Hanon and Schmitt

[rach3pianoconcerto]

Just wondering your guys opinion on the Hanon technical exercises and Schmitt technique books.....Any of you use them.....Would you recommend them. I know people have also said good things about the czerny technical book to.??

[allthumbs]

I am not familiar with Schmitt, but if you do a search on this forum, you'll find plenty of posts concerning Hanon.

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

I find Schmitt finger independence exercises to be very helpful. They are an absolute necessity for learning Bach's polyphonic works. They stress finger independence with exercises that hold down one finger and work with patterns with the other fingers. More exercises hold down several fingers and work with the other "free" fingers.

Hope this helps.

[le_poete_mourant]

Hanon & Czerny are a useless waste of your time. 

You're much better off learning scales and Chopin.

[debussy symbolism]

Hanon & Czerny are a useless waste of your time. 

 

That remark is a useless waste of time. If you are going to say something that is as important and potentially significant as that then at least provide an explanation. Either that or you are potentially discouraging others from using the material which is potentially and is, in my opinion, very helpful.

[debussy symbolism]

Hanon & Czerny are a useless waste of your time. 

You're much better off learning scales and Chopin.

Scales and Chopin etudes are very important yes.

[imbetter]

I'd strongly recommend the hanon. It's extremly helpful to develop your fingers and your technique. I'd highly recommend getting it


~pianowolfi fan 4 life~

[debussy symbolism]

I sounded a bit too harsh. Sorry. What I meant was, don't immediately dismiss something as "useless" and not provide an explanation for your reasoning.

[rach3pianoconcerto]

Ok thank you so much....I got lots of feedback which has helped a lot. A lot of you said "Scales and Chopin" Well scales yes.....I was told not to do really do Chopin unless you have a got "Technical Toolbox" otherwise its a waste of time especially when it comes to his etudes. I am learning the easiest of the etudes obviosuly the e major tristesse one....and the revolutionary. You think those are ok. Sometimes i get discouraged because i feel like its a waste of time. Its probably because i want to learn the piece overnight. LOl...Anyway?

[debussy symbolism]

Ok thank you so much....I got lots of feedback which has helped a lot. A lot of you said "Scales and Chopin" Well scales yes.....I was told not to do really do Chopin unless you have a got "Technical Toolbox" otherwise its a waste of time especially when it comes to his etudes. I am learning the easiest of the etudes obviosuly the e major tristesse one....and the revolutionary. You think those are ok. Sometimes i get discouraged because i feel like its a waste of time. Its probably because i want to learn the piece overnight. LOl...Anyway?

Chopin etudes are very difficult. Maybe try something easier. What other etudes and or pieces have you played? Have you played Czerny?

[rach3pianoconcerto]

Well i have a grade 10 level so i am working through Chopin etude 25 tristesse fairly decently and his revolutionary is on its way......
I had a period of time where i did not have too much time to devout to my piano learning and so there was a dry time and so therefore i dont have a reperatoir. I am looking at developing one. You said Czerny!!!!! I have not really tried him, would you recommend? What about debussy, claire de lune or reverie?

[debussy symbolism]

Well i have a grade 10 level so i am working through Chopin etude 25 tristesse fairly decently and his revolutionary is on its way......
I had a period of time where i did not have too much time to devout to my piano learning and so there was a dry time and so therefore i dont have a reperatoir. I am looking at developing one. You said Czerny!!!!! I have not really tried him, would you recommend? What about debussy, claire de lune or reverie?

Well, I definately would recommend Czerny. Perhaps you may want to look at his Op. 299. Czerny may look easy, but look at the metronome marks. To do them fast, even, clean is hard. You may also look at Moszkowski etudes op 72. I am working on 4 of them right now. Bringing up nos 1,2,5 up to speed, and working on the 3rd one. They cover many aspects of technique and in my opinion, not easy. Concerning Debussy, his works's main difficulty is sound. It has got to have an established sound otherwise it is very tedius to made it sound good. I am not sure if the two pieces you mentioned may provide the same technical benefits as some other pieces might. I could be wrong. Those pieces are pieces and do not focus on technical problems. Debussy's etudes are really difficult to the extent of my knowledge.

