Need help: Czerny 599, essential pieces and order ?

[jackiew1]

Dear piano teachers,

  I'm learning Czerny 599 book. It has 100 pieces. If I practice all of them, it'll take long long time. I want to quickly go through the essential pieces of it and then advance to Czerny 849 book.

  What are the essential pieces in Czerny 599 that I should practice ? What's the recommended order to work on them ?

Thanks a lot.
Student
Jackie

[jackiew1]

I had practiced the Beyer book and currently practicing in the middle of Czerny 599. I've practiced 2 pieces of Czerny 849 book and don't feel any hardship for it.

[pianisten1989]

Practise the ones that you will have the most problems with...

[gerryjay]

i'm not sure whether you are kiding or not, but in the later case, i have only one advice: drop all czerny and find a teacher. now.

best regards!

[gore234]

Why do you advise to drop all czerny? I basically taught myself how to play piano and I think playing czerny pieces is a good idea.  czerny has several different etudes ranging from easy to really hard.  I think the piece that you start to learn depends how much you already know about playing piano.  I would get a teacher to help you with learning chords and music theory and technique.  If you already know how to read sheet music and have pretty good technique, you can try anything if you think its not above your level but sometimes its good to push yourself to play really hard pieces.

[gerryjay]

dear gore,
it's a simple math question: one czerny is good, ten czernies is a waste of time, one hundred czernies is a waste of life. if someone has the drive to play 100 pieces, please play a wide range of repertoire from cabezon to something s/he composed her/himself, not secondary repertory by a secondary composer.

furthermore, czerny is only beethoven simplified: if you want to play beethoven sonatas that bad, just play beethoven sonatas. i don't mean 106 straightaway: choose 8 bars of any sonata and enjoy!

best!

[gore234]

I do agree playing 100 czernies would be a waste of life depending on the skill of the learner. 

[pianisten1989]

dear gore,
it's a simple math question: one czerny is good, ten czernies is a waste of time, one hundred czernies is a waste of life. if someone has the drive to play 100 pieces, please play a wide range of repertoire from cabezon to something s/he composed her/himself, not secondary repertory by a secondary composer.

furthermore, czerny is only beethoven simplified: if you want to play beethoven sonatas that bad, just play beethoven sonatas. i don't mean 106 straightaway: choose 8 bars of any sonata and enjoy!

best!

LOOOOL! Dude, Czerny was good enough for Liszt, I think he is good enough for most ppl here. Also, if one plays much Czerny, one wont have any problems with the technical stuff in basically the entire wienclassical (classical) era and also very much of the difficulties in Liszt.

Maybe all 100 is a bit over kill, but 10 is far from it.

[gerryjay]

LOOOOL! Dude, Czerny was good enough for Liszt, I think he is good enough for most ppl here. Also, if one plays much Czerny, one wont have any problems with the technical stuff in basically the entire wienclassical (classical) era and also very much of the difficulties in Liszt.

Well, you are right but I must disagree notwithstanding.

I will not deny the value of Czerny and his importance in 19th century piano development, but saying that I make my point: he had great value one hundred and fifty years ago, or more. Too much happened, and Czerny is not an interesting option any longer. In a time where a recording of Beethoven was non existent, unavailable, or difficult to find, this kind of exercise made a lot of sense. Not now, with all resources we have.

About having no problems with the technique of the Viennese school piano music, well, that could develop in an endless (and probably pointless) argument. I'll skip this part. But I prefer a thousand times to play Mozart himself than to play Czerny and, then and only then, play Mozart. Of course it is personal, but I am happier with my pupils without any Czerny to bother us.

Best regards,
Jay.

[jackiew1]

If Czerny series are a little out of date considering the time they were composed, what are the more modern, more effective etude to work with ?

Many followed the classic series: Beyer, Czerny 599/849/299/740, is there a better modern alternative route ?

[jackiew1]

Currently I'm in the middle of Czerny 599, for the rest pieces of it, maybe I select some of them and quickly finish it up and then start some Czerny 849 and do some early part of 299, maybe that's enough for a non-professional learner.

[pianisten1989]

Imo, czerny is far from out of date. Ofc, this is obviously personal, but here is why:
1. In basically all classical pieces you play scales, all kinds of arpeggios, trills, chords, and loads more...
Czerny has got short exercises for all of those things, that will help you develop it.
2. In romantic music you have the same thing, plus a billion other things.
Czerny's got it.

To say that czerny is a waste of time, and that you only need one exercises, is, for me, like saying that the chopin etudes aren't that great after all.

However, this is personal. I practise like 10 hours every day. I have had time to practise a lot of Czerny, and therefore think they are good.
If you practise, say, 1 or 2 hours, 100 Czerny is probably a bit over kill, and you should focus on only a few essential.

[gerryjay]

Imo, czerny is far from out of date. Ofc, this is obviously personal, but here is why:
1. In basically all classical pieces you play scales, all kinds of arpeggios, trills, chords, and loads more...
Czerny has got short exercises for all of those things, that will help you develop it.
2. In romantic music you have the same thing, plus a billion other things.
Czerny's got it.

To say that czerny is a waste of time, and that you only need one exercises, is, for me, like saying that the chopin etudes aren't that great after all.

However, this is personal. I practise like 10 hours every day. I have had time to practise a lot of Czerny, and therefore think they are good.
If you practise, say, 1 or 2 hours, 100 Czerny is probably a bit over kill, and you should focus on only a few essential.

Dear Pianisten,
our approaches are different.

You do play Czerny to learn, then you play the real repertory. And you do fine. I play directly the repertory. And I'm doing fine either. Anyway, I don't feel that practice time have anything to do with that. Back in my undergraduate and graduate times, I used to study up to 8 hours week days, and up to 12 on weekends. And I can't remember playing a single Czerny, though I probably did a couple of times.

But about your parallel between dismissing Czerny and Chopin, I can't follow. Do you think I don't like Chopin etudes? Regardless the fact that I did play a good bunch of them, they are part of another league altogether. I will dismiss easy sonatinas as much as Czerny, but I don't think that creates a parallel to deduce that I dismiss Beethoven's as well.

In the end, what matter is what works. And I'm glad to see someone standing for a complete different opinion. It normally results in a complete different piano playing, and the pianists I most like normally are very distant from my own playing. 

Best regards,
Jay.

[jackiew1]

Seems it's a personal preference to learn with more etudes or more directly from repertory. But for the etude books, the Czerny series still have good value, it's the most complete series, got many etude books for different study.

As a non-professional learner, I should still follow the traditional route with selected Czerny etudes as it works for many people, and also learn some nice work from repertory.

[jackiew1]

1 or 2 hours is probably the time I can spend on practicing piano as a non-professional learner. So I have to select the essential pieces from the Czerny etude books.

[pianisten1989]

Then, again, pick the ones that you'll have most troubles with.

[jackiew1]

Sure, with 1 or 2 hours per day, maybe I try to focus on half of the pieces from the etude books ( say Czerny 599/849/299) which help me more.

[riverain]

There is a list of essential pieces of Czerny 599, found at a Chinese forum, hope it helps.

19、20、22、26、27、36、38、40、33、30、29、34、47、61、44、41、49、51、45、55、56、60、65、68、66、69、54、70、71、72、73、82、80、74、75 and 90-100.