1234 balanced fingering. | |
| 7 -- 01/12/2005, 02:01:13 -- #10308 | |
| Could you please give a list of your Bebop scales? Thanks! (I'm sure I'm not the only one that would appreciate more info on your secrets) | |
| Copyright © 2005 by Scot Ranney. All rights reserved. | |
| Click Here for more information about performances and clinics. Click Here to sign up for Scot's music announcements. | |