[rach3pianoconcerto]

thank you much. I will look at Czerny op 299 you said.? Any particular one?
Otherwise....Thank you for your advice i appreciate it>

[debussy symbolism]

Well, there are alot of them and each focuses on different technique(s). Try one that you feel would improve a particular facet of technique for you. I do all of the Czerny etudes. They include scales, arpeggios, trills, etc.

[debussy symbolism]

You are welcome.

[rach3pianoconcerto]

Yeah i am actually looking at the ones posted on this site. No 1-32......There a level 5 but those look like they could help a good deal....and there is also 2 50 little studies books posted too....but those are at a level 3. But...Ok thank you

[le_poete_mourant]

I sounded a bit too harsh. Sorry. What I meant was, don't immediately dismiss something as "useless" and not provide an explanation for your reasoning.

Quite right.  An explanation is in order.

There are several reasons for my dismissal of Czerny.  Agreed, he will get your fingers moving.  However, the Czerny exercises cannot equip a pianist completely for what is needed in more intense music.  The exercises lack the musical depth of Chopin, for one, and other composers of technical studies.  While it may be nice to have the technique it teaches, I don't believe that it further helps establish the musicianship of an artist in any useful way.  To summarize: it's boring. 

Also, I don't think the technique Czerny exercises teach is fully applicable or relevant to the broader repetoire for pianists.  Particularly, his excessive use of white keys won't really help when playing, again, more intense music with accidentals all over the place and in different keys. 

[iumonito]

In reply to the original.  Hanon or no Hanon makes no difference if you don't know what you are doing.  Doing the Hanon exercises "wrong" will leave you at the same spot you started, older, more tired, and without having learned any music.

Finger development, and more generally  technique development require intense intellectual work, combined with experimentation and training.  Traditions running deep to the likes of Carreno, Anton Rubinstein, Liszt, Letchetizky, Breithaupt, Matthay, Godowsky and more recently Taubman and Golandsky would suggest that if you have a teacher giving you hints and making on the spot suggestions about the how of playing you have a better chance of developing virtuosism and a vast tonal palette.  Hanon does nto seem to me particularly good ground for that type of development, although some times it is indeed helful to isolate tone production from music making, so that you can really pay attention to the simplest movements and sensations involved in playing.

If the Chopin etudes appear too difficult, there are two things you can do:  rather than study a whole etude, learn just a few measures.  The same benefit you would get from Hanon you can get from, for example, the first two measures of Op. 10 # 1.

I think the absolute best place where to start developing piano technique are Bach's two-part inventions.  Once you have those, then the Well-Tempered Clavier and Mozart's sonatas.  Then the Chopin preludes and etudes.  By then the vast majority of the literature is at your disposal.  Liszt EET, Brahms Paganini variations, Scriabin etudes and Rachmaninov preludes and etudes tableaux cap the standard literature and if you can play them you basically can play anything.  For trascendental development, Chopin-Godowsky.  Not for the weak of resolve, though, but enormously rewarding even if you don't get to play them well.

Much of piano technique is actually having a mental image of the musical object at hand.  A chord, a progression, a polyphonic texture, once understood fit easily into the hand.  In that sense, you are much much much better off taking little portions of pieces, particularly baroque and classical, than spending an hour a day of Hanon.

Czerny paves the service road to Beethoven, but then, I think you get much better results from learning, for example, Op. 14 # 1 or number 2 than practicing religiously Op. 299.

That said, I love Op. 299 ## 6, 7 and 13, so I play them for fun and for their musical value.

So there, I too think finger exercises in general are of little use if divorced from specific musical objectives.

[nicco]

If you want to do Czerny, stick to Op.740. Its the only worthwile ones in my opinion.

[rach3pianoconcerto]

When you guys talk about Czernys opus 299......are you talking about etudes here?

[debussy symbolism]

Quite right.  An explanation is in order.

