Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Hanon exercises: Play in original keys vs different keys

I heard someone say that Hanon succeeds in putting together in a compact way technique that is most critical for the development and maintenance of finger dexterity. They achieve the maximum return on effort ratio when played in the original key. Playing them in other keys will for some keys like from C to G or F is not going to provide much more benefit. Playing them in F#, B or Db will be different but how often are you going to be playing in those keys. Diminishing returns.

Maybe in Classical you may not be playing in F#, B or Db that often, but for Jazz I think you would.

But maybe he has a point. For maximum bang for the buck maybe just stick to the original keys, and play scales etc to cover all keys?

Practice Hanon in E and Db, avoid the key of C; it's a waste of precious time.
Btw, classical exercises for jazz? Get Brahms exercise book, combine that with some Chopin (especially the Cortot edition) and some Bach - and maybe some Ravel . . .

From the times of "The Well-Tempered Clavier" there are no restrictions on the tone piano. I read somewhere that in the early 20th century, students were required to play the exercises of Hanon in any key for choosing examiners.

This is something I've often wondered about. When you change to certain keys, shouldn't you change the fingerings? Even then, some of the exercsises are downright awkward.

It's a pretty big leap from the Hanon to the Brahms exercises, at least for me. I've found the Brahms to mostly still be way beyond my skills.

I found Hanon to be useful a couple years ago when I started playing again. Not so much now, even though I haven't moved up to anything particularly advanced. I did not spend a lot of time pushing the exercises into other keys as I was simply using it to rebuild basic motor skills. The interesting thing about Hanon is, he was an organist, not a pianist.

Have you tried the Schmitt "Preparatory Exercises?" I found them to be at least as helpful as Hanon. They are much more compact than Hanon and seem almost childishly simply until you start pushing up the tempo. They are also easier to shift into other keys.

http://www.amazon.com/Schmitt-Op-Preparatory-Exercises-Schirmers/dp/0793525578

The big advantage of books like Hanon and Schmitt are that they are very accessible. You can just dive right in and start playing them as slowly as you like.

There's also "Hanon Revisited." I've worked on a few of these - they are kind of interesting. Always intend to go back to it but there's a lot of other stuff piled up.

http://www.amazon.com/Schirmer-Hanon-Revisited-Contemporary-Exercises/dp/B0038CAM5K

No. Same fingering in Db as well as E.

Yes, fingering does not change - it was by Tausig, Liszt and Margaret Long:

 

From the beginning it's uncomfortable, somewhat like a pianist with no arms ,who is learning to play with legs , but then it becomes a habit. I train so for twenty-five years.

The preset metronome speed for the first hanon exercise is 108 bpm. But I can only do at 54 bpm after starting fresh nearly a month ago. I wonder how people can move much faster. Is it because of the organ?

Yes, playing Hanon in C#, thumb on black keys, is awkward. I think there's a school of jazz fingering that argues that you _need_ to learn to play like that, because your fingering shouldn't change when you shift keys.

I am agnostic on the question. But it's handy to have the flexibility to do it.

. Charles

The exercises were written for piano. Some think it ironic that Hanon, who was trained as organist, and primarily known as an organist, wrote the most well-known and lasting piano technique book.

It took me about a year of working on the first book to get up to the suggested speed. I don't think I ever got that far years ago when I was playing much more difficult music.

study tausig daily studies, czerny the school of velocity, liszt technical exercises,cortot rational principles of piano technique, clementi gradus ad parnassum but stay away from hanon it is a waste of time

This isn't Hanon but a 5 finger pattern. It seems counter-intuitive because you always want to play with ergonomic fingering and this practice is definitely not that.

In music - as in life - not all created for the convenience of performer; there are cases not comfortable, not pianistic phrasing (eg. as in jazz), requiring non-standard fingering . Fingering arsenal of pianist should be much broader than the principle of Czerny - 123.1234. Liszt and Tausig used five-fingered fingerings in all keys; Busoni as a pupil of Liszt, too, used it, but then reworked to technique of 4 fingers - without the thumb. By the way so often played Oscar Peterson.
Ergonomics in the performance is very important, but no less important safety margin of the pianist.