Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Have you ever?:For the adult beginner, buy a children's set--are ya sick of me yet :)

Sorry I keep asking all these questions, I just have them with no one to answer! I figure the piano teacher's forum would be the best place for this:

Does anyone go through the children's method books (Faber's, Piano Town, Alfred, etc etc etc etc) for adults instead of the adult books?

It seems that children who play all levels usually play much better than adults who finish the adult series of the respective method books. Is it because there are typically more songs and it's all spread out? Or because children have a better chance of continuing with music at a more professional/academic path?

Would you recommend this for anyone/what are your thoughts on it?

Thanks in advance.

I have never seen those methods (they're not used where I live) so I can't comment. But my personal guess is that the whole adult vs children volumes might be a bit of a commercial tacticts. This is often seen in foods and even supplements sometimes, where the children version is identical to the adult one but costs a bit more and has a more coloured style. Here the standard is to use the same methods for whatever beginner, whether child, young adult or older adult. The emphasized factor is their level, not their age. Musically the 10 year old who begins from scratch is identical to the 45 year old who begins from scratch.

My experience with adults is something like this: they want to learn, they want to work hard, they expect to play Fur Elise after the first lesson, a Rachmaninoff Prelude after the second lesson. The idea of slaving over an elementary text for years on end is offensive. Okay, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but there's some truth in it.

Thus, the publishers have come out with methods which stress being able to play recognizable tunes almost immediately. Most contemporary pop tunes have very difficult rhythms to notate and to play, as well as difficult harmonies, so they use older material (copy right expenses are also part of the problem). If you learn the I, V7 and IV chords, plus the minor triads, you can accompany something like 95% of all folk and older pop tunes, church songs, etc. So that's the direction they go.

Going this direction doesn't impart the playing skills you ask about, but it does give adults who stick with it satisfaction.

Adults bring to lessons a maturity in self-discipline and work ethic, but they need as much time at the piano, or more, than a teen, to learn and master the piano playing technique. Thus, patience and willingness to go for the long haul is extremely important.

I use Fanny Waterman's Piano Lessons even with adults as it is the school of technique I have a perfect understanding of. It doesn't take long in book 1 to get to some delicious music. Book 2 is chock full of the stuff. I'm not interested in learners who are heck bent on playing Fur Elise or other trite stuff. It's the beauty dummy!

Thanks for the input.

My real perspective was that the adult books aren't filled with too much. My brother began with Alfred's "Older Beginner Book 1" and it easily does a lot of the first adult Alfred book--at a more manageable pace with much more reinforcement. I personally enjoyed going through it with him because I think I learned a LOT--then again, the Adult Book 1 from Alfred was great too, where my brother had more difficulty relating to the pieces in my book than I to his.

That's why I plan to continue adult books, but also go through my brother's children's book with him (as I am doing with his rebeginning on Faber's)--I just wanted to see what the pro's thought of it

Nice explaination John. Another obvious thing with adult books are the animations and graphic work. The pictures in children method books seem to be bright and plentious, Adult method books appear with less colour and more 'seriousness'.

Danny, let me give you an example.

Alfred's series shows books for tiny tots that go something like:

A B C D

Then the next age group gets:

1A 2B

Then the next:

1

Finally there is another set that puts the first three levels together in one.

The idea is that the older you are, the less you need.

The fact is that all these books are aiming for level 6. Level 6 is the print size we expect for adults. No more pictures, no more baby stuff. The music is pretty standard. It ends with things like the CPE Bach Solfeggio.

Of course, by the time you "finish", you are really just getting started at learning music that demands some level of accomplishment.

But the point is that the pictures and colors and very simple explanations are made with the idea that little kids need them.

What happens is that when even small kids are very successful at moving to more sophisticated music, of any style, all this silly stuff just disappears.

I discovered the same principle years ago in language. High school textbooks for foreign language are not very good, in my opinion, but the ones for college attempt to take the same information and condense what is in three or four books into one.

The result, of course, is failure. I witnessed this first hand in German, in a college course. It was easy for me because I had already absorbed what was taught and just went for a tune up. The rest of the students were lost. Totally lost.

Adult books are often very poor for this reason.

Did you ever see a cartoon that is like this?

left side shows some weird set of equations that are a nightmare.

The right side says: x=2

In the middle, the caption: "and then a miracle occurs"…

You didn't give input as to whether you would think going through the most basic of the series is best so the student is given the most amount of material before going along. I'd also like to mention that the Alfred's series (as well as Faber's) may have Older Beginner (and etc), but they all end with the same books for the entire lessons.

You are correct with foreign language books--I can vouch for the poorly written methods that some teachers think are sooooo great. They are usually cr*p.

PS: Your last part brought me much joy, Gary <3

I see a problem with the terms "adult" and "child" in this case. You have a young brother, so you must be young yourself. Let's pretend that adults books have music "older generations" can relate to better than a child. If you're in your 20's or even 30's and even early 40's I would say you would still relate better with "new generation" stuff than older generation ones.
This is a case where I see the world "adult" referring to older adults 50+

And let's pretend the child book is full of colors, baby tunes and infantile explanations, I would imagine (at least in this society) that it might work good for a 5 or 7 and even a more infantile 9 year old. But if you're 10 or 12 or 14 or 16 you would certainly relate more to the adult stuff, in spite of the (irrelevant) fact that you're not legally an adult.

I don't care about labels, and this is one reason why. Arbitrary demarcations without some contextual consideration.

This is an unfortunate abuse of marketing in my opnion, because you mix something usefull like "foundation work" with the untrue concept that children need colours and silly stuff to learn.

So instead of having foundation step by step book whoever you are, you get the foundation as long as you can stand infantilizing methods (which are too infantile even for infants themselves ) or you get no foundation as long as you want to skip that overpricy and irrelevant stuff.

