Do you prefer it?
I am thinking to start practicing it... Do you recomend it or do you rather prefer some other excersises?

Also, is it enough to spend few minutes on many excersises or rather spend bigger amount of time on 1 or 2 of them?

GreenRain, Hanon wrote his exercises back when the piano's touch was much lighter, and high finger speed was of over arching importance. The use of wrist, forearm and body had not been developed because of both the nature of the instrument and musical (think classical, not romantic). Teachers and performers at least here in the USA didn't really begin incorporating romantic period music in student's studies until well into the 20th century, and you know that even today, many teacher's teaching repertoire doesn't extend past 1950.

Thus, Hanon is great for developing high fingers, where the student plays mostly on the finger tip, but is of very little use for music written past 1850-60. Hanon lived from 1819 to 1900. His formative years and main teaching would have been prior to the writing of the major romantics; his primary focus would have been on the great classical composers.

This is not to be construed as I disapprove of Hanon, just realize what he is good for and what his etudes aren't good for.

I'm with JVDB. I usually have students do Hanon when they're working through sonatina literature. Hanon's approach was revolutionary in his day because he sought to train the fingers to be more equal in terms of agility and tone.

It's great for evenness in passagework in classical and early romantic literature, and a lot of people find them fun to play.

I use Hanon only with students who like that sort of thing. With those who do not, however, I will have them only work on Hanon exercises if they apply to a particular issue in their current repertoire.

Green, if you like doing them, then go ahead, but your time may be better spent on repertoire, scales, chords and arpeggios, or just picking what exercises address your current technical issues.

I think anything taught by Hanon can be better taught using other materials. My biggest objection is that it puts the mind to sleep and stops reading.

I tend to agree with Gary. Instead of playing music, Hannon locks you into a repetitious, mind numbing cycle of finger drills.

Why not take a fairly challenging piece of music for your skill level and begin to practice it hands separately? You'll build technique more quickly and enjoy it a whole lot more.

For finger dexterity, practice your sclaes instead. Almost all difficult single note runs are based on scales, and (at least in my mind) are a lot more engaging to play than Hannon.

Practice time is at a premium for most of us busy folks. Do you really want to spend an hour a day (as Hannon suggests)to play through those exercises?

LOOK OUT!! A Hanon Thread!

Hanon has a few select uses, but is not really a method of choice for my studio. My biggest complaint is that there is a tendancy to turn the ear off due to the amount of time spent for the exercises.

I think that the basic technical exercises S,C,A, do as good of a job in building technique. The short length of a technical pattern (F# minor Dim7 arpeggios for example), allow one to intuitively pre-hear, produce, and evaluate sounds with a lot less fuss than a long exercise.

-P-

Greenrain, I remember that your teacher has just (one week ago?) begun creating a technique oriented program for you. She's done that with scales and exercises in those scales. Then in one of your threads somebody mentioned Hanon. Would it be possible that your teacher already has an opinion on Hanon, and whether it's suitable for you at this time? She may have other things planned for you as she watches you progress. In any case, I would want to ask her before trying anything on my own at this stage - talking student to student.

Scales, chords and arpeggios.

Thank you.

Thanks for answers:)
I will probaly learn only thrills excersise...

They sound most enjoyable.

Oh, one more question:
How must arpreggios be practiced?
Is there any special excersise?