Pianist? Do I really need to study Hanon & Czerny technicals?!
Question: My piano teacher obliged me to purchase & own the following technical piano books:
1.Hanon the virtuoso pianist in 60 exercises
2.Czerny the school of velocity
3.Czerny the art of finger dexterity
What can you say? =/
Answers: My piano teacher obliged me to purchase & own the following technical piano books:
1.Hanon the virtuoso pianist in 60 exercises
2.Czerny the school of velocity
3.Czerny the art of finger dexterity
What can you say? =/
The short answer is yes, buy them and use them.
The long answer is that they will do much to improve and maintain your fingering skill and dexterity and will serve to develop your playing.
Charles-Louis Hanon's "The Virtuoso Pianist" has been around for more than a century, and has has become part of the standard method for modern piano teachers.
Carl Czerny took piano lessons from Beethoven, among others, and he died more than 150 years ago, yet his hundreds of didactic piano exercises are still used all over the world by thousands of teachers, including the very best ones.
Your teacher is recommending these books because if you buy them and learn them you will be a better player than if you don't.
Well, when I was high-school age I HATED it but I worked a lot on the first 2 things you mentioned...but it really really helped my technique so much. I really recommend them. To make the excercises less boring, you can always play them as musical as possibly, especially the Czerny.
I would have to disagree with the previous two posters. Though the books will increase your technique, they will do so in a very impractical way. You would find yourself much better off buying a book of Bach 2 part inventions, and easier Beethoven and Mozart Sonatas. A good teacher can put you on the right path when it comes to this. The reasoning is; all you are learning from those horrid books is scale patterns and dexterity, when you could learn them in a much more practical setting from playing easier classics and treating them like exercises. Which many times they are, take Well Tempered Clavier by Bach for instance. By mastering 5-10 of those at different tempos, you will find yourself a much much better pianist then mucking through all of those garbage exercise book. This is my opinion, and of course you can do as you will. But i will tell you first hand, Practical experience is by far much more useful then running up and down a keyboard mindlessly(of course other then learning basic scales and arpeggios). Just know what techniques to look for and pick them out of real pieces and play those. Much more fulfilling and practical. Either way, Good luck and keep playin!!!!
As with most things in life, you will get out of these books what you put into them. If you use them for the tools that they are, you will get better. It's a waste of money to buy them just to leave them on your shelf unused.
BTW ... these books are fine. There are others that are good too depending on the type of music your playing. Brahms wrote some good exercises, as did J.S. Bach. Isidor Phillipe's book is quite good as well.
Wow! Do I recall these too.
I am a pro composer-pianist. To me, Czerney was not necessary. However, that Hanon book was such a torment er in my youth. My teachers would make me do those things at lessons because I hated to do them at home.
All I can say is that as an adult, I had gone back to Hanon and mastered the book. It has helped me tremendously in so many ways. All piano music is, in essence,m made of scales and chords, whether stuck together or arpeggiated. How amazing it is that these ten finders, with the help of foot pedals, and a variety of dynamic shadings and various writs and touch techniques can make so much incredible music, whether it be the Chopin Scherzos I master or the latest cabarets song I;'ve worked out an accomaonment for.
They are worth while, including the thirds and 6ths exercises, and those octaves.
To me, however, it is also very important that you always challenge yuourself to something amazingly hard as well as on your level, not to frustrate you, but for you to see what's ahead and to push the technical and musical aspects.