warm-up with music or excercises?

[allchopin]

i usually warm-up with music, and never do any excercises and it weems to work perfectly for me.  what are exercises supposed to do for you that music wont (hard music, dont get me wrong)?

[bachopoven]

The good thing about exercises like Hanon is that they can be easily learned. They will allow you then to focus on flying your fingers and precision. Also, they are classified by the kind of technique and finger flexibility they are geared toward. Most other pieces don't have that.

[Ktari]

Hm, I used to run through the revolutionary and then moskowski etude in f major for warmup, but I still like to do some scales/arpeggios. warming up with pieces may get your fingers moving, but things like basic scales/arpeggios are SOOOO nice when learning new pieces, because they're used! For example one of my friends is learning Moonlight #3? He has to look at every note in those upwards runs -to me, they're just separated chords! etc. you get those patterns ingrained. my piano teacher told me a story: when she was young she never practice d-flat melodic, and she has a piece she was playing when she realized it was just d-flat melodic! but since she never practiced it, it was harder for her, than, say, d harmonic. So it's really important to get those basics in early. Also, if you're bored with so called "warm-up exercises"... try to do them as fast as possible. faster and faster, and repeat long enough so that your arms ache, then learn to relax so they don't anymore -this would build stamina in a way that playing hard pieces wouldn't (since those pieces... well, most, aren't constantly using the same muscles, and they end when they end, and you're probably thinking more about hitting the notes than your arm)

so... warm up exercises are not just to warm up for that day of practice, but are important basics? ^^ to sum it up

[amee]

If your pieces are technically demanding enough, you probably wont need exercises such as Czerny or Hanon during practice.  Or, instead of going through them all one by one, just pick out your weak points (eg thirds or stretches) and find an exercise specifically composed for that.

However what I find useful are scales and arpeggios.  If you play them all going chromatically up the scale (play C major scale for 4 octaves, then immediately go to C# minor without pausing, then D major without pausing etc) it really builds up stamina.  It gets quite tiring after a while

[R.Q.]

I never warm up at the piano. 'Cause I always want my playing to be an inspiration and not dry excercises. I usually just squeeze a stress ball or use Liszt's relaxation technique. I hate excercises, and haven't used them since... well, a long time. But I have things in my standing repertoir like Chopin's Etude, and Moszcowski's, and Rachmaninoff's. I play them often to keep my finger limber. That's all you need, not a bunch of scales and repetitious sequences.

~ Young Virtuoso

[xenon]

Technique can help to facilitate the leraning process of a new piece, and to keep your fingers warmed up.  As Ktari mentioned, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, 3rd Mvt is fast, and is basically broken 4-note chords.  That is how that part came easily to me.  However, technique (scales, formula patterns, chords, arpeggios, octaves, etc.) are not fun.  For the exam that I just did, I had to go through all exercies (all forms of scales (minor, chromatic, etc), formulas, all chord forms (4-note, Dom7, Dim7), all arpeggios (all tonalities (all inversions), and dim7 and dom7 (all inversions))) in every key every day, which would amount to 478 or so different exercises.  That stunk .  It took up too much time, but I got a good mark on the technical requirements on my exam, so I'm half-pleased or so.  Meh...

[Ktari]

amee~
try going through all 12 scales, major and minor, 4 octaves up AND down!!! *grins* C major up and down, C minor up and down, c# major, c# minor, etc.. and finish with that chromatic

owie ^^

[xenon]

heh, ive been there.  its not fun.  i think that technical requirements has gone too far.