The Pischna Project

[cmg]

Yes, you read that correctly.  I'm tackling the notorious, controversial "Sixty Progressive Exercises" on the urging of my new teacher, a student of Weissenberg, Brendel, Perahia, and others.  He's a performing artist/composer/arranger and conductor and I'd mention his name, except that it seems to be a violation of privacy, so I won't.

To give you an idea of the level of my playing ability, repertoire with him is Beethoven Opus 31, No 3, Liszt "Waldesrauchen," Chopin "Third Ballade" and a handful of Etudes, Schumann "Faschingsschwank aus Wien," and Debussy "I'isle joyeuse."  I'm an adult amateur who continues to study because I love playing and want to play as well as I can. 

In my lessons, I stumble, as everyone does, over the hard passages that trouble most pianists in the works I'm studying.  I've re-checked, re-fingered, re-analyzed my approach to the keyboard, devised ingenious exercises for the trouble spots in all rhythms and keys, yet the stumbling spots still pop up.  Not always, but enough times to make me feel insecure about my technical grip on the material. 

My teacher spots no problems in my approach to the instrument or my mechanism or my ability to ultimately play these pieces.  That's when he asked me, "What are doing for technical exercises?"  Scales, arpeggios, the Rachmaninov stretching exercises, I said.  "What about Pischna" he asked.  I laughed.  "No," he said quite seriously, "what about Pischna?" I shrugged.  "Try it," he said.  "You'll see immediate results.  Your problem is you don't have the finger strength and independence that you need for greater security.  The literature alone won't give that to you."

Now, like all of you veteran readers of this forum, I've followed the spirited, brilliant and often very insightful debates on the issue of Hanon, Pischna, etc., and all the arguments against it are sensible and sound.  Yet, here is this amazing artist recommending Pischna to me.

So, I'm going to work through the "Sixty Progressive Exercises" and report back.  It will work or it won't.  Maybe my experiment will add some hard, experiential data to the debate.  I'm a doubter, like most of you, but not having worked through these exercises, I can't argue that my opposition is grounded on anything but hearsay.
 
I'll let you know how it goes from time to time.     
     

[kellyc]

Hi: Very good luck with this. I am in total agreement with you , if your teacher , who is in the best position to know recommends it. Whether you use  , Piscna, or Hanon, or Czerny, or Crammer, or Clementi's Gradus, or whatever technical volume your teacher suggests, they are all good if appropriate for the situation and used  correctly.

Kelly

[mike_lang]

Under the guidance of a good teacher, it doesn't sound like a bad idea (although that's quite a bit of Pischna!).  I found it sound advice to play the hands separately.  One is able to concentrate more and results come much more quickly. 

I can't remember any particular exercises, but I assume these all fall in the same category as Dohnanyi and perhaps the F.I. section of Joseffy's exercises?

Hope it's going well so far!
Mike

[miriamko]

I shed many a tear doing those Pischna exercises but I cannot stress enough, how effective they are. I use the Little Pischna with many of my younger students but never more than four bars at a sitting. Let someone else make them cry!!

[cmg]

Thanks for the support!  Well, it's been a little over two weeks now of approximately 40 minutes a day of Pischna -- the first four exercises from the set of Sixty exercises.  My teacher has supervised my approach, approving of how I play them but urging me to really roll back the tempo, keep it steady and play forte with each finger raised and stretched as high as I can before striking the key.  "Don't worry about music here," he advised.  "This is only about independence and strength." 

The result so far?  Short trills in the Beethoven first movement (Opus 31, No. 3) that really work best with the weakest fingers (4 and 5) are not only do-able, but effortless.  The left hand in the Liszt "Waldesrauchen" is steady and rock-solid enough that I no longer worry over it.  And it's at tempo finally!  Double-note passages are more solid and much easier to execute.  Gains in finger independence, already, are noticeable.  Frankly, I'm amazed.  My hands simply feel stronger.

And, yes, I've found faster progress in the Pischna by practicing each hand alone.       

[thalbergmad]

I am happy to hear of your progress and what you have written is sufficient to entice me to have a go with these exercises. Trills are my big weakness and I look forward to be able to play some clear Thalberg in the future.

I always have a little smile on my face when somebody posts something that pisses on the fire of the "anti exercise" brigade.

Thal

[Bob]

Sounds interesting.  I've got those around somewhere.

Is there a certain angle Pischna takes?  Anything it emphasizes? 

[keyboardkat]

My own teacher, the Viennese pianist Walter Hautzig, developed his own technique with Pischna and used it with all his students who needed technical development.   In my own case, I had already done a lot of Dohnanyi and Tausig, so he didn't really push it on me.

As far as Hanon goes, one of my other professors, the late Dr. Konrad Wolff, used to say that Hanon should be given its French pronunciation:  "Ah, no!"

[pytheamateur]

What are the Rachmaninov stretches?  Are they documented anywhere?  I'd love to find out more about them.

Regarding technical exercises, studies etc, I always thought the Russians were very keen on them.  I heard Rachmaninov liked Hanon and read that one of Goldenweiser's students had to spend months learning the entire Czerny Op740 by heart in order to improve her technique.

My teacher is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, so I was rather surprised to hear him say in our first lesson that Czerny is a waste of time.  He told me to play Mozart sonatas instead.  Perhaps he just didn't see any point in putting an amateur through the rigid technical training for which the Russian school is so famous.

[pastlifepianist]

Just the mere mention of Pischna makes my neck seize up! 

[cmg]

What are the Rachmaninov stretches?  Are they documented anywhere?  I'd love to find out more about them.

These stretching exercises are passed down from Adele Marcus who learned of them when she taught Rachmaninov's grandson, who used them to warm up at lessons:

The harmonic framework for the exercises consists of the C Major chord with added sixth, the C minor chord with added sixth, the diminished seventh chord and the next key's dominant seventh chord in first inversion leading to the next key chromatically.  In other words, in each succeeding chord, lower the third, the fifth and the sixth, or their enharmonic equivalents respectively.  E.g., the right hand on high C plays simultaneously C-G (fingers 5-3), then A-E (fingers 4-2), G-C (fingers 3-1), then A-E (fingers 4-2), returning to C-G, then you proceed with the same pattern and fingering but lower the third, then the fifth and then the sixth, modulating down a half step to the next pattern in D-flat Major.  The left hand, played simultaneously is the mirror image beginning at low C-G (fingers 3-5).


The exercises are to be played with fingers raised up straight, coming down curved on the cushions of the fingers.  Play very slowly, low wrist; then fast, repeating each measure four times, accenting the first notes of the measure.

Make sure you keep a flexible wrist, notably the side to side movement to accommodate the position shifts.  A rigid wrist could lead to some tendon problems, so be flexible.