Same way I feel about math problem sets.

You love them? (Extrapolating from my own feelings about math problem sets.)

The thread that won't die!!!

(Note that until today this thread had been dormant since 2006).

Several times I've started working through the Hannon exercises (although I never got too far). But I did find that they were helpful. I wouldn't spend too much time on them though. I would maybe just set aside 5-10 minutes a day or practice session on them and don't try to race through it, but practice it in a deliberate manner.

I haven't done any of these exercises. Seriously considering it.

I do want to add. From a physical training I do. I have found the value of seemingly mundane physical practices. Things that many people consider foolishness. They are the basis of making a person young again. Too many people learn to walk and never learned how to crawl. Too many have never moved joints in their bodies to their fullest extent. Many have not moved joints in their body very far in many years. That is more unhealthy than people realize. Simply moving joints to their fullest extent on a daily basis, does a ton for you. It also trains the nervous system. Joint mobility and range of motion training makes you younger.

On these exercises. The focus of them should be discipline. The discipline is of the nervous system. Many talk of strength of the fingers. Perhaps that is a lack of nerves trained to do those movements? Not strength in itself.
I would view these exercises as any other. Do them in cycles. Like any other physical training. Cycles bring far faster and greater results. Anything done the same everyday brings burn out. If done the same long enough, will eliminate results. Rest is a training tool.

Every person I ever knew who was great at something; was great at it's basics.

I love Hanon, but I am also clinically obsessive-compulsive. I just started to learn piano this month, and I started with Hanon. I can do exercises 1-3 at 108. I am close to that with exercises 4 and 5. Now that I have those under my belt, I'm skipping ahead to scales (exercises somewhere in the 30's...).

Hanon exercises 1-5 have given me confidence to start tackling scales now. (Though Hanon would think me a cheat starting the scales before mastering exercises 1-30+!)

>How does everyone feel about Hanon

I feel it's waste of time. I prefer to work on real music

For a long time I worked at Hanon religiously. I quickly mastered the first few, and found my pinkies burning with #s 5&6. Then I got to #7 and hit a brick wall. After several weeks of practice, I conquered it and moved on to the higher numbers. Now I can play #7 fluidly and quickly, and I can play all the exercises up to #20 with facility and ease.

And NOT ONE of those exercises translated to greater musicality, the ability to read music, the ability to keep time, the ability to interpret a piece, the understanding of scales or chord progressions, etc. Doing those exercises was like doing hundreds of jumping jacks in the hopes of becoming a salsa dancer.

That said, I still do some of the exercises (notably 5, 6, and 7) to strengthen my weaker fingers and to keep a little quickness in the hands, but they're really no more than warm-up calisthenics. I can't find any value in them at all for getting better at music.

To me, scales, chord progressions, and arpeggios are a far better use of one's time spent on technique--if you must spend time on technique.

In the final analysis, though, I find that playing the music I want to play gives me all the practice I need--with the added benefit of getting me into the REAL THING. As for exercising my weaker fingers, I suppose typing long messages on the piano forum is a great exercise too.

Greetings,

I've been playing piano informally on and off since I was young, but never seriously studied it until recently. I've been a serious student for about 6 months. One of the first piano books I consciously remember learning about was the book of Hanon exercises. When I started studying piano seriously, I ordered my own copy and gave them a try. I got through the first few and I did notice my hands feeling more comfortable playing difficult parts involving the weaker fingers.

I more recently read C.C. Chang's book, and read some of the arguments against Hanon. Now, C.C. Chang's book is an excellent one, and although the presentation is a bit disorganized and repetitive, there's lots of useful information there. All of his arguments against Hanon have sound logic to them, of course. They mainly pertain to the ways it can be misused and how it perhaps is habitually misused by students. However the logic for their use, in my opinion, is equally valid - just like in any physical activity, mechanical drills can be of great use. I don't find his objections to be convincing enough to dismiss mechanical exercises completely.

When I was learning to play basketball, I hated the inconsistency of my shot, and playing individual games only resulted in very slow gradual improvement of my shooting. I then looked up some shooting drills, and since I prefer quick improvement and efficiency over just playing, I practiced them religiously. The result? When I did play a game, my shooting percentage was much higher. Of course, the trade off was that it took a lot of time to do those drills and with limited time in a day to play basketball, I could play fewer games.

Maybe someone can correct me, but I can't see any good reason why the same logic wouldn't apply to the piano, as it does for practically every physical activity out there.

I should mention that the Hanon book I have includes a great deal of material. I believe it includes more than just the original Hanon exercises. In my copy are fingerings and exercises for legato/harmonic thirds, fourths, etc (every interval), octaves in scales, broken octaves and triads, and of course scales, arpeggios, etc. Within this book are literally every technical scenario I've ever seen in music applied to almost every possible combination and key. I can hardly believe that practicing this material would not seriously accelerate your technical proficiency. But it would do so at a price - it would take a great deal of time away from learning actual music, and it wouldn't help you at all to actually play things musically. Someone who is not a professional pianist does not have the time to learn every exercise and play the entire book for every practice session. In this case you should just practice and use whatever is relevant to the music you are learning. C.C. Chang recommends creating a new set of exercises for diagnosing and fixing problems - but the material in this book and other manuals of exercises are already perfect for that. At the very least, it shows you the fingerings and how to play almost everything you would encounter in music.

I have been fortunate to get a great deal of theory education alongside my learning repertoire. Once you've hit that theory milestone of understanding everything pertinent to musical structure, you begin to realize that there really are a finite number of combinations in music - at least as far as technique is concerned. This definitely isn't apparent to most beginners and even many experienced piano players who would balk at the idea that there are enough exercises out there to cover every possible situation. For most people, the logic that there never could be is more intuitive - but sometimes intuition is wrong. Although there are potentially infinite combinations you really can cover the vast majority (maybe 95%?) with the material in this book. With that being the case, I cannot possibly see how mastering this material would not benefit learning many different kinds of music.

It would also make you a more versatile player - players who only play repertoire are limited in technical ability by the repertoire they have learned. Players who have the foundation for a wide-range of technical scenarios in every key will be at less of a handicap when encountering something completely new. If they have played only Baroque music for example, then they are likely to be very weak using the pedal, and have little experience with the left hand playing accompaniment instead of a separate melody. In fact, there is something self-defeating in C.C. Chang's argument that only music can teach technique - if that is true, then simply learning repertoire would only be teaching you specific music/technique combinations particular to that work and would not be good practice for any future music - but we all know this is patently false.

When I downloaded the amplified cadenza of the Busoni Piano Concerto just for fun, I didn't even recognize what was going on in the right hand, and it didn't make sense until I came to the appropriate page in my Hanon book where it gave the exercises for broken octaves (C4 to C5 to G4 to G5 to C5 to C6, etc.). I can now see how a path to playing this is possible. Since the Hanon book has examples of this for every single scale and combination, it would be of obvious benefit to practice these exercises to master this technique.

In the end, Hanon exercises and others like them should be a tool. If misused, it would do great harm and waste a lot of time. If used properly as a supplement to the music then it can be of great use. I don't see it as helpful at all in developing musical playing. But I disagree with C.C. Chang that technique and music are completely inseparable - at least in practice, they need not be. I find that as the technical part of a piece becomes automatic, concentrating more on musical expression is much easier. Trying to control the tone, the dynamics, the articulations, the tempo, etc. is utterly hopeless unless you can play the piece effortlessly. Exercises are helpful for achieving the ease of play which is required to focus on making music.

Just my opinion, of course.

Well said. I agree!