Hanon and Other Excerises are VERY IMPORTANT

[lostinidlewonder]

I felt compelled to post this for Beginners who might be influenced by some more experienced pianists saying piano exercises are useless. I have read numerous posts saying Hanon is a waste of time, but really it is essential for developing fingers which haven't had much/any experience playing the piano. I cannot think what I would do when I teach beginners if I didn't have some simple exercises for them to play. At least some exercises along side an actual piece to develop strength/control in their fingers/hand.

I think that once you have found your ground in playing the piano and are confident in general procedure, piano exercises become somewhat obsolete. We find it much more efficient and effective practicing difficult technical problems we face in pieces by actually playing the piece over and over again. We strive control the quality of sound rather than focusing on physical control of the fingers as beginners cannot help but constantly consider.

So for a second reason to push beginners to study Hanon is to make them start to forget about the physical action of individual notes and learn to control a complete pattern as a whole. This helps them to understand what it means to forget about the notes and just listen to themselves produce sound instead. They can apply this understanding of "automatic" playing in pieces they learn, as well as apply balance of their fingers when it it is asked for a string of notes.

Any support or refutations most welcome

[thalbergmad]

I do exercises regularly and have done since i was 3.

There have been many interesting posts about practising actual pieces instead of exercises and yes, if you come across difficult passages, play them over and over again until it is right. However, i submit that if you do drill your fingers, you will solve a lot of problems before you even encounter them.

If you have to continually play the same phrase over and over , what is that if not an exercise.

This is only my view and i am not a professional pianist or teacher.

[cfortunato]

Personally, I find Schmitt's exercises to be better than Hanon's, and useful for pianists at almost all levels.

[allthumbs]

Greetings

I felt compelled to post this for Beginners who might be influenced by some more experienced pianists saying piano exercises are useless. I have read numerous posts saying Hanon is a waste of time, but really it is essential for developing fingers which haven't had much/any experience playing the piano. I cannot think what I would do when I teach beginners if I didn't have some simple exercises for them to play. At least some exercises along side an actual piece to develop strength/control in their fingers/hand.

I would have to agree with you here. I believe the same applies to scales and other technical exercises. A beginner needs some reference point to start developing finger independence and strength. While I agree that actual pieces do contain technical problems that a student  has to master in order to paly the piece successfully, it would take quite the repertoire to cover all the difficulties one may incounter in piano repertory.

Hanon and other methods of exercises allows the student to focus on a particular weakness, thus decreasing the time needed to overcome the problem.

I think that once you have found your ground in playing the piano and are confident in general procedure, piano exercises become somewhat obsolete. We find it much more efficient and effective practicing difficult technical problems we face in pieces by actually playing the piece over and over again. We strive control the quality of sound rather than focusing on physical control of the fingers as beginners cannot help but constantly consider.

I find that if I neglect my scales and other technical exersises, my technique and stamina drops somewhat even if I am playing my repertoire consistantly. I find that although parts of any one piece may challenge my technique, there is to sustained effort needed as the difficult passage is transitory.

One exception that comes to mind is such pieces as Fantasie Impromptu where one is getting a good workout throughout.

So for a second reason to push beginners to study Hanon is to make them start to forget about the physical action of individual notes and learn to control a complete pattern as a whole. This helps them to understand what it means to forget about the notes and just listen to themselves produce sound instead. They can apply this understanding of "automatic" playing in pieces they learn, as well as apply balance of their fingers when it it is asked for a string of notes.

Any support or refutations most welcome

I think that this is the one of the other main benefits to playing technical exercises for the beginner. They start to be able to transfer what they are working on in the exercise to a piece in terms of phrasing and melody line along with the greater strength and finger independence.

The bottom line is use Hanon if it works for you and discard it if it doesn't.

Cheers

allthumbs

[rlefebvr]

Well, what is your definition of Beginner. I do not disagree that exercises is important cause it is. Scales of all sorts, Chord and arpeggios should be the basis of all practice routines, especially for beginners.

The problem is some teachers use Hanon to often and for the wrong reason. Having students spent a half hour doing Hanon exercises is stupid and useless.

However, if a student is having trouble moving fingers in a certain way, there are plenty of Hanon exercises that can be used in a limited fashion to help matters.

The problem lies with teachers who use Hanon as some sort of bible one must master to play . This is totally wrong.

I do believe once a student is able to play some Bach minuets and preludes with some scalatti in the mix, Hanon and other sorts become more or less irrelevant and should only be used  in very specific situations.


As a piano musician, I have used Hanon and the likes sporadically threw the years and always to alleviate quickly certain problems with my playing, but never as a teaching ritual to be mastered instead of playing pieces.

[xvimbi]

Many teachers (any kind, not just piano teachers) are often convinced of one particular approach and try to dogmatically force their students to follow that approach. Rarely do they taylor their methods to the individual personality of a given student. There are many roads to success, and one is not necessarily better or worse than another. So, as long as one shows what the proper movements are, one can teach how to play anything. I would then leave it up to the students to decide whether they want to learn technique through exercises, through pieces, or a combination thereof. It's of no use to make a student go through exercises who absolutely hates them; other students like them a lot and thrive. It is the teacher's task to find out how to get a student to solve pianistic problems efficiently, and eventually on their own.

