making up lost ground

[pianowelsh]

I was unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it deprived many years of early study with the works of Czerny (a much lamented fact by my current teacher!!!) I am currently studying the mendelssohn trio and my teacher feels that I need to make up for the fact that I had in my early training a gap in pure finger work. Do you guys have suggestions as to how or indeed whether I should do this? I hasten to say that my fingerwork is not generally bad but obviously a work like the mendelssohn Dminor shows up any imperfections that there may be and that simply wont do  - so any help is much appreciated!

[shasta]

Yay!  The Mendelssohn D minor!   

I guess Czerny couldn't hurt, but what exactly about your technique (according to your teacher) is "missing"??  Maybe isolate that first.  In keeping with the same vein, Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words each present their own technical challenges that are valuable technique-builders, may translate to the trio better, would be much more fun to learn/play, and would ultimately be more valuable to your repertoire (over Czerny, in my opinion).  Just a thought.

[IllBeBach]

I haven't heard you and don't know your teacher, who I'm sure has good intentions and helps you (or you wouldn't be studying with him/her, right?). I can only speak from my only experiences. 
     I probably wasted 10 or more years with with teachers that told me I lacked "finger training"; as a result, I did hours of Hanon, Czerny, Pishna--you name it, I did it!  I believe that some is probably good but often I find, especially in older teachers that it is over-emphasized.  After all those years of finger study I still didn't have the control over my technique that I wanted.  It wasn't until I studied with a student of Vladimir Viardo's that I found the primary problems for my technique that I had were not finger training but rather over-emphasis on finger usage.  I was not using weight transferred from my body though my arms into my fingers to help me, also I didn't allow enough free range of movement in my wrists and arms.  Essentially, I'd been so trained to focus on finger movements that I did not have concept of natural physical movements that involve larger muscles of the body.  Don't let this happen to you. 

    Really I think Czerny is a waste of time anyway.  Boring worthless music!  If you need finger exercises play scales in rhythms, 3rd's, 6th's, and 10ths, and a nice selection of Bach inventions, preludes and fugues.  I think that's plenty.  If you feel you need more a little Hanon probably wouldn't hurt as a warm-up each day--but surely there are passages from great works of music that would serve as well....?

     Another finger exercise of my own is just to do chromatic 5-finger patterns up and down the keyboard, like those that choirs and singers do.  You can rearrange the patterns to make it more or less complex for the fingers.  It seems to feel good for my fingers when I warm up.

[steinwayguy]

Finger exercises are a complete waste of time. Figure out what problems you're having in the piece, and develop exercises to solidify your technique in each place. Remember, there's a different technique for every measure.

[LVB op.57]

I've found that Hanon, Czerny, and other books of the kind were mostly useless to me. They have some good exercises, but they won't improve your technic as much as you're lead to believe.
For my own finger excercises, I play all 36 scales daily, scales in tremolo octaves, and another finger exercise which includes all intervals for 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, and 1-5. My teacher gave me this exercise, which she's been swearing by for years, and it does work. The key to finger exercises like these are to play SLOWLY AND WITH HIGH FINGERS.  Few people realize that slow practice leads to fast playing, and practicing that way is necesarry for a thoroughly developed technic.

[lostinidlewonder]

48 Preludes and Fugues from Bach, 24 Etudes from Chopin, 12 Trascendentale Etudes by Liszt hold the structure for most serious musicians worldwide. I would also include 24 Preludes of Debussy, Chopin Preludes, Scriabin Etudes/Preludes but that is my prefference.

Of course we don't do all of them, you have your whole life to learn them all so it isn't a rush to study them all at once, but these should always be under the hand and mind together with other musical adventures your teacher or yourself take. Which ones to choose depends on what you need to target in your keyboard technique, I couldn't start guessing what you need to do unless i sat and listened to you play.

[rachmaninoff_969]

I must agree with my fellow pianists with regards to the uselessness of most finger exercises.  Isolate your problem.  May I suggest Dohnanyi' set of finger exercises.  They isolate the most difficult technical problems of piano playing.  Study these for one year and I guarantee that your technique will wow your teacher and your listeners alike.  This is coming from someone who detests technical exercises and constantly advocates their elimination from daily practicing.  Just try it, you won't be disappointed.

-D

[SDL]

Who is your teacher - you have had Benjamin Frith for coaching (I am having him at the moment) - who do you have now? I have to say I had coaching with Hanon & Brahms studies in my University years.  Finger excersises is OLD school.  You really should read "On piano playing" by Gyorgy Sandor who is adament (amont other masters - tobias matthay, adele marcus etc) that the way to play piano is quite rightly by making the best use of your apparatus (arm, wrist, upper arm, shoulder, chest, diaphragm) with gravity, weight and speed.  If you line your fingers up respectively with the guiders that run through your forearm you use greater muscles than the small muscles in your fingers which when rigorously excersised causes tendonitis, ganglion etc.  If you think about it - NO ONE can play all the chopin etudes in one sitting by using pure finger muscle - its IMPOSSIBLE.  Hanon are purely finger building exersises (and any teacher worth their salt wont teach this).  The best studies (sorry!) are Chopin.  Because they make you solve the technical problems with the use of wrist, arm etc mentioned above.  Liszt transcental are also good but not as good as the Chopin.  They are hard but you cant play chopin on pure finger muscle alone.  You only use what you have already but co-ordinate the bigger muscles with the smaller ones.

