When you start taking piano lessons, one of the first things you learn about is your finger numbers. If you’re new to piano, your right and left-hand fingers are numbered from your thumbs out. So your thumbs are one, index fingers are two, middle fingers are three, ring fingers are four, and your pinkies are five.
So why is it essential that we know what numbers our fingers are? The answer concerns those little numbers that appear above the notes in finger exercises and songs. These little numbers indicate which finger will play that particular note.
Finger numbers help us to position our hands correctly to play the music that is written on the page. The better positioned our hand is for the notes or phrase being played, the easier it will be for us to play it.
Now, it’s true you can change the finger numbers in a song, as there are times when you can approach the fingering to a musical passage in different ways while still allowing the notes to be played correctly. You may want to change the fingering if you have small hands, allowing you to reach fewer notes or larger hands, allowing you to reach more notes at once, saving you the trouble of moving your hands to several different hand positions when one would do.
While you can change the fingering in a song, if you’re just starting to learn the piano, it may be best to let your piano teacher alter the fingering, as there are usually many considerations in plotting out your fingering and hand position since finger numbers are influenced by the phrases before and after you’re current position.
One of the main things to consider when practicing and working out the fingering for notes in a piece, regardless of your changes, is to keep the fingering the same each time you practice and play the music; it will help with memorization and execution of your piece.
