funffingerbungen

[pianistimo]

was going thru old piano stuff and refound and worked the first page of this book by rafael  joseffy.  at first these exercises seemed impossible.  i was used to the exact repetition of accents and some unusual ones in czerny but this page changes accents every measure.  i thought - i'll go crazy if i do this very much.  but now, on the first exercise - i can hold the first note and accent different beats on the sixteenth notes and get through the exercise FINALLY. 

if you want a fun challenge, try these exercises.  don't expect to learn them in a day. i would say it takes relaxing your MIND.  at first i just tried relaxing my fingers.  it didn't work.  anwya, you can take the rest of the page (page 1) and put the accents similarly on the different patterns.  don't make it a goal to learn them all in one day.  just take a few a day and after awhile it becomes easy if you keep repeating them.

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

Yes I think I know what you mean. It teaches finger independance. I practice the 11 Chords and their modulations(diminished sevenths) and one of the excercises is to play the notes of the chord in a pattern whether going up intervals or going down and there are accents where you wouldn't expect them. Once I got used to it it is easy. You speak of full excercises so that's impressive. Are they Czerny like, Hanon like?

[pianistimo]

these are short, hanon-like, one measure five finger stuff that progresses according to the diatonic scale (and not chromatically, like i was used to).  they are a good exercise if you repeat each scale (11) for each exercise.  so far, i just do one or two - but practice mostly the accents.  but, the other way, you practice remembering the steps of the diatonic scale for each key.

five finger exercises seem to be a quick and easy warm up, but i also like czerny exercises.  if i had more time!  they are more like 'repertoire' and much more interesting.  maybe i'll go back to learning a few more.  czerny was a great teacher!  wasn't he liszt's teacher?  anyway, he was great at tech. and fingering and a lot can be transferred from his exercises to individual pieces.

[debussy symbolism]

Yes he was Liszt's teacher. That is why alot of technical challenges found in Liszt's music is also found in Czerny's etudes. Chopin however didn't approve of Czerny's etudes. Yes Czerny is also very helpfull on the technique found in Beethoven, Mozart. However Czerny etudes alone isn't enough. Repertoire is essential as well as other esxercises such as Finger independance, scales, chords, etc. Hope this helps.