[violinist]

For what it's worth.  I strongly believe in practicing exercises to build technique.  It helped me tremendously on the violin, but I had to pick and choose the right exercises to help me develop.  On the violin I was able to develop my own exercises.  The piano is a different story - I'm just happy hacking thru some pieces at this time - it's still pretty new for me.

I'm thinking that exercises would help me for my weaknesses (I have a few  ) on the piano.

I'm going to try that Octave study on Czerny art of finger dexterity.  I need help with those octaves. 

[timothy42b]

I am a beginner, have been taking lessons for a year with my daughter.  At my age (50's) naturally I learn a little more slowly, but I have a background on other instruments so I understand a little of the basics. 

Here's the thing.  While I'm sure I don't have the finger dexterity of an advanced piano player, I've never had a lesson piece that was a dexterity challenge.  They are hard because of coordination or interpretation or big leaps or other issues, never because I can't move my fingers fast enough. 

So on the one hand, practicing Hanon will do me zero good, because there is no opportunity to apply the improved technique that will presumably be obtained.

On the other hand, it also seems that my lesson material alone would not build a great deal of dexterity at this time. 

If the dexterity is a requirement (I'm not at all clear that it is) then it seems logical to supplement pieces with exercises.  But exercise obtained dexterity seems to be highly perishable, judging from experiences with wind instruments, so these would have to be done more or less forever. 

[bernhard]

I felt compelled to post this for Beginners who might be influenced by some more experienced pianists saying piano exercises are useless.

Actually, Hanon and similar exercises are not important at all. Beginners should be made aware of this so that they don’t fall into the “tradition” trap and blindly follow instructions without questioning them, wasting a lot of time in the process.

It is easy to show how unimportant Hanon is: Hanon first published his exercises in 1873. There are plenty of keyboard virtuosos (Handel, Bach and his sons, Scarlatti, Liszt, Chopin, etc. etc. etc.) who acquired their technique well before Hanon published his book. I rest my case.

I have read numerous posts saying Hanon is a waste of time, but really it is essential for developing fingers which haven't had much/any experience playing the piano.

Well, if you read my posts on the subject, you may be aware that I am not just “saying that Hanon is a waste of time”. I am providing (I believe) some pretty good arguments supporting such view. At the moment I have not read any counter argument that would convince (or even persuade ) me to change my opinion on the matter. In any case I will put my case forward again (see below).

I cannot think what I would do when I teach beginners if I didn't have some simple exercises for them to play. At least some exercises along side an actual piece to develop strength/control in their fingers/hand.

The easiest answer is to design exercises based on the piece’s passages and related to the necessary movements for those passages. There are of course many other things one can do when teaching beginners – none of which involves Hanon. For instance:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,1867.msg14268.html#msg14268
(Getting technique from pieces – several important tricks: hand memory, dropping notes, repeated note-groups)

At least this serves some purpose. One lengthy argument is supplied in this thread:

http://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,8981.msg91081.html#msg91081
(repertory x purely technical exercises to acquire technique)

I think that once you have found your ground in playing the piano and are confident in general procedure, piano exercises become somewhat obsolete. We find it much more efficient and effective practicing difficult technical problems we face in pieces by actually playing the piece over and over again. We strive control the quality of sound rather than focusing on physical control of the fingers as beginners cannot help but constantly consider.

I agree in part. I disagree that piano “exercises” become obsolete as one progresses. Any piece that presents any passage that is challenging/difficult/impossible will always present right there an “exercise” for the pianist. However, abstract exercises – that is not in any way related to a particular piece – (Hanon, Pischna, Schmidth, Dohnanyi, Cortot) in my opinion have no place ever in one’s practice.

There is a world of difference between the very valuable exercises in Cortot’s “Editions de travail” of the Chopin etudes, for instance, and the complete useless exercises in his “Rational Principles of Piano Technique” (there is nothing rational about them). The difference is that in the first case the exercises address specific difficulties in specific pieces, while in the second case, they are abstract exercises: Cortot succumbed to the allure of the logical method, blinded by his pragmatical success.

See here for more on the logical x pragmatical approach:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2192.msg21823.html#msg21823
(How to teach very young students – the historical method, the pragmatical  x logical method and total exposure as the best way for under-5s)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2998.msg26268.html#msg26268
(Scales HT, why? – why and when to practise scales HS and HT – Pragmatical  x logical way of teaching – analogy with aikido – list of piano techniques – DVORAK – realistic x sports martial arts – technique and how to acquire it by solving technical problems – Hanon and why it should be avoided - Lemmings)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2893.msg25500.html#msg25500
(how to teach op. 142 no. 2 - Burgmuller studies – Lots of practice tricks – the pragmatical x logical approach using Boolean algebra and word processing as an example)

So for a second reason to push beginners to study Hanon is to make them start to forget about the physical action of individual notes and learn to control a complete pattern as a whole. This helps them to understand what it means to forget about the notes and just listen to themselves produce sound instead. They can apply this understanding of "automatic" playing in pieces they learn, as well as apply balance of their fingers when it it is asked for a string of notes.

I see of no reason why this could not be accomplished in a much more efficient way by working on the repertory.

Now for the reason why Hanon (and like exercises) should be avoided (italics are quotes from Hanon himself):

1, Hanon, basic anatomical premise is totally false: “The central problem of piano playing is to make the fingers equal and independent”.

Not only this is most definitely not the central problem of piano playing, as it is impossible to achieve it. Therefore Hanon is a waste of time in an absolute sense because you will be employing your energies trying to solve a non-existing problem by pursuing an impossible procedure. This is akin to say that the basic problem in car driving is to be able to fly, and the way to be able to fly is to practice flapping your arms vigorously. Not only the ability to fly is not related to car driving, as flapping your arms vigorously will not get you there, even if you do it one hour a day. If you want o read in more detail about the anatomical issues involved, read all of xvimbi’s posts, and these ones as well:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4145.msg38568.html#msg38568
(beginner’s muscle development – anatomy of the hand forearm – true reasons for extremely slow practice)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5034.msg47829.html#msg47829
(The finger strength controversy – some excellent posts by xvimbi)

But actually all one needs to do is a bit of independent thinking (I know it is hard for some of you, but try it you will be surprised at the results). For instance, the fingers have different sizes. How are you going to make this equal? The thumb opposes the other fingers. How are you going to make them equal? The hands are symmetrical. How are you going to equalise them? The fingers 3/4/5 share tendons, how are you going to make them independent? Any method that promises to make your fingers equal and independent (Hanon's basic - and clearly stated - aim) is already showing such basic ignorance of the fundamentals of anatomy that the actual exercises are likely to be useless.

[to be continued...]

[bernhard]

[...continued from previous post]

2.   Hanon’s instructions are wrong. He tells you to:

a.   Lift the fingers high keeping everything else immobile.

Why is this wrong? Because lifting the fingers high is the wrong technique to use and leads to injury. The correct technique is to use – for instance -  forearm rotation to bring the fingers up. Pressing the fingers down is never a problem and your fingers can already do it (from daily living) without any need for any further exercising. The situation is similar to the high jump. Jumping forwards is the wrong technique. Jumping backwards is the way to go. Practising the forward jump will never get you in the Olympic team, even if it was what everyone was doing before Dick Fosberry came up with the backwards jump, And if you want to read about this in greater detail, go here:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4385.msg41226.html#msg41226
(technique is personal and relative to the piece – Fosberry flop – the best books on technique)

b.   Keep your hands quiet, fingers parallel to the keys.

There is no piece of music that can be played in this way. In fact, as far as “technique” - that is movement patterns - is concerned, in order to play even the most elementary repertory one needs to slant the hand (amongst other things to negotiate passing of fingers). By the way, this is a huge problem with Czerny as well. Anyone who spends the first three years learning just Hanon and Czerny, in order to “save time” by “acquiring technique” in isolation, will have wasted those three years, because the “technique” they acquired will be unsuitable to most pieces, and for the pieces they can get away with such “technique”, they will sound laboured and unmusical because there are far better techniques to play them. Perhaps the best example (and also the best alternative) are the Scarlatii sonatas which require for their proper playing, arguably the largest range of movement patterns. In some sonatas you need to play with your arms parallel to the keyboard, the fingers “walking up and down the keys. Where, on Hanon will you learn to do that? Faced with a Scarlatti sonata, all a Hanon aficionado can do is throw his hands up in despair and start all over again from scratch, but now having to fight all the bad habits acquired from playing Hanon. If you want to read about real technique and how to go about getting it in greater detail, go here:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/board,4/topic,4880.3.html#msg46319
(discusses how to acquire technique and what technique actually is)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2948.msg25927.html#msg25927
(Czerny x Scarlatti to acquire technique – Ted gives an excellent contribution)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4082.msg37362.html#msg37362
(one cannot learn technique in a vacuum. At the same time one cannot simply play pieces – comparison with tennis)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4385.msg41226.html#msg41226
(technique is personal and relative to the piece – Fosberry flop – the best books on technique)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5352.msg50998.html#msg50998
(Exercises x repertory – why technique cannot be isolated from music)

http://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,8417.msg85259.html#msg85259
(when is a piece finished – why technique and interpretation cannot be divorced)

c.   Practise hands together to save time.

Well, you won’t. Instead you will be overtaxing the left hand (if that happens to be your weaker hand) and under working the right hand. The right hand never gets a chance to go tot its limits, the left hand is constantly struggling and usually gets injured in the process. Because hands together speed is always the speed of the slowest hand, what really saves time is to work with hands separate so that you give a chance to your weak hand to catch up with the strong hand. Of course this means that instead of spending one hour with Hanon every day (as he recommends), you will be spending 3 hours (one hour RH, one hour LH, one hour together). If you want to read more about the Hands separate x Hands together controversy, have a look here:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2802.msg24467.html#msg24467
(When to join hands)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3039.msg26525.html#msg26525
(how big are your hands, and does it matter?  7 x 20 minutes – exercise/activities to strengthen the playing apparatus – ways to deal with wide chords – the myth that Richter was self-taught – 3 stages of learning – Example: Chopin militaire Polonaise - scientific principles for testing practice methods – Example: Prelude in F#m from WTC1 – when to join hands and why HS – practice is improvement – the principle of “easy” – Example: Chopin’s ballade no. 4 – repeated groups)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4858.msg46087.html#msg46087
(Paul’s report on B’s method. Feedback from Bernhard including: HS x HT – Example: Lecuona’s malaguena – 7x20 – need to adjust and adapt – repeated note-groups – importance of HS – hand memory – 7 items only in consciousness – playing in automatic pilot - )

