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Fingering Patterns

Are fingering patterns the only way to learn correctly? Is it a handicap to not think in fingering patterns?

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fiddlrgrrl

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March 8, 2015 - 4:19 pm

Member Since: January 23, 2012

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I know what fingering patterns are, and I can "picture them on a fingerboard in my mind" if I have to, but I was never taught to "think in fingering patterns" and I wonder if accomplished violinists "think in fingering patterns" or just "know" where the next note is?

If I'm playing a scale, I "know" whether the next note is a whole or a half step, but I don't "picture in my mind" dots on a fingerboard or anything like that.

Also I have played things by ear since around kindergarten (and now I'm 67) and since I know how the intervals of a particular scale are supposed to sound, I "hear" that in my head and my fingers come down accordingly. (When my piano teacher realized why I always asked her to play a new assigned piece for me, she quit doing it...)

So I guess it's more descriptive to say I think in intervals, not fingering patterns. But I thought I should ask, even at this late date (!) if I'm missing something crucial?

Fiddlrgrrl

DanielB

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March 8, 2015 - 8:08 pm

Member Since: May 4, 2012

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Fingering patterns, I think of more as being for the muscle memory to work for developing more fluency. Intervals and knowing what you're doing are good, but a lot of times, if you have to actually think of the intervals instead of just "and this part goes la-dee-ladeedada" it would be too slow.

Different stages of learning a piece, yeah, knowing intervals and etc are good when working it out and figuring out if a shift here will make the piece easier/better and leave your fingers in a good place for the next phrase (economy). But when you have that pretty much figured out, getting the bits worked out as just a pattern your fingers have practised to be able to just do it and focus on the sound are what I think of as necessary to get it sounding "easy" and dig into the dynamics.

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman