From all I've beem reading about technique exercises about Hanon and Pischna,

[ssjbartsimp]

and all the complaints about them hurting you, I gotta say a lot of people are... overreacting? There's only 60 exercises in both of them and if you commited yourself to learning 5 a day you could have it all done within a month. And don't listen to people when they say transpose Hanon to all 12 keys. If you already do Pischna you don't have to transpose Hanon since Pischna was nice enough to write it all out for you. But seriously, spend a month learning them all, spend another practicing them, and you're done forever. Then after that it's just a matter of learning repitiore which is realtively easy after all the Hanon and Pischna. You're techincal exercises after that become pure scales and arpeggios.
I also think we should take advice from the greatest piano player there ever was, Oscar Peterson, who said "technique is rhythm." So just practice with a damn metrenome. A great way to practice  is the way the great Benny Green thought me. Have on hand a metrenome that you can tap the tempo into. Then choose a song and play a couple measures of it at a tempo that is comfortable for you. Learn the piece or section perfectly at this tempo, and then speed up or slow down the BPM as required and learn it perfectly at that new tempo, which is a relatively easy task.
This also works great for sightreading. When sightreading a new song find what tempo is comfortable and then speed it up a small margain to make it challenging. (e.g. 70 BPM is fairly comfortable for you, so I speed it up to 85 BPM.)

Anyway, back to the point, these two schools of playing don't take that long to learn (at the slowest tempo) and don't take that long to perfect (up to the highest tempo) and then you never have to look at them again. And after learning them there is really nothing you can't play.

[krystellle]

uhm, a bit over simplified, maybe?  There's much more to technique than just learning pischna and hanon.  Although it's a great starting point.

[mcdiddy1]

For someone who has never done Hanon, learning 5 a day with both hands can be very time consuming and challenging. I was teaching a student the other day who could not stop blurring certain notes and has issues playing both hands together . People with different backgrounds struggle with different things so complete beginners( or people who do not practice) would struggle to do that.

I agree with what you say about Hanon though. Once you are done with them, you do not need need to do them anymore and you can put them down for good.

I think that Oscar Peterson quote " technique is rhythm" should not be taken literally. You have to look at who is making the statement. When you reach a level of Oscar Peterson, you do not think of piano technique in the strictest sense, you think of the music, rhythm, etc. You can play something in rhythm but have very weak technique.

You can do all the whole Hanon book and Pischna but when someone puts a Chopin etude you will struggle just like the next person because finger exercises do not prepare you for learning how to play using your wrist, arms, and shoulders. People do not learn Hanon in a month ( if only it was that easy for them). They usually take one or two years.  Compare that with someone who has been learning Clementi Studies ( where they learn finger technique, arm weight, using the wrist, etc) and a variety of pieces that highlight specific areas of piano technique, that person would at least be better prepared to take on more advance music even after a year or so of study.

I think you have a good point though. If you are dedicated enough you can success in piano using either of these two paths. Oscar Peterson and Rachmaninoff all used Hanon and were not scared for life. You just must be dedicated to improving at your craft, start young, have a good teacher and you can go very far regardless if you choose Hanon or repertoire ( all though I think repertoire gets the edge over Hanon)