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3085.msg27140.html#msg27140
(Hands together: when and how – dropping notes)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4123.msg37829.html#msg37829
(How to investigate the best movement pattern: Example Scarlatti sonata K70 – How to work out the best fingering. Example: CPE Bach Allegro in A – Slow x slow motion practice – HS x HT – practising for only 5 – 10 minutes)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3085.msg44855.html#msg44855
(Hands together – dropping notes – when to learn HT and when to learn HS)

d.   One hour a day, everyday will give you virtuoso technique and keep it in shape as long as you spend one hour everyday doing it.

No, it will not give you virtuoso technique. This claim is laughable. Hanon does not even start to address the virtuoso technique, and even for things as simple as rippling a scale on the keyboard Hanon will be useless, since by practising scales his way you will immediately ingrain two powerful speed walls: passing the thumb under, and a very inefficient fingering for the left hand. If you would like to read more about passing the thumb under and a proper fingering for scales that will allow you top speed, have a look here:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7226.msg72166.html#msg72166
(Thumb over is a misnomer: it consists of co-ordinating four separate movements).

http://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7887.msg79326.html#msg79326
(why the lifting of the 4th finger is a non-problem)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2619.msg22756.html#msg22756
(unorthodox fingering for all major and minor scales plus an explanation)

An in this thread you can see an example on how scale fingering is not universal and will have to be adapted according to the piece – therefore practising scales for hours a day is a waste of time:

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,2619.msg104249.html#msg104249
(Scale fingering must be modified according to the piece – Godard op. 149 no.5 – yet another example of the folly of technical exercises)

But there is something else here as well. Once you have a acquired a technique (that is a pattern of movement) you do not need to practice it again ever. Just like riding a bicycle. If, in order to keep a technique under your fingers you need to do it everyday forever, or it will escape you, then this technique is inappropriate, and you better change it, because it will always fail you at the crucial moment. Proper technique once mastered is always easy and you will always be able to do it. There is no need (as Hanon claims in no uncertain terms) to do Hanon (or any other kind of exercise) for one hour a day for the rest of your life. That Hanon thought it was necessary actually points clearly on how inappropriate his technique is.

If you want to read an interesting account on this very situation (where a hardly acquired – but inappropriate – technique, quickly slips away from one’s grasp) have a look here:

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,13208.msg143740.html#msg143740
(an account on how Cramer’s technique deteriorated with age)


e.   Hanon assumes (as does Cortot for that matter) that it is possible to develop technique on its own.

Well it is not possible. When you play a note on the piano, you are already using a technique (a movement) and you are already producing some sort of music (the sound). Technique and musicality are inseparable – the only way I can think of, that you could possible separate them was to practise on a silent keyboard. People who say “I want to practise the technique without worrying about all the other aspects of music” are not doing it. What they are doing is concentrating consciously on the movements, and letting their unprepared unconscious mind deal as best as it can with the musical aspects. In other words, as they are concentrating on the technique, they are producing crap musicality. Keep repeating and soon that crap musicality will have been practised over and over again and you will not understand why you suck at the piano in spite of all that Hanon you have been doing.

In this particular case, Czerny is an even better example, for his studies actually are pieces of music. But the music is so inferior that I cringe at its sound.

If you want to read more about this subject, and on the proper way to acquire both proper technique and proper musicality at the same time, have a look here:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,1867.msg14268.html#msg14268
(Getting technique from pieces – several important tricks: hand memory, dropping notes, repeated note-groups)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4123.msg37829.html#msg37829
(How to investigate the best movement pattern: Example Scarlatti sonata K70 – How to work out the best fingering. Example: CPE Bach Allegro in A – Slow x slow motion practice – HS x HT – practising for only 5 – 10 minutes)

http://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php?topic=5995.msg58928#msg58928
(when to work on expression - change focus every 2 minutes – comparison with plate spinning)

Finally:

Hanon is like spending one hour a day on the lake, pedalling on one of those pedal boats, on the belief that this (insane) activity will give you al the technique and prepare you for driving a car in the traffic of a large city. Do you want to go boat pedalling, by all means do. Just don’t come around bragging how much this has helped your car driving, mentioning that some famous (or not) racing car daredevil definitely recommends boat pedalling.


Here is more information on Hanon's drawbacks:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2998.msg26268.html#msg26268
(Scales HT, why? – why and when to practise scales HS and HT – Pragmatical  x logical way of teaching – analogy with aikido – list of piano techniques – DVORAK – realistic x sports martial arts – technique and how to acquire it by solving technical problems – Hanon and why it should be avoided - Lemmings)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4182.msg38775.html#msg38775
(Hanon: pros and cons – Robert Henry’s opinion)

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4887.msg47334.html#msg47334
(more on Hanon)

Now, don’t get me started on the likes of Cortot (“Rational principles of piano technique”). Or Dohnanyi.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

P.S. Let me say that in spite my fundamental disagreement with lostinidlewonder post on Hanon, I truly appreciate his carefully thought out posts in most matters, which I find very helpful and enlighteining. 

