Improving my fingers strength

[nightlordq]

Well, I am progressing quite fast, though I just played for almost just 1 year. Sounds weird, but it's the truth. I use Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist but I find it quite boring. If there is ever any other pieces/exercise, maybe Czerny or something else thats good exercise and interesting.

[fermata_88]

Hanon is not boring if you are just using it properly. Instead of playing it very fast,  like just having fun with the notes, try playing it in different rhythm, with dotted notes or what ever you want. YOu may want to try using your wrist motion and fingerings. just invent something that's interesting!  Hanon is a must for a piano student. 

[hyrst]

I love Czerny's studies

[gyzzzmo]

If you find Hanon annoying, just ignore most of his excersises. Usually only the fingers 3,4,5 of the left and right hand need strengthening, so you could consider doing his 'Four note-thrills in thirds' excersise only, and play the usual melodic excersises from other composers (chopin etudes for example).

[Petter]

do the first hanon excerise but play the whole tone scale instead. Descending from C in your right hand and ascending from C in your left. Then youŽll have a major third as the first inverall all the time. I suggest practicing this at around 340 bpm. 

[kghayesh]

There is soo much out there to improve your finger strength other than Hanon. Hanon is just full of so simple and so basic exercises, Imo you can replace them with only scales and arpeggios (but of course played exactly).

Why not have a look on Czerny's etudes? They are so many and quite varying in difficulty

[slobone]

See if you can find a copy of Slonimsky's Thesaurus. Thousands of scales and musical patterns, each more bizarre than the last. You'll have to work out your own fingering though.

[concerto_love]

I use czerny but practice hanon at my house... It's very useful I think!!! sometime I get bore of it... But I try to play with your own improvisation

I don't know about this, but I practice to improving my fingers strength with thrills and scales... I often play thrills (in a score) with the wrong finger, but sometimes I think it's very useful...

(sorry I'm just a beginner and dunno much about piano, I hope this can help, sorry for the bad grammar. Thx)

[slobone]

I use czerny but practice hanon at my house... It's very useful I think!!! sometime I get bore of it... But I try to play with your own improvisation

I don't know about this, but I practice to improving my fingers strength with thrills and scales... I often play thrills (in a score) with the wrong finger, but sometimes I think it's very useful...

(sorry I'm just a beginner and dunno much about piano, I hope this can help, sorry for the bad grammar. Thx)

Your grammar's fine, but I love the idea of playing with thrills! I think you mean trills...

[danny elfboy]

Czerny or Hanon won't make your fingers strong.
Finger strength is a misnomer. What you want as a pianist is an absolutely control over the activation of the mechanism that moves the fingers, the hand, the wrist and the arm.
In other words you learn to control contraction and release of muscles on command.
This is known as finger conditioning (which is what you're really after) and is not determined by strenght. Strong muscles are not more coordination or easier to activate and release.

What I mean is that there's no set of market gimmicks (oh yeah, they existed even back then: hype mongers and Hanon was one of them) that will condition your fingers because whatever thing you play will do the trick (even just an A to E scale) as long as you practice with the intent of training your neuromuscular response to finger and hand action.

[faulty_damper]

Finger strength has nothing to do with playing the piano.

If you insist on strengthening your fingers, you'll only end up being an even lousier pianist with Hanon exercises to prove it.

Playing the piano is the easiest thing in the world like writing or riding a bike.  But if you think you'll become a better pianist by strengthening your fingers, I'll give you one advice:
The road to hell is straight down.

[nightlordq]

Finger strength has nothing to do with playing the piano.

If you insist on strengthening your fingers, you'll only end up being an even lousier pianist with Hanon exercises to prove it.

Playing the piano is the easiest thing in the world like writing or riding a bike.  But if you think you'll become a better pianist by strengthening your fingers, I'll give you one advice:
The road to hell is straight down.

Lol, what I mean is to have the ability to play without difficulty of something like slowness, it has nothing to do with muscles or banging the piano.

[slobone]

Just to clarify, most of the movement of your fingers is controlled not by muscles in the fingers themselves, but by tendons, which in turn are controlled by muscles in the palm, the back of the hand, the wrist, and the forearm, going all the way up to the elbow. The muscles in your upper arm don't control the fingers directly, but come into play when you move your hand back and forth on the keyboard.

That's why when you've been practicing a lot your wrist and forearm feel tighter. "Finger strength" is a misnomer.

[gyzzzmo]

Czerny or Hanon won't make your fingers strong.
Finger strength is a misnomer. What you want as a pianist is an absolutely control over the activation of the mechanism that moves the fingers, the hand, the wrist and the arm.
In other words you learn to control contraction and release of muscles on command.
This is known as finger conditioning (which is what you're really after) and is not determined by strenght. Strong muscles are not more coordination or easier to activate and release.

What I mean is that there's no set of market gimmicks (oh yeah, they existed even back then: hype mongers and Hanon was one of them) that will condition your fingers because whatever thing you play will do the trick (even just an A to E scale) as long as you practice with the intent of training your neuromuscular response to finger and hand action.

I dont entirely agree with this. For most people the use of fingers 4 and 5 are problematic because the brains arent used to directing them, as you said. But there is a factor of 'strengthening' and dexterity. These last 2 things are what you notice when you hit the 3/4 page of chopin etude 10/2 for example.

So if you want to train those fingers optimally, you have to train the brains for those fingers (for the right hand that chopin etude works great), and for the strengthening  i do thrills-in-thirds.