5 Pro Tips on Piano Fingerings

[@jazerleepiano]

Your Handy Dandy 🕘 Timestamps 0:00 Intro 0:34 3 Principles 2:55 Tip Number 1 3:40 Tip Number 2 5:19 Important Items to Learn 6:20 Tip Number 3 7:22 Tip Number 4 8:18 Tip Number 5

[@aivanflores9904]

Thank you for another tips sir☺️

[@maryfrey]

Thank you! This is so helpful!

[@26yz]

I think Jazer just read my mind, this is exactly what I'm looking for!

[@tiffcat1100]

Yes, I was wondering whether for example a b flat should always be a particular finger

[@willieervinjr2764]

Same!

[@shaunreich]

Same! Still at the part where I'm trying to find the right fingering. Scales I can see have really helped me develop it further, but there's a lot of these awkward positionings that I haven't encountered yet enough to get an automatic feeling for what is best

[@camdinh]

same too, jazer and youtube can read our minds 😂

[@willieervinjr2764]

@@camdinh 😂😂

[@tiffcat1100]

‘if a piece isn’t flowing properly …’ Bless you, nothing has ever yet ‘flowed’ but I live in hope 😊

[@maryfrey]

😊 I know what you mean!

[@user-sl3hp4pm1m]

As always, brilliant. Thanks Jazer. One of the many reasons you are such a brilliant teacher is, that your words are combined with illustrations and demonstrations that makes the understanding complete. When one is told to do scales, one is not motivated. But when one understand why to practise scales, one is super motivated. Your gift is that you can make people understand and be motivated. A gift from the gods to all of us ;-)

[@adamyohan]

Some of my favorite tips: - If you had to stretch your hand a little bit, let go of the tension as soon as you can. Don't hold onto it. - Find the breaks in the music that allow you to move into comfortable hand positions. - Never be afraid to experiment with fingering.

[@billbowdoin7541]

This lesson was very very helpful!! You are a great teacher. Thank you 🙏

[@purpleglitter7]

I love the song you played, just read that it’s an original composition. I need it on my playlist!

[@johncubbin825]

I’ve needed this for quite a while. Not all tune sources have recommended fingerings and spelling out these principles will provide a practical guide. Thanks for yet another superb well-condensed video.

[@codentia___4369]

Game changer for me since I struggle with arpeggiation. Much appreciated!

[@baldy555]

Thank you Jazer. I have been hitting a wall of non-progress for some time and needed this video to revitalize me passion for playing. I will take your advice on scales and arpregios really seriously. Appreciate your gentle method of teaching

[@AskTheAIOracle]

You are a gold-mine Jazer

[@GuanglayKangyi]

as someone who started a week ago this is incredibly helpful!! you're awesome man

[@suemoyers67]

Thank you. I’m struggling with the fingering (marked on the score) so this video is just what I needed today to enable me to re-assess it and hopefully find what is best for me.

[@catestout3888]

Thank you for teaching us, and sharing your gift of music. It's so very helpful to beginners.

[@RobertCarlBurns]

You have read my mind,i needed your confirmation of scales, thumberina etc, thankyou jazzi

[@merandabubbles1124]

I so very much appreciate your videos. It seems that most times, when I have a question about something, I find you have made a video on it. Your students are very lucky and blessed to have you.

[@bunnyhollowcrafts]

Thanks! Student at Berklee Online School of Music. My professor remarked on one of my videos that my fingering was “cumbersome”. This video is wonderfully thoughtful. Thank you so much!!

[@angenalaschka5976]

Hello Jazer Lee, thank you very much! I can take so much from you and also from Lionel Yu for my piano practice process. You are really a great help and inspiration! Thank you very much for your time. Your videos are also very motivating, especially when I sometimes think I'm not making any progress. Best regards

[@larrygraham3377]

Thanks Jazer for another splendid lession. Struggled with this a lot now you have made things so much easier. Again, Thanks a whole bunch !!! 🙌

[@unclemick-synths]

4:22 now _this_ way of playing scales opened my eyes. I'm absolutely adopting it. Playing scales smoothly and evenly takes the attention away from those little runs. The question I had when I started watching this video was about improvisation where there's not the option of figuring out the optimal fingering. This will definitely help me get my hands prepared even if I'm just playing fragments of those runs - at least I will have led with a good finger and thumb-under will keep things moving where necessary! Excellent video 👍

[@katttttt]

I found the part at 4:22 so clean 😂

[@binhannguyen1365]

Thank you so much. Can you do a video to train all the scales and arpeggios as well? It would be awesome

