What to do to practice agility

[bluepuri]

So, what are you doing to gain more agility? What pieces or finger training you use? Or even what daily attempt you do?

At this moment I use Czerny op. 299. And it is effective enough. What about you?

[ilikepie]

Some Chopin etudes... although I think sometimes it decreases my agility LOL

[zheer]

So, what are you doing to gain more agility? What pieces or finger training you use? Or even what daily attempt you do?

At this moment I use Czerny op. 299. And it is effective enough. What about you?

  I do have one effective way of increasing finger agility, nothing to do with Czeny,Etude,scales or arpeggio.I take a fast run from a piece,and i work on speed,like a sprinter, you know a sprinter doesn't work on long distance runing to gain speed, they sprint in short bursts sometimes.Same thing with piano except its mainly a mental/psycological process.for instance you take 5-8 notes and you work on clarity tone and speed.I do this from time to time for 5-10 minuts, it helps.

[ramithediv]

  I do have one effective way of increasing finger agility, nothing to do with Czeny,Etude,scales or arpeggio.I take a fast run from a piece,and i work on speed,like a sprinter, you know a sprinter doesn't work on long distance runing to gain speed, they sprint in short bursts sometimes.Same thing with piano except its mainly a mental/psycological process.for instance you take 5-8 notes and you work on clarity tone and speed.I do this from time to time for 5-10 minuts, it helps.

Yes, I like doing this also. 

Then, leave it, for a couple of days. 

When you play it again it's automatic. 

[bluepuri]

so it's actually about the psycological thinking then. But do you think that scales, etudes, or any finger exercises actually helps to "wake" the fingers?

[slobone]

so it's actually about the psycological thinking then. But do you think that scales, etudes, or any finger exercises actually helps to "wake" the fingers?

Well there's definitely two schools of thought about that. At the moment I'm doing a lot of Hanon because I'm really out of shape. They at least keep my fingers moving. I can play them faster than I can play anything else.

But I think it can be damaging if done to excess, for the simple reason that you can do it with only half your brain. I've played the pieces so many times I can think about something completely different while I'm playing them. And that's a bad habit to get into.

One of my teachers said, take a hard passage from your current piece and turn it into an exercise. Play it over and over, in different keys, up and down the keyboard, vary it, etc. But I have to admit I never actually tried it!

[valor]

What im doing to practice agility is learning a peice then slowly increase the tempo untill its super fast, to get a hang of fast play. An organist told me playing scales will increase agility, so im doing that too. She also told me that playing Hannon is good for agility too, i think playing the Hannon excersises in all keys will help (i think, i would really try it though, i tried doing one of the excersises in G major and it really hurt).

Be warned though, she seemed to have carpol tunnel so im not sure its a good idea to follow these things, the playing Hannon thing at least.

[chopinfan_22]

Hanon is something to be careful with. Play it too fast, and you're going to hurt yourself. You need to be careful at how fast you play it, and be sure that you are concentrating on what you are doing. You also need to be careful at how much you play Hanon. Apparently you are supposed to go through the entire book with ease, but I can't do that. I get tired after the first three or four exercises. So I practice very carefully, and only a group of exercises at once. With scales, you need to be sure that you aren't running the notes together. Accuracy first, speed second.