Exercises that makes one think

[elephant]

We all know the mindless exercises of Hanon and Czherny, but I am after something different: Exercises that forces you to think, in musical terms; of patterns and intervals, of chords and of the various scales. Like inverting and transposing big chords. Or transposing memorized pieces. Only meaner. I saw Hamelin in an interview demonstrating playing a passage together with a version mirrored around d or f#, and I think he mentioned the existence of various other exercises of the like.

What do you suggest?

[Motrax]

Sightread Bach chorales in transposed keys (assuming you're up to sightreading Bach chorales). There are so many of them, and the modulations and chord progressions are very clear and (obviously) free of "pianistic effects," so you can concentrate entirely on the process of transposing the piece.

[ted]

Elephant:

D and G# I think. The keyboard is mirror symmetric about D and G#. I used to invert figures in this way for practice but musically, most things produce entirely different aural effects when inverted. If that doesn't matter, then all well and good. Some pieces, especially Bach fugues and the like, sound almost as good inverted as normal. If you're familiar with whatever file format you use, write a programme to invert the files and play them; it's good fun.

To return to your question, I have come to realise that there is a difference between thinking in terms of patterns and thinking in terms of the their resulting sounds. The older I get the more I feel that the finest musical sounds are inevitably unsymmetric in these simple, easily replicated ways. Therefore I have grown uneasy about spending too much time inventing these things, even on my silent clavier for purposes of coordination.

As a means of expanding improvisational vocabulary though, they are excellent.

[elephant]

Transposing chorales is still transposing, I guess.

I find exercises like these make me a lot more conscious of the music I play, and a good antidote against the piano-monkey syndrome: Mindlessly banging out music from hand memory only. And I would love to widen my repertory.

I have actually decided to try for the following months to try to abolish reliance on hand-memory completely, so when practicing I always transpose my pieces to new keys. It´s very mentally demanding, but also very exciting, and I am very curious to see where it will take me.