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Hi again.

So I'm wondering if I'm going about this wrong. I've been doing about an 1 hour and half of scales and Hanon exercises daily out of my 2 and half hour to 3 hour time to practice.

Am I doing to many finger exercises? The reason I went about it this way is just to get my fingers moving and so I could work out the whole 9 finger thing. I also feel I should know all or the bulk of my scales by memory, while I'm at it. I'm making progress, that's for sure but by the time I get to actually playing songs my fingers, on my left hand are kinda tired and I tend to play stiff with them but I kinda do anyways.

How much time should I give to say, Hanon exercises. Should I do one exercise per day? How long? One after another, there's so many.

The same with scales, should I do a few of them a day several times over, all of them after one another. Focus on one per day? One a week?

I'm just wondering what would be optimal as far as splitting up my time to get the most out of each including learning and playing songs. After all, that's what I'm after. I'd like to move on to writing my own as soon as possible but with confidence.

Thanks!

I think if you're learning scales & arpeggios, it's natural to initially spend more time and effort on them. As you absorb them, you'll need less time to practice them and can focus on other things.

When I re-started piano a year ago, I focused for 3 months on technical work. 80-100% of my practice time was scales/arpeggios and cadences. After that I spent the next 6 months focusing on sight-reading and repertoire. This approach is not for everybody, but I found it worthwhile.

Today, I generally do 15 minutes a day of technical work. I pick a daily musical exercise and play it in all scales, arpeggios and cadences. But in the beginning I had to put a lot of effort in up front to get to that point.

I used several approaches which constantly changed over time. I first started memorizing the white keys and then the black keys. This was the most painful part of the process (memorizing the scales). I found it useful to learn the Major and minor of the same key together. I almost never played hands separate, and I always played at least 1 set of contrary motion even if it was super slow going at the beginning. Interestingly, the more painful the contrary motion was on any single day, the better I'd play it a week later (according to my practice log).

Arpeggios were easier, because I already knew the trick of grouping the major chords by hand position. I just needed to memorize the shapes/patterns of the other chords (7ths, aug, dim etc.)

To help the absorption process I practiced in all kinds of different orders to force my brain to adapt. I'd practice chromatically, especially going down the keyboard. To change it up, I'd start the chromatic sequence from E, F or B (I found those to be the most troublesome for some reason).

Scales Bootcamp lists the scales by difficulty, so I'd practice the most difficult scales first and work my way down. Then I started practicing by ordering them in 4ths, 5ths and 6ths. I also found it helpful to quickly flip-flop between the the major and minors of the same key, switching every octave. One of the more fun things to do is to turn on the radio/ipod and play the scales/arps to your favorite songs.

I also use an app that randomly prompts a key to practice. When I started shifting my focus to sight-reading and repertoire, I'd use the app in-between pieces or practice runs. I'd play through the key it gave me, then return to my sight-reading or repertoire piece. This kept my practice sessions very lively and very often extended them by an hour or more.

The last piece of technical work that I still have in the wings is really knowing those chord inversions cold. This might be a New Year's resolution, I just have to check with the 'teach' to see if there is time to properly focus on that this coming year.

That sounds like--a lot--of exercises and scales. Some observations:

* If your hand is getting tired enough that it feels stiff before you start to get to repertoire, you could very well not be doing good things to it.

* Time spent on scales is well spent

* Hanon. Boy, very controversial. Hanon was written in a time where pedagogy was all about finger independence. The fact is, anatomically, all fingers are not created equal. 4 is tightly bound to 3 and 5 and if you try to treat your finger as an isolated unit, you could actually damage your left hand. Stuff that Hanon advises like lifting fingers individually as high as possible and then playing--possibly really bad advice

* Chopin stressed short practice sessions (at most 2 hours) but extreme mindfulness. You'd probably get a lot more out of laser focus on a few scales right now rather than trying to run 12 major and 12 minor scales or rush completing 30 Hanon exercises. Pick a scale or two. Play them right hand. Play them left hand. Vary the rhythm. Do two octave runs. Three octave runs. Try them both hands, parallel. Try them both hands, contrary.

Think marathon, not sprint.

I'd be 10x better if I actually took my own advice about scales and mindfulness, so take that into account as well

I guess you are a bit of a special case having played synth for 20 years but the average beginner would do well not to play any technical exercises in the first year including scales and arpeggios. Why, because by delaying such things until they are ready they can learn them much quicker. I read this when I was feeling guilty about not doing scales and delayed them until my second year. I learned 24 scales in a matter of four months simply because I was ready. Same goes with arpeggios, I tried to learn them in my first year and found them really hard, I started to learn them again when my scales were more secure and so much easier.