Hope this helps.  Interested to know who your teacher is though and where you are based - its a small world!

[SDL]

also...Why learn Czerny when you can learn the techniques you need in musch greater works!

[pianowelsh]

I have to say having sightread through op740 this week that there not as bad musically as all that - ok they are not inspired in the main but they are very effective and tunefull unlike Hanon Beringer Brahms exercises. To be honest I don't know what my problem is First I had a Russian teacher who told me its all about arm weight at that my technique was rubbish because it was all finger weight and then I had a British teacher who tells me i use my arms too much and don't concerntrate enough with the fingers. One said don't do finger excersizes and just assigned me challenging repertoire - which felt like always being on the knife edge and the other teacher says that im wasting my time because i should have done Czerny exercises for years already and i need to make up my finger work big time. I am now in a position where although I have reasonably good control of fingers and arm that the control is not effortless and 100 percent reliable. Clearly I want to fix this but I am now confused as to how to do this best - Noone really seems to know! I often think to teach oneself is the best option teachers can unfortunately confuse things. I should point out that I worked almost exclusively from pieces until I was 17 my first technical excersize books were handed to me at 18 (Beringer and Hanon) and I had to aquire and shore up a finger technique in less than a year - Hellish practice) I didn't study etudes until my pre college tutor assigned me the first 2 of op740 Czerny and a couple of Chopin etudes so I have had to cram a lot into a short upward curve! For those of you that know the exam system ABRSM I am currently (last 4 years) repertoire of around the LRSM level but as my teacher points out I tend to prefer intellectual challenges as to purely physical ones (i wouldn't say its so much a preference  - more of 'thats what you can do because your technique is not good') kind of thing. Having said that I have now played through most of the Chopin etudes and have tackled pieces which are quite finger intensive ie Chopin Scherzo1 etc. I am frankly now though fed up of being sent pillar to post  - when all is said and done I just want to play with musical and technical assurance whatever i play and if that means developing finger (pure) technique then i'll do it but HOW best to is the question.   Thanks for your replies Guys   Sorry for getting a bit steamed but you can imagine its a stress right now!

[SDL]

But you didnt say who you are studying with? and where?  did you not want to tell me - Im just interested to know as you live in the UK obviously!

[pianowelsh]

sorry SDL i have a policy of not naming previous or current teachers/institutions positively or negatively - the world is WAY too small But Yes at the moment Im in the UK.

[SDL]

Oh ok Pianowelsh 

personally I think it would be a good idea to share experiences about teachers so that we dont all go and pay out loads of money trying different teachers out if they are not suitable for our personal needs (eg tried that method).  It gets around by word of mouth anyway since the music world is incestuous - also you have a username to stop being identified - just a thought! 

[whynot]

I think you are wise in not naming your teachers at this point.   As long as you're still going through these very rigorous years of training and exams, where many teachers have to approve your work along the way etc... If you were older, I see SDL's very good point about the forum group benefitting from one another's experiences, but it seems that you're in a vulnerable position just now.  Anyway, back to playing:  I'm sympathetic to your dilemma here.  Whom to trust???  I don't really have technical advice, since there are so many who play so much better than I do.  A great many on this forum, I'm sure.  But here's a theory:  as a general sifting process, I think it's important to recognize that people who DO things well can't always explain how they do them.  Forgetting for a moment all the blah-blah-blah from your teachers, are there any among them who just seem to PLAY naturally and easily themselves?   Someone who plays a lot every day and never seems to get tired, who learns new pieces quickly, doesn't have to do a passage hundreds of times to figure out the technique for it... a good problem-solver in his or her own playing who seems strong but flexible while playing.  There are people who just do things naturally well, or learned it well so long ago that they don't know how they know it.  And then there are people who had to fight through barriers and really solve problems in order to do the thing well.  Either one can be a good role model, but if you know which teacher is which, you might respond differently to their advice.  The people who had problems initially can be great teachers because they had to learn solutions which they can teach you.  The problem is, if their obstacles were different from yours, they might be giving the solution to their problem, not your own.  The "naturals" and freakishly talented are great if you can figure out what they're actually DOING.  The problem with them is they often don't know, so you have to be a detective, keep asking questions and keep watching.  What they say might be the opposite of what they do (not on purpose, of course), and if they're great, you want to do what they do, not what they say.  It's a sticky wicket, but you sound really smart.  Best of luck...

Final thought, I still can't tell exactly what your teacher wants to hear in your "pure finger work," or what you think you should be able to do that you can't.  You may have spelled it out and I forgot-- sorry.  But Bernhard has written some fantastic things about practicing at tempo really early in a piece, to figure out physically how to manage hard passages in the most efficient way.  Maybe I should have just started with that!  I don't know how to tell you to find it, but someone will know.  I must echo all the people encouraging using "real", beautiful music to work on technique.  Life is short, there's a lot of great music out there that we won't even get to in our lifetimes.  But we can try!