I have decided that I will get a distinction (or at least high merit) for my grade 8 exam which is probably at Easter, seeing as it is the last chance i have at getting one and it would also be useful to have the extra ucas points next year, to make up for the awful computing grade i seem doomed to getting.

Basically, where i generally fall down is the fact that i can never quite play notes fast/securely enough. So what i've decided to do is study the Hanon stuff strictly as it says in the book. The only problem is that whenever i've done this before, i've lacked the will power to get very far, so i normally end up giving up just as i start to see an improvement (generally lasts up to about a week).

So, i thought, if there was anyone who is in a similar position to me, fancies a challenge, or really enjoys playing the hanon exercises, we could 'worship' hanon at the same time, and therefore be able to motivate each other into getting further than we might otherwise.

Thats all....Anyone fancy it? Or am i the only person mad enough

Sarah

Have you tried the Tankard books? They are a lot better.

Could be...

Sorry - flippant answer. Take a look at the Technique thread in viva piano. What got me a break-through with the pupil I was originally talking about actually made a difference with one the next night as well! Playing quickly is really down to more than endless practice, and you might end up just hurting yourself if your technique isn't good.

(I'm not a big fan of Hanon, though I know others are. I think it can be done by just playing music.)

I've never heard of the tankard books, so maybe i'll look into them.

It's not that i don't like Hanon (i asked for the book for a birthday present a couple of years ago), it's more that i run out of motivation a bit too quickly because it takes a while to get the first couple sorted, then i think, after that, you should progress more quickly. I just tend to get fed up (not really fed up, but i can't quite find the right word) with them before i can reach this stage.

i hope that explains my situation a bit better. The idea was just that it might be easier to get past the slow beginning bit and on to the more interesting bit if more than one person were doing it at the same time and could sort of egg each other on. Does that make sense?

Go on then! I've been looking for an excuse to get back into Hanon. Was doing 1-10 religiously every day prior to my grade 3 there, then I wandered off into the scales section, got lost near the chromatics, and wound up doing the splits (definately un-hanon, takes longer to explain than do really...)

Do them "super-fast" my old teacher exclaimed... then when your forearms start to burn, shake them out and start again. Sounds like a shortcut to tendonitis really, but might give me the necessary filip to do my grade 5...

To increase the speed I was doing them with the metronome and increasing the tempo a notch at a time.

I know. Sad eh? It's piano for OCD's!

I LOVE Hanon When I returned to piano after 40 years, my fingers were very very stiff, poor stretch and little flexibility. Before I started lessons, I spent 6 months doing nothing but Hanon (well, there was nothing else I could do) and while I still need to develop further and Teacher is moving me on to Czerny's velocity studies, I still come back to Hanon. A week away from the piano and I need to do a lot of work to get back to where I was at - but it is worth it.

Hey - I love Hanon and it was a major part of my regular practice regime leading up to Gr 8 - which I did gain a distinction for, I am proud to add. An AB examiner friend of mine took a prac mus. course for six teachers in our area and she swore by it - it was part of her regular practice regime as well. I got to the point that if I left it for a day, I could tell the next day - things just didn't flow so well. It's akin to an athlete missing their training sessions. I only used the first 30 exercises though and did four a morning, two or three times through. Another tip this lady gave for improving speed is to play all scales, arps, etc to both doted rhythms - also does wonders for legato playing !

I used to use Hanon and Dohnanyi - loved the former, hated the latter!!! Still use Hanon from time to time as a quick warm-up for cold fingers......

my teacher told me that if you do Hanon exercises correctly you might see some improvement

but he says the damage they can do if you dont do them correctly outweighs the potential good they can do. he says they often make people too tense, and doesnt leave them with much finger and wrist flexibility.

i have to do the Feuchtwanger exercises- they look at being as relaxed as possible when playing and getting the correct movements. they arent half as boring as Hanon

Every now and again I get the book out and do it as it tells you - building up the speed slowly and playing them fast eventually etc..

