The Art of Piano Fingering by Rami Bar-Niv is a wonderfully detailed exploration of piano fingering. It’s become my textbook for when I get stuck with fingering and need to study it in relation to playing technique, hand size and the kind of effect that a passage of piano music requires the pianist to produce.
Rami Bar-Niv is one of Israel’s most acclaimed pianists. He’s a composer and has performed and taught all over the world, giving masterclasses, lectures, workshops and private lessons.
His book starts with the basics of fingering and covers scales, chords and the basics of hand position, so that piano students can follow it easily. Much of the book deals with advanced fingering.
It’s written clearly and concise, so that a student can learn and understand advanced fingering and related playing technique. And yet detailed enough that it will help the professional, both pianist and teacher.
- There’s fingering for different sized hands, for varied effects & articulation.
- Really interesting discussions on playing technique, focusing on the use of the hand & wrist, with photographs that are very clear and easy to follow.
- Some sections have finger exercises to help with practising different fingering.
- Lots of actual examples of advanced level fingering from pieces!
This book is on my reading list right now, and it’s going to be there for a long time. Because it’s a book I want to take my time with, so I can explore the ideas I find and understand them well. It’s now easy to buy it as it’s available on amazon.in.
If you’re looking to really understand and study piano fingering, this is the book for you.
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