Hanon

[Gustavo]

Well, recently I've gone into some clases just to learn all the thoerical and tecniques (i've always been self-thought). And they get me to excersise Hanon. Don't you think it is a little too boring and asks you to do a little too many excersises? Is there any real competitions for Hanon (JR's isn't really a book known by many) I'd like to see them.

G

[Guardian]

Well, Hannon is very VERY boring indeed, but you should try to make yourself practice.
Look on the bright side:
"If its killer boring, its VERY good for what youre doing" (i mean, its not all fun)
i bet, that the things jordan plays nowdays, are 0,01% of all things he had ever played...
and trust me, some things ARE boring...but atleast you know that youre on the right path

[SerFox]

I don't find hanon boring at all. I'll usually play the excersizes, then if I want to epxlore, I'll incorporate it into something else then go abck to it.

Self taught is more fun than books imo though.. I do exercises also, but yknow..

[Staccato]

Hanon is good, but I would definately not practice it to much. Sure it is great for the strength and speed, but it is in a quite nonmusical way. I would maybe play it for an hour, then practice songs or maybe different patterns over chords and stuff.

[keyslord]

I was doing Hanon when I was 10.And even then I found it boring.But it's important.

[OliBeau]

Well, I'm doing some Hanon but it's more in a way to discover some style (jazz,blues,boogie woogie, etc). I find it interesting : it helps to play partition fast (don't know the exact word in english :confused: ) and also teach great techniques.

But don't do too much or you'll be bored and will stop !!!

OliBeau

[normthesamurai]

I can't practice hanon for any more than a few minutes these days its just too nasty. It does seem to be the sort of thing which divides musicians. There is one side who practically worships the exercises and another side who hates it. A good book which highlights some virtuoso's thoughts on hanon I think its called great pianists on piano playing or something like that and it is a book full of interveiws from proffesional pianists including Rachmaninoff, Godowsky, Pederewski and many more. The main message I got from that book was that many of the Virtuoso's felt that the main exercises you should focus on are scales. Even though people are divided about technical exercises everyone agrees that scales and arpeggios are incredibly important so I usually focus more on my scales then other technical exercises like hanon.

Having said that it won't do you any harm (maybe you'll go crazy though) to learn the hanon exersises for this class, once you learn them you never have to go back unless you want to

[Adilinar]

Hanon helped me only at my first years of studying piano, later when I joined the conservatory, and did Jordan's Excercises.... theyre way better than Hanon... First, Hanon is boring as hell , me and everyone that listened went crazy by just hearing it.. its repeating and boring.

Jordan's excercises, are fun, and they help strenght and independancy of hands and fingers, there is one in particular that has a very cool flow and harmonics in it.

Ive found JR excercises more useful than Hanon.

[Asho]

IMHO i love hanon. Yes, its comparable in enjoyment to watching grass grow, however it really helps technique. To keep boredom to a minimum i would focus on aspect relevant to pieces you playing, for example, if your trying to learn 3rd movement of Moonlight Sonata and its arpeggios then you should perhaps focus on the arpeggio sections of hanon. Focusing more and setting goals like this may help.

BTW my edition suggested that you know when your d one with Hanon when you can play it from cover to cover..... non stop..... at the same tempo.....

But it is boring as sin on its own...granted...

[caiol611]

imo Hanon exercises are great! they are essential for finger exercising. my piano teacher (shes pretty old now) used to play a whole book of Hanon exercises in one hour every day! If you think Hanon is a bit boring, you can also try Czerny exercises, such as the School of Velocity. Those are really fun!

[Elderane]

i think hanon is important for your technique, its boring.. all of us know that.. just repetitions of the first bar over the keyboard.. but it's like taking your fingers to the gym..

try to play each exercise in different keys, there's a lot of difference between C and any other key.. i hope to finish at least the first two parts in all keys :smile: ...

[Mick Larouche]

Well, I'm doing some Hanon but it's more in a way to discover some style (jazz,blues,boogie woogie, etc). I find it interesting : it helps to play partition fast (don't know the exact word in english :confused: ) and also teach great techniques.

But don't do too much or you'll be bored and will stop !!!

OliBeau

A "partition" is a sheet music in English

[Gustavo]

The main message I got from that book was that many of the Virtuoso's felt that the main exercises you should focus on are scales. Even though people are divided about technical exercises everyone agrees that scales and arpeggios are incredibly important so I usually focus more on my scales then other technical exercises like hanon.


Totally agree with that!!! You have to practice scales a lot so you know all notes as the palm of your hand (looks at hand "hey thats a new line"). That can reaallly help you write the stuff you want.

G

[Georges]

It is totally true that mechanical training is very important to train muscle memory and finger speed.