I prefer playing scales or just finding pieces that use certain techniques.

I find the rest of the family don't appreciate Hanon...it seems to put them in bad form

YAY!! someone else has finally accepted...ok, it starts tomorrow...

I play Hanon book one most days and bits of the rest: I think it helps with stamina as much as anything, though to start with at least I did find it helpful with speed. However, once I got book one up to a metronome setting of 108 & got over the problems relating to no longer having to go prestissimo (I kept getting ahead of the metronome and being so used to being behind I would try to speed up and catch up) I found that wrist flexibility was compromised, though finger mobility is great - they are five finger execises after all. These days I don't play them every day - that (5 finger exercises) is what I was learning Bach for!

I like to use Hanon as warm up.
I try to do one from the first 20 followed by one fron 21-31.
I do them twice each hands separately then twice hands together. Then I do some arpeggios too. This gives me something like a 20 minute warm up which is enough. If I spent aqn hour on Hanon I wouldn't have either the stamina or concentration let to do some "proper" practice as well.
If I've not been very fluent with one I'll stay with the same one for 2 or 3 days.
I do find it makes a difference to my playing and I generally play better when I've kept it up for a week or 2.

This is encouraging me to get back to it! Having just been pipped at the post in my DipABRSM this summer, I have found it difficult to get into doing serious practice. But I'll get back into it on Sunday!

Nooo! I hate Hanon! I liked it to start with, but my teacher told me to do 45 minutes of it every day if I wanted to improve. I ended up with RSI as a result.

- She was a very old fashioned teacher and was a fan of...the ruler

Tomorrow then! (Hmm - just like the old diet )

Been a while, so 1-5 for me, HS then HT. Be like riding a bike, or falling off a log or summat, soon be up to speed I'm sure

Remember to shake and flap yer arms if they get stiff (You may wish to do this in private!)

Here we go...

I'm gonna start with 1-5 too until i get back into it. May have to spend a while on LH because its awful at the moment.

The work starts here... my teacher had better notice a difference in my playing after half term.

I don't like Hanon either - they're pretty boring exercises after all, but then I don't particularly like scales and arpeggios either. However, if by playing them I can gain something then it's worth doing. I'll put up with the boring bits in Hanon or elsewhere in order to get to the sublime bits and have a chance of being able to play them when I get there. As for 45 minutes I think that is probably too much, particularly if you don't build up to it. If you do book 1 at full speed (crotchet = 108) it takes about 20 minutes once-through. If you can't do it at full speed then do what you can for 20 minutes. Then move on to something else. In my case scales and arpeggios.

Which reminds me: Time for Hanon . . .

Ok, last post at 10.15, it's now 10.41 so a minute to set up the keyboard and find the music, a couple of minutes after no.12 to make a cup of coffe and let the fires in my forearms die dow, then a minute to come back to this: Certainly less than 25 minutes for the whole of book 1. Mind you it must be more days than I remember since the last time: Some of that was awful and a couple of exercises had to be played through more than once, accuracy being more important than speed. Still - now it's time for scales and arpeggios. Ho Hum! The inventions and sinfonias, then Beethoven & Debussy. Then sight reading something. Then maybe some Mozart, some Chopin, some Gershwin . . . (at this point I, Robodoc disolve into a dream world where I can actually play!)

Edit - it obviously took me 6 minutes to write this post!

personally i can think of more productive things to do with 20 mins...

I'd go with this opinion too.

I was thinking of this post when I read of fires in your forearms Robodoc...that doesn't sound good?!?!?

surely 'fires in your forearms' isn't necessarily bad. Isn't it like when you've been running or something and your legs 'burn', but just because they've been working hard, not because they're hurt. Isn't it this kind of exercise that is crucial to building muscles or something (i think thats right). After time it doesn't hurt so much because you've built the necessaary muscles for doing the exercise (in this case, the muscles are in your arms and the exercise is fast hanon stuff). From my previous hanon experience, your arms don't feel nearly so bad once they've been doing the exercise for a few days.