And the pronoun "you" used throughout is meant in a general way and does not address anyone in particular.

[lostinidlewonder]

Phew ok time for response, thankyou for all your input.

Well, what is your definition of Beginner.

Of course this is a very various answer, but for me I am talking about Beginners who don't find playing anything at the piano very natural. Those that haven't learn't one piece, those that haven't had their hands around any music before, those that haven't memorised music, those that find their fingers are very insecure at the keys, those that find basic movements of the piano a concentrated effort.

I do not disagree that exercises is important cause it is. Scales of all sorts, Chord and arpeggios should be the basis of all practice routines, especially for beginners.

The problem with scales and arpeggios is that they do not specifically train fingers, rather they train the hand as a whole. But what am I supposed to say to a 5 yr old who finds their 5th extremely weak for instance, so much so that their chords and scales fail when the 5th is needed. I cannot say, keep practicing scales and arpeggios, or keep practicing your peice, I have to say, here take this, this excersises aims to strengthen the 5th. Don't over do the practice, 10 minutes a day is all I ask for, but EVERY DAY.

The problem lies with teachers who use Hanon as some sort of bible one must master to play . This is totally wrong.

I agree not to place too much emphasis on anything when learning music, afterall excersises have nothing to do with the quality of sound in a piece you learn, rather the physical action and also the physical feeling of effortlessness to produce a string of notes. To become musicians we have to master pieces not excerises.

I do believe once a student is able to play some Bach minuets and preludes with some scalatti in the mix, Hanon and other sorts become more or less irrelevant and should only be used in very specific situations.

A student who can play a few pieces in my opinion isn't a Beginner, but an early intermediate player. A beginner is someone who can't do anything and is starting basically from scratch.

I would then leave it up to the students to decide whether they want to learn technique through exercises, through pieces, or a combination thereof. It's of no use to make a student go through exercises who absolutely hates them; other students like them a lot and thrive. It is the teacher's task to find out how to get a student to solve pianistic problems efficiently, and eventually on their own.

This is a little much I think to ask of a beginner student. They do not have the ability to discern what is good or bad for them at the piano yet. So to force them to play excersises to develop their failing fingers is I guess something the teacher must force down a beginners throat unless they object with tears. However I haven't yet had one beginner student object to excersises, only those more advanced who wave away my asking to warm up with excerises before playing. That is fair enough, they know what works for them, but a beginner cannot make these intelligent decisions just yet.

I have found experience is most important for the beginner. They must experience multiple ways of improving their hands. Through pieces and excerises are the only two impliments we have to practice our physical excecution. Improvistaion to improve technique is out of the question for beginners so i wont even consider that.  If I just teach pieces it seems as if they are missing a piece to their experience puzzle. Likewise if Excerises become a focus that is more detrimental because of its little musical value (controlling tempo, volume, quality of notes in a peice, structure etc).

Here's the thing. While I'm sure I don't have the finger dexterity of an advanced piano player, I've never had a lesson piece that was a dexterity challenge.

So on the one hand, practicing Hanon will do me zero good, because there is no opportunity to apply the improved technique that will presumably be obtained.

The idea of any excerises is NOT to increase the speed of your fingers, rather to improve the strength and balance of your fingers/hand as a whole. There lies a BIG difference, anyone can play notes fast but if it is balanced and controlled that is another question. The increase of speed/dexterity of your fingers are automatic as control/balance of notes in the hand increase. You cannot observe, Oh I can play it 4% faster now but you can definatly observe an increase of control in the hand. The notes feel underneath the hand, the fingers don't feel like they are isolated while playing playing invidivual notes, the hand feels balanced and you can sense where the centre of gravity of the hand is at all time.

Excerises for anyone aims to improve strength; to play a combination of notes with a combination of fingers which normally to you feel uncomfortable and to force it through consisitient practice to become comfortable. For instance some of my beginner students only play 3 different hanons, and that is what they practice with for a few years. These 3 I choose for them are usually

1) CEFGAGFE | DFGABAGF etc. Fingering going up keyboard RH:12345432 LH:54321234
aims for general balance of the entire hand playing a scale form

2) CDCD AGAG| DEDE BABA  etc. Going up keyboard RH:1212 5454  LH:5454 1212
aims to strengthen 4 and 5

3) CEAGFGFE| DFBAGAGF etc  RH:12543432 LH: 54123234
aims to strengthen the middle fingers

I find if these three are somewhat mastered by the student then that lies the foundation for most difficulties facing the beginner student in their early repetoire. I have beginners who grasp hold of all three after the first lesson, it isn't difficult, but when I show them the speed that you can generate with them and the balance of the hand while doing so, they get an idea of the distant goal they can achieve.

Actually, Hanon and similar exercises are not important at all. Beginners should be made aware of this so that they don’t fall into the “tradition” trap and blindly follow instructions without questioning them, wasting a lot of time in the process.

