The best technical exercises for the piano
Vložit
- čas přidán 21. 10. 2021
- Link to my video on Rautavaara etudes (also uses symmetrical inversion):
• Einojuhani Rautavaara,...
Please consider becoming a patron on Patreon.com!
/ independentpianist
Or make a one time donation to Paypal:
paypal.me/independentpianist?...
I am also available for one-on-one online teaching. For a free consultation send me a message at: cole@independentpianist.com - Hudba
![Don't play HANON before watching THIS [Piano Exercises Demystified]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/76gVBrwNx08/mqdefault.jpg)
My teacher studied with Rosina Llhevine, Nadia Boulanger and others and taught me at Juilliard. One of the best technique books he exposed me to was Isidor Philipp "exercises for independence of the fingers" volume 1. The exercises are all based around the 7 chord you demonstrated. I still use an assortment of the exercises from that book on a daily basis as a warm up
Thank you for your recommendation too.
Very nice suggestion, at first sight and first practice, it helps to open the finger extension. I love slow and conscient practice!
My teacher studied for years with Isidor Philipp, and so I learned his book of Complete School of Technic. It covers basically everything, sixths, thirds, scales, octives and more. But it wasn't enough to play them all, but I had to transcribe each exercise into every key, playing each with a variety of rhythms and stresses, and tempo. I even had to play scales with crossed hands and with different touches, staccato, legato, portamento.
It was important to get every finger independent from the others, and be completely relaxed at all times, and with a deep warm tone.
Hanon is just one of many tools to help move finger technique along. Many teachers dislike Hanon, that it is all technique and no musicality but that is exactly the point. It pinpoints various technical finger movements and forces the player to repeat them without worry of interpretation, dynamics, or tempo changes getting in the way.
Absolutely agree with your view here.
Agreed. I was taught to put volume dynamics into Hanon. Self-styling exercises I've developed include doing it swing and in 3/4 time. Also staccato and legato. XoXo ❤
But the drawbacks from Hanon are giving practices on finger mirroring and only in C. Every key actually has its own movement, techniques, approaches, and treatment.
@@jvl12345 that's why u need to be able to transcribe them to other keys, there's this interview Rachmaninoff gave and i think the 2nd section is very eye opening when it comes to technique and hanon static1.squarespace.com/static/56b6571aab48de30047cb8f7/t/57c23cb4f5e231b32aa66c95/1472347317238/Rachmaninoff+interview%2C+Etude.pdf
hanon is musical enough, u can use some of those phrases in ur playing. they are pretty. try most guitar exercises, they sound offensive to ur ears.
besides, extreme repetition is never musical idc if ur playing chopin, but thats what practice is.
I did 5 years of Hanon, about 1/3 of my practice during that time, it never bored me, I now do Czerny, Bach, Mozart, more challenging and still occasionally do Hanon
Did it help you play significantly faster?
@@unfried_Helps a lot, it helps playing without looking at the keyboard and reading music and ear training
One advantage of Hanon that is rarely mentioned is that the first section on white note 5 finger patterns trains the brain to recognize patterns and communicate them to the fingers.
Again a very informative and nice video. I will surely try them out.
Appreciate how articulate this is.
This is amazing melodies for piano progressions
Very helpful indeed. I think the excitement of working on a real piece can be more motivating than exercises, though I have done the latter for decades and find them very helpful. I find the combination of exercise and repertoire adaptation here very attractive. It struck me that the more fruitful exercises suggested in the first half of the video are very close to things in Dohnani, whom I have used a lot. I thought the idea of the usefulness of scales without overdoing them very helpful too.
Very very inspiring ! Many thanks !
Great video ! I consider that you really know what you are talking about ! I am 50 years old and i've been playing the piano for most of my life professionally ,but now i don't really have enough time because i'm working on another area that has nothing to do with music but i definetily agree with your philosophy !
7:36 Tauzig looks great! Thanks! I will definitely include that one. What I was doing was going up and down the whole-tone scales, but this is better.
Thank you, it's exactly what I was looking for !
Really great video
You play the piano very well
I think the best way is to have as varied selection of music as possible from all periods.
I gonna follow this video for exercises
This is great topics for piano students
I can see from the number of viewings this upload had already attracted in less than a day that you are addressing a topic that greatly interests many viewers of your channel, as well as catching the attention of all those who are desirous of becoming better pianists/keyboardists. Your advice, as ever, is carefully balanced, sympathetically considered and thoroughly practical, confirming that time spent with Dr Cole anderson is always time very well spent!
I suppose, though, that everyone has to know their own 'ceiling'. We can raise our base level in anything we attempt and seek using whatever means are possible to reach what is our potential. But there will always be an optimum point beyond which we cannot improve. The most challenging music in the repertoire for any instrumentalist is never going to be played by everyone, just as winning a gold medal at an Olympics Game is also not possible for everyone, no matter how hard, or how long, they train! Intellectual capacity, physical capacity, emotional resilience, fortitude and a plethora of other personal attributes will all have to be available to any individual in order to reach those heights that allow for performance of the most virtuosic pieces of music we all aspire to play.
I watch you perform, Cole, and I both marvel at, and am delighted by, they way you play music that is way beyond my abilities to ever emulate. I wish I could play like you. Certainly, when younger, if I had put more effort into mastering technique, I would have been able to play more of the music that I still ache to play. I was interested to read what 'Pierre dbss' wrote when he said he was considering turning his "ambition from pianist to composer in the face of all the work needed to be the first one". How I smiled, being able to reflect on my struggles not only with being a performer, but also my recent attempt to be a compose! Composing is not any easy option!
We have to take comfort in knowing that when we have tried our hardest in all things and can go no further, we are at our ceiling; and we have to celebrate great musicians like you, Cole, whose ceiling is at at the top of a 100 storey tower block . . . I am still struggling to get past the first floor when playing and even getting the door opened to enter the building when 'composing'!
Dear Graham, if you're knocking on the door, then I'm barely crawling onto the doorstep!
I'm no organist, but to me your compositions seem masterful and inspired. I think you're selling yourself short.
@@pierredbss9638 Oh dear, Pierre. You are making me blush! I did not think you would read my comment to Cole. I think composing is just as hard as playing to the standard we hear in Cole's fabulous performances. My advice to you (for what it is worth!) is: GO FOR BOTH! Take your playing as far as it will reach. It will always bring you pleasure. And open your heart to see what it is you have to say and craft your compositions so that others may know you through the music your write as well as the music you play. I am neither a performer nor a composer of any merit at all . . . but I take much pleasure from exercising both of those limited talents that I have been blessed with. You'll do much better than me, I am sure. And Cole is just the guiding star you need to take you on that journey!
Thank you Graham for your comment, as always. I guess I have a slightly different perspective on the issue of a "ceiling." Your analogy to an Olympic athlete is certainly very apt, but at the same time, I think that the world of art allows for a much more varied application of talent than sport often seems to. Also I feel that everyone, no matter how talented, has their limitations, which they learn through long experience. I'm sure you have had the experience of listening to a piece of music that exhibits enormous technical sophistication, but which leaves you cold. In art, sometimes too great an indulgence in difficulty or complexity is counterproductive!
To use a piano analogy-do I appreciate Kempff's playing less than others, simply because of certain obvious mechanical limitations? Quite the reverse actually, since these very limitations led him to find very unique interpretations, and to develop an unswerving rhythmic control. Do I appreciate the works of Mompou less than Beethoven, because the one uses far less developmental complexity than the other? I have been deeply affected by works from both composers. Comparing how they have affected me would be like comparing two sunsets-how can one really do that, without missing the point of the experience?
So I guess in summation, I don't really like to view accomplishment in music as a tower that needs to be ascended, with the worth of each artist determined by how many floors they rise. Instead I view it more like a beautiful garden, full of riches to be discovered. There is a special area in this garden for everyone who has the patience to learn about the beautiful things growing there, and of course the more your learn, the deeper your enjoyment can be. But there are many ways in which one can explore and learn, and one way isn't necessarily better than another.
Well, I actually matched your comment in length today! Thank you again for your thoughts Graham, it's always a pleasure to read them.
@@TheIndependentPianist Dear Cole! What a lovely analogy. I am in the garden with you (probably doing the weeding while you inspect your prize roses!) But you make a really important point; it's just a shame that in many walks of life reaching the top is a necessary and hard climb, no matter how attractive the garden is in which the mountain looms above us, enticing us to climb it! It's a good job I am an experienced weeder as I really appreciate a tidy garden; rock climbing was never my forte!
Your comments and Cole's reply just made my day - how enjoyable it is to read 2 smart people's thoughts!
