Walking with Billy Fingering
Found in: Foundation Songs
Sheri R., California
My right hand naturally wants to use fingers 1, 3, and 5 rather than the suggested 1, 2, and 5. Is the specified fingering always crucial, or can students discover what feels right for them in instances such as this?
Neil Moore
My thinking is similar to that when playing the Bishop St. Blues chords in the RH where we use fingers 1, 2 & 5. Some people would prefer to use RH fingers 1, 3 & 5, but I like to develop the use of finger 2, because it becomes so necessary at a later stage when the RH is playing extended chords.
In ‘Walking With Billy’, specifically the initial LH transition between the I chord and the IV chords, some teachers have said that they would rather use 1, 3 & 5, others have said they’d rather use 1, 4 & 5. Probably 1, 4 & 5 is the most immediately comfortable, and were the application for this to be applied only to this song, it would be quite practical to use fingers 1, 4 & 5.
However, (and I don’t consider this to be an issue I would argue about), the actual process of transitioning between chords I and IV, via fingers 1, 2 & 5, asks the student to create tensions between these three fingers. As we progress to more advanced pieces (such as ‘57 12/8 Blues) as well as apply various improvisation techniques where the LH is required to function in a particular fashion, having had some experience with LH fingers 1, 2 & 5 being used in this fashion is helpful.
It’s just a matter of keeping in mind that with Simply Music, most things are being done because they are heading somewhere.