Hanon is fine for simple mechanical development if not taken out of perspective, but it can do no more than just that - and, in doing no more than that, it can surely be somewhat dangerous for the would-be pianist...
Musically, Hanon is rubbish.
It is easy to show how unimportant Hanon is: Hanon first published his exercises in 1873. There are plenty of keyboard virtuosos (Handel, Bach and his sons, Scarlatti, Liszt, Chopin, etc. etc. etc.) who acquired their technique well before Hanon published his book. I rest my case.
a) “Are exercises necessary?”To the question a), the answer is clearly a big “NO”.
Liszt might well have acquired his technique before Hanon was published, but it is well documented that he did exercises.There is no CLEARLY about it and the quote you posted from Bernhard is hardly a scientific demonstration.Thal
I think the answer is yes, at least for me.
The early Hanon exercises (1-20) are easier than scales for the students because of the short repeating patterns. Therefore, Hanon is a great way to get the fingers moving and build coordination very early in piano training.
Get the fingers moving? Coordination? Unless the student is really clumsy, like me, exercises just for that are a waste of time. The usual stumbling block to playing is not the hands, but reading notes and hearing music. And Hanon is very poor training for both. You can play and memorize it by rote, barely reading, and there is no interesting music for the ears.
the études of Chopin, Liszt, Alkan, Lyapunov, etc. and the Chopin/Godowsky études
Since many posters, apparently, have neglected to read the previous posts in this thread - preferring instead to inflict their views without bothering to listen, a rather unmusical approach - I humbly offer a brief quotation of my own words from earlier on, which actually close this topic if you read them carefully and understand what they are saying. QUOTE ON "Hanon, no. Absolutely not. First twenty = finger wiggling. Total waste of time. "Hanon Bk1 is useless because there is no turning of the hand and passing of the thumb - *the* crucial gesture to master in both scales and arpeggios. "Here's the tiresome, boring truth that you always knew without asking: to gain virtuosity, you must practice nearly to infinity, scales, arpeggios, octaves. "End of quote. These few words say WHY, exactly and precisely why, Hanon is useless. No one has addressed that overwhelming and embarrassing fact. Finger-wiggling is not practicing, nor does it lead to keyboard virtuosity. Hanon=finger wiggling. Hanon=useless. The earlier post also goes on to offer a few valuable bits of advice, born from years of hard labor, but I won't quote everything here. Those who are interested will have a look.If you want to build pianistic technique, there are a lot of ways to waste years of your life doing it wrong. Why not do it right, and get the results you are working so hard to gain? Peace, your humble servant, Claude
You cite works that a lot of people wil never be able to play.
To the learner who cannot attain such pieces, i can see value in hanon.
There is some value on Hanon to those who could and those who couldn't play the other works that I mentioned, but that value is severely limited and accordingly Hanon is best used in moderation.
Pah, have you not read the above posts of the great Claude Debussy?It is completely useless.CASE CLOSED.Thal
That's not the point; people can study those works very profitably even if they do not end up performing them (or some of them)
It's not the method. It's HOW you play the method.
Focusing the debate on Hanon is misleading. I think the question is about “exercises” in general: the very philosophy that’s entangled in the concept of piano exercises (or any instrument).Regarding exercises, and the ongoing debate about them in this forum, there’s something that we should agree upon, in the first place: “What is the question?”; is it:a) “Are exercises necessary?”orb) “Are exercises useless?”
For your average person learning the piano, these pieces will be a million miles away.Unless of course you know any Godowsky playing 6 year olds.
Don't forget that he was not exactly middle aged when he composed Op. 10...
anyway, I'm pretty sure that bach, faced with the lack of exercises in his day, would have invented something, some kind of musical invention for teaching composition.
now chopin would have done something different, because piano technique had already been invented...he would have studied it in depth with some kind of etude, maybe even a few sets of etudes.
oh yeah...since antibiotics weren't invented during chopin's life, it's clear that he had no need for them. after all, he created great music despite his little bout of tuberculosis...