More than fifty years ago I had lessons with an elderly lady who had studied with Josef Lhevinne. She gave me the same technical exercises that he gave her, scales and arpeggios in one, two, three, and four octaves, in rhythmic patterns varying from one to the beat, one octave, to eight to the beat, four octaves, lots of Czerny op. 299 and Czerny op. 740, and lots of Stephen Heller, especially op 46. On my own, I also found Hanon helpful but she didn't endorse those. I wasn't ready for Chopin etudes, but she had me work on a couple, her more advanced students doing a lot of them as well.
Thanks for sharing that is useful to know.
Excellent.
Good heavens! That Chopin exercise 💀💀💀
Merci for this.
For reference:
7:57 Daily Studies No. 26, Tausig
9:45 Daily Studies No. 1, Tausig
10:14 Master School of Modern Piano Playing and Virtuosity pp. 131-132, Jonás
Pretty sure the one shown is no.91, not 26, but thanks!
group V #26@@chrisy367
Correction -In my post I meant to say I have used Hanon for 61 years.
Until I went away to college as a piano major my technical training was major and minor and chromatic scales, major and minor broken chords and arpeggios, Hanon, and the Czerny School of Velocity.
My freshman year in college was just more of the same, but I switched teachers for my sophomore year and my new teacher really improved my piano playing. He assigned me the Philipp School of Finger Independence, and before I knew it I was a brand new kind of piano player - everything started becoming easier to do at the piano.
I spent one summer studying with Madame Rosina Lhevinne at the Juilliard summer school in Aspen Colorado.
She and I, of course, worked on the scales, broken chords, arpeggios, but she was also a firm believer in the exercise books of Plaidy and Dohnanyi. All double thirds were to be learned from the Plaidy volume of exercises.
What an exciting summer that was.
I do not waste my time on Shanny anymore because I find that in so much of his exercises either the right hand or the left hand will be going Oom pah pah, or Oom pah pah pah.
What a waste of time that is I practice all of my scales with the left hand doing a mirror image of the right hand, and with the right hand doing a mirror image of the left hand
Thank you for sharing. May I ask, at what level of piano proficiency is equivalent to a freshman in college? I am a self-taught piano learner and I'm still looking for good measurements of my ability. I'm practicing scales (up to 2 black keys) and Bach's inventions and sinfonias. Thank you.
@@M419.99 You must play all scales and basic arpeggios and chords, not quickly, but just to master the positions and fingerings.
Great topic! My teacher never introduced me to Hannon, it was just scales and Czerny etudes for developing the technique. Only recently I came across Hannon exercises and I sort of liked them initially - my fingers felt more agile after playing them for 20 minutes daily and they were easy enough to play after my 30+ years of hiatus. Yes, they are mechanical - I know someone who practiced them as a child while reading a book. Of course, it's more interesting to play something that combines musical/artistic and technical values, but I guess, it's a personal choice. It would be interesting to have a poll on who plays the exercises versus who doesn't, and not only among pianists but also other instrumentalists.
Yes indeed. I think Hanon can be very useful if practiced with imagination, and they do make excellent warm ups certainly. There isn't any particular reason to praise Hanon specifically-since you can find similar exercises in many places. And the claim that Hanon makes in the introduction that all technical problems can be solved by playing the whole book every day seems fairly absurd to me. But intelligently and sparingly used, they are great!
My own experience is that even those performers who claim never to have played exercises, actually spent some time on them in their early training, even if they later swore them off, so probably they are of at least some use. And some artists, like Rachmaninoff for instance, and Backhaus, made daily recourse to scales and other exercises in order to feel completely comfortable with their technique. I think it is a very personal thing, we all have to figure out what is necessary for us, and that can change as the years go by!
Oh and Czerny is pretty fabulous as well-you can tell he must have been a fantastic teacher. I'll talk about him sometime!
@@TheIndependentPianist Yes, I remember liking his etudes.
I have used a hand on exercises for 61 years now. I could not live without them, or should I say play without them?
The only exercises I bother with are the ones where the left hand is doing a mirror image of the right hand. I want to develop both hands equally.
Hanon is useful when the exercizes are transposed into other keys. Get them out of C major.
