Finger Keys

[Eboni Kleifgen]

Althoughthe advantages of the 10 finger-method are perfectly obvious, still many people are hunting and pecking away. Here you are staring at your keyboard until you spot the right key and then hit it with your index finger.

The basic concept of fast typing is quickly explained: Your fingers take up a fixed starting position, from where you can reach any key you need. Your left fingers are placed on the keys A, S, D and F. Your right fingers are on the keys J, K, L and semicolon. Your thumbs are on the space bar.

You can find the basic position without looking at your keyboard. The keys F and J, where your index fingers are placed, have a little bump. This is how you can feel where to put your index fingers, the rest of your fingers are placed accordingly then.

If you have adapted your own writing system and have been using it for a long time, you will probably be slower than before after switching to the 10 finger-method. Do not be discouraged. After a short time you will notice a significant progress and write faster and more comfortably than with your old system.

Many users ask themselves whether they really have to use all 10 fingers or whether 6 or just 4 fingers are enough? The use of all fingers is of course the optimal condition and who really masters typing with 10 fingers, types faster and more relaxed.

However, if you find it very difficult to retrain your self-taught typing technique or if you have anatomical difficulties using all fingers, you can of course use fewer fingers or type keys with other fingers than we recommend.

The key to efficient operation of the computer keyboard is that you know the positions of the keys and the necessary movements of your fingers and that you can utilize them without lengthy thought or looking at the keyboard. The technique we recommend only offers you a method that has proven itself. However, you can of course - if you think it is necessary - adapt it to your needs.

Nowadays, 2/3 of all professional activities require work on the computer. And also privately we spend more and more time in the digital world. The time we spend every day entering texts on the computer may vary according to our profession and private usage patterns and may not seem so much to us - but the long-term approach is decisive here.

Let's assume you spend an average of 1 hour a day entering texts. Projected to one year, that is already 365 hours. If you double your typing speed, you will save about 180 hours per year. For a working week of 40 hours, this means 4 1/2 weeks of free time per year, which you can use for other tasks or which at least allows you to go to work on time much more often.

Of course, this is only an example calculation. Depending on how fit you are on the keyboard at the moment, even a 3- to 4-fold increase in typing speed is possible - with correspondingly higher time savings.

So I'm reading this book called piano and keyboard all in one for dummies and in the very last measure of this image you can see a 5 (pinky/little finger) is suggested for the B flat since this is key of F.

Then you read incorrectly. It may be helpful for absolute beginners when they are first learning, but by the time a beginner can play more than "Twinkle twinkle little star" with one finger, they should have gone past that rule.

The very first notes played on the left hand are C#'s an octave apart. In bar 5 we add octave G#'s in the right hand. The entire piece makes substantial use of notes an octave apart in both hands, and there is no practical way to play this except with thumb and little (pinky) finger.

When there's a choice! It makes a lot of sense to use a longer finger on the further-away-from-you black keys. Easier to reach, surely? Same reason there's a 'rule' about not using thumbs on black keys.

One always has to use a modicum of common sense when sorting fingering on piano. And sometimes, the 'rule' has to be broken for want of compromise. If it's easier, better, more effective to use pinky (or thumb) on a black key, then so be it. If it's easier (etc.) not to, then don't!

I think you want to distinguish fingerings for scale from chords. And chords can be groups into different spacings like less than an octave, full octave, exceeding an octave. The fingerings for those things have different requirements and so one general rule won't really apply to all of them.

While finger 5 on black is avoided for scales that isn't the case for playing chords. Same goes for finger 1 - the thumb. The obvious case is a full octave chord starting and ending on black keys, ex. E flat minor. A normal fingering for that would be fingers 1 and 5 on the E flats. I suppose a large hand could use 1 and 4, but let's not generalize from extreme cases.