This may be completely wrong, but it's what i thought happened.

exactly so.

I'll join in I'm playing some Schubert and Mozart at the moment, so I need to have strong fingers...

Was planning to get into it to get my fingers back working after my holiday but I've somhow managed to injure a finger so it will have to be mostly left hand practice for a day or two and only light work with the right until it's properly recovered.

I am concentrating on trying to do a trill (over 3 or more bars) that doesn't sound like a herd of elephants. Teacher has recommended Czerny velocity studies which he prefers over Hanon as they are 'more interesting and more musical'. Maybe it is something to do with my approach or something, but I like exercises that are exercises. Even though I am learning each of the Czerny studies, and they are helping, when I am wanting to have loose flexible fingers a) I return to Hanon and b) I treat Czerny like Hanon and use whatever is the exercise part for one hand - and do it hands together.

my teacher banned hanon because I do them on auto-pilot. At first he got me to transpose them
then play them a tenth apart but once I get the pattern it's back on automatic.
so it was more of a zen meditation exercise in staying focussed than a technical exercise.
Ditto standard scales, I have this routine where I rattle off the majors and harmonic minors in a particular
sequence with joining up flit-de-loodles and if you stopped me randomly I wouldn't know what scale I was doing.

anyway now for my fingers I'm doing a devilish Alkan miniature...stop thinking and you've had it.
Plus it has to have "poetry"....and a more passionate left hand I'm told

I don't see how doing them on autopilot is a problem IF you're getting something out of doing them (e.g. stamina/strength). However, one problem is that practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent, so if you're doing them wrong you will just develop a very well grooved mistake. In that sense they are no different to scales, arpeggios or any other exercise or work.

I have the Czerny "School of velocity" book - the title was poorly translated from the German apparently- doesn't actually refer to 'velocity' in an " as fast as your fingers can go " framework.

Hanon is more accessible for a novice like myself, and providing your don't go overboard (keeping Hanon + scales excercises to 15mins or so in a 1hr piano session) then you can't do too much harm.

Having said that (!) at the weekends I get to play my acoustic piano - hence forearms are twitching at the weekends - whereas during the week I play a Yamaha digital piano, much easier I feel...

hanon and scales in 15 mins?!?! how?!?!

i had a look at the school of velocity stuff once, but i saw the metranome mark (twice the speed of hanon) and gave it up as a bad job pretty much straight away.

10 minutes Hanon, 5 minutes scales - or the other way around. Won't do a lot in that time but will warm you up.

I know what you mean, BUT: Some of the Chopin studies are marked crotchet = 172 or thereabouts. I know I can't. I also know that on the recordings I have neither does anyone else (including Ashkenazy). I know I want to. That's why I practice. It's also why I choose to be guided by a teacher.

I reckon the thinking behind this was to prevent me obsessing about scales and Hanon! Plus I'm only a lowly grade compared to lofty grade 7-ers like you To ensure I covered all my scales, arpeggios etc, I wrote down each one that I required for the exam on a separate piece of paper and put them into a hat on the left of the piano. Then I plucked out one at random and when finished with it put it into another hat on the right of the piano... etc, etc when the left hat was empty I began the process again. If I could only snatch an hour at the piano every day then it would take ages to get through everything, but if I sat at the piano for three hours then that was equivalent to 45mins scales and hanon if you see what I mean.

Maybe I should get out more....

How do you guys break up your practice routine then?

Don't go getting obsessed with scales and Hanon!
This is about music!
Practice routine - I come and go between boiling spuds, asking spellings and sometimes settle and really enjoy with a glass of wine or cup of tea. But I only practise 'music'. I enjoy sight-reading, and often take a 'quick study' to see what I can do with it in five minutes, but other than that I focus on whatever bit of my current pieces is the 'worst'. Until that bit gets better and then a different bit becomes the worst! If something's giving me particular bother I'll try to find another, easier, piece of music that has that particular technical requirement in it, and just practise that bit of it for a while until I feel like I'm getting somewhere - then I go back to what I'm really working on.