I love the Gershwin Etude opening, I play a few of those as well. :)
I would add one more mechanical exercise, as follows: play all your scales (however you choose, 1 octave, 3, whatever) going up chromatically, C-Db-D-Eb-E-F-F# etc . . . . but use EXCLUSIVELY the fingering for C major all the way through all the keys. It's a very humbling experience and really gets you to think about "legato" in a new way.
Really?
@@RaptorT1V Yes, really.
Pretty sure Liszt did something like this for scale practice
@@dzordzszs I'm sure it's not a new concept, I just remember learning that and thinking it was strange, but very effective lol
I didn't see the Oscar Beringer's Daily Exercises in the cover of the video. It's very useful. He composed the book for preparing the pianist for the Tausig's tecnique book.
Though the schumann toccata could be veiwed as a etude l love it. Sounded like he was drunk, in good humor and at the frayed ends of sanity. I love it. Could drive the neighbors crazy hearing someone practice it.
Thanks for this, very useful. I'd love to try the Lhevinne exercise but cannot find it, do you have a link? I rely mostly on repertoire for building technique but find some exercises very helpful, and almost always good for warm ups. Some are also quite fun to play.
That Tausig exercise reminds me of the Horowitz "Bone-Crusher" exercise.
Actually, it reminded me of Philip Glass - I think I'm going to have to pick that up just as music.
Thank you for showing us the exercises. I have to say I wasn't sure what to expect but I'm glad I watched this as I learnt a lot.
Thank you so much for this. Also I enjoy your non technical videos. For example your background and how you chose schools. 5 things i hate about conservatories. I hope you do more videos like that. For example a roadmap if a student knows he would like to go to a conservatory at a young age. Do you know european and russian conservatories?
Hello! First time I show your video it came randomly on CZcams. You shared very useful knowledge. We have subscribed your channel now I will go through all of your videos. Just wanted to know that do you teach online? Thank you so much 🙏
Thanks so much for watching! I do indeed teach online, feel free to get in touch with me at cole@independentpianist.com if you are interested.
I bow and salute to any student who can master the Brahms’ Exercises!
I've never seen them, but i think some composer became too zealous in writting exercises, not all, that ended up unrealistically difficult and impossible to achieve as directed by tempo, probably by the composer too.
@@ericastier1646well rest assured that Brahms could certainly have played his exercises, as their content shows up everywhere in his piano writing
@@michaeltilley8708 I've never looked at his studies so i am not qualified to answer.
Fantastic content thank you! How do you feel about Cortot and Brahms exercises for more experienced pianists?
Thanks for commenting! The Cortot exercises look very interesting. I haven't done too many of them, but there are a lot of interesting double note and poly-rhythmic exercises. I don't think it would be necessary to follow his schedule for practice, but no doubt one could find many useful and enjoyable exercises in there-if used sparingly! In general, I think it is advantageous to take a non-systematic approach to practicing mecahnics. We should actively search for patterns which are interesting to us, and which really help our playing.
I would have liked to have mentioned more about Brahms in this video, since his exercises are so musically interesting. They have the obvious advantage that they sound far more interesting than many other exercises, and it's also great the way they sometimes illustrate how to adapt passages from repertoire into exercises for practice. Some of the exercises are maybe a little more esoteric than useful, but there are so many great, mind-bending ones in there. Along with Tausig and Jonas's "Master School," it is probably the most useful book of exercises I know of.
And do you know Josefffy "Advanced school of piano playing"?
You know,once Moritz Rosenthal Met Brahms Who said Him about his Exercises "I am swimming in melodies"Very nice videos.I am a passioned of old pianists
I like Hanon-- that is realy good
Thank you!!! you are amazing!!!
can you please provide the sheet music?
How much wrist action are you using in the Tausig/Brahms exercise?
Margarite Long has a technique book too.
Marc-Andre Hamelin mentioned Perschetti for mirrored exercises and etudes.
Hello Cole, thanks for your insightful analysis of these exercises! I didn't know about those Tausig and Lhevinne exercises and I'll add them to my list.
I think you could have been more decided in discarding Hanon, especially considering the amount and the quality of etudes that have been written before and after his (just look at Brahms's 51 exercises...)
I have a bit of a request : I have turned my ambition from pianist to composer in the face of all the work needed to be the first one (I'm still a very long shot from both). I was wondering if you would consider taking a look at a few of the pieces I've written and maybe giving me some concise feedback on them? I do have a harmony teacher to whom I show my compositions but I'd love a pianist's opinion. I'd understand if you had too much work on your hands though.
