What are ABC exercises ?

[guezeg]

Hi,
i've read in many posts about the "ABC exercises" that are supposed to be played in a very relaxed manner and help to improve your tone and control. What are these ? Any reference to find the score ?
Thank you !

[brogers70]

Not sure about a score. Here's what I remember from those posts from some years ago. You can do the exercises in either hand; I'll explain for the RH. As you say, you keep the hand as relaxed as possible.

First, just play CDEFGFEDC with the regular fingering 123454321.

Next, shift your thumb to the space between fingers 2 and 3, and play the same notes CDEFGFEDC, but use the fingering, 213454312.

Then move your thumb farther over and play the same sequence of notes using the fingering 231454132.

Then 234151432, and if you are really relaxed, 234515432.

The next thing is to do the same thing with parallel 3rds. So C/E D/F E/G D/F C/E. As above you start with your fingers in the usual position and play 1/3 2/4 3/5 2/4 1/3. Then you shift the thumb as above and play
2/3 1/4 3/5 1/4 2/3; then 2/1 3/4 1/5 3/4 2/1; and you continue the pattern as above.

If you are a masochist you can do it with parallel fourths, C/F D/G C/F

You have to really focus on relaxation. It's also a trip for your brain to try to control your fingers when they are not in the order that seems natural.

I heard great things about this exercise here, and I worked on it until I got pretty good at it. I think it did help me in handling complex contrapuntal fingerings, a bit, anyway. And it was fun to work on. It was not the breakthrough technical exercise for me that it was for the guy who first posted it. But why not? A few minutes a day is unlikely to hurt, and you might find it helpful.

[guezeg]

OK, I see. I'll try to do what you explained :-) Thank you !

[lelle]

I remember the user who posted those exercises! Like the internet detective I am, I found the instructional videos for you. First I found the original topic on the exercises: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=54246 It leads to a blog which is now a dead link: https://the-music-blog.com/ However, with wayback machine, I can find the posts mentioned: https://web.archive.org/web/20141218071309/https://the-music-blog.com/ The post for exercise A lead me to a vimeo account where the videos are still available, here they are:

Exercise A: https://vimeo.com/85881408 https://vimeo.com/85884267
Exercise B: https://vimeo.com/85934881
Exercise C: https://vimeo.com/85948981

You need to make a vimeo account to be able to view the videos. When I signed up, vimeo asked me for my credit card info to make a payment plan, but I could just ignore that and go to the videos after the account was created and then I could view them.

These looks like exercises you need to be careful with, make sure your hands feel relaxed and comfortable while doing them! You can read some instructions from the original poster of the exercises further down in the topic I linked. Good luck!

[guezeg]

Thank you so much for the video links ! You're the best