Developing finger independence for the 3rd and 4th fingers..

[alb-d]

Any good drills, for this?

[kyliec]

One word...Hanon!
Kylie

[alb-d]

What about liszt is it any good?

[thalbergmad]

You would be better off using the search function, as there have been slightly over a million threads on this subject.

The modern school of thought appears to be that all exercises are a waste of time and sufficient dexterity and technique can be obtained by playing actual pieces. Actual finger inpedendence is supposedly impossible and can be overcome with wrist rotations. Anti-Hanonist thought, is that playing these pointless exercises without the supervision of a teacher is dangerous and can eventually lead to injury.

The old school of thought is that the playing of exercises will build a solid technique. If you can play all Czerny, Hanon and Pischna, you can supposedly play anything and the exercises practiced often, will force an independence into the fingers and will eventually lead to an all round mechanical ability.

Anyway, you are better off doing some research into previous posts than to rely on my fading memory.

For what it is worth, I have stopped using Hanon and i have noticed no decay in my abilities, but also no improvement either. I admit to warming up with a combination of trills in single notes, thirds and sixths.

Thal

[gyzzzmo]

Liszt hasnt any good technical etude.
But as said in many threads, Hanon works for some people (although it has its drawbacks), and chopin etudes 10/2 and 25/6 do the 3 and 4 (as well as 5) fingers.

[Kassaa]

Liszt hasnt any good technical etude.

..?

He has the best probably.

[ted]

I suppose the use of my practice clavier over many years has done this for me very well. Just how well I had not realised until I recently compared flexibility with other pianists. But does it really matter that much ? Old-fashioned exercises were meant for the movements most frequently found in old-fashioned music. I do not particularly like old-fashioned music, and it seems to me that most modern idioms, jazz based or otherwise, require many movements which are far out of the domain of traditional exercises in order to get the required aural effect.

In my youth I spent far too much time worrying about these purely physical matters exclusive of musical association. If I had had any brains I would have let the clavier do it all for me in five minutes a day and kept the piano exclusively for creating music. As it was I reached my thirties before this principle finally sunk in. I think the best course of action is to invent exercises for yourself, always directed to your personal musical purpose.

[gyzzzmo]

..?

He has the best probably.

That a piece is very hard, doesnt mean the piece itself boosts your technique. What i mainly experience with liszt's etudes, is that you need to do alot of etudes for being able to play them. But that means i dont get technique from HIS etudes, but from the supporting etudes....

[Kassaa]

That a piece is very hard, doesnt mean the piece itself boosts your technique. What i mainly experience with liszt's etudes, is that you need to do alot of etudes for being able to play them. But that means i dont get technique from HIS etudes, but from the supporting etudes....

Ah, what you didn't know is that he wrote ten books with technical excercises, written for building technique, scales, finger independence, octaves, jumps, thirds, basically everything. You should look them up. They're rather like Hanon, but 1000000000000x more useful.

[slobone]

One word...Hanon!
Kylie

Hear, hear!

[gyzzzmo]

Ah, what you didn't know is that he wrote ten books with technical excercises, written for building technique, scales, finger independence, octaves, jumps, thirds, basically everything. You should look them up. They're rather like Hanon, but 1000000000000x more useful.

I must admit, i have never played those, i thought you were talking about the paganini and transcedentals