[@caterinaml]

Thank you, Jazer! Most eye opening & helpful. Good information-will be more cognizant while using these tips in my playing. 🙋‍♀️👍👍🎶

[@michaelcollins4072]

Thanks so much for these very valuable tips. Looking forward to learning more from you going forward. I'm learning the keyboard on my own.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

I just watched this video 3 weeks ago, and I'm watching it again, since the message is so important. I'm still in preparation to be a beginner, and I've started doing exercises that I've always done but by studying music theory, they take on a new meaning. Thoroughbass used to be how they taught all keyboard students, and they didn't teach chord inversions but instead cadences. There are finger movements that happen as you move up and down on the bassline. Two weeks ago, my piano teacher hadn't heard of Rule of the Octave. This week he watched as I progressed through the Circle of the Fifths and commented that I had only made one mistake. As he watched me do different exercises with the bass moving up a fourth or down a third that my fingers were learning what to do. That should be the goal. He encouraged that I continue. In the meantime I found the cadences taught by Nadia Boulanger. She is one of the last that taught in the Partimento/Thoroughbass tradition at the Paris Conservatory. I'm learning Major triads, and then will tackle the minor trio of triads. Jazer has a special place for me in my piano journey. I watched one of his videos a year and a half ago, went out and bought a piano and finished the video. Merci beaucoup for being my inspiration, Jason.

[@jamelporter6974]

Great dissection and discussion of how to really break down your own piano practicing concepts, thank you 🙏🏿🤗🫵🏿 🎯‼️✊🏿

[@jaywalker1233]

Thanks - good advice here. “Replace finger” is pretty much essential with WTC fugues but with so much happening with interweaving voices it’s like a complex puzzle that needs to be disassembled to work out what’s going on. Then putting it back together requires figuring out the fingering to play each part correctly (I tend to circle in pencil those finger change notes with the numbers eg “2-3” so that I can see them coming up as I play and don’t forget!). It can take me hours just to properly learn how to play just one or two bars! So I’ve started learning different sections at the same time so that at some point they will all be joined up - otherwise I’d probably give up on the piece!

[@Minipera]

Thanks a lot, you are using simple words to explain struggles i have without noticing them, specially the split 1-2 vs 2-3-4-5 seems so basic yet never thought of this!

[@nataliecavanagh7432]

Yay, another Jazer video 🎉 You are a very gifted teacher my man

[@תמראיתן-י7ג]

Hi Thank you for that great content Do you have a video where you play the hole composition (or link for sheet music? I liked it alot)

[@thisisourchannel3589]

You seem to upload a video on a specific topic when I need it most. Thank you! I actually would love lessons with you but I am located in NC (U.S) which would make it 5am (4pm your time). Crazy time difference. Appreciate your videos 😁⭐

[@Floorguy1000]

Good tips ......and thank you for that charming little piece!

[@artimarga-margarita6200]

You are amazingly good. Thank you. Although some people could find you too quick....

[@Ro8818.]

Thank you Jazer, you have really broken it down and simplified the rules . Love it thanks so much, you have really made a difference 🙏

[@rosesred2155]

Oeh! Super timely! I just bought my first book of ‘real’ pieces, but forgot to check if it indicated fingerings. Classic beginner mistake! This video lifted my spirits, now it will just be a new thing to learn!

[@SeaDrive300]

I'm probably a little crazy but, for me, figuring out the best fingerings to use is part of the fun of learning a new piece! 🙂

[@JD-72191]

@@SeaDrive300 i think so too! It’s kind of a ritual I do when learning a new piece. ForScore on my iPad makes it easy and neat to annotate all my pieces.

[@larryluffel777]

Thank You for these tips. Wish my local teacher had shown me this!

[@magnusemeritus]

That is your composition? Sounds like Chopin A minor waltz! Very similar! Lovely! Do you have the whole composition?

[@jazerleepiano]

I haven't finished it. But I think, after all the clamor here, I should. 😅

[@solitbeats]

​@@jazerleepiano Please finish fast and upload a tutorial 🎉❤

[@carolvargas6507]

@@jazerleepiano Yes, I was just about to ask what is the beautiful piece you are playing!

[@argo4750]

Pls do a video on how to avoid tension while playing piano. Cheers!! 😃

[@shuangfei5046]

This is so much useful to me! exactly what I need to know. Great tips!

[@Practicalmusicministryskil4906]

This is great- thank you! I just started sharing videos on my KZbin channel in the hopes of making music literacy accessible to all.

[@shirleyromero8425]

Awesome tips, thank you. You have the best piano channel.

