Hanon and Other Excerises are VERY IMPORTANT

[lostinidlewonder]

blah .... blah blah..... blah blah blah... bler blue bla.... ammm... blah blah blah... ber blue berr blue baaa beee bii..

That what it sounds like when I'm reading previous post. Man what are you on lol.

[leahcim]

That what it sounds like when I'm reading previous post.

It sounds like you're still reading out loud.
Hanon didn't help with your listening skills?

Man what are you on lol.

A chair.

"Oh you can't just call it a chair! That is like saying the bible is a book! Heck, it's a diffusion of seating paradiddles interpreted by the backside" 

[bluthnerboy]

Message to String overstrung: Do you know where I can buy Marguerite Long exercises "Le Piano" in English. It seems we can only get hold of the French version!

Also, as my Russian teacher has since lost her Russian version, does anyone know where I can get  a Russian version too!?

PS New to this site and using fora, is there an easier way to directly send a message to another user?

Thanks,

[crazy for ivan moravec]

as mentioned before, yes, hanon can be useful if it is used properly... and so is true with other exercises. but i tend to think that it CAN be useful for the more advanced students, and NOT for beginners.

what makes hanon not so appealing to me as a young teacher is its repetitive-"drill"-exercises. it can mislead the students to practicing mechanically. even the best teachers cannot control how the mind of students work in these boring exercises at home, it simply results into a MINDLESS AND MECHANICAL work. and if they do it incorrectly, bad habits happen... bad habits which will be very hard to undo because it's been done in repetitive patterns. (one example is making the fingers run mindlessly during a performance)

i believe that hanon or any other repetitive exercise is harmful because teachers are not there the whole time to be able to guide a student during practice.

i also think beginners should learn how to move those 4th and 5th fingers with their little pieces and not with something non-musical like hanon. it gives a very bad concept of piano playing and practice. suzuki method has a good line up of simple pieces for beginners, if taught by a suzuki teacher coz they (myself? hehe, not yet..) should know.

sometimes, hanon is useful FOR ME (a sort of advanced piano player), simply because i know how to address a technical problem by using a hanon exercise as the medium to solve that problem... say, i was recently said to have a bad habit of automatically lowering my wrist when doing staccato (just an example, not true), and so, i correct it by practicing the correct position using a hanon exercise with 200% concentration on my part, watching my hand.

ok, you can direct your students to do specific hanon exercises to address a problem as well, BUT, why not use the repertoire passages themselves, right? i wouldn't want to risk  them using the hanon incorrectly... simply because i don't believe in REPETITIVE EXERCISES for those who don't know any better, especially beginners. it misleads them to think that it is a very good way to make fingers stronger. actually, playing anything makes fingers "strong".

and really, to play hanon simply as a repetitive exercise, say, to warm up/make certain fingers or hand strong is really dangerous for students. even myself, a very careful mind during practice, very seldom use hanon... if ever i do, in a very slow tempo, like 90 to a 16th note, listening very carefully that i put the same weight on each note... a practice with great focus/concentration, and control of muscles/weight.. very mathematical.

so generally, i keep it out of my students. no hanon for them AT ALL. the risk is not that worth to take coz there are other ways to achieve technique improvement.

all the best.

crazy

[mike_lang]

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

They really serve different purposes.  Schmitt's seem to be more for finger indepedence (possibly warmup), whereas the first 30 of Hanon are useful as warmups.  The second 30 really are of a different, more specialized importance.

Michael

[wyndwood]

Yes I agree, but what is most useful here, exercises or warm ups?  Personally I find warm ups better as most instrumentalists or singers warm up before practising.  Exercises are great but ther's just so many of them both hanon and Czerny wrote hundreds so which ones do you use?  Surely more time is being used learning new exercises than practising pieces here.  I have found some great warm ups for teaching purposes and personal use with the Essential Piano Warm ups by Philip Cunningham Pub. Spartan Press.  These are organised into days of the week and are in keys associated with relevant music grades.  They promote a regular and short warm up for the developing pianist whilst book 3 is for the more advance pianist developing more finger independance.

Have any of you tried these?

[abell88]

PS New to this site and using fora, is there an easier way to directly send a message to another user?

Click on the username you want to send a message to...you can view their profile, and further down the page you can click to send them a personal message.

[lostinidlewonder]

i believe that hanon or any other repetitive exercise is harmful because teachers are not there the whole time to be able to guide a student during practice.

The same could be said for practicing pieces. The teacher of course cannot always be there to guide the student and that is a very important step for a student to undergo. A teacher should not spoonfeed the student every step of the way, the student must explore, make errors and then readjust their method, this is something we do even when we are experienced at playing! We are always changing the way we physically play as we discover the "best way to play".

what makes hanon not so appealing to me as a young teacher is its repetitive-"drill"-exercises. it can mislead the students to practicing mechanically. even the best teachers cannot control how the mind of students work in these boring exercises at home, it simply results into a MINDLESS AND MECHANICAL work.

