Handy-looking collection of intermediate-to-advanced exercises and etudes

[maxim3]

I am fascinated with technical exercises, and am currently exploring a very large number of them; but my eventual goal is to boil things down to a stock of things to draw on as needed, so I can save time for other things. So it would be handy to have a concise reference. (In fact I'm building one for myself.)

I've just run across an interesting-looking book entitled Technique for the Advancing Pianist: An Essential Collection of Progressive Exercises and Etudes, by Valerie Cisler and Maurice Hinson (Alfred Music, 2005). It consists of brief selections from the vast repertoire of existing exercises and etudes. Among the sources, most of the usual villainous and despicable authors of technical exercises are represented -- Hanon, Liszt, Schmitt, Pischna, Brahms, and so on. But there are other dodgy-sounding names as well.

Perhaps such a carefully chosen small bunch of things, in a single, moderately-sized book, would be efficient and useful. You be the judge.

The book is not free, but you can see the full table of contents here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=BC93AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

It might also be possible to borrow this book from Mr. Internet *cough*Hemingway's first publisher*cough*

[dogperson]

I’m not understanding why you want this as I think your obsession should be ‘Repertoire for the Advancing Pianist’.  You already have Hanon and Czerny, why not just use the repertoire you are learning to pull out exercises from the score itself?  Kills two birds at once ... you have an exercise and you learn wonderful music

Edited to add:  need it? Spend the $12 to buy it as this is new and under copyright

[ted]

I agree with dogperson and would go a step further and suggest you improvise your own exercises couched in the form of real music. My teacher in my youth had me do this every lesson and I have kept on doing it all my life. Somebody else cannot possibly know your physical weaknesses better than you, so you are the best person to create exercises which work on them, and hopefully make some interesting music at the same time. Most of those old fashioned exercises have continuity, uniformity, smoothness, destruction of rhythm and homogeneity of sound as their goals, properties which are lethal to idea generation. We are not computers and ought not to emulate homogeneous sound as our ideal. This is exactly the point Debussy was making in his comments in the excellent link dogperson posted in the other thread.

[klavieronin]

I understand the fascination with exercises and etudes because I used to think the same way but the older I get the more I realise just how little I got out of all those exercises I used to play (and write myself). I always made far more progress from learning real music that I ever did from technical exercises.

In any case, my favourite set of exercises is Rafael Joseffy's 'School of Advanced Piano Playing'. It's on IMSLP if you care to look.

If you want the best of both worlds, however, and you enjoy contemporary music, you might want to take a look at Vincent Persichetti's 'Reflective Keyboard Studies'. It's still under copyright so you'll have to buy a copy but it's well worth it if you ask me. https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/reflective-keyboard-studies-for-piano-sheet-music/1821938

[adodd81802]

"You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain" 

I feel like this can apply to you and your approach to exercises.

Guess who else had a huge collection of exercises - Hanon
Guess who had 0 noteworthy piano compositions .... You guessed it!

Here's what I think would be 1000x more valuable.

Try and learn a piece, get stuck, devise some exercises that helped you learn the piece. Note these exercises down and then republish the piece of music with your exercises as a "student copy" or something along those lines. From here you will see, I am sure, patterns with exercises that then show what are valuable vs what are not.

Alternatively get into teaching. You can get some beginner students, and see where they struggle, because often it is common things - bumpy thumb under, weak 4th / 5th fingers, e.t.c.

Nobody is going to be in awe of hearing you power through the most difficult technical exercises, and despite you thinking mastering exercises alone will make you more confident in your playing... you are wrong.

There are potentially millions of different combinations of notes you can perform on the piano, each of which can be considered an exercise. All the time in the world will not allow you to complete such a task, let alone work out the good exercises from the bad.

Honestly at this point I don't know what's more crazy, that you keep making these posts, or that people such as I keep responding to them. This is my last

[maxim3]

klavieronin, thanks very much (again!) for your useful suggestions.

[maxim3]

klavieronin, I've been examining the Joseffy text. It looks pretty comprehensive.

Of course I understand you use these exercises judiciously and sparingly, devoting most of your time to other things.

Quick question:

Are you at the skill level where you can simply flip through the book and quickly decide on an exercise to do for a few minutes to brush up a particular aspect of technique? In other words, you know the purpose of every exercise, and you can either remember it or re-learn it in seconds, correct?

[klavieronin]

maxim3, no I don't play much anymore except when composing and I never used technical exercises to develop technique. In the past when I was playing a lot, exercises were always for warming up, sight reading, and for practicing transposition. If I needed to brush up on a particular aspect of my technique it was because I was struggling with a passage in a piece of music. To remedy that I just practiced the passage more, not a technical exercise. I did spend a bit of time with Czerny however and I think I got a lot out of that (but not as much as practicing Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, etc.)

The reason I like the Joseffy exercices, is because I think they are quite inventive and, IMHO, reflect the kinds of patterns you find in the repertoire much better than most other books of exercises. The last chapter "Rhythmical Studies" is particularly interesting.

However, as a way to develop a solid technique I really think the whole technical studies approach is flawed. To me it's like learning to speak a language by reading grammar textbooks and drilling in sentence patterns. You'll get something out of it, of course, but your time would be much better spent absorbing yourself in the actual language.

I know technical exercises can be very alluring but mastering a technical exercise will only enable you to play that exercise. What really counts for developing good technique is practicing a lot, learning a variety of pieces, and learning to play them well. Learn to play any three Beethoven Sonatas well and you will get all the benefit, and more, of studying Hanon/Pischna/Joseffy, plus you will have learned three Beethoven Sonatas. How can you go wrong?

[maxim3]

klavieronin, if you're bored with this whole thread, please ignore. I won't be the least bit offended. Otherwise, another question!

In 1917-18, Rachmaninoff, at that point primarily a composer and not a performer, was in debt and needed a reliable income to support himself and his family. In his mid-40s, he decided to embark on a new career as a concert pianist. He was a bit rusty, so he started practicing all day long to prepare for his new direction.

Suppose you were forced, for some reason, to do the same. Imagine you had several months to prepare for your new career. Would you include some Joseffy (or whatever) in your daily practice, or only repertoire?

[klavieronin]

That's a good question. If I was attempting a career as a classical concert pianist I would just use repertoire; plenty of Bach, Chopin études, and some Mozart and Beethoven. If I was trying to become a Jazz pianist or another kind of improvising performer then my practice would have to include a hearty proportion of exercises, played in all keys, then adapted to certain chord progressions, rhythmic patterns, etc.

If I was still learning, i.e. were a beginner, I would still include some exercises in my practice but not for technical development. I would use them as a way of becoming familiar with common patterns played in any key. I would take simple exercises (maybe just two or three at a time) and transpose them into every key, major and minor. I wouldn't aim to play them fast but I would aim to become comfortable playing them in any key. I would choose exercises simple and small enough that I wouldn't need too much time learn them and could move on to the next one relatively quickly. I would also devise my on warm-up exercise based on exercises I find most useful. Something 3-5 minutes long would be plenty.