Technique and Finger Exercises

[orgarnic]

What are some good techniques that will be used in lots of classical pieces? Also, what are some good finger exercises for developing these techniques?

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Kind of a basic answer, but:
Czerny Studies
Hanon
Liszt S. 146
Scales + arpeggios

Hope this helps. :)

[lostinidlewonder]

That's random suggestions. The question should be what can you currently play, what is your level what are your goals. Any answer without that is just a random pick from the bag.

[dizzyfingers]

What are some good techniques that will be used in lots of classical pieces? Also, what are some good finger exercises for developing these techniques?

It's a very general question.  More info about your level and experience in piano would be helpful.  Assuming you are an advanced beginner:

Hanon "The Virtuoso Pianist" is a place many beginning students start.  It has about 20-30 basic finger exercises followed by scales, arpeggios, octave scales, exercises in thirds and sixths.  These are baseline techniques for most classical repertoire.  Highly recommended for self-taught beginners.

Czerny op 599 "Practical Method for Beginners" is another book to get.  Will teach more elaborate patterns than the Hanon, also widely applicable.

I would also recommend you start learning easy Bach pieces to develop your technique.  Perhaps the Two Part Inventions.

[kosulin]

The Complete Pianist, by Roskell is a great modern technique reference (and more).
But if you are above the beginner level, it does not make sense IMO to drill through whatever technical exercises except, say, scales and arpeggios during warm up. You should choose exercises that would prepare you for a specific repertory piece you want to learn next.

[orgarnic]

I'm a late beginner(IMO), but it all depends on what scale you use for determining levels. I just finished the 1st movement of Moonlight Sonata, and right now I'm learning more basic pieces such as Clementi's Sonatina in C Major. I already have the Hanon book, and I also have a copy of The School of Velocity by Czerny. Also, is there anywhere I can see a digital form of the practice books you guys have recommended? Thanks for the advice.

[keypeg]

Hanon "The Virtuoso Pianist" is a place many beginning students start. ...

I just finished writing in the other thread and how I ended up with a series of technique related books by Faber that were companion books to the main books.  The last of these is actually on this Hanon, but as a physical guideline.  It continues from the series I described in the other thread that was about pianissimo.  I'd recommend it. Simply playing through things like Hanon and Bach does not give you the technique you need, because who knows how you will be playing the notes.

This is the video that got me to buy the book.  If you want to get at a demo of actual gestures (exaggerated for demo purposes) go to 4:25.  The intro is informative, including that Hanon was an organist, and piano actions were lighter in the day.

This video is superior, and it is done by Mr. Faber himself, as I understand it.

[lostinidlewonder]

Personally and pedagogically, I find his gestures superfluous for Hanon No. 1, even if the aim is to avoid “stiffness.” Hanon is about evenness, finger control, and efficiency of motion, not about adding wrist choreography of the kind he proposes.

My students can play this exercise rapidly, with control and variation, without such rotations. In fact, his approach feels restrictive. For example, if we add accentuation on the 1st and 5th fingers, the rotation becomes awkward since accents are more naturally executed with a drop from above rather than shifting wrist arcs that alter hand height. These rotations also do not automatically reduce tension, especially for beginners, and they limit the flexibility of how the exercise can be applied.

Forcing Hanon to be played in Faber’s way restricts the student from exploring its full potential, such as practicing dotted rhythms, staccato passages, accents in various places, different groupings of notes, or controlled pauses between them, all of which can develop the students technique much more broadly and edge them towards controll in many ways.

You can certainly study what he is suggesting, but it is an alteration of Hanon that is not necessary for playing it well and it narrows the range of skills the exercise can develop if it is treated as the only correct approach. It seems awkward to me to teach such rotations on a solely white note patterns and with such tight positions.

[dizzyfingers]

... I also have a copy of The School of Velocity by Czerny.

I think you'll do better, if you're a late beginner, with the other Czerny book I mentioned, op 599.  SoV, op 299 undertakes some advanced playing techniques pretty quickly.

You mentioned you had a teacher - - what does he/she have to say about these two Czerny books, and other technique books?

[keypeg]

Personally and pedagogically, I find his gestures superfluous for Hanon No. 1, even if the aim is to avoid “stiffness.” Hanon is about evenness, finger control, and efficiency of motion, not about adding wrist choreography of the kind he proposes.

He states that his demonstrations are exaggerations.  When he plays normally they are not really seen.  As an adult who learned wrongly as a child, I have found this very helpful.  While your students may play these kinds of thing effortlessly, that was not the case for me.  This type of music is the type that I played self-taught as a child, and I tend to go back to those motions (or rather, lack thereof), even if not nearly as badly as back then.  There is NO "choreography" if done as intended; it's an awareness building, or it was for me.  I can see, however, that a person might take this verbatim rather than exploratory and experimentally.  I do to the latter.

[lostinidlewonder]

He states that his demonstrations are exaggerations.  When he plays normally they are not really seen.  As an adult who learned wrongly as a child, I have found this very helpful.  While your students may play these kinds of thing effortlessly, that was not the case for me.  This type of music is the type that I played self-taught as a child, and I tend to go back to those motions (or rather, lack thereof), even if not nearly as badly as back then.  There is NO "choreography" if done as intended; it's an awareness building, or it was for me.  I can see, however, that a person might take this verbatim rather than exploratory and experimentally.  I do to the latter.

It makes poor sense to me if what should be done and what is exaggerated have no correlation. The description of these wrist movements are by nature something that is done even if less exaggerated thus limits the exercises potential usage as I described in my previous response. Through his video though I see him rotating his wrists, I didn't catch where he explicitly said to minimise the movement.

My students don't automatically do it perfectly they play with alterations that I mentioned as they personally require which pushes towards that, these which are not possible if you approach the exercise with these rotations.

[keypeg]

It makes poor sense to me if what should be done and what is exaggerated have no correlation. ..... I didn't catch where he explicitly said to minimise the movement.

The idea of exaggeration and then reducing, esp. as an adult, is something that I started exploring years ago, including with my teacher, and there are definitely merits to it.  Meanwhile, when I look at what someone teaches, I go look at a whole bunch of videos so as to get the sense of the person and also what is behind what they do.  The minimize idea is definitely stated by him somewhere.  I thought it was this video but I didn't review the whole thing.  The idea is also brought forth often by Woroniki.

[lostinidlewonder]

My point was exaggerations or not they still are corelated and thus my concern about it remains. If he's encouraging these kind of rotations what is it really teaching other than trying to minimise tension (which can be done in other ways too), minimised movements or not. Im just warning against using the hanon solely in this manner, I think its trying to be too clever for something that can be trained in more diverse and useful ways as I described in earlier post. For beginners here the idea of exaggeration can be confusing especially when he starts the video with exaggerated movements and playing fast. Honestly I'd bet the vast majority of beginners would do these rotations and wonder what it's doing what's its benefit and even if they make these movements, they can still feel tense!