However, please also keep in mind that music is about making/playing music and not about playing scales or Hanon exercises. Therefore, even though the objective will be reached eventually, scales and Hanon are NOT the fastest training in order "to write the stuff you want". That is because you completely focus on mechanical training, while ignoring musical and probably also rhythmical training, depending on how you train Hanon and scales.

Time, nonetheless, is a VERY precious good and it is worth exploring every exercise which combines all or as many aspects of music as possible.

Within such a context, etudes can be useful, in particular if you play them in every scale and if you analyze their contents to a maximum. Another guideline may be to prefer simple exercises to complex exercises because the latter often tend to train a very specific aspect while the former are often multi-purpose and can be used universally. Jordan's approach fits pretty much into this framework. Finally, in order to increase the harmony between your left and right upper brain halves, it is always a good idea to focus on the left when playing - once trained with left is equivalent to twice trained with right.

Train smart, not hard, but also keep in mind that nothing comes from nothing, there's no way around training.

[mlunapiena01]

actually, partition is more likely to be section...

[arroyomusic]

Personally, I think Czerny is superior in terms of combining musical examples within technical applications. I mean, look on Wikipedia and read about where Czerny came from (Beethoven) and who he taught (Liszt). You also have to consider the body of works that Czerny and Hanon left behind. Hanon is not necessarily known for anything past the Hanon Workbook while Czerny has musical pedigree and legacy, as well as over 800 composed opuses!!! So with that being said, Hanon has its merit, but it is not the be-all-end-all of technical instruction....P.S. Jordan's Keyboard Wizardry is also, IMHO, a superior product in terms of keyboard technique instruction.

[SoftJunkie]

i've been going thru the first 20 hanon exercises regularly for the last 3+ years. here are a few comments...

- they are no substitute for scales. they should be used in conjunction with scales and complete pieces.

- to bring up my speed, i've been practicing them using 'rhythms'. this has me play 1, 2 or 4 sixteeth notes spaced by 1, 2 or 4 as eigth notes. kind of like little note 'sprints'.

- when i get bored with hanon, i play left and right hand in thirds (or some other interval) rather than octaves. it kind of sounds like something from a toto album!

[Georges]

i've been going thru the first 20 hanon exercises regularly for the last 3+ years. here are a few comments...

- they are no substitute for scales. they should be used in conjunction with scales and complete pieces.

The first part of Hanon is the least interesting for technique training, it merely prepares for parts 2 and 3, which are more difficult to play and which yield far better results. BTW, scales are also covered by Hanon in the very same book.

[sanchis]

Hanon is the best music book ever. If u want to be a good player, u'll have to sit hours practising it.
Some exercises yes, their are boaring. Buy I like to create my own excersise. Following some metrics or structures, I like to change the exercises or improvise them.

[Charly]

Oh...Hanon is very important and working it really worths. It is essential to strenght and to make your touch the same in all the fingers. Technique is similar to weightlifting: no pain, no gain...

[SerFox]

I've always ditzed around playing Hanon excersises I found on the net, but I've been given a book by mny keybaord tutor at college to work through this year.

hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist.

It's got 60 excersises that you can link together and flow, and it's incredibly difficult, it's showing me how much of a lazy player I am. ANd it's helping monumentally.

The first excersize gets me to go up and down two octaves using all my fingers, and these is so much going on at once, making sure both hands get to the right notes, judging the next interval, getting the turn around correct, and playing down again correctly, all the while keeping to a set tempo playing all the notes as 32nd's, and I started at 60bpm, and am now at 80bpm, now entirely comfortable but managing and improving, and I have tried the set 'goal tempo' of 106bpm. Even doing that excersie sounds like something out of liberacci, gliding up and down the keys. If I can get it to sound as awesome as it does when I play at 60, it will sound like a scale, but also very impressive.

And thats just the first excersize x.x!

It's giving me sore arms, which is telling me a lot too, never got this before, because of weighted keys, my posture changed, and it's wrong. My arms while practising that excersize are not loose enough either.

Hanon is a lot more useful than I thought.


WHy don't I find practising scales and arpeggios boring?

[Mush]

Hannon is a popular short cut book for late starters. Start with 21 and go to 43. This is the entire part II. Don't waste your time with part one, 1 - 20. There are some in part III that are ok, but some of these techs are better addressed in other books. I don't like the parallel double 3rd scale fingerings listed in #50. Then there is the oddball #60. I think this tremolo tech is killer for fast rock and is another chordal texture to add to your comping bag of tricks. Also play it in C minor to get the feeling of the black keys. But playing it in all keys is a total waste of time which would be better spent studying other books.