It is easy to show how unimportant Hanon is: Hanon first published his exercises in 1873. There are plenty of keyboard virtuosos (Handel, Bach and his sons, Scarlatti, Liszt, Chopin, etc. etc. etc.) who acquired their techniqne well before Hanon published his book. I rest my case.

That argument is somewhat flawled in my mind because I could then say; Beethoven got his supreme technique at the piano without Chopin Etudes, so Chopin Etudes are useless. And I am not only considering Hanon, all excerises as a whole, but Hanon seems to get the most Bagging!

The easiest answer is to design exercises based on the piece’s passages and related to the necessary movements for those passages. There are of course many other things one can do when teaching beginners – none of which involves Hanon. For instance:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,1867.msg14268.html#msg14268
(Getting technique from pieces – several important tricks: hand memory, dropping notes, repeated note-groups)

Agreed. However it seems that Hanon has written general forms in his excersises which tackle many problems beginners face. The three I mentioned in this post are very much all encompassing without any alterations to them to relate to the piece the student learns. I am not one to ask the student to methodically go through each and every hanon there is, I really find that ridiculous. But to touch the tip of the iceberg is very improtant for the beginners, a bored advanced student can go through and try the rest.

I agree in part. I disagree that piano “exercises” become obsolete as one progresses. Any piece that presents any passage that is challenging/difficult/impossible will always present right there an “exercise” for the pianist. However, abstract exercises – that is not in any way related to a particular piece – (Hanon, Pischna, Schmidth, Dohnanyi, Cortot) in my opinion have no place ever in one’s practice.

From my experience and from watching the methods my advanced students choose, excersises are not so much required to tackle a "difficult" section of a piece. Playing continually over the section in the piece works best. However, you may be faced with incredibly difficult problems if you play very difficult works, then yes if the progress of repetition is blurred, develop an excerises to act as a catalyst to increase the mastery over your difficulties. But remember we are talking about beginners, not those with experince at the keyboard.

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2192.msg21823.html#msg21823
(How to teach very young students – the historical method, the pragmatical  x logical method and total exposure as the best way for under-5s)

.... When they start learning their first proper pieces (using all fingers, right and left hand), to start with I let them use whatever fingers, positions they want. Then I show them an “easier” way. Correct fingering and hand position are “correct” exactly because they further facility. It should be easier and more natural to use the correct technique than the incorrect one. So there should be no problem for a child to switch from an incorrect to a correct technique. If there is a problem, then it is worth investigating if the technique you are trying to impose to a child is indeed correct, or if it is just a relic, a tradition that you were taught to be correct. (For instance, Hanon is completely incorrect – sorry, Hanon fans).

Again I feel this is right in one way but not completely right in the other. A beginner must learn general movements of the piano. The more EXPERIENCE they can draw upon the more tools they have to deal with their difficulties. Neglecting excersise to demonstrate a general movement and instead using pieces does work, but from my experience the learning curve is slower (since I did not teach hand excerises when I started teaching piano, but now I do.)

When one considers the "slow learning beginners" who do not completely appreciate the correct way to excecute something in their piece they learn, with Hanon they have a simple basic pattern with a contintually repeating theme to improve a constant weakness in their hand. They know with a few statements what the Hanon aims to improve and what fingers to use. However in a piece the technique requires to produce sound continually changes and does not maintain the same idea for long periods of time. While Hanon maintains a constant and helps the beginner student who can easily miss or not understand the changing details of their hands/fingers while playing their pieces.

So if a piece only for instance plays a 454 fingering 3 times throughout the piece, the student is not going to learn how to master this without some excerises to develop the 454 movement. Hanon in this case pops up to improve the fingers. Practicing the 454 movement in the piece over and over again might not have enough content for the slow learning beginner to absorb. Given more experience with the idea  and handing them excersises which demonstrate how to improve the weakness helps.

Now for the reason why Hanon (and like exercises) should be avoided (italics are quotes from Hanon himself):

1, Hanon, basic anatomical premise is totally false: “The central problem of piano playing is to make the fingers equal and independent”.

I think this statment is false anyway, but I still find the value of Hanon. If he invented a ..... baseball bat and said, this can hit a ball very far and that is the aim for most people using this, I can simply turn around and say, yes that is nice, but it isn't what I want to use it for, I think i can use this to defend myself against intruders nicely so I will practice how to use it that way. Hanon is used in my lessons to improve strength and balance of the hand, it has nothing to do with finger independance or eaqual finger strength in my opinion. Beginners find 454 hard because they do not know how to balance their hand at that point, they naturally feel uncomfrotable, where an experienced pianist playing 454 naturally feels balanced.

I am more on Chopin side: Each fingers is assigned a particular part. People do not notice uneveness of a scale when played very fast but they do notice when a finger does not produce a desired sound the piece asks for.

The statements from Hanon I find are simply HIS OPINION. However the musical notes written on the page of his excersies are very much subjective and interperative. These are 99% the valuable not so much the comments he writes in my mind. As well I do not agree with his comment that the student who masters all his excersises will have the ability to play everything in the piano repetiore. It just isn't the case but doesn't destroy the value of the actual notes that are written.

Hanon's comments are not to say, this is how you should practice the excersises. I didn't even know about his statements until having practiced Hanon for many years, when I did read them I disagreed with them but I still knew the value for Hanon on my own terms.

