Finger gymnastics..

[J.F.N.]

As some of you may have read, I am back behind the boards after 20+ years absence more or less (marriage yada yada, now divorced, hoooorray!), doing my catch-up, and some.

 

Started to put together a morning routine 20-30 minute practice program, which among things includes finger gymnastics using the diatonic 7th chords in arpeggios with both hands. Every week all exercises in one key, next week new key, to go through them all and then back around again. Now I don't have any formal education in music, piano, keyboards to talk about and this is the first time in life that I actually start to bother about these things for real.

 

Now in the second week of this, I am stumbling upon some minor obstacles, nevertheless important ones, and if anyone of you fellow board-members happen to be aces in the field of finger logistics, I'd really love to pick your brains on this. 

 

Take as an example, in the key of D, let's see if I get this right, on all the chords my left hand naturally starts with the pinky, skips the ring finger, and then go on with the rest of the chord, apart from on the F#m7 and C#dim7 where the natural feeling is to start with the ring finger, and then go on from there. So far so good, and I play all the diatonics 7ths in that key up an octave with both hands, and then back reversed.

 

As I am not really used to notice these things and care for them it becomes a bit of a struggle, and I understand that this is great and that I need to practice this, but I haven't really been able to find any good exercise for keeping the right fingers in the right places. Maybe (probably) my search is fruitless due to lack of experience and not knowing what to look for, SO, this is where I am reaching out to y'all hoping someone is a monster on this and knows exactly what medicine I need here to become the next Jordan Rudess (joke :D)

 

Metronome, check, starting slow (about 50), playing 8th notes, and not until it feels fluid I step up 3-5ish bpm.

 

 

 

[JamPro]

I had a piano teachers who told me that with my LH to start with my 5th finger when arpeggiating a seventh chord on a white key, and start with my 2nd finger when  arpeggiating a seventh chord on a black key. 

 

My own personal preference would be to arpeggiate white note seventh chords with my LH as 3-2-1-4-, and arpeggiate black note seventh chords with my LH as 2-1-4-3-.

 

I'm going to suggest you skip the metronome initially so you can go slow enough to get the right finger on the right note at the right time, while keeping your hand and arm relaxed.  Remember that being and keeping relaxed is an important part of everything you do at the piano.

 

I am also going to suggest that there are better all-around exercises you can be doing rather than arpeggiating all diatonic seventh chords in every key.  This just seems needlessly time-consuming and torturous.

 

Speaking of torturous and time-consuming: The teacher who told me about fingering for LH seventh arpeggios also showed me "Rachmaninoff's Arpeggios" (that what he called it).  Start with a Cmaj7 and arpeggiate up and down two octaves, then a C7, up and down two octaves, a Cm7 up and down two octaves, a C half-diminished 7th up and down two octaves, a C full-diminished up and down two octaves, and then an Ab7 (starting on C) up and down two octaves, and that Ab7 leads you nicely to Db, where you then repeat the whole thing.  Go thru all keys (LH starts on the 5th finger for white notes, and starts on the 2nd finger for black notes).  I have tried this hands separately.  It takes me about 30-40 minutes.  It is very demanding, and I'm not sure it is a good and efficient use of my practice time.

 

There are people who say you shouldn't waste your time on these kinds of exercises; you should just practice your repertoire, and address arpeggios when they show up in your repertoire.  I myself think it makes sense to practice some basic scales and arpeggios specifically, because so much of the repertoire is made up of scales and arpeggios.    

 

 

[J.F.N.]

22 minutes ago, JamPro said:

I had a piano teachers who told me that with my LH to start with my 5th finger when arpeggiating a seventh chord on a white key, and start with my 2nd finger when  arpeggiating a seventh chord on a black key. 

 

My own personal preference would be to arpeggiate white note seventh chords with my LH as 3-2-1-4-, and arpeggiate black note seventh chords with my LH as 2-1-4-3-.

