Confused Student

[weezer]

Hi, I'm sixteen and have been playing piano for about eight years. It's been in the last one or two years that I've really begun to enjoy playing and wanting to practice. I did "Ritual Fire Dance" by Manuel de Falla at a recital a couple weeks ago and I'm currently learning Maple Leaf Rag.

I was browsing through articles and become sort of confused because I've never done any sort of scales or arpeggios. I did some annoying finger exercises a few years ago but changed teachers, and the new teacher stopped any finger exercises. Would it be helpful to start doing scales, arpeggios, or finger exercises? I don't want to become a concert pianist, but I would like to become good to play for my own enjoyment. I have a Hanon book, but I've gathered from the forums that Hanon is no good. My music education is very lacking in music theory; would it be a good idea to study chords?

Many thanks.

[rc]

Theory is very useful in being able to recognize keys and harmony on the keyboard and the page.  This helps with memorization and sight reading.

Hanon is an age old debate.  A few years ago is was generally despised around here and I fell in line, but over time I've come to accept it.  Basically I followed the school of thought that says to focus mainly on learning repertoire, but that became a problem for me when my life circumstances made it difficult to get performance opprotunities, and without many performances I was learning repertoire only to forget it before ever playing it for anybody.  Which was killing my motivation.  Why learn something only to forget it before ever using it?

That's how I came to accept technical exercises, as a way to improve my general skills without using repertoire as an exercise (which is basically what happens if I'm not performing in some way).  I like exercises for the same reason others don't: it's repetetive.  Because it's the same pattern over and over, I can dig in and focus on improving things like articultion, experimenting with dynamics, improving concentration, listening skills, touch... Basically it's a way to focus on many of the details of playing without having to concern with the notes.

Hanon I find useful in developing clear articulation and simply getting used to playing at faster speeds, since that's what we do with it: play it clearly and ramp up the speed.  To kill the habit of sloppy playing.

Scales, chords and arpeggios are more generally accapted. They're good for getting used to all the basic elements that we see so often in various forms in the music, that much seems obvious to me.  Also a good way to develop good fingering habits.

It's been argued that we can develop all these skills with repertoire, which is true.  But my preference is to develop these skills before encountering them in the repertoire, so that I can more readily focus on the music when I learn a piece.

On a suggestion I've read, it's occurred to me that someone who can play Hanon up to speed in all keys would be someone who is very comfortable playing anything in all keys...  I think it's a worthwhile goal.

It was toil to begin with but I've actually come to enjoy these sorts of exercises, the way I practice isn't mindless, mechanical or unmusical.  I believe the habit has been a help to my progress and thus the enjoyment of music.

[gyzzzmo]

My general trick is to figure out what my weakness is, and then doing specific excersises wich handle that weakness. And i've never really done scales myself, i only practise a scale when i have problems getting certain scales fluently in some piece.

gyzzzmo

[pelajarpiano]

I was browsing through articles and become sort of confused because I've never done any sort of scales or arpeggios. I did some annoying finger exercises a few years ago but changed teachers, and the new teacher stopped any finger exercises. Would it be helpful to start doing scales, arpeggios, or finger exercises? I don't want to become a concert pianist, but I would like to become good to play for my own enjoyment. I have a Hanon book, but I've gathered from the forums that Hanon is no good. My music education is very lacking in music theory; would it be a good idea to study chords?

Hanon is good, but it will become bad if your goal in play piano is to your enjoyment. But if you really want to master a hanon,it's good. I want try play hanon because i curious about it.about how hard it is.

You need enough music theory to can read musical notation. You can find it at https://www.listeningarts.com/music


Chord is good if you want play just for your enjoyment.

[hyrst]

The best thing, IMO, to do if you are not sure about a suggestion (like Hanon and scales) is to try it out for yourself.  Give yourself two weeks of dedicated work in these areas (half an hour a day) and come up with your own opinion.  If you don't benefit, either it is not useful, you are not working consistently or you are doing it the wrong way.  You can decide then if it is worth working out the reason.  However, if your playing improves, you have an answer you can trust from your own experience.  (I would recommend steady, firm work starting out, though, rather than focusing on trying to play these studies fast.)