[@zekiyezeynepsahin9449]

Hi Jaser… Tip number 4 is very artistic… I benefited very much.. Thanks…

[@hhl2296]

Thank you so much for your videos!

[@sandrahuongmy]

Thank you so much. This is very helpful

[@TheBionemesis]

Excellent advice bro!! thank you so much

[@JessieDel514]

Thanks again, Jazer, for these very helpful tips. You're such an amazing piano teacher 👏👏👏

[@floresfamily9580]

I would love to learn that song you keep playing!!😊

[@elissahunt]

What fingers to use has always confused me. Thank you for this extremely helpful and enlightening video.

[@marcobucci4375]

Thanks to your tip I have just fixed a nasty passage that was bothering me. I will show to my teacher the solution and see what she thinks. Works for me!😃

[@Milaynos]

I LOVE YOU JAZER❤❤❤❤

[@rezaghiyasvand2161]

Thanks Jazer

[@yethukyaw9696]

Thanks Jazer.. this video helps me a lot

[@verabb6113]

Thank you! Really useful tips

[@mirandajsummers]

Great video, thank you. I talk about 'caterpillar hand' where you use a series of stretching (usually an octave) and bunching to move around the piano - very common in Baroque type bass parts. But when you do it, your hand looks like a caterpillar 🐛☺️

[@Sage-ig9hk]

I’ve noticed something very funny as I learn to play piano. I grew up taking classical singing lessons, so every week I’d spend an hour next to my teacher watching her play the piano, then when I was 16 I fell in love with an amazing pianist, and we would spend hours where he would sit and play whatever and I’d sit in a chair next to him just staring mesmerized at his hands. I’ve noticed that I have a very intuitive sense for fingering now, (I’m 18) and I think a lot of that has to do with just how much I’ve watched people play piano. So I guess my tip would be if you are struggling with fingering, just watch people playing!!

[@StopAndGo1]

Nicely explained ! Thanks for putting this together.

[@elaineolson550]

Hey thanks! Great timing for this lesson. I think I use all your tips although my reading ahead needs improvement. The one thing I try to do is to replicate my fingering the next time the difficult section appears (I’m sure you’ve said this too!). Sometimes I get tripped up by this particularly if there is one “odd” note in the repeated sequence, such as when there’s a half note in there to hold the musical thought, rather than just moving on as before. I will unconsciously be tempted to change to a different fingering and I don’t think that is a good idea… Hope this makes sense! Again, thanks so much. 😊

[@luisbalderas-ariza2644]

Thank you very much. That is what I was looking for

[@stuboyer1901]

Jazer, I'd really appreciate a video on the fingering of all scales. I also have trouble with arpegios and chromatic runs. Small hand span, I can barely reach a ninth.

[@saradenault5903]

What I don't see in books is the fingering for playing scales in two octaves. So a video for that would be really great too!

[@miketurnbull4333]

@@saradenault5903 look at the ABRSM piano scales book.

[@ericmitchell9331]

Great video, thanks Jazer.

[@eunicerodrigues1500]

Awesome stuff. Was just thinking about this today after watching the "self-taught pitfalls" video.

[@NirHason]

Thank you so much for your informative videos! You actually made me writing it down on a paper using a pen (something I'm not doing so often). I'm summarizing most of your tips videos that way to remember them :)

[@grandiosa86]

Thanks for another very helpful video. I need to watch it a few more times, it was that good!

[@peaceking7526]

another set of great tips. im improving already

[@phrankus2009]

Such cogent advice and such a digestible presentation. Thank you, Jazer.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

What a timely video. I'm learning the Circle of Fifths progression, the I IV vii° iii vi ii V I progression. And I am trying to do it eyes closed. I was approximating a finger replacement, and this really gives me a concrete example. My other technical exercise of late is the Rule of the Octave. I'd love to see you do a video on this principle. Derek Remes has lots of material, and lots for free on his website.

[@khomkhankh4970]

Very good my teacher ❤

[@pianoby40]

Thank you for the lesson 🙏

[@willieervinjr2764]

Thanks! Perfectly timed help!

[@santamariajorge]

Very useful Jazer, thank you!

[@DKMcS]

These are some great tips. Thanks.

[@JL-od3ik]

Thank you for this. It has been something that I have struggled with. Excellent!

[@kalabalakrishnan1484]

Shalom thank you very much. Just starting to learn piano. Will keep your advice in mind n start my good habit early 🙏😊

[@sandeeppathak8170]

Brilliant Jazer...

[@3stripern]

I just love your composition in this video. When you finish, would it be possible to buy a copy?

