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It seems all Hanon exercises are available for free:

http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/single_listing.cfm?composer_id=7

Downloads will be limited to two per person per day, so you might want to start with the first ones.

Here are my answers to the questions.

What piano materials do you have?

Alfred's method books (all three levels)
Easy Classics to Moderns - Music for Millions
Masterworks Classics (levels 1-3)

Are you starting completely from scratch or have you had any music/piano experience?

I have been studying with a teacher for one year and three months.

Do you already have beginning level piano instruction books?

Although I am not using a method book with my teacher, I have all three levels of the Alfred books. I used them with my previous teacher. We only got through the first half of book 2.

Would you be willing to purchase some on your own?

Yes

Is there any particular music you would like to learn to play?

Since I am studying classical with my teacher, I would like to focus on other types of music (jazz, new age, folk, etc.)for this exercise.

slow down guys..... i just ordered the hanon book on ebay over the weekend, but do i really want to go over this stuff a million times??? how many times are one of us going to really need any help with hanon?? seriously. hanon should be more like a challenge like i challenge you to do 1 a week or 3 a week or so many times a day. i seriously dont see a need for me to go over this stuff with everyone and their mother, i thought we could do something fun and keep hanon more like a challenge or something. i dont mind going over this, but a challenge would be more fitting for hanon dont ya think. then maybe have a fun book to go through. just my thoughts.

I think, the group will provide some motivation which is usually of prime importance for the Hanon exercises. Also, there might be several ways to study Hanon and doing it in a group would help us in this regards if everybody tries to suggest different ways of practicing it.

It might not be a lot of fun, but again studying a method book with simple pieces is not very fun either (plus it will probably take more time). Another advantage is, we can practice only one or two exercises a week and this won't intervene your usual practice routine.

Finally, choosing a method book or a piece to work on is not easy since we're all in different levels. But, this is not a problem with the Hanon. I will just play it slower compared to somebody else who has more experience.

Also, one other advantage is if somebody doesn't have a teacher, but wants to study Hanon, those who are taking lessons could help them. For instance, until my lesson last week I wasn't aware that I was playing louder with my thumb compared to other fingers when practicing the Hanon. More importantly, my teacher gave me some exercises to remedy this. We can share things like these.

As for Hanon, HOW exactly has it helped you? What about Czerny? I know that is free as well online. I am cautious about Hanon becuase of all the comments about the exercises. Maybe those that have been doing them awhile can explain the benefits they have noticed.Thanks.
Crystal

I'm starting out in the "other" group--advanced intermediate--even though it may be a stretch. However, I'd like to add my 2 cents here about Hanon. Hanon is not very musical and basically very boring mechanical exercises. I would like to just suggest two alternatives--one I just discovered this past weekend.

Burgmuller Studies--melodic pieces that still train you technically and if you're at beginning intermediate they should be no problem.

Then the old standby--Czerny--now you've got to go the basic one that has a combination of 50 and 32 studies. The first several of the 50 are just at intermediate. I wouldn't suggest School of Velocity or anything more advanced from him--you would want to bang your head into a wall and take many aspirins from looking at 32 and 64 notes.

Another idea about motivating one to practice exercises, be it Hanon or not, is to start, like the practice thread, a challenge thread, where each day someone would start the tread with "canned" words so that new folks will understand what's going on and then others could chime in with what exercises they intend to do and have done this day. I'm basing this on the fitness challenge thread at Weight Watchers forum boards.

Thoughts anyone?

My piano teacher told me he hadn't studied the Hanon exercises in the first 6-7 years of learning piano. However, then he (actually his new teacher at the collage) had realized that his playing was sometimes very good and sometimes only fair. That is, to quote him, his playing, his fingering was unpredictable. Unstable. Then, he had started practicing Hanon for an hour every day (I don't think we need that much at this time, though) and the problem of unpredictability was resolved.

Personally, I don't have any experience with Hanon yet.

