Optimal piano fingering for simple melodies

Sammanfattning: This study proposes an ergonomic model-based algorithm to automatically decide an optimal piano fingering for a given simple melody that can be played by the right hand. The ergonomic model is represented by 13 rules based on physical constrains related to piano playing which can score the difficulty of a fingering. Optimal fingering thus is generated by finding the fingering with minimum difficulty in the tree of possible fingerings. The proposed algorithm was tested through generating optimal fingerings for three pieces and making a comparison between the generated fingerings and the fingerings provided by two experienced pianists. The result indicated that the automatically generated fingerings were close enough to the proposed fingerings from the pianists.