You CAN control how the mind thinks about excerises. By giving the student an understanding of balance,control, centre of gravity of the hand. Where exactly does the balance come from, how exactly does it feel when we control a group of notes with one hand posture. Excersises are not there for you to just play notes, that is the big misconception. Most people who play excerises think they are doing it sucessfully if all the notes are played evenly and all are hit, this is WRONG. Excerises are played correctly once you can feel groups of notes played with ONE action of the hand WITH balance, control and centre kept in mind. We should strive for this balance even when we play pieces, so hanon and other excercises set us up for that understanding as Beginners (since they have not learnt many pieces), not so much advanced musicians who have had experience with playing a lot of pieces.

i also think beginners should learn how to move those 4th and 5th fingers with their little pieces and not with something non-musical like hanon. it gives a very bad concept of piano playing and practice. suzuki method has a good line up of simple pieces for beginners, if taught by a suzuki teacher coz they (myself? hehe, not yet..) should know.

Utilisation of 45 in pieces are usually very brief and for the beginner if a piece is only 45 it will OVERWHELM them. To play 45 musically is not important for the beginner, to play it with ease is a lot more important, so using excerises will train that action and develop the muscular control (not strength) with repetition. The balance playing 45 is essential, most beginners will turn the hand to compensate for the discomfort that they get when playign 45, the key is to balance around the 3rd and forbid the hand to turn, we train that with excersies which continually focuses on this.

sometimes, hanon is useful FOR ME (a sort of advanced piano player), simply because i know how to address a technical problem by using a hanon exercise as the medium to solve that problem... say, i was recently said to have a bad habit of automatically lowering my wrist when doing staccato (just an example, not true), and so, i correct it by practicing the correct position using a hanon exercise with 200% concentration on my part, watching my hand.

Hanon or other excerises should not be used as an antidote to our technical problems but rather as a prophylactic tool. Understanding balance and control of excerises should prevent us from disbalancing our hands when we play pieces, at least we should feel the disbalance when it occurs because we know what the ultimate balance feels when we play simple excersises. Pieces are not as simplistic as excersises so to try and directly solve them with excerises is making things difficult for us (however sometimes it might act as a catalyst to solve difficult technical problems we might face, eg thirds scale runs), rather we use the concept of control we get from excersies to transfer that same feeling to our piece playing.

ok, you can direct your students to do specific hanon exercises to address a problem as well, BUT, why not use the repertoire passages themselves, right? i wouldn't want to risk  them using the hanon incorrectly... simply because i don't believe in REPETITIVE EXERCISES for those who don't know any better, especially beginners. it misleads them to think that it is a very good way to make fingers stronger. actually, playing anything makes fingers "strong".

But a beginner cannot learn peices fast enough, it may take them 1 month to learn a piece, and the most simple pieces with both hands. In the meantime they can develop their control and fingers with even simpler exercises as well. The more experience the better, if you only give them pieces they will have nothing to warm up with, they shouldn't warm up with pieces because there is a lot of musical things happening, excerises at least take away the musical side and asks us to focus on comfort and control of our hands. This is an essential realisation for early players of the piano, to know that we must feel at ease and comfortable with everything we play. Excersises are very quick to learn but difficult to completely master, that is what makes them so attractive. Pieces are slow to learn and difficult to master for the beginner.

and really, to play hanon simply as a repetitive exercise, say, to warm up/make certain fingers or hand strong is really dangerous for students. even myself, a very careful mind during practice, very seldom use hanon... if ever i do, in a very slow tempo, like 90 to a 16th note, listening very carefully that i put the same weight on each note... a practice with great focus/concentration, and control of muscles/weight.. very mathematical.

Hanon is not there to only strengthen fingers, that is only one part of its aim. CONTROLLING A GROUP OF NOTES WITH A SINGLE HAND POSTURE, this is the secret to all piano players and what amazes people when they hear the piano played. How on earth do you memorise all those notes! How often have pianists heard that? It is simple, the hand can control heaps of notes with one unmovable position, so the mind can play a great deal of notes with only a single realisation of hand position. The pianist simply controls these MOVEMENT GROUPS of the hand not the individual notes. Of course this concept is very difficult to understand for the beginner because they are tied up thinking that they must press each individual note of the piano, excerises hopefully push them to realise that a group of notes can be played without even thinking about the notes, but simply controlling one posture of the hand.

[pianistimo]

raises my hat to lostinidlewonder.  my daughter is doing a chorus girl dance right now with her sister's heels, very little on, and a wooden spoon for her 'stick.'  don't know why i say this except this thread and her are making me laugh, because the obvious is not to make things more difficult than they are.  for very beginning students, i don't see the problem with hanon.  it's easier to concentrate on one thing at a time (instead of three) - but some students want more - so you give them more.  it kind of varies, don't you think, according to the abilities of the student?

[crazy for ivan moravec]

The same could be said for practicing pieces. The teacher of course cannot always be there to guide the student and that is a very important step for a student to undergo. A teacher should not spoonfeed the student every step of the way, the student must explore, make errors and then readjust their method, this is something we do even when we are experienced at playing! We are always changing the way we physically play as we discover the "best way to play".

with beginners and intermediate level students, i think we should spoonfeed them. a good solid foundation is what we need so that everything else will follow more easily when they become more advanced, that's the time to make them independent. using hanon for beginners, like what i said, is risky.

