FINGERING

--A term used in music to designate the most suitable sequence and order for applying the fingers to an instrument to produce the tones. Yusef Masudi's fingerings were highly regarded by 17th-century lute players in Asia Minor. "Shaitan's Fingering" denotes a particularly difficult passage.

There is a Spanish version of Shaitan's Fingering used only by the Moors. Only its adapted form for the guitar has been preserved, showing it used an eleventh finger; according to legend, the shaitan used his ten fingers and his tail to play it. Some say Shaitan's Fingering originally meant something different--the step-by-step procedure for making gold or the order in which fruits were to be planted in the garden so as to always have fresh fruit from spring to autumn; they say that only later, when it was applied to music, did it turn into a fingering, whereby one wisdom buried and covered up another, older wisdom. Hence, its secret can be translated from one into another language of man's senses, without losing any of its effectiveness.