It is a tortoise and hare thing and learning piano is riddled with such examples which brings me to Hanon. I fell for the trap that I could develop a good technique with Hanon and others, but any gains (and they were slight) were lost because I was not up to the type of repertoire that required much of a technique. When I finally got to a piece that needed a real jump in my finger ability it wasn't Hanon that helped (and I did try), it was taking the piece and breaking it into exercises.

Admittedly when I was first learning scales they have to be played slow and it could be time consuming, but right now I try to get through them very quickly along with one arpeggio per day and some sight reading. The rest of the day (around 90%) is then used to concentrate on repertoire. All my technical improvement has come from a steadily increasing in difficulty schedule of repertoire. This has meant I am learning something I like and not playing some mechanical exercise that may or may not be of any use.

Hi 9fingers,
First of all, gosh, go easy on yourself! You've only been (back?) at it a short while. These things takes years, decades....

One thing I've learned as an adult re-starter is that the brain is really lazy. If you get into a routine it will become just that - a routine, rather than a learning session. So I would say.. break it up. And do it differently every day. 20 minutes a session, or possibly 30, is plenty. I'm not sure of your schedule, whether you can break it up like this but if you can do (in random order) 20 minutes scales (then take a break), 20 minutes really slow on the hard passages of the pieces your working on (then take a break), 20 minutes at tempo on the pieces you know well or are close to knowing well (and play through the mistakes.. just note them, and note that you need to come back to those bits) then take a break, 20 minutes on one or two new pieces that you are learning (then take a break). And so on.

Don't do the same thing every day or it will become rote. Ditch Hanon (sorry all you Hanon lovers)...unless you love it, in which case continue but not for more than 20 minutes. If you don't love it find something you do - some Bach or Mozart, Czerny (slowly!), Mozkowsi... there are so many choices.

With scales, I'd say no more than 4 a day. First slow and deliberate, hands separately. My scales routine goes something like this (but I mix it up often): left hand, one octave up and down, accenting the 4th beat. Two Octaves up and down accenting the fourth beat. Three octaves up and down, accenting the 3rd beat. Right Hand repeat. THen two octaves together accenting the fourth. Three octaves together accenting the third. Four octaves SLOWLY accenting the fourth. Four octaves together at tempo, then at temp crescendo and diminuendo... then slow again, then change to the next key.

Don't always do, say, C major followed by C minor followed by G major and so on. Mix it up. Do C major, B minor, D contrary, A melodic minor etc. If you always do the same it becomes just a motor skill and you're not learning.

Sometimes do the hard passages first. Sometimes do a run through of pieces you already know first. Sometimes just do a whole session of technical work. Sometimes do a whole session on just one piece. Etc.

And remember what you wrote - you're making progress. I wish I had an adage better than "Rome wasn't built in a day" ... but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. We're all with you on this and wish you much success.

cheers,
Cathryn.

I suggest looking into Bernhard's posts linked to in a recent thread. He wrote a lot about how to practice. Especially, the 7x20 method has been extremely useful to me.

If you're getting tired (physically) you're overdoing whatever thing is making you tired, or maybe doing it with tension.

Strength training is not part of piano playing, except possibly for the core and back muscles to keep you sitting with good posture.
Nothing in the hands or forearms should get tired or stiff ever.
Speed and endurance at the piano come from relaxation of the right muscles, use of gravity, finger independence, good coordination of fingers and hand and arm.

Mental tiredness, now, that is a necessary part of the process

Alright, thanks everyone. I'll consider everything here for sure.

Whizbang, cathryn999, I should have mentioned that I'm not exactly following the Hanon method per say, I'm not using it as a strength exercise or lifting my fingers way up and playing hard. I'm basically using the patterns to get my fingers to move in what are to me, for now, unconventional ways. I had to do similar exercises on guitar. As boring as it was it took some time to move my pinky and ring finger together fluidly and quickly. Same with all finger groups, trills, arps, ect. Now I have to learn that stuff all over again on keys. Very different feeling and action.

hreichgott, I think most of the stiffness I apply to my left hand comes from playing guitar. I could be wrong but you do need finger strength to play guitar. It's a kind of strength that eventually goes unnoticed with the goal of playing "light" on the fingers but it's there for sure. It might be a case of habit on my left hand as my right hand is really relaxed. Not a 100% on that.

Qazsedcft, thanks for the link. I'll check it out after I'm done writing this. I tried a search but that didn't go as planned. I think the words are too common for the search to yield useful quick results. Or I missed it.

Thanks again!