 

I'm going to suggest you skip the metronome initially so you can go slow enough to get the right finger on the right note at the right time, while keeping your hand and arm relaxed.  Remember that being and keeping relaxed is an important part of everything you do at the piano.

 

I am also going to suggest that there are better all-around exercises you can be doing rather than arpeggiating all diatonic seventh chords in every key.  This just seems needlessly time-consuming and torturous.

 

Speaking of torturous and time-consuming: The teacher who told me about fingering for LH seventh arpeggios also showed me "Rachmaninoff's Arpeggios" (that what he called it).  Start with a Cmaj7 and arpeggiate up and down two octaves, then a C7, up and down two octaves, a Cm7 up and down two octaves, a C half-diminished 7th up and down two octaves, a C full-diminished up and down two octaves, and then an Ab7 (starting on C) up and down two octaves, and that Ab7 leads you nicely to Db, where you then repeat the whole thing.  Go thru all keys (LH starts on the 5th finger for white notes, and starts on the 2nd finger for black notes).  I have tried this hands separately.  It takes me about 30-40 minutes.  It is very demanding, and I'm not sure it is a good and efficient use of my practice time.

 

There are people who say you shouldn't waste your time on these kinds of exercises; you should just practice your repertoire, and address arpeggios when they show up in your repertoire.  I myself think it makes sense to practice some basic scales and arpeggios specifically, because so much of the repertoire is made up of scales and arpeggios.    

 

 

 

This is great input, I think for a while now I need some time consuming torture to get my fingers going, I don't mind actually, it's kind of meditative when I do it and I already feel when I improvise and have fun on the boards that things are floating a lot better already, so 3-2-1-4 and 2-1-4-3, I shall definitely give this a go tomorrow morning, thanks a lot!!

 

I will look at the Rachmaninoff's Arpeggios tonight and see if this is something to include in my morning routine too, cheers! And I do agree it is a good thing wasting time on these things, I can't see how else I would be able to improve my technique and flow. I am, and always been, a very "emotional" player, I can make that Hammond sing and there's not a dry eye in the room, but playing fast and steady over scales in solos and passages has always been tough, I guess just because, I didn't waste my time on these things..

 

Super, love this input, again thanks!!

 

 

[J.F.N.]

20 minutes ago, JamPro said:

I had a piano teachers who told me that with my LH to start with my 5th finger when arpeggiating a seventh chord on a white key, and start with my 2nd finger when  arpeggiating a seventh chord on a black key. 

 

My own personal preference would be to arpeggiate white note seventh chords with my LH as 3-2-1-4-, and arpeggiate black note seventh chords with my LH as 2-1-4-3-.

 

I'm going to suggest you skip the metronome initially so you can go slow enough to get the right finger on the right note at the right time, while keeping your hand and arm relaxed.  Remember that being and keeping relaxed is an important part of everything you do at the piano.

 

I am also going to suggest that there are better all-around exercises you can be doing rather than arpeggiating all diatonic seventh chords in every key.  This just seems needlessly time-consuming and torturous.

 

Speaking of torturous and time-consuming: The teacher who told me about fingering for LH seventh arpeggios also showed me "Rachmaninoff's Arpeggios" (that what he called it).  Start with a Cmaj7 and arpeggiate up and down two octaves, then a C7, up and down two octaves, a Cm7 up and down two octaves, a C half-diminished 7th up and down two octaves, a C full-diminished up and down two octaves, and then an Ab7 (starting on C) up and down two octaves, and that Ab7 leads you nicely to Db, where you then repeat the whole thing.  Go thru all keys (LH starts on the 5th finger for white notes, and starts on the 2nd finger for black notes).  I have tried this hands separately.  It takes me about 30-40 minutes.  It is very demanding, and I'm not sure it is a good and efficient use of my practice time.

 

There are people who say you shouldn't waste your time on these kinds of exercises; you should just practice your repertoire, and address arpeggios when they show up in your repertoire.  I myself think it makes sense to practice some basic scales and arpeggios specifically, because so much of the repertoire is made up of scales and arpeggios.    

