Jean-Philippe Rameau · section 90 of 109

CHAPTER III. Hand position and the arrangement of the fingers

On hand position and the arrangement of the fingers

What we have called the first degree or fundamental sound is called the bass in practice. It is played by the left hand, while the intervals reckoned against it are played by the right. Since three or four of these intervals are usually played together, we shall henceforth refer to them only as a chord. Thus, whatever we call a chord in what follows is always to be played by the right hand.

1°. The left hand plays only one note after another. Take care that the fingers follow one another, avoiding the use of the same finger for successive different notes. To this end, follow the fingering that we have carefully indicated with numbers.

2°. Never use the right-hand thumb except on certain occasions to be discussed later. When the smallness of the hand forces us to use it, this greatly delays the acquisition of habit, which is as necessary in practice as knowledge.

3°. Play at least three notes together with the right hand. The second finger always plays the lowest note and the little finger the highest. The third and fourth fingers alternate for the middle note. In this, follow exactly the position shown by the numbers beside the notes: the thumb is represented by 1, the adjacent finger by 2, and so on up to the little finger, represented by 5.

4°. The fingers, not the hand, must strike the chord. That is, the fingers must move independently of the hand, with their movement originating at the joint that separates them from the hand.

5°. The finger that strikes first must always begin with the bass. The others follow so that the whole seems simultaneous, although it should form a kind of arpeggiation, like three or four thirty-second notes played rapidly one after another.

6°. Never lift all the fingers together, except in changes so rapid that nothing better is possible. The finger that strikes first lifts alone—or rather, glides from one key to another—beginning with the bass. The others immediately follow, as already stated. Thus the fingers should never remain in the air. If they leave one key, it must be to touch another at the same instant, so that releasing and striking make a single movement, with no perceptible interval of time between them.

7°. Allow the fingers their natural movement, without ever forcing them. Speed is acquired through good habit, not through force.

These observations are essential. Chords are so closely related that the fingers acquire the habit of moving closer together or farther apart according to the succession of chords, which is almost always the same. Besides making the accompaniment much more graceful, this also brings mastery more quickly. If you lifted the hand for every chord, you would often have to look away from the book to find a chord that the fingers would have found by themselves had they not left the keyboard.

This hand position, which concerns the harpsichord chiefly, has only these exceptions for the organ: all the notes of each chord must be struck together; a key that has served one chord and can still serve the next must never be released; and the sounds should be connected as far as possible.