Speed at the piano is always fun because the speed makes even a tiny little five-finger exercise sound more like music. However, if you haven’t sorted out finger numbers, you are going to add confusion on top of speed. Your hand will begin to stretch awkwardly, your wrist will get tight, and you will use a different finger on a given note than you did the last time.
Finger numbers are more than just writing on the page; they are an instruction on where to go with your hands. The numbering for fingers at the beginning of a piano piece is the same for both hands, although your hands are pointing the other way. On the piano, the thumb is the one-finger, the index finger is the two-finger, the middle finger is the three-finger, the ring finger is the four-finger, and the pinky or “pinky” is the five-finger. That fact about your hands is going to be important when you are going to do this five-finger exercise on C, D, E, F, G with fingers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on the right hand and do the same five-finger exercise with the fingers on the left hand.
The finger numbers matter when playing melodies that go back up. You know, you might play C, D, E, D, C, and you are going to use the same fingers you have assigned to you. When you do this, you will get used to the pattern. But if every time you use a different finger, your brain is going to think: “What finger should I play with next?” So this can explain why sometimes a short passage can feel easy and sometimes can feel messy when your fingers are all over the place on a piano. This can happen even though you are playing all the right notes and you know the melody inside and out. All your fingers are missing out on some easy, repeated path.
If you want to speed things up a bit, first put your hand in place on the keyboard for a five-finger exercise. Play through them slowly and say the numbers out loud with them. Relax your wrist and curve your fingers. Press the keys just a little bit. Repeat the same five notes again, only say the note names instead of the finger numbers this time. Then repeat the pattern one more time, and this time just listen without saying any words aloud. Now you have connected three things in your mind: what note is it, which finger should I be using on that, and what did this key sound like on the piano? When a certain finger on your piano feels a bit heavy or lags behind, go back and slow things down a bit before you try again.
A lot of students will want to get rid of finger numbers in the sheet music as quickly as possible. They may feel that reading them is less musical than reading only notes. In reality, early finger markings can prevent extra tension. Just putting in a pencil mark in the sheet music to remind you of what to do in a difficult measure is not a bad thing. Only write in fingering numbers at the spots that you might not feel comfortable with or aren’t sure you will be able to get the correct fingers on those notes every time. Putting too many finger numbers in the sheet music is going to clutter the staff, whereas a couple clearly marked numbers are going to be a great way to learn what to do if you find it to be a tricky measure to repeat.
A nice little self-assessment is when you go through the same two-measure section three times to see if your fingers are consistent. If you find the fingers are not the same or your fingers are moving to different spots each time, you might need to slow it down and practice it a bit before you speed it up. If you can do three repetitions of the same two measures where your fingers are hitting the correct keys and staying steady, and there is no big change or lags, then you may be ready to play it just a little bit faster. You will find yourself doing this when you can play faster with your hand feeling relaxed and calm because you are going to have a better flow.
Finger numbers matter because playing the piano is a whole body exercise. Your eyes read the notes from the sheet music, your ears are listening for the correct notes you are supposed to play, and your hands need to know where to go comfortably on the keyboard without any stress. When that route is planned, even a beginner piano five-finger exercise is a bit more stable. So I think the best sign of a beginner piano player getting better is not just playing faster, but to be able to repeat something that you’ve just played over and over and over again, where everything is feeling comfortable and there aren’t a lot of different fingers or rhythms or surprises.