You CAN control how the mind thinks about excerises. By giving the student an understanding of balance,control, centre of gravity of the hand. Where exactly does the balance come from, how exactly does it feel when we control a group of notes with one hand posture. Excersises are not there for you to just play notes, that is the big misconception. Most people who play excerises think they are doing it sucessfully if all the notes are played evenly and all are hit, this is WRONG. Excerises are played correctly once you can feel groups of notes played with ONE action of the hand WITH balance, control and centre kept in mind. We should strive for this balance even when we play pieces, so hanon and other excercises set us up for that understanding as Beginners (since they have not learnt many pieces), not so much advanced musicians who have had experience with playing a lot of pieces.

that's why it's risky, because most people tend to think they are doing it sucessfully if all the notes are played evenly. what i said about eveness was just one problem that i had to work on, but it wasn't the sole purpose of my using the hanon..

Utilisation of 45 in pieces are usually very brief and for the beginner if a piece is only 45 it will OVERWHELM them. To play 45 musically is not important for the beginner, to play it with ease is a lot more important, so using excerises will train that action and develop the muscular control (not strength) with repetition. The balance playing 45 is essential, most beginners will turn the hand to compensate for the discomfort that they get when playign 45, the key is to balance around the 3rd and forbid the hand to turn, we train that with excersies which continually focuses on this.

hand positions concerning 45's vary in different pieces. exercises can't generalise it. again, i suggest that we should work it out from the repertoire- take out that passage and isolate it and make it the student's exercise. it should come from the music, but it doesn't have to be musical.

Hanon or other excerises should not be used as an antidote to our technical problems but rather as a prophylactic tool. Understanding balance and control of excerises should prevent us from disbalancing our hands when we play pieces, at least we should feel the disbalance when it occurs because we know what the ultimate balance feels when we play simple excersises. Pieces are not as simplistic as excersises so to try and directly solve them with excerises is making things difficult for us (however sometimes it might act as a catalyst to solve difficult technical problems we might face, eg thirds scale runs), rather we use the concept of control we get from excersies to transfer that same feeling to our piece playing.

there is no such rule (if it were a rule, it would have been a bad one) NOT to use any piece or exercise as an antidote to our technical problems. i just happen to be creative with solving my own technical problems, and this i have to be coz as a late beginner, i have to know and continuosly discover stuff that made a pianist's technique better.


now, i wouldn't go as far as using hanon as a preventive measure. maybe you have a point here but i have yet to think about it. but what i believe in is that with piano technique, we really can't avoid encountering NEW and UNIQUE problems for everyone everyday. solving a technical problem is not as simple as opening a treasure chest full of technical exercises that you've mastered and taking your pick to solve a certain problem. like in math, one will have to go through a process in solving. ok, there might be similar processes and with this case, things will be much faster but you cannot attempt to cover all processes.

But a beginner cannot learn peices fast enough, it may take them 1 month to learn a piece, and the most simple pieces with both hands. In the meantime they can develop their control and fingers with even simpler exercises as well. The more experience the better, if you only give them pieces they will have nothing to warm up with, they shouldn't warm up with pieces because there is a lot of musical things happening, excerises at least take away the musical side and asks us to focus on comfort and control of our hands. This is an essential realisation for early players of the piano, to know that we must feel at ease and comfortable with everything we play. Excersises are very quick to learn but difficult to completely master, that is what makes them so attractive. Pieces are slow to learn and difficult to master for the beginner.

like i said, i consider hanon to be a big risk for beginners because it can be practised the wrong way at home. and if that happens, the WRONG technique is learned so quickly and so well (because it's repetitive, right? it becomes a habit)--- and that is a really bad foundation.

i treat beginners as beginners. i take my time on them with learning the proper way because beginners, especially kids, learn things as they are taught it. once you teach them a certain movement, it sticks in their head really well, although once in a while you might have to correct it. it's wonderful to teach children coz they are in their LEARNING PEAK. i suggest "ONE PROBLEM AT A TIME". if they can't learn pieces that fast, well, i just have to keep up with that pace. no hurry.

Hanon is not there to only strengthen fingers, that is only one part of its aim. CONTROLLING A GROUP OF NOTES WITH A SINGLE HAND POSTURE, this is the secret to all piano players and what amazes people when they hear the piano played. How on earth do you memorise all those notes! How often have pianists heard that? It is simple, the hand can control heaps of notes with one unmovable position, so the mind can play a great deal of notes with only a single realisation of hand position. The pianist simply controls these MOVEMENT GROUPS of the hand not the individual notes. Of course this concept is very difficult to understand for the beginner because they are tied up thinking that they must press each individual note of the piano, excerises hopefully push them to realise that a group of notes can be played without even thinking about the notes, but simply controlling one posture of the hand.

i agree totally with this. MOVEMENT GROUPS are exactly how i make my fingers go faster with difficult passages. this is where the phrase "technique is all in the mind" happens to be best described.

however, "CONTROLLING A GROUP OF NOTES WITH A SINGLE HAND POSTURE" is NOT best done in hanon. you see, this phrase that you yourself said is sort of only 10% physical, and 90% mental, which means YOU REALLY HAVE TO BE IN CONTEXT---> one must practice controlling the groups of NOTES FROM THE PIECE/REPERTOIRE itself so that a problem can be solved directly.




