Should I stick to the fingering given in the sheet music?

As an experienced concert guitarist let me say that most editions have at least some examples of poor fingering. Very many have a lot of poor fingerings and a few have good fingerings that I don't necessarily have to agree with or which may or may not fit my hands. You should try every fingering written in the edition. You should also try every alternative you can think of. If you find a fingering that seems difficult, try to think of the reasoning behind it and don't be surprised if you can't find any, everyday I find illogical and unmusical fingerings. But at least give the written fingering the benefit of the doubt and try to understand why it was fingered like this. In most editions you can find: a fingering that works for the author but not for you (difference in hands, difference in musical/technical philosophy), a fingering based on a different musical or technical aproach (I would tend to approach a fingering on a basis of getting a smooth legato sound while other guitarists might place voice leading or tone colour as the prominent factor), fingerings that are good but for which you do not have the technique to achieve currently (in this case I will often allow a student to perform the inferior fingering rather than the better one that he might master 6 months after he has to perform the piece but will always make sure he knows that eventually we will use another fingering) and often simply technically poor or unmusical fingerings.

Some teachers expect you to immitate them or the instruction book without regard to what is good for your hands or your musical taste and often without subjecting their or the book's fingerings to critical analysis. One thing I appreciated with my teacher Zoran Dukic is that he never required me to take his fingerings and only required that the end result was good. Zoran often had very ingenious and musical fingerings that I was happy to use but there were times where I felt that his fingerings did not suit my hands or the way I was trying to interpret a piece. Even though Zoran was often a very direct, harsh and demanding teacher, he only demanded that I play at a very high level and not at a very high level imitating him. If I came to a lesson playing a passage in a not very legato manner, Zoran was not at all pleased. Often he would suggest a different fingering and many times I would agree it was superior. Sometimes, though, I still preferred my fingering and believed with more practice I could achieve the desired result. He would say that by the next lesson it must be better. If it was not better I was usually subject to a very colourful tirade that proved that someone of a slavic background (whose languages have a very rich history of obscenity) can swear better in english than a truck driver whose mother tongue is english. However, if I managed to play the passage legato in my way he was very honest and would say that I had got the passage to work using my fingering. This is an attitude I try to take with my own students (minus the colourful language, of course) even though it can be hard as a teacher to divorce oneself from the egotistic point of view that you have the best fingerings. I have to admit that sometimes I come up with a fingering that I think is great and which I have taught for several years and one day one of my 15 year old students who has been playing for less than a year fingers a passage completely different and I can't understand why I didn't think of that myself.

The situation with guitar editions is such: The majority of editions are fingered at a poor or average level. To show the dilemma facing guitarists, let me take an example of a very good edition, Frank Koonce's Bach Lute Suites. I think this is the best edition available of these works, very scholarly and with a great deal of thought put in to the fingerings. While most of the fingerings are quite good, there are still very many I change because another fingering fits my hands better, another fits my musical ideas better or I think there is simpy a better solution to a fingering problem. In this book I probably change anywhere from 5 to 15% of the fingerings yet I think it is about as well fingered an edition as one can buy of any music. If I am changing 5 to 15% of the fingerings in a good edition you can imagine how many I would change in a poor edition! I consider myself to be a very good fingerer of pieces yet I constantly change my own fingerings as well. I am sure even Frank Koonce has over time changed some of his fingerings when he plays some of the pieces in his book. Consider also that almost every music book has a certain number of typographical errors.

Another issue is that the fingering of many editions contrasts with that of the fingering of the original author. Below I use the example of Tarrega whose pieces often suffer from poor modern fingerings. In the case of Tarrega I think he had some good fingerings but in places they can also be improved upon. A very prominent example is Segovia's edition of the Sor studies. I first learned these pieces from Segovia's edition and found many things that seemed suspect to me in this edition. When I later discovered the Sor originals I found Sor's fingerings, way of notating the voices and use of rests to be much more in keeping with what I thought would be the logical way to perform the piece. Many composers of the classical era were very exacting and ingenious in their way of notating a piece and this is often lost in contemporary editions. I don't believe one has to slavishly follow the composer's fingerings either, but if you have a modern edition of an old work, at least try to find the original edition.