Are the ones you are talking about online for free? I have the School of Velocity printed out already.

ishmael, i see your point, and i think hanon is good, but i think it should be added on with a method book. see how many people would like to do a method book with a challenge for hanon. hanon is very good technical excersize. but i think we need to spice it up with some sight reading and other skills. lets say we wanted to go through alfreds 1,2, and 3, so start 3 threads with book 1 with hanon challenge, book 2 with hannon challenge and book 3 with hanon challenge and those in the more advanced books can go back and help those in lower level books. i personally prefer faber and faber because it has high reviews and its a good method book. they have 2 adult books and theory books i know of, and since most of us havent done faber and faber i think it would be fun for us all to do it together, from the beginning. going through several different level 1 books even if you have already done one, another one will add a new perspective. and really improve your playing. just my 2 cents worth:)

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have a question about the Czerny book. The most important reason I'm choosing Hanon is that it takes almost no time to play them slowly. You simply don't need to learn the notes in the exercises. So, how about Czerny? Because I'm not sure I want to spend lots of time on a Czerny piece which I won't be playing for fun. Maybe later I can use the Czerny to improve my sight-reading.

I completely agree. I'm not saying we should just study Hanon. If you're willing to go through a method book, you should definetely do that. But, I would rather keep the Hanon and method books in separate topics since not everybody wants to study method books. By keeping them in different topics it would be easier to keep track of the suggestions on Hanon (o/w somebody studying the hanon would have to go and read all three topics) and if you want to study both the method book and the hanon, you can follow both topics.

Ishmael, i think that is a great idea to start different threads for them. now the only question is what does everyone want to do???

OPUS45 where are you? what method books do we use?

what does everyone think??

Well, I just started Alfred All-in-one book 2 as a refresher course. Anyone else want to start or restart with me?
Crystal

Great! So, this means we can add you to the Hanon group? If nobody else volunteers I'm planning to open a topic in a couple of days. (Maybe, since I'm not a native speaker, somebody else should do it?)

I did Czerny after about a year of playing experience, and I found them to be very tricky -- I definitely spent more time learning them than I did Hanon, and never really got them up to top speed.

That said, they're excellent as little finger puzzles and probably quite beneficial.

(I feel a bit guilty posting on both this thread and the other one, but honestly, I'm in that place where the groups overlap... )

Ishmael: Your English is excellent; I would never have guessed you're not a native speaker.

I may join you all as a "definite maybe."

I'm on Lesson 10 in the Faber and Faber Adult Method book, and I can only practice about 1/2 hour a day :rolleyes:

I'd be willing to buy other material...

I'm in my 5th month of lessons now (I have been dabbling for many years, though, and took lessons a little as about 20 years ago..)

I'm interested in joining a group that would help with motivation to practice. I'd like to play some chord related popular songs, as well as learn how to read...

I would be in favor of continuing with my method book, but working on some supplemental material offered by the group...

Perhaps some of you are also using Faber and Faber also, so we can compare notes...

-Angelo

Also for your consideration is maybe use these graded pieces??

http://www.smoore204644.com/GradedPieces.pdf

I hope I haven't given the impression that I'm a music teacher, I'm an adult learner myself (self taught for many years plus about 4-5 months of lessons).

Think of me as an administrative assistant who's volunteered to keep a list of names/pieces for you guys.

As for which method books...I don't really know which are the best. I have used Alfred's and I think they are a very good choice.

You might want to consider using the groups to work on piano repertoire, and you could use method books individually as you choose (and if enough of you want to tackle a learning series though method books, then great!) . I am sure you guys can come up with a lot of suggestions for pieces to learn together. Take a look at the list we're developing in the intermediate-early advanced group....it includes Christmas music, jazz, modern, new age, and classical.

What would you think of following a similar format here?

Here's a couple of suggestions:

Bach-Prelude in C Major from the WTC 1 is an easy piece to play. It's about three pages long, so it's almost like a "real piece" which you can play to other people (unlike most of the practice pieces in the method books). But if you don't like repetitive stuff, it's not for you.

Bach-Menuet in G Major, a little more difficult than the piece above, but still level 2. 2 pages.

If the pieces above are too easy, you can try Fur Elise (either the main theme or the whole thing). Even just the main theme is fun to play and you can actually play it to other people(My g/f asks me to play it once in a while:)).

I'm already working on Fur Elise, trying to speed up the first interruption which was/is the most difficult part for me.