[@MS-sz7se]

Title of the piece played in the video? So beautiful. Always thanks for your tips : )!!

[@neo_7035]

Thank you❤

[@deericcio3379]

I am a self taught older adult beginner , about 14 months in , I think I spent too much time on music theory and not enough actually playing lol, as my sight reading is much improved over the year , fingering is definitely a challenge, for instance tonight I was working on Silver Bells ( Christmas song) and I’m jumping over myself with the back and forth octaves in the chorus

[@newtypehuman]

What is the name of the music piece you were playing? 0:51

[@frankycardoz8270]

Thankyou dear you are vary helpful to me a 71 year old man trying to lurne to play the keyboard, please help I love to lurn to play

[@jazerleepiano]

I do offer online piano lessons. 🙂

[@dimosthenisbitras4235]

Hello , may i ask what is the melody you are using for the video ? I find your videos and your approach very helpfull, thank u for the effort you put into them

[@seda14us]

Thank you... Super 100% Best.

[@kureshimaizumi]

Thanks for all the awesome video.. it helps me a lot

[@tiffcat1100]

How superb, thank you SO much! If I learn scales, do I have to learn what they are called? I’m 65 so won’t be taking any exams! I don’t suppose you would take us through a few scales & arpeggios (I love the latter) would you, pretty please? ❤

[@paulmoadibe9321]

back in the days, my piano teacher always told me to NOT using my thumbs on the black notes... she was so right ! 😁

[@stefanjagger]

Thank you!

[@user-bh4vp7bv5y]

wow that was useful 😎

[@Haizou]

In my first piano lesson I thought that there was a DEFINITIVE way of fingering like each finger corresponds to a certain set of notes lmao, good to know!

[@F1stus]

Yes! Im hyped

[@jamesmcmahon1312]

I just recently found you on youtube and I am really enjoying your videos. I have just recently started learning to play piano, something I have wanted to do all my life. I do have a question for you that is not about piano. What breed is that puppy in your video?

[@thallesaraujo7814]

I particularly like to practice the same piece on several different keys. For example, if I usually play a piece in C but a singer following along prefer to sing in Eb, I like having the ability to switch on the fly (circle of fifths on 🔥!). So, in addition to the great tips mentioned here, I usually go with a fingering that enables me the smooth key transition (typically the same fingers regardless of the key). This is not something I have practiced a whole lot, though, so constructive criticism is very much welcome!

[@neilshaba9186]

Sweet melody in the examples you used. What is it and who is the composer?

[@angenalaschka5976]

Yes it is a great melody. I think it is Tetris Theme (Korbeiniki). You can use a (your) Handy (funktion) to recognize a unknown melody. So I do this, when I hear something, wich I don't know, but wich sounds good 😊 greetings from Germany

[@jazerleepiano]

I actually composed it before I made the video. It is still unfinished.

[@angenalaschka5976]

@@jazerleepiano it sounds very great, I like it very much

[@velcroman11]

I have arthritis in my fingers. I spend quite some time working out the fingering that doesn’t hurt or hurt the least. My piano has realised that some of my fingering does make sense. Some times, not all the time. 😊

[@shirleyromero8425]

What is this lovely piece of music? Would like to put it on my 'to learn' list.

[@tanialopes196]

Obrigado!

[@jazerleepiano]

Thank you for the support @tanialopes196!

[@Sundance_]

Could you please share what you played? I would like to give a try:)

[@jazerleepiano]

Let me finish writing it. 😅

[@jeremiahreilly9739]

★★★★★ Great tips. What is the waltz you use as an example piece? Composer? Title? Source?

[@richardgraham65]

Thanks, some really useful information here. A question for you regarding the Thumb Tuck, could you demonstrate the thumb tuck using one hand to play over maybe three octaves? Thanks. I understand the thumb tuck on a single octave but if I want to continue up or down the keys, after the first octave I run out of fingers.

[@damarisfuenteslorenzo]

I have a question regarding the last tip, about using 2, 3 or 4 for black keys. I'm doing fifths with my left hand. If playing E chord, i play E (E and B) with fingers 5 and 1. However, when playing chord B (B and F#), intuitively I play those keys with 5 and 2, but teacher told me it's wrong, I should do it with 5 and 1, and it's akward for me.

[@MrMusicWu]

What is the name of the song? Please tell me, I really love it but I cant find it

[@tiffcat1100]

In that exercise where you had to hold one finger (in turn) while playing the others, well I’m struggling with those (mainly 3&4 I think) but persevering! Atm I’m literally having to hold the relevant one down 😂