Hanon Help.

[fortissimo4]

I don't know if I'm doing the Hanon Exercise correctly, well, I know I am doing it correctly what I mean to say is, my 5th finger is always so high up, and I do not want to develop bad habits. For bad habbits will be hard to correct later on, to give you a mental visual of what my 5th finger looks like while I'm doing the Hanon. For example imagine a male drinking tea "Pinky's out"... Is how my 5th finger is all the time. If this is wrong, please do tell me what I can do to condition myself to STOP doing that.

Thank You.
             
"I could be bound in a nut-shell and still count myself king of infinite space"

[rmbarbosa]

The best thing you may do is do not Hanon exercises. Have a look in the forum posts about Hanon. I think, if you are a beginner, you could free download "the goundwork of the Leschetizky Method" by Malwine Bree. Also have a look and download this site https:/www.pianopractice.org/ and then decide if in your own opinion Hanon is ou is not good for you.
About 5º finger position, I`m not sure but I think the most important is feel good, without tension and playing witn a good tone. More or less elegance is not so important like that...
Best wishes
Rui

[go12_3]

fortissimo:
I don't know of your age and how many years of piano playing you have had, but
the little pinkie going up can be controlled.  Whenever you play a piece, and you
notice the pinkie going up, just stop and make a fist with your hands, then let go slowly
of the fist and rest your fingers lightly upon the keyboard.  You don't need to do
the Hanon exercises for this.  How about doing the scales very slowly, I mean, VERY
slowly so that you can regain the control from your mind, telling your pinkie not
to go up.  Try this a few times a day for a few minutes.  It takes awareness to notice
when the pinkie goes up and I'm sure you can control the pinkie to keep it down.
Just play your pieces slowly.  Hopefully that'll work for you.   

[db05]

Perhaps you should stay away from the Hanon first and practice the movement on a table top. That way you can look at your hands more closely. Also, practice 45 (slow) trills.

[Bob]

I remember doing something where I relaxed my pinkie a lot.  Focused on that.  And made my own exercises up.  It helped, but I'm blanking on what the problem was, maybe tension or the "dainty pinkie" issue (which is still tension).

[lostinidlewonder]

I strongly disagree that hanon should not be used for the beginner.

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=13583.0

[keyboardclass]

Good answer go_12!

[go12_3]

Good answer go_12!

Thank you!   

[tone0980]

it should be pretty easy to fix, and some one may have already told what to do, but one thing that might help is just very basic but truly effective. do the hanon's super slow, so so slow that you have so much time to think about any and every move, seriously.  it might sound boring but you''ll find this to be a perfect solution any time you have problems with any song.  then when you think you are really going slow, go even slower. once you slow it down this much then just stare at that 5th finger and make sure its curved and never lifts too high. do the exercises at like 40bpm, and if you are still making mistakes set you metronome to 50 bpm but let it tick two times between every note you play. this should give you plenty of time to concentrate, and yes it will be boring and it will take all day to finish an exercise, but it will really take care of that lift off problem, and then if you truly do it that slow while concentrating on what you need to fix, it should take care of the problem in one sitting and you wont have to bother with it any more. you'll find this will work with anything, if you got the patience. . .or you can just keep on working on it for months still making the same errors.  (: 

[jessicamaybury]

I'm kind of going against what the others are saying, but my pinkies tend to go up sometimes anyway and it doesn't affect my playing in any way.

https://jmaybury.blogspot.com

[keyboardclass]

I'm kind of going against what the others are saying, but my pinkies tend to go up sometimes anyway and it doesn't affect my playing in any way.

Compared to what?

[jessicamaybury]

compared to any recordings of the pieces I can play, or the playing of my friends, who are piano teachers.