I'm not saying that the likes of Hanon doesn't work; it will work for some, but it would bore me senseless, and I think and the same gain can be achieved with less monotony and more focus from real music.

Hanon!

Well, it's good for warm-ups, but the irony is in how it says that it is ideally suited for those that do not have a lot of time on their hands (pardon the pun) - yes, you only need to play 2 hours daily Hanon to achieve the remarkable results it talks of!

I think it's best just to go through them and use them as a warm-up rather than studying them with complete dedication. Dohnanyi, I actually thought was quite good - it is much harder to master an exercise than Hanon, but it addresses the problems directly - so once you've done it, you've got it forever. But it's not particularly pleasant on the ears!

In that respect, I'd work through Dohnanyi until I could play all the exercises (but not repeat exercises on a daily basis), and use Hanon just as a brief warm-up.




I think the point about not doing it in auto-pilot is if you are trying to improve the connection from your brain to your lesser used fingers (4th and 5th) - if you're not really thinking what you're doing with them, then you still can't connect with them - if that makes any sense. I think that in the Dohnanyi book, it says at the beginning something about thinking about what each finger is doing, rather than just letting them do the work subconsciously.

~Wobby~

I'm not sure if I am going to go as far as worshipping it but have to do it because my teacher is having a baby and won't be back until next term and the first 10 Hanon studies have to be learnt perfectly by the time she is back. I'll join you all. I practised No. 5 last night with separate hands quite slowly on the keyboard as I do not think the neighbours appreciate it on the piano.

Depending on how much time i have, it will go something like this:

20-30 mins Hanon

20-30 mins scales (probably 2 starting notes worth, then i rotate the different notes through the week)

if i have lots of time, a load of playing ramdom music

more hanon/scales

'proper pieces'





i tried doing this, but couldn't find a hat big enough for all the G8 scales I had to resort to numbering them all and using my calculator to generate random numbers.

There was no suggestion I was doing anything incorrectly, otherwise I've have been told to concentrate on
getting them right. I think the point was that "mindless" practice is, well, mindless! Actually I wasn't so much mindless
as hypnotised...it's strange to explain, but the repetitive highly patterned sound put me into a trance. This can happen
even with a proper piece if I get into the "pattern" of it (the overall pattern).

As for 3rd, 4th and 5th fingers, I'd rather make my own Hanon exercise based on bits from my current pieces
that I want to get more fluent, and indeed I think that's what Hanon did but for Baroque pieces only maybe?
It seems baroque-based to me. Aren't Czerny exercises based on and designed for fluency in Beethoven
sonatas?

I wasn't trying to suggest that you were playing it incorrectly either, just that if you play them mindlessly, then doesn't it reduce the benefits, unless you are purely going for physical improvement? Hanon was from the Romantic Era I think... wait, he's French, so does that mean his name is pronounced 'Ano-h'? But his exercises do sound quite Baroque-y! I've never come across the Czerny exercises before, so am not sure what they're like... I wonder what a Romantic based exercise book would be like, though - would it be cross-rhythms in semi-atonality?

~Wobby~

now that sounds "fun"!!!!!!!!!

Just wondering if the school of velocity book 1 can be downloaded for free legally yet, or is it not old enough?

Czerny

You can only do two downloads a day or summat - but should get ya going.

Still hammering through 1-5 Hanon for now, at least I've remembered the patterns.....

Thanks.

I'm still getting there with Hanon 1-5 too, but i ventured on to 6-8 for a bit of variety today.

Anyone fancy a spot of Hanon worship?

Nope

Yup


A. Coffee
B. Food
C. Pointless work to earn money
D. Sleep
E. Making stupid posts on ABRSM forums

Come on Tom, I know there's something else!

er ... and the occasional game of chess

(damn! rumbled!)

No, no, no, the correct answer is:

A coffee/diet coke
B junk food
C online flirting
D sleep