Having the same struggle as an adult learning piano.
How do highly-skilled pianist come up with fingering? Are there any kind of rules? I think there are. But it may be so automatic that they don't actively think about them.
On the other hand, if we have a large quantity of high-quality sheets with fingering labeled, we can train a transformer which is supposed to learn the implicit rules pretty well.
I have an undergrad degree in piano. The problem is that at higher levels it becomes more dependent on your own biology. Some of it is hand size, some of it is the layout of the tendons in your hands - some people get tendon click in ways that other people don't.
Practicing includes the identification of the fingerings that can work for you. I don't think AI will ever get you all the way there. Sure, you can put in some beginning rules like don't cross your thumb under from a white key to a black key, but there's always going to be a fingering that is ideal for one pianist that won't work for another.
For casual adult playing though, I'd never reach" high level" playing. All I want is to play easy songs I like (I'm sure there are plenty of people like me), for which I think an automatic algorithm is pretty likely to work.
(Pianist here) But there is no objectively correct fingering, it's just what feels best/easiest/smoothest for you, personally. Having to read the fingering as well as the notes just seems to make it more complicated.
Even for the simplest music, say a C major triad chord in the right hand - C-E-G - you could play it 1-3-5, 1-2-4, 1-2-3, 2-3-5 etc. I have big hands, so 1-3-5 feels the least comfortable of those, although it may be the 'automatic' choice. I agree with what others have said, that learning scales and arpeggios teaches you almost all you need to know about sensible fingerings on piano, and then having fingering pre-written on any music is entirely unnecessary. Books of scales and arpeggios have fingering written in, which you should learn.
The automatic algorithm can definitely take hand size into account.
I often feel that the fingering I come up with myself as a beginner is suboptimal. What I usually do is to watch youtube videos repeatedly to study what experts do. And that really helps me correct some bad adhoc fingering. I'm sure it's an experience thing - I can totally understand why experts would consider fingering on a sheet as useless. But for beginners it can make a huge difference. You probably don't care about beginners. But that is a huge market with strong needs unsatisfied (besides auto-fingering, auto-transcription of popular songs is another one).
My second paragraph was about beginners and what seems to me their best course, not sure why you say that. (TAB for guitarist beginners similarly "can make a huge difference" I'm sure, but also it keeps you a beginner.) It seems you ignored what I said about scales and arpeggios. I wrote my previous comment because it seemed you similarly ignored what the person you replied to said before. But sure, whatever works for you. Good luck!
Didn't intend any offense. But let me introduce more about myself, and tons of other adult piano beginners. You can see if you really care.
I care absolutely nothing about piano basics. I have a busy full-time job and tons of side projects so I have absolutely no patience for learning boring basics. I paid hundreds of buck for piano lessons in college but I ended up going to only two lessons (again - busy!). Yeah I know it would possibly develop bad habits, but as long as I can play pieces I like, why would I care? I just want the thing that would satisfy my short-term needs. I know that spending some time training my basics would make me a better player, but this boringness is going to let me give up on piano entirely.
Again, no offense intended - just trying to describe a unique persona. So no need to educate me on practicing the basics - I have had enough of those from many people...
(1) Keep a couple of pencils on the piano to write your fingering on the manuscript,
(2) Feel free to ignore the editor's fingering if it's clunky for you,
(3) No premature optimisation. Play through sections multiple times before deciding on fingering. If there are two apparent solutions to some fingering problem you might need to try both and then sleep on it,
(4) Once you've decided on a fingering, stick to it, because otherwise you risk tripping up by regressing onto a previous fingering.
The difficult jumps are usually write tge changes, but once there, it would seem redundant to keep numbering as it's obvious to someone at that level playing.
If you're learning on your own as an adult, I highly recommend "Alfred's Basic Piano Course" book 1. You start from the very start, and by the end of the book, you'll be able to sight read
It appears to be experience -- highly skilled pianists have played similar passages for pretty much any sheet music you could give them, and select fingerings from experience. This breaks down for music that's deliberately difficult to finger, or has usual repetition (think Ravel's Ondine, or Islamey).
Experience, sight-reading skill, and experimentation. My piano teacher used to play passages that needed fingering at full speed several times with different fingerings to find one that would work for me.
> I think there are. But it may be so automatic that they don't actively think about them.
That is, unfortunately for someone trying to learn, the entire goal of learning to play piano in a way. To turn the entire process from looking at a sheet (or hearing it in your head) to sounds happening to become essentially instinct.
The best way to do this is repetition. This is what scales and arpeggios and excercises are for. By internalizing the scales you build up what feels correct, based on your hands, the length of your fingers, the different strengths and weaknesses of every single joint and bone and muscle and tendon. You have to use the repetition to find out what each transition and different motions feel like, and interpolate that to what's in front of you.
I am leaning to play piano on a disguarded Hammond CMS-103. (Someone put this out by the curb with a free sign. It was originaly over 7 grand. Why did I include this. Because I'm shocked at what people toss.)
Anyway, I labeled all the keys on my machine. C-D-G-F-G-A
I memorized C for chopsticks. (C will always be the white key to the left of the two black keys.)
I memorized F for Fork. (F will always be to left of three black keys.)
I then found a song I liked on Google with chords.
I picked a Ronny Millsap song, and played it over, and over again.
Am I any good--hell no, but keeping piano/guitar simple helped me.
Eddie Van Halen saw that his son was having a very hard time learning to play bass guitar. Wolfe told his father their are just too many chords. Eddie gave him some great fatherly advice.
"You don't need to learn all the chords. 11 chords will allow you to play a lot of songs."
A lot of Country, and rock, songs only have a few chords.
I've played almost 25 years, including some professional.
To answer you... I don't come up with fingering. I just do what my hands do. The fingerings in printed music are guidelines for pedagogy.
Honestly I'm not even sure I explicitly practice fingering. It's just repetition. I frequently think I change it though.
That being said as someone whos played so long it's like an extension of my arm, don't take my word for it. Experts are notoriously bad at explaining their techniques. I do think it's just practice though. No secret
How do highly-skilled pianist come up with fingering? Are there any kind of rules? I think there are. But it may be so automatic that they don't actively think about them.
On the other hand, if we have a large quantity of high-quality sheets with fingering labeled, we can train a transformer which is supposed to learn the implicit rules pretty well.