Anyone an help me with exercises besides Czerny and Hanon?

[lousyplayer]

I was wondering if there are other books out there besides these two 'clowns'. I'm sick of doing the same thing over and over, its such a bore. Need something creative. Thanks

[49410enrique]

i am picking up again (i'd started a while back but got deraield so i'm starting over ) on the

20 minute 'intermediate' piano workout book by rivas. do not let the name fool you, rivas is an incredible pianist and i think he , though he put a very well laid out book together, misnamed this, i would classify most of the book on the late intermediate early advanced side of things so if you work out of it, i'd just take my time to learn each exercise and 'bonus' piece for each week with however long it takes do not feel you need to complete all exercises and pieces in the 20 minutes per day each day (i.e. no need to finish in 1 week, take as long as you need).

really good stuff in there.

https://www.amazon.com/The-20-Minute-Intermediate-Piano-Workout/dp/0943748445

[lousyplayer]

Thanks thats really helpful

[49410enrique]

Thanks thats really helpful

you're welcome, another thing you might consider is making a habit of 'our daily bach', (my little pun on 'our daily bread'), i'd pick a nice invention or sinfonia (3 voice invention they are also called) and perhaps start and end the day with time spent there, i.e use it for warm up and review it before you call it quits for the day, this way you're getting incredible technique and music work in while warming up and before you know it you have a nice work in your repertorie once yo uhave it memorized and sufficiently learned move on to the next but try to always to keep some new bach (fugues too ) in there it'll pay of in spades i start and finish with my 3 voice invention right now, i took it off my repertorie list since i consider it technique work right now

[krajcher]

Hello,

I am new to this forum but I am wondering why there are so many topics with Czerny and Hanon and why so many people practise it? It is soooooo boring!

[lousyplayer]

yeah, I know. The thing is you have to do it right, you're suppose to increase speed you know that right? nevertheless I hate it too.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Why don't you try making up your own exercises?  Do you do scales? 

My teacher says that if I ever get tired of Czerny, just make something up.  Or you can take sections of really difficult pieces and just practice them to perfection.  For example, I take some passages of Petrouchka and just screw around with them tell I get them 100%

How about you try something that you hope to play one day but can't yet, and just screw around with that!  So when later on you get the ability to play whatever you hope in your dreams to play, it'll be easier.

[lousyplayer]

thats actually a good idea, take the craziest piece ever and divide it in parts and repeat till I drop dead!

[krajcher]

From my experience I can say that little preludes, two-part inventions and other Bach's music can be great replacement for that crap. It improves technique as well as Hanon and Czerny; in addition playing it is a pleasure, because it is just beautiful music.

From my point of view it's impossible to exercise technique and cantabile playing separately.

[music_doctor]

I think i might be the only one who does this  . I exercise with bach pieces-mostly inventions and preludes. My favourite warm up piece is solfegietto 

[iratior]

Bach little preludes and two-part inventions are great to practice and get warmed up with.  One thing to do just for the structure of it is to work on being able to play a little prelude in all the keys (that is, all the major keys if the prelude is major, similarly for minor).  Similarly for two-part inventions.  This helps you sense better how it should feel to play in various keys.  You can also take hard passages from works in general and see how it is to transpose them.  Of course, sometimes the difficulty gets just unreal.  Try transposing Chopin 10/2 to B-flat minor.

[ciscoj33]

I was wondering if there are other books out there besides these two 'clowns'. I'm sick of doing the same thing over and over, its such a bore. Need something creative. Thanks

If you're looking for other exercises, Liszt has a set of technical exercies and so does Brahms.  Rafael Joseffy has an Advanced School of Piano Playing as well.  If you really want to exercise technique, these three alone will be a good start.  And like some of the others said, make up your own exercises.  You can do staggered chords up and down the keyboard, parallel and staggered octaves at low and high speed, the music of both Bach and Mozart are good for passage playing, and the music of Beethoven, especially his sonatas, are good for playing with FIRE! 

[lousyplayer]

If you're looking for other exercises, Liszt has a set of technical exercies and so does Brahms.  Rafael Joseffy has an Advanced School of Piano Playing as well.  If you really want to exercise technique, these three alone will be a good start.  And like some of the others said, make up your own exercises.  You can do staggered chords up and down the keyboard, parallel and staggered octaves at low and high speed, the music of both Bach and Mozart are good for passage playing, and the music of Beethoven, especially his sonatas, are good for playing with FIRE! 

actually I found Hanon III which is a bit more challenging. I thought there were only 2 volumes don't know why. I also remember playing 'Crammer'(i think) about 15 years ago. But can't find it anywhere now.

[p2u_]

Anyone can help me with exercises besides Czerny and Hanon?

I find "Isidor Phillip - Exercises for Independence of the Fingers" one of the best, but I can recommend it only if you don't have small hands.

Paul