- crazy

[lostinidlewonder]

that's why it's risky, because most people tend to think they are doing it sucessfully if all the notes are played evenly. what i said about eveness was just one problem that i had to work on, but it wasn't the sole purpose of my using the hanon.

I still do not understand the argument that Excerises should not be practiced because they could be practied wrongly. Pieces can also be practiced wrongly, so can everything else. At least with excerises the problem is in a simplistic model, pieces are much more complicated. As a teacher you can measure the students progress in different aspects of piano playing, in piece playing, excerises playing, scale, chord, general forms, not just playing pieces. The more you can tests them with the more proficient they become solving techincal problems they face.

Secondly for the beginner it is good to get their fingers moving, so there is again nothing wrong with trying to play excerises, even if they are wrong, at least we get the fingers moving around and get use to the idea of touching keys on a keyboard. I just don't want to repeat what has already been said in previous posts.

[crazy for ivan moravec]

I still do not understand the argument that Excerises should not be practiced because they could be practied wrongly. Pieces can also be practiced wrongly, so can everything else. At least with excerises the problem is in a simplistic model, pieces are much more complicated. As a teacher you can measure the students progress in different aspects of piano playing, in piece playing, excerises playing, scale, chord, general forms, not just playing pieces. The more you can tests them with the more proficient they become solving techincal problems they face.

well, i know the argument sounds weak. but hanon being a repetitive exercise, it is so easy to build bad habits IF a student can't do it the correct way. one mistake means hundreds of measures of repeating that mistake. that's a risk worth considering IMO. this is not the case with pieces.

i know exercises are simplistic, and so, much easier to learn from. true. but pieces are not that complicated to work on as EXERCISES either! what you're trying to say is that pieces are complicated as a finished product already... coz there are a lot of things to consider in making music.
as a teacher, it is my job to make a music piece easy for a learning student. when i want them to work on a certain passage, i simply draw a bracket and group those notes and tell the student to isolate that passage and work on it alone in this way or that way... etc. i would dissect a piece for them, find those TEACHING POINTS and write prescriptions on their assignment notebook. this may sound complicated for a kid but it is very applicable to beginners, just do it ONE PROBLEM AT A TIME, something which they can take. think quality over quantity:)

Secondly for the beginner it is good to get their fingers moving, so there is again nothing wrong with trying to play excerises, even if they are wrong, at least we get the fingers moving around and get use to the idea of touching keys on a keyboard. I just don't want to repeat what has already been said in previous posts.

i don't believe in getting the beginners' fingers moving just for the sake of moving. i don't believe in the "saying" (or so) that goes: getting our fingers "oiled" simply by moving the fingers everyday.

"moving in what way?" is a more important question. moving the fingers the WRONG way is NOT GOOD.
with kids, teaching them a certain correct movement using their little pieces is much more valuable than simply making those fingers move using repetitive exercises (just because they can't play pieces yet).

[crazy for ivan moravec]

just for clarification, i am only against repetitive exercises such as hanon and philips. i do not refer to czerny stuff.

[pianowelsh]

I assign a couple of exercises in the 'core'playing forms 1. Trills, 2 Scales/5finger work, 3. Arpeggios, 4. Doubled notes/chords, 5 octaves (or if hand small octave preparation.  This way every area of technique is developed and the whole playing apparatus is warmed up ready to begin pieces.  You would need to learn a heck of a lot of repertoire to do the same thing! for an early years student this is impossible - they dont learn pieces like the waldstein and pagininni variations in years 1-5 of starting but i have found the ones who practice their exercises develop much faster and learn pieces much more quickly. They also sightread better for their level because they are good at pattern spotting and they have developed conepts of good fingering and appropriate articulation.  So much can be learnt from 2mins perday per exercise.  Im not suggesting dont play pieces until the technique is mastered and I wouldnt have a student sit and work through hanon chapter by chapter (actually i use beringer more - it modulates and they learn another new skill and develop sense of key) but i think that for what they are exercises are very usefull and time efficient ways of learning key principles.  Very often i begin a lesson by hearing some of their exercises and i will work on efficiency of finger use. Cultivating a really smooth legato or consisten staccato and shaping the crest of the pattern and then i will continue the theme in the pieces later in the lesson so they see how the exercises whould be practiced - in relation to the repertoire.

[sette_md]

Nice debate! I play piano since 1973 and was exposed to something that makes Hanon sound like a Mozart's sonata: Beniamino Cesi. It is pure torture but I survived to it. I respect all opinions posted here, but, yes, Hanon is a very good idea. Just play it and forget his remarks. It is a good medicine that doesnt need prescription, except for begginers and it works to everyone ever. No doubt technical problems gather in patterns and Hanon covers many of them. I used specially after some long time away from the piano for any trivial reason. Hanon "awakes" your hand. What I think might happen to some people is that they forget to LISTEN while playing and focus only on the mechanical issue. Hanon for advanced players must be played very fast and with thorough attention to every pair of notes ( RH and LH). I do some "pit stops" to make relax exercises. After a not too long session with Hanon I use to face some Czerny which I believe to be a superb source of technical work. Yes, I agree that it is very important to create exercises out of particular passage from pieces but this is not enough to acquire, develop and keep expertise in piano technique. 

