The Simple Fingering Trick That Changed Everything

For most of my piano playing and teaching life, I’ve helped students learn and memorise piano scale fingerings by creating what I think of as a mind map.

We’d map out the scale in a few different ways:

• A visual pattern of black vs white notes

• A breakdown of which fingers go where

• Sometimes even a little “story” attached to the shape or feel of the scale

It worked — especially for students with different learning styles or those who are neurodiverse and thrive on pattern recognition. But I’ll be honest… it always felt a bit complicated. Effective, yes, but fiddly.

📖 The Old Book That Changed My Thinking

The other day, I was flipping through some very old piano technical work books for lesson inspiration when I spotted something curious.

Above each printed scale, the only fingering instruction was something like:

“Right hand: 4 on B”

“Left hand: 4 on D”

That was it. No full fingering diagrams, no elaborate patterns — just one note and one finger number.

My first thought was: That can’t be all there is to it… can it?

💡 The Lightbulb Moment

Then it hit me.

In every octave of a scale, your fourth finger only plays once.

If you know exactly which note that fourth finger lands on, and you follow the natural 1-2-3 pattern for the other fingers, you’ve just unlocked the fingering for the entire scale.

That’s it. That’s the secret.

🤯 Why This Blew My Mind

I’ve been playing and teaching the piano for decades. I’ve taught scale fingerings thousands of times. And yet… I had never boiled it down to something so simple.

All week I’ve been sharing this with my students. The reaction?

• Eyes wide

• Minds blown

• Fingering suddenly clicking in minutes instead of weeks

🙌 If This Is Old News to You…

If you’ve known this forever, fantastic — I’m honestly thrilled for you.

But for me, this was a revelation. It’s already making teaching scale fingerings quicker, simpler, and much less intimidating for my students.

So I had to share it here — because maybe, just maybe, there’s another teacher or player out there who needs to hear it.

Try it:

Next time you learn a new scale, skip the complex charts. Just find your “4” and let everything else fall into place. You might be surprised at how freeing it feels.