Keyboard Fingering
Fingering plays a vital role while playing a keyboard or any musical instrument. In this post, we will discuss the right hand fingering, which is required to play a song or melody on a keyboard.

Usage of proper fingering helps in playing the keyboard smoothly at high speeds and also for playing notes with gamakas/anu-swaras. We should practice a very disciplined fingering from lower tempos, so that we can play the notes in higher tempos with accuracy. We normally use only the right hand for playing a song or melody in Indian Music.

The above picture shows the finger numbers :

  • Finger No 1 is thumb - used to play S and P
  • Finger No.2 is index finger - used to play R & D
  • Finger No.3 is middle finger - used to play G and N
  • Finger No.4 is ring finger - used to play M and S
  • Finger No.5 is little finger - used to play the 5th note in a row

Fingers 1 to 4 are mostly used, and the 5th finger is used occasionally. We should use fingers 1, 2, 3, 4 to play S, R, G, M and the same order is used to play P, D, N, S' also. While shifting the fingers from M to P, the thumb should be moved below the ring finger and while coming back in the reverse direction, the ring finger should be moved above the thumb.

In this video, you can see the fingering for S R G M P D N S' on all white keys. Similarly for black R, G, M, D & N also, we can use the same fingers 2, 3, 4, 2 & 3
The 5th finger is used to play the 5th note, if the phrase has 5 notes in a row. E.g., In the phrase S R G M P, 5th finger is used for P and in the phrase P D N S' R', 5th finger is used to play R'. If a phrase has 6 notes in a row, we have to place the thumb on the 5th note itself. E.g., for S R G M | P D, we must use fingers 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 and for P D N S' R' G', we must use the fingering 1 2 3 1 2 3

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