[pianoplayjl]

Yes, they are very important because they help improve your technical work and perhaps even your pieces.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Wow that was a good debate!

[enjru]

Hanon exercises are very good as encore pieces if you need to go home early and don't want to be doing repeat encores all night.

[pianoplayjl]

Yes, Hanon and other exercises are very important but I think it will only be beneficial if a person plays them in a proper way with proper technique/hand position, etc. I heard a guy once say 'you are only doing Hanon properly if you can play the same exercise 10 times continuously without tiring out.' He's probably just exaggerating a bit but I get the idea. I always tire out in the middle of an exercise. For me, it would only be a good option to practice the exercise that have relevance to the piece I'm practicing.

JL

[49410enrique]

i once had a wobbly bence with an uneven leg, i stuck the hannon book under it and presto instant fix, with my bench nice and steady and still my playing was dramatically better and i can attribute that only to the hannon exercises

[iratior]

As far as development of technique goes, I never could get Hanon to work for me.   I tried practicing Hanon for a few days, but the double octaves in Liszt's Sonata in B would come out just as dirty as ever.  Why not do Scarlatti sonatas?    A lot of them give you a workout that's just as good as Hanon if not better, and when you can do them right, they're worth listening to, unlike Hanon.  I agree with the respondents who say that exercises are important, but I don't agree that one size fits all, as it were.  Different people will need to devote different amounts of effort to developing different types of technique.

[scientificpianopractise]

True, Hanon is important but also true, practicing all the combinations up and down the piano - satisfying for somebody with OCD but hardly efficient.  Instead try my practice in fragments.  See "Hanon in 60 seconds"

[louispodesta]

True, Hanon is important but also true, practicing all the combinations up and down the piano - satisfying for somebody with OCD but hardly efficient.  Instead try my practice in fragments.  See "Hanon in 60 seconds"

Once again, this website (through its moderator) has allowed itself to be "whored" around by someone trying to sell a book.

On point, the fingers of the human hand have no musculature.  There are interossei muscles on the top of the hand to facilitate wiggling and, as some have suggested, trill technique.

I played Hanon exercises and scales and arpeggios for decades, with no discernible results.  And, in that the OP on this is almost ten years old, it is time, in my opinion, to put it to rest.
 

[dcstudio]

I complained to my teacher about Hanon.   So the next week at my lesson I came in cold and he had me start playing right away and recorded me for several minutes on his 1" reel to reel set up.   We finished our lesson without listening to it and I completely forgot about it by the following week.   At our next lesson he had me play nothing but Hanon exercises, drilled one after the other for about 20 minutes.  I was seething with hatred for the man at the end of that time and assuring myself that I would get another teacher ASAP.  Well then he had me play my pieces again and flipped on the reel to reel.   I remember as I was playing that day how marvelously smooth and even my notes were...  I was working on Rondo Alla Turca and it was flying by under my fingers.    He then played both recordings for me and I was astounded at the difference between the two..  there was no comparison really...  the "post-hanon" version was almost perfect.  Maybe they don't work for everyone but they sure made a difference in my playing.     I still will warm-up with them occasionally if I am feeling "serious" that day...

[hardy_practice]

Under supervision exercises are OK.  No need to buy some joker's book though - everything you need is already out there.

[dcstudio]

Under supervision exercises are OK.  No need to buy some joker's book though - everything you need is already out there.

that is for certain!!  guess you can't blame them for trying though... we all gotta make a buck. lol  I like the ones that claim to have "the secret" to learning piano "quickly."  Brilliant marketing.  lol. 

[philolog]

You mean it's not possible to master the piano in ten easy lessons? How disappointing...

[lostinidlewonder]

I played Hanon exercises and scales and arpeggios for decades, with no discernible results.  And, in that the OP on this is almost ten years old, it is time, in my opinion, to put it to rest.

I think playing them for such a long time thinking something will happen was your problem there.

[dcstudio]

I think playing them for such a long time thinking something will happen was your problem there.

no doubt

I have had my students play hanon and recorded them just as my teacher did for me--now you can argue that simply warming up would produce these same results--but there ALWAYS were results... 

I also played the scales, arpeggios, broken chords, and all the other recommended and assigned technical exercises..  I always noticed results..  seriously.   i.e. when I learned Moonlight mvmt 3 those parallel broken chords I had been assigned earlier really came in handy. 

I guess it's all in what you mean by "results"    If you expect to practice Hanon and then be able to sight-read Chopin Etudes at full-speed..  then you will probably be disappointed.

[louispodesta]

For the record, I seriously doubt that Dorothy Taubman or Edna Goldansky, or Robert Durso, would ever recommend a student play a Hanon exercise (or any other).  I proffer this opining for two reasons:  1) these teachers have/had all been there before, just like the rest of us, and then 2) in that there were no discernible PERMANENT results, they harkened back on the writings of Tobias Matthay, and then took it from there.

I personally have taken it to the next level (absent the one dimensional Taubman/Golandskky dogma of forearm rotation), and I now play with ease with no warm-up.  And, this allows me to most importantly focus my efforts on learning/memorizing/polishing the music.

