Deciding on fingering

By Vidas Pinkevicius

Do you find yourself struggling with learning to play difficult spots in your organ pieces? Do you play them over and over and nothing happens?

The problem might be your fingering choices. Or a lack of it.

You see, your fingers have memory and if you constantly play the same spot with different fingering, they get confused. When they get confused, you get confused too and start to stumble.

It's best to figure out the fingering for each episode right away with the practice of that day's line. Sure, writing in fingering for the entire piece is a lot of work. So write just one line. You can do it in 15 minutes or less.

When you write in fingering for that spot, aim to use the most efficient fingering, i.e. play as many notes in one position as possible without inserting the thumb, don't use the thumb on sharps if you can avoid it, don't use finger substitution in solo voice passages, in intervals and chords pay attention to your natural hand span, use paired fingering in early music and the same fingers for the same successive intervals.

Above all, don't leave the fingering to chance.