About the finger 5 on B flat in the bass from the example: other options like reaching with finger 4 as - 4 2 1 2 - or some kind of cross over like 4 1 2 1 seem less than ideal. Too much effort to reach or cross. For the suggested fingering - 5 2 1 2 - I would consider these two points: 5 on B flat and 1 on G fits with the concept of keeping the short reach fingers (the thumb in this case) on white and by comparison finger 5 can reach farther than the thumb to the black key. Also, if you keep your fingers arched and move in a little toward the fallboard so your fingers are positioned in the middle of the key length (yellow zone in the picture below) it will mitigate the finger reach issues.

There are no rules about which fingers to use on which keys. Fingering notation is a suggestion (unless indicated otherwise), possibly from the composer himself, so it might be extremely valuable. It may also be awkward depending on your comfort level and relative finger strength.

You'll have a very hard time playing more difficult pieces if you could never use your thumb or pinky on a black note! You may even be indicated to use your forearm or foot on the keys if you look into 20th century avant garde composition...

If you are a beginner (which I guess from the fact that you are reading a "for dummies" book), don't forget that the position of your fingers on the white keys should be up close to the end of the black keys, not right at the end of the keys.

About the rule not using the pinky finger for black keys I have never heard, but it makes sense to play in front of the keys and so it makes sens to use the longer finger to play the black keys as they are further behind.

When it comes to fingering, it's all down to context. You cannot decide which finger to use for a note without considering the notes before, the simultaneous notes, and the notes after. You may have some preferences, like not using short fingers for black keys, or not using the weak ring and pinkys for fast trills. But, every singe such rule must yield to the context consideration.

In this case, the left hand plays the Bb followed by f and g. The first interval is a fifth, and the fact that a g follows, discourages the use of the thumb for the f. So, playing the Bb with the ring finger and the f with the index finger would force you to spread your fingers quite significantly. Using the pinky allows your hand to remain in a much more relaxed posture. The fact that there is an f and a g following the Bb determines that the pinky is the best choice for the Bb. If there were a c and a d following the Bb, you'd likely use your middle finger instead.

There are courses designed specifically to teach you typing. They show you where to position your hands on the keyboard and walk you through the right keys to hit with each finger. Some programs, such as Touch-type Read and Spell, use a multi-sensory technique to reinforce what you learn.

To help you practice each key, the corresponding letter appears on the screen and is read out loud. This strengthens memory, along with repetition and dictation exercises, and gives you plenty of opportunities to practice new material.

The good thing is when you learn touch-typing you open up new career opportunities and can even improve your academic performance. Students who learn to type the TTRS way typically improve their reading and spelling skills as well.

Typing can be a great boost for children with self-esteem issues and specific learning difficulties. It has also been successfully used to assist individuals with dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism spectrum disorder and visual impairments in reaching their full potential when it comes to developing strong literacy skills.

However, the fingers on the ends of rows have slightly more work to do as they are also involved in functions other than letter choice, such as indenting, moving to a paragraph and making a letter uppercase.

A good typing program will ensure there are multiple levels corresponding to each set of keys, so you can practice with the ones you know before moving on to exercises that use more of the keyboard. Completing one level at a time and receiving plenty of positive feedback from your online scores will keep you motivated and help you reach your goal at the pace that is right for you.

Maria used to type with two-fingers, slowly and often inaccurately. Now she types faster, with fewer errors, more competently and professionally. This has boosted her confidence in the workplace tremendously. She now recognises individual sounds in words much better, due to the auditory aspect of the multi-sensory approach in TTRS. Her vocabulary has noticeably improved and she has found she can explain things and express herself more clearly in English after completing the course.

Most adult learning programs and libraries offer basic skills computer courses, but is it possible to learn how to touch type on your own? Of course. If you have access to a computer, there are plenty of self-study programs that can help you get started.

TTRS stands for Touch-type Read and Spell and is different from traditional typing programs in a few ways. For one, the words in TTRS lessons are whole words instead of nonsense key combinations. In this way, you can learn to spell as you learn to type.

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