Cheers!
Thanks for your comment! Yes, Hanon on the face of it is fairly unimaginative, but it is possible to use them in very creative ways, so I wouldn't want to completely write them off. They can be a very effective way to become accustomed to playing easily on the black keys as well, if you transpose them into different keys.
Your question is certainly intriguing-perhaps you could send me an email and we could discuss it more? cole@independentpianist.com
Thank you again for your comment!
@@TheIndependentPianist Of course! I've just sent you an email.
It's true that they're only formulas, and on can do about anything with them... I didn't think of it like that.
Thanks to you for replying!
Even though these are not meant to be musical pieces, the first exercise has this strange "Philip Glass sold his soul to the devil" vibe to it - particularly if you were to half the duration of each bar for the slower variations. You can possibly hear it best on the variation that starts at 8:50. The vibe is strongest at the progression from the 2nd bar to the 3rd bar, and 3rd bar to the 4th bar.
Though this might just be me assigning "Philip Glass"'-edness to a relatively standard harmonic progression that I'm not familiar with.
Muy interesante video
I'm having a weird experience currently. I haven't played the piano with any regularity in a long while (I used to take lessons in my early to middle teens and then practiced on my own from time to time). I have noticed that when I try to play 2-3 trills in my right hand, my pointer finger gets very tense and stiffens up. I've tried light stretching of my fingers away from the piano and it seems to help a tiny bit, but I'm wondering if maybe there's another explanation? Could it be an overuse injury while typing at my computer daily for long periods of time(I think I use my point finger more than others)? Could it be that this finger is weaker than normal and needs some technical exercise, as in the finger independence exercise that you demonstrated? Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your attention.
Difficult to tell without actually seeing you play, but it sounds to me like you simply have more tension in the 2nd finger. Trills are always more dangerous in this regard, because we will tend to lock the fingers and just move the hand and wrist to play the trill. To an extent this is fine, but if you feel stiffness, my own solution would be to slow the trill down, and measure out the notes, until you can play it without any stiffness. Measuring trills out and not trying to play them as fast as humanly possible are usually the best ways to release tension and improve trills in the long run. Slower and even trills always sound better than faster jerkier trills, where the hand or fingers are stiff-especially in large spaces.
hi, what is the song of the opening? 0:01-0:12 it is really pretty
Exercises are useful if there is a specific goal in mind.
nice
Hello, good evening. I am writing this comment with the help of Google translator. I am 57 years old, I am Spanish and I wanted to tell you that I am doing the Hanon, I am going through exercise 25 and I am doing it in a way that, as you indicate in your comments, with imagination. I don't really know how to read music well, I'm doing it with CZcams videos and the sheet music. I wanted to thank you for this video that you have posted in which the exercises you indicate seem very interesting to me and I think they can help me improve. I see that there are many methods, Czerny, also the Little Pischina. Michael Aaron. What book do you think can help me? I think he also recommends Hanon, although I have seen that it is a somewhat controversial book. A hug, best regards and thank you very much.
The Brahms’ Exercises will greatly expand your range. They are tough!
Two friends who teach piano to adult beginners say they don’t give them Hanon exercises because: 1) students will quickly lose interest in taking piano lessons; and 2) pounding the keyboard in an unmusical way results in bad habits that are hard to unlearn. Neither of these friends was taught Hanon.
@@DovidM I was taught Hanon from the start as a child. I enjoyed Hanon because I got to use all my fingers from the beginning. There is more than one road to Winchester!
Please look at the back part of Hanon where you will get important techniques for repeated notes. Do more than just the front part.
Hanon was the first book I used before teaching methods. It taught me independence and evenness of finger strength. It gave me the confidence to go further. It is not banal exercises. (Tell a body builder not to do reps, but to mix it all up instead. You won't get very far!)
Buenas, perdone traduzco su comentario y me dice que vaya a la parte posterior del libro de hanon. Me puede decir por favor a qué números de ejercicios se refiere concretamente. Muchas gracias.
QUESTION:
Why lift the fingers high while others are holding notes down??
What about Behringer Daily Technical Studies?
Started watching for the wrong reason but glad I did😊
You could give me the best piano exercise ever created and chances are, I'll play it a few times, then stop and never play it again. I tried. I tried. I can't. My mind bucks. I cannot do exercises without being driven crazy. Even Chopin etudes will bore me if done too much. I did scales in sixths for a while.
