Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Need help: Czerny 599, essential pieces and order ?

Dear piano teachers,

I'm learning Czerny 599 book. It has 100 pieces. If I practice all of them, it'll take long long time. I want to quickly go through the essential pieces of it and then advance to Czerny 849 book.

What are the essential pieces in Czerny 599 that I should practice ? What's the recommended order to work on them ?

I had practiced the Beyer book and currently practicing in the middle of Czerny 599. I've practiced 2 pieces of Czerny 849 book and don't feel any hardship for it.

Thanks a lot.
Student
Jackie

My opinion of Czerny has sunk over the yrs. At one time I played a lot of him (with nothing achieved for all the effort), since he's such a revered name in piano, but now I don't do anything by him. The reason is that he apparently was more a businessman than a top teacher. He wrote thousands of technical studies, each and every one of them different--one might conclude just from this fact in itself that there would be a huge dilution of quality in the numerous studies (in 599 alone there are 100 studies, all of them different)--and they sold well given his well-publicized image (he had been taught by Beethoven and had taught Liszt briefly) and made him a rich man. But the numerous studies apparently were cranked out by the wagonload for profit above all else and so their technical merit seems questionable. I personally would not waste any time playing anything in either 599 or 849.

Dear Gyro,

Thanks for the comment. I'm doing and planing to do exercises with Czerny 599 and 849. I agree that, some of the exercises are boring, they are not good music, so it's hard to remember the score and play smoothly.

Considering those are his work made long time ago, there might be more modern and better exercise books.

Could you recommend some better exercise books at similar level of the Czerny 599 and 849 book ?

Thanks a lot.
Jackie

The pieces in 599 are not really technical studies. Allegedly it's a method - the fact that it starts with both hands played in the treble clef is the only thing interesting about it. If I use it at all, it's usually as a source of sight reading material.

849 is better as a group of technical studies, though I don't teach them. If I must teach Czerny, I prefer opus 299 and select ones - shortened - from 740.

Which brings me to my next point: I hope that you're doing these 'pieces' with a teacher. Each one must be done with a particular intent, or else it becomes mindless, dull finger twiddling and possibly harmful for your technique (not to mention mind, body and soul) and a waste of time........

What are the valuable pieces from Czerny 299 and 740 ?

If I haven't reached the level of Czerny 299 and 740, what other etude books I can work on which are at the level of Czerny 599/849 ?

If Czerny books are a little out of date or too much commercial rather than helpful technically, what are the more modern and better etude books to work with ?

If many are still following the route: Beyer, Czerny 599/849/299/740, is there a more modern equivalent sequence with more modern etude books ?

I grew up with that sequence of books; however, my teachers were "modern" enough to supplement with many books from diverse sources.

Czerny 599 has some nifty pieces, but most of the pieces are terrible, boring, and/or useless. I used that book to teach sight reading, but even as a sight-reading book it is pretty lame. Also, it has a lot of bad fingering suggestions throughout the book. It makes a good exercise for students to figure out which fingerings are bad, and to replace them with better, more logical fingerings.

Why don't you pick up some method book series and work from those? Piano pedagogy has evolved since the time of Czerny. Even Burgmuller Op. 100 (which I don't really like) is much more interesting than Czerny.

Forget about 599, and start with 849, if you feel that you are ready for them.

What does your teacher ask you to think about - or work on - when it comes to practicing the pieces in 849? In my opinion, if you must work on these, then you should do all of them. Compared to other Czerny, they are short - and you don't have to play them at a fast tempo in order to get anything beneficial out of them.

But you need to have specific goals in mind for each exercise - mostly concerning articulation and voicing - and that comes from your teacher.

If you feel that you are not ready for 299 and 740 - then don't even think about them.

Thanks for the comments.

I agree, many exercises in 599 are boring, some fingerings are hard to follow.
I'm in the middle of 599 now and maybe just take some of the interesting exercises from the rest of it and get out of it and then work on the 849 and then some 299 and maybe that's enough for a non-professional learner. I should also look at some more modern exercise books like Burgmuller 100. And then I can learn some nice and not too complicated piano work.

I've looked at some other exercise books from composers like Lemoine, Berens, Bertini, Heller, Moszkowski; because I'm a non-pro learner, maybe I don't understand them so much. For me, their exercises are similar to Czerny's, at different level from very easy to very hard.

Any valuable good exercises from these composers ?

Some other student mentioned a piano study book:

Burgmüller, Czerny & Hanon -- Piano Studies Selected for Technique and Musicality, Volume 1, by Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield

Actually there are 3 volumes, from beginner level to higher level ( said to be up to level 8 of UK piano exam).

Is this book good and helpful ?

For volume 1 book, there are 32 exercises, volume 2 got 41 exercises.
I doubt if it's enough to do so few exercises and reach a very high level. Seems only about 100 exercises in all the 3 volumes.

What are some good method book series to work with ?

M'Lou Dietzer has a series of books with pieces of progressive difficulty, as do others. I see no point to Czerny, Hanon, etc, unless you enjoy mindless rote. I'd rather work on technique in music. If you look closely, none if these composers of exercises explains how to do them, only do them repeatedly. If you know what the technical solutions are, then you don't need to do them; if you don't know the technical solutions, then repetition isn't going to make it better.

em, I found the book.

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/composers/M-lou-Dietzer/12340

15 books in the series.

also "Piano Studies Selected for Technique and Musicality"

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dca-books-english-tree&field-keywords=Piano+Studies+Selected+for+Technique+and+Musicality&x=0&y=0

3 volumes and the handbook

BTW, are you Jackie Evancho or her mother?