Some examples of poor fingerings:

Right Hand

Often a piece will have arpeggios with a melody in the bass. This bass melody will be played with the thumb. However, if the bass melody goes to the 3rd string, many editors will finger it with the i-finger. This may or may not be technically easier but the thumb has a heavier sound than the i-finger which will help you bring out the bass melody and make the musical intent of the piece more clear. If the i is used on this note you will end up with one weaker note in the melody line leading to uneveness in the melody. It is of course possible to use extra force on the i stroke to counter this but why not play it in a more musically natural way with the thumb.

Excessive use of alternation. As a teacher who is very interested in giving my students a high level of technical expertise, I place a large value on proper finger alternation. However, many editors finger pieces with excessive alternation. Slower melodic pieces may not require you to alternate. Using the same finger on a slow singing melody will give you a consistency of tone not possible when alternating fingers. It can also be quite secure using the same finger to play successive notes on the same string. Obviously at certain speeds the alternation principals must apply but it is sometimes hard for me to understand why many editors insist on alternating fingers for a slow, beautiful melody on one string.

I often see complicated 3 finger fingerings which are used because in a particular passage it is not possible to continue the two finger alternation pattern. There is nothing wrong with 3 finger patterns and in appropriate places they can be quite useful. They can also be quite complicated and insecure and it is frequently easier and more accurate to simply repeat a finger. Alternation is very important and useful but it is not a sin to use repeated fingers where they are more musical or where a simple alternation pattern can not be used.

Left Hand

There are so many possible ways to poorly finger the left hand that it is hard to list just a few so I will list a few principles:

Always try to find common fingers between chords, ie. if you can keep one finger on the same note this will help you immensely even if you have to change every other finger in the chord. A simple example of this is the change between a-minor and C-Major in which the 1st and 2nd fingers play the same notes in each chord. It may seem obvious in this example but it is surprising how often guitarists fail to use possible common fingerings which make chord changes much easier.

Try to keep the same finger on the same string in position changes. This will make the change of position/chord much more secure.

Try to maintain certain shapes in chord changes. For example if the 2nd finger is on the same fret as the 3rd finger but one string lower and this shape can be maintained in the next chord on different strings try to do this.

A very important musical consideration is keeping a lyrical melody on one string. Many editions will finger a melodic phrase over several strings to avoid a change of position. While this may or may not be technically easier depending on the passage, it often makes the melodic tones break up. In other words, instead of a singing melody the tones sound like an arpeggio. An example of this is in the Tarrega pices Lagrima and Adelita which both have long, lyrical melodies that many editors place over several strings. While some consideration must be given to technical ease, string changes on these important melodies should be kept to a minimum. Keeping a melody on one string will increase the legato effect of the melody. As an aside, Tarrega's own fingerings of these pieces are better than those of many modern editors yet in places can also be improved upon.

Conclusion

Always consider the fingering given in an edition. Try to think of the reasoning behind this fingering. Even if you find it good try to see if you can find a better fingering. If you find it poor try to think of better alternatives. Question whether you are doing something wrong or whether there is a technical reason you can not perform this fingering satisfactorily. However, do not be afraid to question the logic/musical or technical merit behind the fingering as well and to come up with alternate solutions. One of the principles of classical music is that many players play the same piece in their own original manner. In rock music most players/bands will try to play a song as close as possible to the original, ie. the same fingerings. In classical we try to play our own version of the original. This is one of the reasons why tab (which commits you to a certain fingering) is very good in notating rock music but less desirable for notating classical guitar. Ensure that whenever there is a problematic passage, the fingering solution you choose is easier and sounds more musical than the alternative, difficult fingering. In other words, don't choose a solution that is harder or sounds worse than the problem itself.