Hello. How much do you charge for piano lessons?
This video is hepful
honestly, i love hanon, they are fun. i don’t know why people complain about.
You are not progressing when something is "fun". Annoying studies are an indication that your technique is not good enough. If you swear at the studies composer is a good indication it is good medecine for you.
@@ericastier1646You don't have to suffer through every exercise to get its benefits
I think what is annoying with Hanon it has this perpetual modulation that never resolves. Although it is not expected to be music, It sounds nice for 2 bars but then it keeps going on and on forever without resolution. And that, is what's annoying. Yes you can ignore it, since you're doing it for the technical benefits but other studies like Czerny have cadences and it's moderately musical.
I remember i learnt scales by transporting the first 30 exercises of the Hanon.
7:59 like how are you supposed to play C and G with your 3 and 4 fingers?
Do you think Godowsky studies have much benefit for the more advanced student?
Absolutely! They are unrivaled in the way that they develop the LH. Although they aren't all equally effective from a musical standpoint, they are all highly intelligent, and very enjoyable to practice. Godowsky didn't have an unmusical bone in his body, so despite the enormous technical demands of his music, it is all sublimated to very musical ends. I'm planning to post at least a couple of the etudes after Chopin at some point soon...
Who no mention of Cramer? His etudes are so musical!
In this video I was talking more about “pure” technique exercises. You’re right about Cramer though. Perhaps I will do another video on etudes.
I agree Cramer's etudes are wonderful, i used to play one of them in college. Maybe because they're too much of real composed musical pieces but don't have the length and variety in form and structure of a real piece of music puts them at the fringe of both genre which is why they're not preferred over studies that are clearer studies. Chopin's Etudes deserve the same critic as both their musicality and technicality is high but as musical pieces their structure is very pattern repetitive except for a few of them.
❣️
Technique books focus on the "general", repertoire practice focuses on the specific, like, practice yuour target tune until it's coming out of your ears/fingers, i.e., until you can play it in your sleep masterfully. Technique regimes aim to prepare the pianist "for whatever may be coming down the road." Techniques are we can call them agnostic, i.e., not for any particular piece but for just about anything you may encounter. In the general scheme of things, gross example of repertoire could be seen in common books like "Piano in a Flash," play your favorite tune in a week even if you never had a lesson before. In classical terms that would be like OK, you're going to give a performance of "whatever," so learn it and practice it for the next 200 hours to get it down pat before going on stage. It has bodily movements specific to it alone, right? But look at the tech exercises of Hanon, Czerny, et al, and see if you don't find those same bodily exercises in them. You will! Any classical piece you might play can be extrapolated from the tech exercises. So use them: Hanon, Czerny, and Schmitt. The lament: "They take so long, bwah ha ha." They're the price you gotta pay for learning classical music. You want to play the European shit? Fine! Don't take any bullshit American shortcuts!!! Play heritage music; use heritage techniques
Worth saying again:"Technique regimes aim to prepare the pianist "for whatever may be coming down the road." Techniques are we can call them agnostic, i.e., not for any particular piece but for just about anything you may encounter."
What do you thinkabout Mikrokosmos?
Have you used the Plaidy exercises? If so, do you think his exercises are sound? I use his book for practicing double thirds and sixths, which stretch my hands really nicely.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
playing the music by the great composers is the only technical exercises you need.
If only it were so...
Harrissimo i don t agree
And avoid playing things that are not great. They corrupt your technique and musicality. (OK, an over exaggeration,)
Nice joke.
More teachers suggest the most times to play the Beyer and Hanon.
Where is the J. Lhevinne exercise (9:26) published in?
Volume 1 of Alberto Jonas’s “Master School of Piano Playing”
@@TheIndependentPianist Ah yes thank you. I have it.
Lhevinne was a Genius listen to his Liszt in ampico piano Rolls
@@p.a.cthegoldenageofmusic3279 and his Schulz-Evler Strauss!
In my book, finger exercises are the basis of technique. If you don't have strong, agile, independent and fine fingers, nothing else matters.
The best technical exercise for you right now is the same piece that you are practising right now. What is most useful for you is to work out a suitable fingering for that very piece, which works at the correct tempo. You will need to develop muscle memory for that piece played with that fingering. Practising some other study only helps you play that study, which is useless for you.
