Music Instruction

It Isn’t Just Snowflakes

Bananas, too. Hands, too. People, too.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

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In 1885, a meteorologit named Wilson Bentley astounded the world by stating that he had proven that no two snowflakes were alike. The word spread like wildfire, or, er, like wild frozen raindrops.

People should not have been surprised.

No two of anything are alike.

Yesterday morning as I was eating my banana for the day (potassium, you know), I realized that the one I had eaten the day before was totally different from this one, even though they were from the same bunch. In fact, they had been right next to each other on the same stem. Yet they were about as dissimilar as two related things could get. One was longer than the other, fatter than the other, yellower than the other. More ‘strings.’ Thicker skin. Etc. And that reminded me of the snowflake story from long ago. And how nothing is identical to anything else, no matter how basic.

Not two snowflakes. Not two bananas. Not two tadpoles. Not two people. Not two peoples’ hands. Not ever one person’s two hands! (My left hand can reach one note on a keyboard instruent farther than my right hand can.)

The same principle applies even to mass-produced manufactured items: no two cars are alike. Two supposedly identical red Ford’s of the same model of the same year are never absolutely totally identical. Stop and think about it: put two theoretically-the-same automobiles side by side and I guarantee you’ll find differences. A streak here, a blemish there, a slight change in color there, because at the very least they came through the assembly line at times that used two different batches of paint. The steering wheel on one is easier to turn than the other. The brakes are softer on one than the other. One smells better inside than the other.

So why it seemed such a big deal to people that no two snowflakes were alike is a bit of a mystery. People should have nodded wisely and said or thought: of course they aren’t!

What does all this have to do with music? This: No two people have the same hands. Therefore: there is no such thing as ‘correct fingering.’ The little finger-numbers you see beside certain notes in published piano music were for the most part not put there by the composers of the music. They were put there by editors, who worked out the easiest fingering for their own hands and then decided it made sense to impose that fingering on everybody else, regardless of age, regardless of gender, regardless of ethnicity.

Ridiculous!

So when my students ask why the little numbers are there, I tell them where they came from and why, and then I give them my sageist advice: “Ignore them.” And the students sigh happily and do as I suggest. They dodn’t ever try to ‘obey’ those indications. And I say, ‘Good riddance.’ Why anybody ever thought such guidelines were needed I’ll never truly understand. A six year old and a twelve year old are trying to learn the same song, and they’re supposed to use the same fingers even though one’s hands are more than twice the size of the other’s? Silly!

So does it not matter at all what fingers they do use? Actually, it does matter. There are some important principles that I teach in that regard. 1.Never cross your thumb over the top of another finger. 2. Never try to cross your fifth finger over the top of your fourth. 3. Never use your thumb on a black note unless you have to, in order to play notes that are a long way apart both together at the same time.

Why do these priniples matter? Does it make the music any better?

No. It has to do with physical health. Going against these principles is the best way I know to get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which is not a good thing to have. (You can also get it by having your wrists bent severely while playing, when your elbows are either too high or too low. But that has nothing to do with fingering.)

And please notice, when I gave you that list of three important things to avoid, I said nothing about ‘rules.’ Rules regarding music are baloney! I have a strict rule about rules: Avoid them whenever possible. (And not just about music!)

I also don’t believe in rules about ‘correct’ posture at the keyboard. Or ‘correct’ placement of the feet in regard to the pedals. Or anything else that traditionalist piano teachers make rules about.

My motto is “If it isn’t fun it isn’t music.” And rules are no fun at all.

I bring all this up because I was recently involved in a recital, and one of the members of the audience (a professional pianist who has an advanced degree in music) sat there frantically taking notes while we did our thing. And then remembering getting kicked out of a local Music Teachers Association once many years ago for having the audacity to start my students off by learning familiar songs by ear rather than by reading unfamiliar or boring songs by reading the notes. (Here’s a LINK to the article about the recital, in case you missed it.)

“But if they learn to play by ear, they’ll never learn to read music,” one member of the board screamed at me.

I had then (and I have now) two responses to that:

1. Never learning to read music isn’t the end of the world; there are a lot of excellent and successful musicians out there who have no idea how to read music, and
2. It isn’t true: I’ve never had, among my hundreds of students, one who failed to learn to read music eventually. Sometimes it takes one longer than it takes another, but they all get there eventually.

One might as well say that if you learn to walk first, you’ll never learn to run!

After all, what is music about? I suspect it’s about the ear. That’s why I start with that when teaching.

Just as no two snowflakes are alike, no two students are, either. One might instinctively understand rhythm more quickly than pitch. Another one might be the other way around. Is one of these better than the other? No. They’re both equally good. So long as the student has their own motivation and it isn’t coming from a parent or sibling or spouse, they will succeed on their own terms and at their own speed.

And when you’ve melted in the bucket, it hardly matters what shape you were when you were still a snowflake.