[thalbergmad]

Superb post lostinidlewonder.

[Contrapunctus]

Everybody who says that you need excercises to strengthen your hand and fingers IS WRONG. The muscles in begginer pianists' hands have EXACTLY the same strength as virtuosos'. What they don't have is the extra synapses in the brain that allows them to control those muscles. You only need to build your brain in order to gain technique because the muscle strength is ALREADY there. This is how child prodigies are able to play with virtuosity, they were born with the extra synapsis in the brain and did not need to build them. Hanon and other mindless excercises do not require thinking; therefore, they do not build synapsis, however playing repertoire does.

[sarahlein]

lostinidlewonder : The idea of any excerises is NOT to increase the speed of your fingers, rather to improve the strength and balance of your fingers/hand as a whole. There lies a BIG difference, anyone can play notes fast but if it is balanced and controlled that is another question. The increase of speed/dexterity of your fingers are automatic as control/balance of notes in the hand increase.

How does one know that something is unbalanced and lacks control?

lostidlewonder, I'm sure  you train your begginer students to "listen" and "feel" what they play.  At what point do you begin?

Why can't they learn control and balance, by working on sections that sound uncontroled and unbalanced, within the piece they are working on?
If they truly are beginners then their pieces won't be more than a few lines afterall! ; and we give them a musical reason to work on their problem.

[pantonality]

Hi All,

New member, not  a teacher, but avid player and composer. I find this discussion interesting because I found Hanon quite useful even though my teacher at the time didn't. I only practise the first 20 now and that's just to warm up, sometimes I only play 6 or 8 of them. What Hanon helped me with was relaxation.  I was a tense play from the wrist guy before I discovered Hanon (found the book in my late mother's collection of music). I started working through them and hit speed wall after speed wall. Started taking a few lessons and my teacher was working with me on relaxing my wrist. I found it easier to practise that when doing Hanon then when doing actual repertoire. Once I understood the technique I was able to utilize it in my other pieces.

So now when I do Hanon it's primarily as warm up and I find it useful to do things like play the 3rd exercise stacatto or use dotted rhythm. Hanon is just s set of patterns of dubious utility, but like anything it can be made useful and can serve unexpected purposes. I hope Bernhard doesn't tell me I'm crazy for using Hanon to warm up or that some other method would have helped my relaxation issues faster, because I'm happy with the progress I've made.

Cheers,

Steve Chandler
Composer / Amatuer Pianist
http://www.audiostreet.net/stevechandler
http://www.soundclick.com/stevechandler

[xvimbi]

What Hanon helped me with was relaxation.  I was a tense play from the wrist guy before I discovered Hanon (found the book in my late mother's collection of music). I started working through them and hit speed wall after speed wall. Started taking a few lessons and my teacher was working with me on relaxing my wrist. I found it easier to practise that when doing Hanon then when doing actual repertoire. Once I understood the technique I was able to utilize it in my other pieces.

So now when I do Hanon it's primarily as warm up and I find it useful to do things like play the 3rd exercise stacatto or use dotted rhythm. Hanon is just s set of patterns of dubious utility, but like anything it can be made useful and can serve unexpected purposes. I hope Bernhard doesn't tell me I'm crazy for using Hanon to warm up or that some other method would have helped my relaxation issues faster, because I'm happy with the progress I've made

Nobody is going to tell you you are crazy. I would like to know if you attribute your progress to the Hanon exercises themselves or to the fact that you went through them with a teacher who helped you work out the proper movements. If the latter, do you think you would have gotten the same benefits by playing any other set of basic exercises? If so, do you think you would have progressed similarly if you had gone through a few pieces with the same attention to technique that you used for going through Hanon?

I am trying to find out if the benefit that people often ascribe to Hanon is deemed to be due to the exercises themselves or whether it is the particular attitude adopted to carry out the exercises. I lean towards the latter, because I don't believe that Hanon has found THE 60 exercises that will make a virtuosic pianist. There are many sets of exercises out there, and different people swear by different exercises. This indicates to me that it is not really the particular set of exercises, but some other aspect.

[thalbergmad]

Very interesting post xvimbi and yes, i do partly attribute my own technique to Hanon, albeit that i do not use it so much nowadays.

Whilst i accept what bernhard has said on other posts, that it is impossible to gain equal finger strength, i can see no reason why exercises like Hanon are not useful in freeing the fingers and developing more elasticity. I would also agree that you could achieve the same by playing Bach and Scarlatti.

It was interesting that the word tradition came up earlier, as i feel this is another reason why i use Hanon. When i was 5 years old i was told to use it and i have ever since.

Many years ago when i first attempted the brahms Paganini Variations, i struggled with the left hand thirds and right hand sixths. What did i do, well i got out my good ol Hanon and used the relevant exercises until i could play thirds and sixths all day long. It is true that i could have played the actual piece over and over again, but why should Brahms suffer, i would rather do the exercises.

I do find this subject fascinating and hope i have not wasted the last 35 years of my life using Hanon.

This is by far my longest and possibly most sensible post, so i am going to stop here.