 

 

 

And as a follow up then, what would your preferred finger setting for the diatonics on the RH be then?

[locture]

People are told to start LH 7th arpeggios with index finger on black keys because this is usually the way to avoid thumb hitting black keys when playing LONG arpeggios, where you only use your 4/5 fingers (pinky not used). If you only do one octave, the rule of thumb is to use whatever fingering you feel most comfortable with.

[JamPro]

For the RH, if you look a Cmaj7, Cdom7, Cm7, the notes map nicely onto the fingers 1-2-3-4-5 - it works much better for the RH than the LH.  So for all extension chords (maj7, dom7, m7, etc) built on white keys, it feels most comfortable (to me) to play 1-2-3-4-.  (This finger-to-note mapping is very awkward for the LH, which is why my preference for extension chords built on white notes is 3-2-1-4- for the LH.  However, I believe the classical teaching is to play 5-4-3-2-1-4- for the LH).

 

Extension chords built on black note keys are a bit different.  I myself try to play these is such a way that my thumb lands on a white note, so my fingering varies from key to key and from chord to chord.  So Bbmaj7 RH is 4-1-2-3-, and for Bbm7 is 3-4-1-4-.  For Bbmaj7 LH, I play 2-1-4-3-, and for Bbm7 LH is 3-2-1-4-.

 

My fingering for these kinds of arppegios may be idiosyncratic to me, and may not be what a classically-trained teacher suggests.  I had one teacher that strongly objected to my LH 3-2-1-4- fingering for white note arpeggios, saying he did not recommend that.

[J.F.N.]

Great thanks both of you, I have copied your input into my notes and will go through this tonight, highly appreciated!!!

[J.F.N.]

Spent some time with this yesterday afternoon and a bit more here now this morning, and I say a huge Great Thanks, all the input makes full sense! Good thing I started this thread and you guys chimed in right away, this changes things completely for my morning routine, beautiful!

 

Rachmaninoff will have to wait, I will be fully busy for a while now grasping the finger settings physically, but as soon as it starts to work well I will get back to him!

 

[J.F.N.]

I found a buddy to Rachmaninoff, namely Vivaldi, it's looking good for being finger gymnastics too, will save him as well and look into when my fingers are more used to their new organization...

 

 

 

[Outkaster]

Hanon for me or Czerny.  Any of these will work.  The Zen of the situation is it will affect your soloing and fingering will become natural.

[John Tweed]

It can be time consuming and possibly boring to rattle thru the whole Rachmaninoff exercise and other potentially long-winded exercises (84 modes anyone?). I keep a dice on the piano and whenever I have the urge to practise scales, modes or exercises I roll the dice a couple of times - number of sharps/flats, then a second time, high/low or odds/evens for sharps or flats (or if I roll a 6 then either or key of C). Play for a few keys worth and then move on.

 

This also works for Hanon - pick a random key then play through the exercise exactly as written but using the random key signature.

 

For a quick arpeggio warm up I do the diminished 7th arpeggios just starting on the white keys.

[locture]

I agree that doing those Rachmaninoff/Vivaldi exercises can be time consuming and boring. Not actually the best thing to do.

 

I used to have a complete schedule for basic exercises when I was still practicing a lot:

 

1. Warm up. I use Hanon or Schmitt finger exercises as warm up. Pick a few exercises and play them at all 12 keys.

2. Diatonic scales. One key signature per day for both major and harmonic minor and play at octave, sixths and tens. Both hands together, four octave, starting with medium speed (usually 160-180 bpm 16th) and go as fast as possible.

3. Basic arpeggios. Same setting as scales.

4. Chords. I randomly pick a triad and a 7th types and do it on all 12 keys. Both hands, 4 octave.

5. Specific technical exercises of the week: chromatic scales, thirds, tremolos, trills, etc.

The whole list could take about an hour or longer. But I did benefit a lot from these basic exercises.