Bach as a pedagogue has developed tools for technical purposes: for example, the AMB notebook, the 2-parts and 3-parts inventions and, for the organ, the Triosonatas. What is worth noting is that those all are music pieces and not “exercises” in the sense of Hanon et al.It is often said, probably with some reason, that Chopin actually re-invented the whole piano technique through his work. In the late years of his life, Chopin gave up performing to focus on teaching and composing, he would spend half year teaching and half year composing, basically. Despite that important pedagogic activity, he didn’t feel the need to develop any set of exercises for general purposes. As you mentioned, he wrote etudes, instead, and same as with Bach, the etudes are music pieces that can be performed.Are you suggesting that pianistic technical weaknesses are caused by some germ? Anyhow, some people like doing exercises like the Hanon, well… fair enough, if they enjoy themselves doing that, nobody else has a say.Now, when teachers start to force their pupils into those types of exercises as a pedagogic-system, I do care, because, in my opinion, it’s suggesting that they don’t really have a lot to give as teachers.
....I'm pretty sure that bach, faced with the lack of exercises in his day, would have invented something, some kind of musical invention for teaching composition.
But those interested in building a serious piano technique are well-advised to avoid wasting time on Hanon. If finger-wiggling did the job, we wouldn't even need keyboards to attain virtuosity - drumming your fingers on a table top would be as effective as actually practicing - but for some reason that just ain't so.
This whole "debate" is pitifully stupid. There is no such thing as too much Hanon if you're a beginning pianist. The only thing it's going to do is waste your time if you work at it too much. If you've already got the technique of the studies down it's not going to do anything extra for you a similar study would. They're just very specific studies. Some aren't the best but none are going to make you a *worse* pianist, just like there's no piece of music that's going to make you a *worse* pianist, unless there's some piece that has you set your hands on fire that I'm not aware of. Seriously. By a show of hands, who here has learned a piece and then suddenly become a worse musician?Like, of course you're not supposed to play it for hours on end. Just like you're not supposed to play Liszt's Feux Follets for hours on end. Who in is acting surprised when their wrists start to hurt after playing the same passage 7900 times? They're useful for strengthening the fingers when you are a beginning pianist and teaching you the scales, and getting your hands comfortable with locking into certain intervals.Just like Mikrokosmos. Like Scarlatti Sonatas. Like Brahms exercises. Like all sizes of Pischna. Like Liszt exercises. Like Czerny. There's no damn difference. Hanon is just the most immediately accessible and is capable of being started sooner.
you completely miss the point. or you're dodging it. Hanon wastes time, and sends aspirants down a blind alley which will ultimately frustrate even a talented person. your 'one size fits all' lapse into 'whatever' relativism reveals a rather flabby thought process, if it reveals any process at all. people need and deserve helpful advice - that's why they're reading this thread. And the subject is far from closed, so it's presumptuous to claim the final word.Informed discussion of how to build piano technique should be what this thread - and this website - are all about. The importance of that discussion won't be swept aside by gassy pronouncements that lack content. Hanon doesn't work because it doesn't train the hand or the body in any of the central gestures of piano technique - balancing the hand and groups of fingers while passing the thumb. That point has been made more than once now, and no one has answered it because it is correct, accurate, and truthful. Aspirants: as a basic strategy to build technique, practice your scales and arpeggios forcefully and religiously, every day.Pursued diligently, this will transform your playing, more and more as time goes on. Hanon will never do that for you, so it's worth repeating the facts here to keep sincere players from burning out their dreams in a frustrating dead-end approach that will take you nowhere.Be patient, and practice. Do your wind sprints up and down the keyboard every day - no serious athlete would consider training without daily reinforcement of the most basic fundamentals. It's humble work, but there are no shortcuts. When you're ready to advance, the Chopin etudes are waiting for you. So are my etudes. peace and good luck to all - CD
your 'one size fits all' lapse into 'whatever' relativism reveals a rather flabby thought process, if it reveals any process at all.
Yes, nobody is arguing that scales and arpeggios are important. (sic) (etc.)Obviously, you are very confused.
Im pro hannon and im proud of it!!!! hannon exercises are great!!! i love em!!! theyve really helped me in getting playing faster and cleaner...I like to drive my brother crazy by playing them over and over again!!!!!!!!!
Good for you!
Abbey, can you do 1 through 15 in ten minutes?best wishes, go