There are several reasons for my dismissal of Czerny.  Agreed, he will get your fingers moving.  However, the Czerny exercises cannot equip a pianist completely for what is needed in more intense music.  The exercises lack the musical depth of Chopin, for one, and other composers of technical studies.  While it may be nice to have the technique it teaches, I don't believe that it further helps establish the musicianship of an artist in any useful way.  To summarize: it's boring. 

Also, I don't think the technique Czerny exercises teach is fully applicable or relevant to the broader repetoire for pianists.  Particularly, his excessive use of white keys won't really help when playing, again, more intense music with accidentals all over the place and in different keys. 

I see your point. However, there is alot of intense Czerny out there. Just look at his Op. 740 and you will see that alot of what is in there is not only found in Sonats of Mozart and Beethoven (and others), but what also is found in Chopin etudes. True, you could just jump on onto Chopin etudes, but they already require a strong basis in technique. Since they are pieces they don't stick to the basic technical material and furthermore, they present multiple technical challenges in a single etude. Czerny etudes are short, and focus on a single technical exercise that will prepare you for other etudes. I agree, Czerny may not be as fun to play as Chopin etudes, but they are worth it. I say this from experience. Furthermore, if you need musical etudes, look at Moszkowski op.72. They are all very technical yet musical, and feature all of the things found in Czerny. I am playing four of them right now and let me tell you, they are anything but easy, especially at a fast tempo which I am now trying to get.

Yes, Czerny etudes does tend to be only in white keys, but you are forgetting a key role: transposition to other keyes. You can transpose it to keys that use mostly black keyes such as Dflat, Gflat, Cflat majors. That is hard and painstaking but it is very helpful and very worthy. Even in you only study them in white keys, you still get the finger movements one needs. The purpose of Czerny is to facilitate proper finger movements and an ease in playing passages in pieces. From my experience, Czerny does wonders.

[rach3pianoconcerto]

When you mention about his pus 740.....Are we talking those opus 740 studies that are actually posted on this site.

[debussy symbolism]

I don't know if they are posted here, but I am sure that you could find them for free at sheetmusicarchive.net

[rach3pianoconcerto]

thanks

[debussy symbolism]

No problem.

[iumonito]

When you guys talk about Czernys opus 299......are you talking about etudes here?

299 is The School of Velocity.  And 740 is the Art of Finger Dexterity, which is somewhat more difficult and musically rewarding.

I agree doing mental stuff to them is worthwhile (such as transposing).  They are simple enough to do that in your head, without having to write it down (which kind of defeats the purpose).

But then, you can do the same with the preludes from WTC, which are so much more interesting.

[franzliszt2]

Hannon is only good if practiced perfectly

[rach3pianoconcerto]

Well by the looks of it 740 is downloadable from this site with a gold membership. Can you look and see if the 740 in the piano music part of this site is actually what your talking about.

Thank you so much
-Regards
--------Rach

[iumonito]

Well by the looks of it 740 is downloadable from this site with a gold membership. Can you look and see if the 740 in the piano music part of this site is actually what your talking about.

Thank you so much
-Regards
--------Rach

I must not be looking in the right place, as I did not see either 299 or 740 here.

Czerny 32 Studies n/a Study 5
Czerny 50 Little Studies n/a Study 3
Czerny Erholung no 13 C-Major Piece 2
Czerny Erholung no 14 C-Major Piece 2
Czerny Erholung no 15 C-Major Piece 2
Czerny Piano Piece - op 792 no 1 C-Major Piece 3
Czerny Piano Piece - op 792 no 2 F-Major Piece 3
Czerny Piano Piece - op 792 no 8 C-Major Piece 3
Czerny Studies 1-42 - op 821 n/a Study 5
Czerny Studies 123-160 - op 821 n/a Study 8
Czerny Studies 43-82 - op 821 n/a Study 6
Czerny Studies 83-122 - op 821 n/a Study 7


Here is a link to 299.  https://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/single_listing.cfm?composer_id=67

Thal megauploaded 740 a while ago, but the link is expired.  https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,19452.0.html

[rach3pianoconcerto]

Wow....iumonito

Thank you very much for the list...I shall have a look. I really appreciate it...Thanks

Regards
----Rach