Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Hanon

cebukid70, no, sorry, i wasn't trying to be, what's the word. oblique or indirect to you in bringing up what you said....but it did sound like that! So I'm glad you saw this. I think though that you could start hacking through hanon by just using that first measure (and then maybe the first measure of the descending part because sometimes the fingering is different or reversed) as a pattern.

I wouldn't ever underestimate the potential in just playing by ear either. There's a guy on youtube, adrianlee, who plays everything by ear and if anything it seems that playing by ear has one advantage which is freeing you up from what can seem to be the formality of reading music....in other words this guy can cook....maybe something like someone reading a story aloud from a book and someone else telling the story ad lib.

I envy those play-by-ear types too. I've seen them in YouTube also, and they play scores "correctly" as well, by ear. It's amazing!

Getting back to Hanon, I think I'll stick to reading the exercises. Everyone's correct that it's not that difficult to read, and it's just a repeating pattern played across octaves. Plus, if I keep avoiding sight-reading I'll never get better at it.

I'm trying to get better at sight-reading myself but have to admit i take maybe a bit of a shortcut when it comes to hanon....that is like i mentioned i just get the pattern and fingering down and then go for it until my little finger reaches that 2nd octave g and then i come back down. Not that you're asking but i would suggest playing many short pieces to mix up what you're playing (and not just learn one piece at a time ultimately by rote even when you're intially learning it by sight-reading) One good book for this is essential keyboard repertoire, vol 1 for starts, and get the one w/ the cd if you get it at all.

Hi again, limavady. So far, I guess we think alike. In my 1st year as an adult beginner, I've "rote learned" some fairly advanced repertoire, but hardly worked on anything easy, which didn't really improve my sight-reading ability. This year, I plan to mix it up a bunch. Currently, I'm working on sight-reading an easy piece, along with a difficult Joplin piece. I also sight-read when I help my little girl who plays also.

Thanks for the tips on Hanon. I'll start exercise 2 shortly, since doing Hanon drills was one of my New Years' resolutions....and plus, all you nice people here have convinced me on the benefits.

I have just started Hanon training and it is boring me to tears. But I think that it is going to teach me something about finger placement and patterns. And hopefully these things will pop out at me someday when needed? I will keep it up, but as of now, I am not getting it. LOL

For those of you learning Hanon from a teacher, how long should we do #1 before moving on to #2.

yikes, that is take this with a grain of salt because there's no teacher involved here but I wouldn't feel bad about waiting too long. I suppose progress may be slower because you're just starting out but after a week or two of going thru exercise #1 why not try #2? Both of these, from the instructions above #2 in my hanon edition, are meant to be played together and as it says 4 times through although i usually will make up my own routines...sometimes playing each exercise twice in a row before moving onto the next for instance...I'm a little further than this now but when i was up to about #10 a few weeks back i'd even sometimes start with that exercise and work back to #1 playing each twice usually. ---There are times i won't feel like doing them and then I'll usually just jump into playing some pieces, fairly easy Bach or others that i'm working on but i look at doing the hanon like hitting a tennis ball against the wall before actually playing where it will hopefully improve my overall game so to speak.

I use Hanon exercises for 2 reasons:
1) I think they are a great "gymnastic" for the hands;
2) I can practise also in those evenings when all you want to do is switch off the brain and do nothing: executing Hanon can be so automatic that you barely have to pay attention to what you're doing...

Whan I was young I found them totally boring, but now I find something of a mantra in them...sometimes I think I could fall in a musical trance playing Hanon.

Also, transposing the exercise up and down one semitone helps a lot.

I do love all these comments and they are helping greatly. I believe in the fingering as it is written and work on getting that automatic at every speed. So far I'm about 75 bpm on #1. I especially like the "musical trances" that Hanon might create. No multitasking and staying in the present moment!!

Actually, I understand that what is required is flexibility in the forearms. Curls to develop strength in the forearms build muscle mass, but inhibit flexibility and therefore are specifically advised against. Or so I'm told.

Hop

I would advise against shifting into auto-pilot when doing Hanon. That's when bad habits can creep in, and when damage can inadvertently occur.

Use the exercises as an opportunity to observe how your hands work, where tension develops, and how to alleviate that tension.

You're right, clearly. What I meant, talking about not thinking while playng Hanon, was that there is no need to read and pay attention to different parts for the right and left hands, to complicated parts...it's all very mechanic and repetitive so as to be able to just concentrate on your hands.

That's why I'm not among those who oppose Hanon. It definitely has value as a learning tool.

I wonder how "good" someone would be were they to really concentrate on mastering all the exercises? What would their technique be like, and would they be able to learn repertory more easily because of their advanced technique? (Assuming this really did result in an advanced technique.)

I find Hanon sort of like tai chi for the fingers - for me, they encourage a kind of relaxed mindfulness.

For you guys going through Hanon, at what point do you move on to the next exercise? After a week? After you've built up a certain amount of speed? I feel like if I do one a week, I'll never get done!

I did one a week through part one, then did a different one from part one each day until I got them up to mm=108 without struggling. I did the same with part two.

I honestly do think It helped my technique. I also started doing them in all keys, but had to stop because I just didn't have the time.

I've been doing 1-5, double octave, non-stop from 1-5. I do staccato triplets at 100 bpm (i.e., 300 keystrokes per minute). I do this three times. Then I do stoccato at 125 or more bpm (twice) from 1-5, double octaves. Then I do legato at 135 bpm or so from 1-5, double octave. This takes nearly an hour. Every day. Yuck!

I'll get to the other exercises, but I'm interested in building finger independence, speed, endurance, and musicality. I hope this pays off.

Hop

I'm not very organized about it (about anything!). I downloaded the exercises quite a while ago but have only printed the first 5. I do a couple of them a day as a warm-up, about 3 octaves each - was doing 4 & 5 for a few days but went back to 1 & 2 the other day. 1's so easy & I can do it really fast - my teacher said I should do it in different keys, but I haven't done much of that. 4 & 5 I can do quite fast, too, but for 2 I had to slow down quite a bit, especially since I hadn't done it for a while. I'll probably print a few more pages soon, but I'm thinking it would be useful to put them into different rhythms, etc, and to practice playing them staccato, legato, etc.

What a wonderful comparison!! What tai chi method do you practice? I have been doing both Yang long form and Wu short form.

I've done Yang short (24) for years & years, & we're working on Yang 48, but it's SO long to learn! Some nice moves, though. I have a balance (inner ear) impairment, & for a long time I've been going to a class aimed at the balance challenged, but I had a couple of other teachers before that. I don't know anything about Wu style, or what the difference is.