Just today, with my chiropractor/acupuncturist advising me (former piano student), I used a laser-puncture technique to loosen up the ligaments and tendons associated with the webbing between the fingers.  This allowed me to memorize (almost at tempo) the first eleven pages of the Rach 2nd, with no fear of injuring myself.

And, when you have a small hand, with thin spindly fingers, this is a huge deal.

Parenthetically, when, in 1971, I studied under Jack Roberts at NTSU (like dcstudio).  Every morning, starting at 5:00 AM, I played the Hanon, scales in all keys, broken chords in all keys, and rolled chords in first and second inversion.  And, I did this for one hour before starting on my pieces.

Finally, as I said before, until I met and discovered the natural body technique of Dr. Thomas Mark, none of this (after 50 years) got me anywhere.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I want someone to comment on this:  the chair of the piano faculty at Juilliard, and also a pianist by the name of Leon Fleisher, are both students of Dorothy Taubman.

Your turn, Hanon aficionados!

[dcstudio]

For the record, I seriously doubt that Dorothy Taubman or Edna Goldansky, or Robert Durso, would ever recommend a student play a Hanon exercise (or any other).  I proffer this opining for two reasons:  1) these teachers have/had all been there before, just like the rest of us, and then 2) in that there were no discernible PERMANENT results, they harkened back on the writings of Tobias Matthay, and then took it from there.

your doubts are noted...but you cannot say for sure what Taubman or anyone else would recommend, Louis.

my only experience is first hand... taken from my own training and 20+ years of teaching people to play the piano.   With all due respect to Mr. Matthay... I beg to differ.  Permanent results? well what is permanent when you play the piano?--seriously--and what "results" exactly?.   Playing Hanon, as well as other technical exercises--is what allowed me to first achieve those blistering tempos I so badly wanted to play.  I knew those exercises so well that I was able to devote far more brain power to controlling dynamics, phrasing, rhythm, and the like--then I just transferred that to my pieces...  I have ALWAYS had first hand results---meaning it was easier to play my pieces, I could play them faster, and my phrasing was much better.

I personally have taken it to the next level (absent the one dimensional Taubman/Golandskky dogma of forearm rotation), and I now play with ease with no warm-up.  And, this allows me to most importantly focus my efforts on learning/memorizing/polishing the music.

so you are making a point here that since you don't need to warm-up Hanon produces no results?  I find by just spending a few minutes playing technical exercises--or a few pages of Hanon --my pieces will immediately sound more "polished"

Just today, with my chiropractor/acupuncturist advising me (former piano student), I used a laser-puncture technique to loosen up the ligaments and tendons associated with the webbing between the fingers.  This allowed me to memorize (almost at tempo) the first eleven pages of the Rach 2nd, with no fear of injuring myself.

that's great Louis, but it doesn't support your claim that Hanon doesn't work... only that these other things do..   Forgive me -- but I am far more interested in hearing you play the Rach 2 in support of this laser ligament treatment recommended by the pianist/chiropractor--any chance you could post that?  That would go a LONG way is supporting your prior statement.   I will never argue with you over Hanon again... lol

Finally, as I said before, until I met and discovered the natural body technique of Dr. Thomas Mark, none of this (after 50 years) got me anywhere.

again...that doesn't mean that Hanon doesn't work--only that you enjoyed working with Dr. Mark and you progressed while studying with him

Oh, and I almost forgot, I want someone to comment on this:  the chair of the piano faculty at Juilliard, and also a pianist by the name of Leon Fleisher, are both students of Dorothy Taubman.

Your turn, Hanon aficionados!

great...that again does not prove that technical exercises or Hanon are not important or that they are ineffective... only that these people work at Julliard and studied with Taubman--and you "seriously doubt" she gave them Hanon exercises.


  your turn



   

[lostinidlewonder]

My main reason for creating this thread was to encourage beginners and early developing pianists to use exercises to gain experience, I won't repeat myself in detail as the first page really discussed much of it. To many experienced pianists degrade hanon and other exercises which are certainly very important for everyone to know about and be able to do in some form or another.

[dcstudio]

Oh... and as a final piece of evidence I would like to offer an example of my own technique which is the result of many technical exercises and can be "experienced" (LOL) by clicking the link below.

   I respect you Louis...  I just disagree with you on this particular issue.

[hardy_practice]

Oh, and I almost forgot, I want someone to comment on this:  the chair of the piano faculty at Juilliard, and also a pianist by the name of Leon Fleisher, are both students of Dorothy Taubman.

If Fleisher studied with Dorothy Taubman it would have been part of his attempt to rehabilitate from the dystonia which ended his career.

You can't ignore rotation.  It's about relaxing the habitual winding up of the wrist (pronating) that pianists do on every note and using that relaxation to aid tone production - don't know if Golandsky gets that.  Hanon certainly didn't!

[ahinton]

I am not a pianist and should make that clear from the outset before writing anything on this subject.

The problem with Hanon and certain other exercise routines is that they are designed to concentrate the energies of those who practise them upon only one aspect of the issue of piano playing, namely that of certain aspects of mécanique (a terms that is so often meant when the far wider term "technique" is mistakenly used instead); nothing wrong with that in itself but, when playing Hanon exercises, the actions of the fingers and of other parts of the musculature that is of necessity pressed into service by pianists are all that is being exercised - in other words, the "exercise" concerned is effectively in vacuo, artificually separated from the flexing of the mental and emotional "muscles" that is indispensible for the performance of any piano music worthy of the name.

