Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to give you two reasons why you must change fingers when you have repeated notes on the piano. Oftentimes, you’ll see fingering telling you to use different fingers on the same note. Why would you need to do that? Can’t you just play the same note with the same finger? The answer is yes, but there are two times when this is not true. Today I’m going to show you two times when you absolutely must change fingers on repeated notes.
Changing fingers is crucial on fast, repeated notes.
Very fast, repeated notes are virtually impossible to play with one finger. You couldn’t possibly play fast enough with one finger instead of using multiple fingers. Different fingers can absolutely go faster. So that’s an obvious place where you must change fingers on repeated notes. But there’s another time when you must change fingers on repeated notes as well.
If you want to achieve a true legato on repeated notes, you must change fingers.
By lifting up previously played finger while the next finger is coming down, you can achieve a far smoother sound when repeating the same note. You can achieve a far greater legato.. Now, you might think that you can make it work by using the pedal, and the pedal will indeed help; but even without using the pedal, you can achieve a legato sound by changing fingers on a repeated note. It’s remarkable how much legato can be achieved even without the pedal!
By adding the pedal with the repeated notes and changing fingers, you get the ultimate smooth legato.
You don’t need to use the pedal all that much. The changing of fingers makes for such a better legato. To recap, when you play quickly, you must change fingers in order to facilitate rapid, repeated notes. And when you have slow repeated notes that are to be played smoothly, you also must change fingers in order to achieve a true legato. However, if you have instances with repeated notes that don’t require an extreme legato, or aren’t so fast, you can use the same finger and get good results. But these are two instances where you must change fingers on repeated notes. I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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2 thoughts on “2 Reasons You Must Change Fingers on Repeated Notes”
Another reason to change fingers for more legato is that sometimes the pedal is needed to be used differently for other things going on in the music.
Of course, there are times when the fingers cannot be easily changed for repeated notes — such as in Fur Elise, when there are two repeated notes a fifth apart in the left hand.
Also — did you realize that in a very fast trill one is actually playing two adjacent repeated notes?
Those are all very astute comments. Yes, trills are simply two adjacent notes which are repeating. You can really tell this when playing on a piano with less than great repetition (like on many upright pianos).