[xvimbi]

It was interesting that the word tradition came up earlier, as i feel this is another reason why i use Hanon. When i was 5 years old i was told to use it and i have ever since.

I won't repeat what Mahler said about "tradition"

It is true that i could have played the actual piece over and over again, but why should Brahms suffer, i would rather do the exercises.

  This is the single-best argument in favor of exercises I have ever heard

Great post!

[rlefebvr]

I also think the length of the exercise is something that grabs you. The ones  I have used anyway have never been  more than 2 bars long. All concentration is on the hand position and the clarity of the sound and the speed. It is extremely easy to concentrate on you movement cause there really is nothing else to them. Very much the same feeling I get when I do scales and broken chords and so forth.

[lostinidlewonder]

Before responding to any of the posts I might remind that I am considering Hanon and other excersises as extremly important for the BEGINNER. When there are statements which are along the lines, "Technique can be learnt from pieces." I totally agree with this whole heartedly. However I retract in horror when then the comment goes ahead and says, Excersises are therefore useless.

For the beginner there is usually a very slow learning rate to begin with, they cannot absorb pieces at a good pace just yet. They are trying to experience what it is to press keys down and how to control different qualities of sound. The more experience that the beginner can have with physical contact to the keyboard the faster their learning curve progresses.

If it takes a beginner say one month to totally memorise and excecute a simple piece, experienced pianists would say this takes a long time. When experienced pianists try to learn a piece they measure if a piece is taking too long and rather than waste time laboring on it, move to easier pieces, so that the amount of pieces learnt is kept at a good rate. However with beginner students it becomes difficult to reduce the difficulty of a piece when you are playing the most simple pieces. So how do we come about finding resource for the Beginner who needs something easier than easy pieces? The answer to me points to Hanon.

The muscles in begginer pianists' hands have EXACTLY the same strength as virtuosos'.

I disagree. If you line up 20 people and show me their hands I can tell you which ones play piano more than others. You can tell a pianist by many things but the enlarged muscle on the little finger side of the palm is the biggest indicator to me. Because pianists expand and contract their hands more, these muscles become developed. There is definatly a muscular strength associated with piano playing because otherwise we would be able to have full force of control when we are aged 90.

What they don't have is the extra synapses in the brain that allows them to control those muscles. You only need to build your brain in order to gain technique because the muscle strength is ALREADY there. Hanon and other mindless excercises do not require thinking; therefore, they do not build synapsis, however playing repertoire does.[/b]

This extra synapses is developed through experience. Again without repeating myself, experience from pieces are good, but slow if it is the only resource. You increase the amount of resource with Hanon and excersises thus increase the students rate of learning and tools at their disposal to deal with "tricky" fingering.

Excersises do require a lot of thinking, to play them intelligently and not only just the notes. Most people do not understand what it is to play with a balanced hand. Most people don't even consider where the centre of gravity, where the hand balances from, which fingers balance the hand and what increased control of playing means. Hanon is essentially excersises which drill particular difficulties that we may find in general piano playing.

How you actually balance a 454 movement for instance cannot be addressed in a peice for a new beginner. The focus of a peice wouldn't  be on 454, if it is you will overwhelm your beginner student and make them hate the piano. The peice may only look at the 454 movement a couple of times, this is where you must increase the Beginner students expreience with the 454 movement and make them drill it, and learn to feel BALANCE while playing it, thus they play Hanon. If you ask them only to drill the 454 in the piece they will not notice different positions of the 454 as Hanon explores. (since you don't have to only play the Hanon over C major scale, you can play on any scale)

However those who can start learning pieces at a good rate should use the experience from pieces rather than from exercises. This is logical. Most beginner do not have this option and must first develop their inexperienced fingers with Excersises. Once tricky fingering becomes naturally balanced and one learns to apply the control in peices, the student then is able to learn peices at a faster rate without bad fingering(movement)/balance hindering them.

How does one know that something is unbalanced and lacks control?

Balance comes from consciously knowing which note the hand moves around, or having a good sense of the form of the hand that the fingers must play, for example C minor arpeggio is a general shape and has particular balance and form to the hand.

Lack of control in my mind arises when the hand moves when it shouldn't have to. The hand should always be lazy and not want to move. The hand should be constantly controlling a group of notes instead of individual notes, good teachers can observe this difference by sight. When a student plays a piece you have taught extensively, or play yourself even, you know when the hand has to move, where it has to move and what it needs to control. You can sense when a finger strays from its controlling point or when the hand loses its sense of a center of gravity about some point. You can sense in fast scales if individual fingers are trying to stab at the notes or the notes are all pressed with one motion.

lostidlewonder, I'm sure  you train your begginer students to "listen" and "feel" what they play.  At what point do you begin?

From the beginning. The first lesson of a true beginner student I show them what is Legato, Staccato, accented Legato, accented Staccato all in the Chopin natural hand formation of RH 12345 on EGbAbBbB  LH 54321 on FGbAbBbC playing up the scale and down. I tell them that this is the natural hand form and the way I want their hand to feel when they play anything at the piano. Of course I tell them music sometimes tries to distort this shape but we have to try to maintain relaxation. This is often easily understood but the deep understanding of this takes a lifetime of playing experience and I don't expect them to think about that unless they choose