Whenever I encounter a piano student who is diligently trying to work his/her way through Hanon, I always commend to him/her the Klavierübung of Busoni in which exercises per se for one issue or another sit side by side with pieces of music (some of them transcriptions), so that the student is never too far from practical application of purely exercise material. Another pursuit of which Busoni would strongly have approved and of which copious examples are to be found in Godowsky's preparatory pages for his Studien über die Etüden von Chopin is the encouragement of piano students to create their own exercises based on / derived from actual pieces of music; Ronald Stevenson did this in his edition of Sorabji's Fantasiettina (Bardic Edition, Aylesbury, England; 1987), notwithstanding that the piece itself plays for only a few minutes!

The distinguished English pianist Jonathan Powell once told me that solutions to almost all problems that he encountered in the preparation of all piano repertoire could be found in WTC and other Bach keyboard works and the études of Chopin - an interesting and thought-provoking statement indeed from a pianist whose repertoire is of sufficiently wide range to encompass Sorabji, Alkan, Finnissy, Liszt, Ferneyhough, Rachmaninov, Brahms, Szymanowski and the almost the entire œuvre of Scriabin (not to mention Bach and Chopin themselves, of course!); I've never even heard him mention Hanon...

[dcstudio]

I am not a pianist and should make that clear from the outset before writing anything on this subject.

No offense, but if you are not a pianist... your experience on this issue is purely academic. Let me explain..

  Most pianists who hate Hanon are the ones who never really practiced it... they will tell you how they spent hours and hours of worthless hanon time... but as someone who has been teaching piano for 20 years--this is often the same as saying "the check's in the mail" -- they love to claim they "have been practicing" and these exercises--"just don't help"---when in reality their Hanon book has been cracked open in months...     People who write books on this subject but have never, themselves, taught a lesson... don't know things like this.   They take the complaints of students "hating hanon" and they blame -- Hanon... even though in some cases the student has NEVER actually spent any time PLAYING hanon... they have just foolishly tried to convince their teacher that in spite of serious effort on their part the exercises "are not working."

   This string isn't really just about Hanon...but technical exercises in general...  it is the opinion of some that all exercises be they macanique or technique-- are worthless...  and that is what I am countering.   

[ahinton]

No offense, but if you are not a pianist... your experience on this issue is purely academic. Let me explain.

Whilst you're welcome to do so, please bear in mind that my experiencce of the issue is not as you describe it, for two reasons; firstly, whilst I am not a pianist per se, I have had some considerable experience of piano playing and, secondly, I have written a considerable amount of piano music.

Most pianists who hate Hanon are the ones who never really practiced it... they will tell you how they spent hours and hours of worthless hanon time... but as someone who has been teaching piano for 20 years--this is often the same as saying "the check's in the mail" -- they love to claim they "have been practicing" and these exercises--"just don't help"---when in reality their Hanon book has been cracked open in months...     People who write books on this subject but have never, themselves, taught a lesson... don't know things like this.   They take the complaints of students "hating hanon" and they blame -- Hanon... even though in some cases the student has NEVER actually spent any time PLAYING hanon... they have just foolishly tried to convince their teacher that in spite of serious effort on their part the exercises "are not working."

I do not "hate" Hanon; in my post I sought merely to point out the general shortcomings of those exercises on their own merits and that I believe that there are far more effective and useful ways to develop the shortcomings in mécanique that Hanon exercises were written for the purpose of developing; that belief, incidentally, is shared by a number of distinguished pianists with whom I have discussed it, all of whom have essayed Hanon at one time or another and found it largely wanting.

This string isn't really just about Hanon...but technical exercises in general...  it is the opinion of some that all exercises be they macanique or technique-- are worthless...  and that is what I am countering.   

Well, here I agree with you on both counts; pianists who do nothing to develop their mécanique or their technique (of which the latter is od course a far more wide-ranging facility than the matter of (a) how they move which muscles and when, (b) how they develop hand/eye co-ordination and other issues that rest entire on physical gestures) will quite simply fail to develop. Even pianists with the utmost in natural piano playing ability have to practise methodically and the fact that the frailties and inconsistencies in the human physique and its application often lets pianists down, a fact of which most of them are all too well aware. Incidentally, for wht it may or may not be worth in clarifying my involvement in this discussion, my principal piano teacher once complimented me on what he regarded as my recent progress at the instrument despite my having no natural ability to play it; this could have been taken as an offence by some students but I know full well that I would not have been told that had there been the slightest expectation that I would personally be offended by it - and, as it was perfectly true, it was more of a relief than a discouragement! I did not in any case begin my study of the piano with either the motivation towards or the expectation of any kind of career as a pianist; I did so first in order to help the development of my musical literacy and subsequently to be able to write effectively for the instrument.