Plaidy Technical Exercises
9:29 Lhevirne exercises
Lhevinne
6:15
8:06
9:26
Future reference
Finger independence is very crucial for becoming a good pianist or organist. I have seen this with myself. One can play etudes on piano only, if one knows how to play the piano in the first place. Scales should be played until one masters them in high speed and can perform them accurately and cleanly. That's what allows the control over keyboard and develops techniques. I won't consider Schumann right, since reciting alphabets is a mental work and won't help in making better sentences but scales are physically played on the piano, which will improve your technique and give a clear control over the keyboard. Schumann destroyed his 4th finger in an attempt to control the keyboard in a better way by making that 4th finger forcibly independent and he's the same man who considers scale practice as unimportant, what an irony!
Actually no need to be so hard on poor Schumann! Modern scholars tend to be of the opinion that the story about Schumann injuring his 4th finger is probably a fabrication. Based on his own statements and those of Clara Schumann, it's most likely he developed focal dystonia, through excessive repetition of difficult passages-a common enough ailment in orchestras around the globe! I have a good friend, a wonderful pianist, who developed that as well, and he had to painstakingly retrain his technique. Easy to see why this condition would have ended a career back in those days, when it was so little understood.
I basically agree with you though-definitely scales are important. I do feel that mindless drill should be avoided however, and that the most striking improvements with scales and arpeggios come when you start working most of the time in double notes and chords, as outlined in Liszt's exercises, for example.
I overlooked scales when i started piano two decades ago now i am paying the price even though i progressed to learning all (litterally) of 24 Chopin etudes but i could not master them securely and cleanly. I am probably in the best position than anyone to see what i am lacking in my technique because people who became fluent never know what was crucial to them. The importance of scales and arpeggios is not speed but it's by far the ability of a relaxed thumb passing in all keys signatures which requires automated hand wrist and whole mechanical apparatus micro adjustments that have to be found and secured is only possible by simplifying the exercise to only its main difficulty. It's Chopin etudes that acted like a virtual teacher all pointing at my thumb even when it's not scales the thumb plays a critical role. Now i started Czerny and it's exacly what i had missed, i can see that each exercise is a problem to solve that involves the thumb. I am slowly building a thumb vocabulary of techniques that i didn't have developped. The consequences were i was getting spasms in the thumb muscles that even locked it inward when playing difficult music. Slowly i am retraining my technique. I believe that young student that are forced to train scales in all keys will not encounter this problem later.
My best " technique exercises" are phenomenal & Concert stage ready!
Liaponov's Lesginka
Stravinsky's Petroushka
Balikeriev's Islamey
Ravel's Garpard de la nuit
Busoni's ( Bach) Chachonne in d minor
Brahms Paganini Variations ( 28)
Brahms Handel Variations ( 25 + Fugue)
JS Bachs' WTC Book 1 & book 2
Chopin Etudes (27)
Liszt's Transcendental/ Paganini & Concert Etudes ( 26)
Schubert's Fantasy
Schumann Toccata & Symphonic Etudes
Scarlatti's 545 Sonatas
Mozart -18 Sonatas & 27 Concertos
Moskowski 's 15 Virtuosity Etudes
& best of all :
GODOWSKI'S 53 PARAPHRASES on the Chopin Etudes( which exceed ALL technical difficulties in the entire piano repertoire)
I play this stuff----who needs finger bender exercises like Hanon/ Czerny et al.???
As ALL great pianist concede---you cannot separate technique from music ---that's ludicrous---no more than you can separate human body systems from the complex structure of the whole.
If you do you waste SO much precious time.
Do you mind posting a video with you playing one of those, for example, Feux follets?
Why do you spend so much time pretending you can play these pieces in comment sections, I bet if you spent all that time practicing, you might actually be able to play one of them
@@michaelgoutman681 -Actually Transcendental Etude #5 is my best of the set for 2 reasons
1) it's the hardest&
2) I gobble up double notes throughout the entire piano repertoire...
@@tedallison6112 the video please? if it's your best, shouldn't be a problem..
@@michaelgoutman681 -I find absolutely ZERO need to validate myself to anyone else other than myself.I don't care about anyone else's opinion about my piano playing ---having no effect on me whatsoever.
I'm WAY transcendentally past that" point of no return"
My advice? Play it yourself!