Best,

Alistair

[dcstudio]

apologies Allstair.... in my book you are a pianist and you have considerable music experience and for that reason I do respect your opinion.  I am well aware that there is more to choose from than just hanon--and I fully agree that no pianist should limit themselves to only hanon anymore than they should not practice technical elements or mechanical elements.  (You're a Brit, right? No French words for you...lol) 
I find it more than coincidental that those who complain about hanon or technical exercises as a whole are generally the same ones who cite all these reasons why it's not their fault that their technique is flawed.  If at some point you don't take responsibility for your own playing and your own musical education than you will forever be someone else's student instead of your own teacher.  I don't mean you should skip formal education--quite the CONTRARY--but afterwards at some point you have to stop expecting someone else to provide all the answers and figure this out for yourself.  This doesn't mean you must stop taking lessons... but your teacher should be more of a coach at this point... not a dictator.   

I, too blamed my teachers, my training, my parents, just about everything I could but myself.  Then I got over it and sat down at the piano for up to 12 hours a day and solidified my playing into something marketable...  it took months... years really...but it was so worth it.

so ok.. I think we (and the OP) are in complete agreement... you are not against hanon per sea just providing other alternatives.. but we both feel very strongly that  technical/mechanique exercises are fundamental to developing your skills.  Cool. 

[briansaddleback]

^ah..the voice of reason and sense , the availability of it or lack thereof, on any forum is what makes or breaks my stay at that forum eventually.
thanks

[dcstudio]

^ah..the voice of reason and sense , the availability of it or lack thereof, on any forum is what makes or breaks my stay at that forum eventually.
thanks

   wow... that is seriously one of the most complimentary replies I have ever received here.  That means more to me than any flattering remark concerning my playing that I have ever received in the audition room or on my posts in general.  

Thank YOU!

[briansaddleback]

  wow... that is seriously one of the most complimentary replies I have ever received here.  That means more to me than any flattering remark concerning my playing that I have ever received in the audition room or on my posts in general.  

Thank YOU!

You're welcome dcstudio you deserve it. And I like watching your videos too. Now whenever I hear moonlight third movement I can't listen without imagining someone point up three fingers in the air w emphasis prior to playing it.

[hardy_practice]

Geez dc, if you ain't our pinup girl!  

[dcstudio]

well thanks Hardy... eeeek  pin up girl?  I am 51..lol  trust me--that would be terrifying.
  ...and I'm not really sure what happened... no one used to pay any attention to my posts.   

 the MS3.. thanks Brian.. that was a challenge from someone who claimed they could play it and I couldn't....lol.  maybe I could have worked it up just a bit before posting...  but I like that vid, too.

[briansaddleback]

Perhaps, but I still found it entertaining. I don't believe in the critique the music performance only and don't let the visual performance affect your what you felt about the performance dogmatic-thinking. Then why don't we all just listen to audios mastered on cd? Why would anyone emphatically dunk in an nba game and change the momentum around emotionally if it still is worth only 2 points??
If you were in my piano class we would have tons of fun, it is hard to find peer piano students who just plain enjoy music for the sake of music. Don't take themselves too seriously that it affects their expression. Yeah be serious at practice but when it comes to performing time just go out there no excuses and lay it out and show who you are through the music.  Oh I commented on that video. Same thing here I said. That video is a classic gem of who you are at that time.

[dcstudio]

thanks Brian  the person who challenged me commented on that vid too... although he never did post his version...only told me how rotten mine was..lol...

a student? when it comes to the formal classical piano...you know I guess maybe in some ways I still am...   but I am a cocktail pianist as well...and I do go out there and have a great time performing... and they even pay me for it..lol.  

[shostglass]

The exercises by Isidor Phillip changed my life my fingers so much more nimble and powerful with these. It takes a bit of slow practice and getting used to too but after a month (at the most) you will see a notable change in you technique.

https://imslp.org/wiki/22_Exercices_pour_fortifier_les_doigts_(Philipp,_Isidor)
These will develop basic technique in the fingers.
https://imslp.org/wiki/Exercises_for_Independence_of_the_Fingers_(Philipp,_Isidor)
These will give you almost absolute finger independence(if you practice them correctly) and you have to actually think a process each exercise so you don't mindlessly play with muscle memory.
https://imslp.org/wiki/Exercices_%C3%89l%C3%A9mentaires_Rythmiques_pour_les_Cinq_Doits_(Philipp,_Isidor)
Last but not least these will train your rhythm skill.

-Shost

[scientificpianopractise]

I think there is a faster way. 

Hanon makes you practice all the permutations of a pattern, up and down the keyboard.  There is definitely not a reason to go up and down the keyboard that I can think of. 

I also do not think there is a reason to practice all possible permutations since they are extremely unlikely to occur in real music.

So I devised a new "Hanon in 60 seconds".  It works for me.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.  My email is piano at avabiz.com

[lostinidlewonder]

Well I hope people would discuss their ideas rather than asking us to pay for it, this is a discussion board after all not a buy and sell group. Give some info for free, so damn stingy.

[chopinlover01]

May I just add a little bit to this thread, by suggesting that plenty of pieces (the Beethoven C minor variations come to mind) have bits of them that can be made into exercises, and these often give more value than the musically disconnected studies of Hanon, Czerny, Schmitt, et al.
The one set of exercises that I've found truly help are the Brahms 51 exercises, and those to me are somewhat of a bridge between purely finger wiggling exercises and full-blown musical etudes a la Chopin and Liszt.

[tenk]

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

I've got feedback for you -- why aren't you banned yet?