Hanon and Czerny School of Velocity
From my perspective, the best technical exercises are no technical exercises.
Thank you for this-it's a suggestive comment, would you care to elaborate?
@@TheIndependentPianist for me I get all my technique from real music
No exercise.
Technique, what is that? The treasure trove of repertoire is enough to develop and Chopin had no use for finger independence exercises. Yes with some limitations these exercises should be practiced with caution, but who has the time to do this while it's music we after. Be inventive and create your own exercises. Improvise freely dail as well. If there is tension in your hands, wrists, shoulders and arms while practicing these exercises it could become dangerous to your pianistic health.
If you feel tension, then certainly no exercises will help you to play better, so amen to that! My own philosophy is a non-dogmatic one. If you can do everything you want to do without exercises, then by all means dispense with them. Most people will probably find some scales and other exercises helpful for attaining the highest levels of technique and conditioning. As far as appealing to authority (Chopin), he actually did have some finger independence exercises that his students reported using (I believe they are quoted in Eigeldinger's book). Not to mention the exercises of Liszt, Tausig, Joseffy, Dohnányi, Moszkowski, Cortot, Busoni, Backhaus, Lhevinne... the list goes on and on. Inventing your own exercises is a great idea, but there are certain basic things that you can learn from the library of existing exercises as well. There is also the issue of keeping oneself in conditioning for performance, which for me does require some use of scales, arpeggios and other exercises. It does seem that almost all the most famous pedagogues, right down to recent figures like Adele Marcus and Rosina Lhevinne have given their students some kind of dependable regimen to follow. when practiced well, this opens the flood gates for the technique of the most advanced repertoire...
I just read the biographies of 52 world famous pianists--no one agrees that " exercises " trump repertoire as the best source for technique.
They were ALL unanimously in agreement championing the mega-plethora of rich sets of Etudes & the like from our greatest master composers. Hanon? Are you okay?
I've concertized & played piano +66,000 hours I played the entire list I made here earlier-some many 1000's of X's---I don't need any cute sugar coated quasi-music Czerny tripe passed off as " necessary " to finish a pianist technique.....
Maybe the untalented need it,IDK.....
Just consider the exercises written by great pianists: Liszt, Brahms, Tausig, Joseffy, Dohnanyi, Busoni etc. Rather shoots your argument in the foot I’m afraid! At any rate if you watch my video (not sure if you actually have) you will find that I do say that repertoire is the main source of technical improvement. Exercises are only a supplement. Many great pianists say that they don’t do exercises or scales, but the important thing is that they SAY they don’t. For most, at some point in time, they are necessary. Perhaps some genuinely never have to do them at all, but I think they would be in the minority.
Name the pianists
@@composerjalen If you are asking which pianists said they never practiced exercises and/or scales, the list would be a long one, but it would include Hofmann, Gould, Horowitz, Argerich, Richter, Trifonov... Again, their comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Usually it meant they didn't do those exercises at the time they were asked, but you can bet that they learned their scales at some point! A lot does depend on what works for each individual. Rachmaninoff felt a benefit from practicing exercises and scales each day-others might not! But it is misleading to state that no one ever has to do any exercises at all.
@@TheIndependentPianist oh haha I appreciate the response, but I think you misunderstood. I was asking the original commentor to name the 52 pianists whose biographies he just read 😂
@@composerjalen haha oops, well that’s a worthwhile question to ask as well!
Can’t even see how your wrists are moving, just a lot of unhealthy tension in the fingers… I think I’ll pass on watching the rest of this.
I'm afraid your diagnosis is incorrect. I don't feel any excess tension in my fingers, and am quite at ease when performing. It is possible you are mistaking finger activation for tension.
There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE
There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE There is NO SUCH THING AS FINGER INDEPENDENCE
Great video, but I don't believe that you talk like that in your day-to-day life lol. You make it a point to emphasize every plosive consonant and pronounce every (non-name) foreign word in your best accent of said language to the extent only a millennial classical pianist would haha. Not a bad thing, just funny especially because you're American.
Hahaha, actually, believe it or not that is exactly how I talk. People always say I don’t sound very “American” which I guess is a good thing…..?
Idk, musicians are sound oriented anyway. Usually in tune with their own voices as well as other people's. That's bound to affect your manner of speaking (well, at least for me 😀) edit: misspelled 'affect'
You play the piano very well