This again reminds me of food (I'm an health nut)
We have a brand of biscuits. It makes two basic kinds. Normal biscuits for adults and children biscuits.

The normal biscuits are full of hydrogenated fats, margarine, colorants, palm oil and sugar.
The children biscuits are for some reason an healthy option devoid of trans fats, low in sugar, devoid of colorants and artificial aromas.

The children biscuits are incredibile overpriced, but not because they're healthier, but because the box styling includes cute drawings, lot of colours and stickers inside. Children don't really need or want such stuff, they become accostumed to such stuff by having it shoved down their throat by marketing campaigns.

So the problem is that if you want the healthier option you must pay for the useless additional stuff that would make the product "child-friendly" (another meaningless world) If you refuse to pay for such instrumentalistic gimmicks you must accept to consume an unhealthy low-quality product.

Danny, the materials I teach have no pictures, no words, and no fancy colors. I depend on the music itself to to speak for itself.

of course, i use many children books for my adult student. As most adult begginers are impatient and they think that they can perform and learn better than children. i use children books to show them that they need to know all the basics before proceeding to the next grade. i use A Dozen A Day, Alfred John Thompson etc.

Yes, I do, but with some serious warnings.

For example, with the Alfred "prep" books, there are many pages that I would never use.

Using the books meant for smaller children also means suffering through a lot of things you will want to skip. The advantage is that ideas are not left out.

My point is that it is easuer to skip over what you don't need than to try to fill in what is not covered. In addition, I think the more material that is offered on any one "level", the better your chance of not missing something important. Of course, you can always skip.

To me the perfect "method" would include the best of every series out there. For obvious reasons the only way you could expose yourself to dozens of methods would be to buy the book to dozens of methods, and the books get expensive.

I read a lot of negatives about Czerny, but while I'm stuck doing this on my own for the time being, I have chosen to go through the studies starting at the very beginning. A question I heard a few years ago is "What is this study trying to teach?" When I approach Czerny in that manner, I find that each study teaches a specific thing, and then next one builds on it. If I concentrate on that thing then it's something I acquire as a habit and a kind of knowledge, and personally I find that this has helped me.

For studies, I don't care a hoot about how musically inspiring they are - I want to get some skills and good playing strategies in my fingers. That said, there is musicality that you can bring out in a lot of the studies. Czerny isn't the only thing I use, but one of them.

I have never used a method book. In my formal lessons, we used the RCM package which consists of a technical book with both scales and studies, and set of pieces which use whatever technique the technical part set up. There is a syllabus listing a larger selection of studies and pieces, as well as ear training skills that are to come in at certain stages, as guidelines. In violin, which is the instrument of my lessons, there has been nothing childish in the first grade book that I began with, even though this is the material a six year old might start with. There are no pretty pictures or other distractions. No are there cutesy titles like "Daffy Duck Swings Up and Down". This material would not be a turn-off to an adult.

(student writing)

That's good to know, keystrings. I always wondered how else the kids would learn, knowing that the packets were just scales, techniques, and pieces to practice those. It seems that one would need a teacher.

My main point, which I apologize for not being clear about, wasn't the pictures, the colors, or anything of the sort. Instead, when I compare "Alfred's All-in-One" series with "Alfred's Late Beginner Series" or even the "Alfred's Beginner Series," I see a slower and seemingly more complete instruction over the pieces. While I don't think there is anything wrong with the pictures or colors (come on people, these ARE children we are talking about... as if it hurts to have it?), the books do seem cumulative.

When I first bought Alfred's Book 1 for the Late Beginner for my brother, it looked very easy--and it was, I was able to play almost all the pieces after a 5 minutes of sight-reading. BUT, I felt I had learned the techniques a lot more through the explanations. Also, I had glanced at the books that follow--and they are legit! Pieces that looked like classical score, to the eye of the untrained musician.

That is where my main question lies--is it better to go through the children's series, which is much slower yet more complete, than take the low road of the adult series which is meant for those who want to learn some jingles rather than how to play classical music?

I'll have to look into the RCM materials though Thanks.

Adults learn differently than children. While I would agree that the children's methods generally have several pieces to cover a concept, I do not find that adult methods move along too quickly. Everyone's different, of course, and if an adult student is having trouble with a particular concept, then I assign supplemental material to work on. Same goes for the kids. Hal Leonard's adult method contains many of the same pieces as the children's method, but it is reorganized to suit adults. I find that they have ample pieces to cover and build upon most newly-learned concepts. I don't particularly care for any of Alfred's methods.

Wouldn't it be true that the selection of an "adult" method or "standard" method should be determined by the background of the particular student?

While (as an adult student)I see no reason for an adult to learn more slowly than a child, I see no reason for the progress to be much faster. It is also important to remember that "adult beginners" cover a wide range. Some may have had lessons years ago, or played another instrument. Others really are starting from zero.

I started as a rank beginner, and actually liked the "children"s" books better than the adult books my teacher assigned as supplements - although I haven't seen the Hal Leonard materials.

Ultimately its up to the teacher to match the material to the needs and goals of the student.

Like KS, I do wonder why method books for strings seem more age-neutral.

Dorrie, I should correct this. I have never in my life encountered method books and I don't know what they are like. I take formal lessons in violin, and we do not use a method book. Were I to take piano formally, I would also opt for the RCM system, which also does not go along method books.

II seems to be seeing that the children's books are geared toward gradually building up technique and theory, while the adult books are geared toward pieces. I don't know if that is so. I do know that the common perception is that adults don't want to spend the time on technical things and would rather work on pieces. I don't know whether a method book reflects that understood wish. If so, I would opt for the children's books, since that is not my wish.

Whether children's books and adult books use the same pieces is neither here nor there for me. By and large, the choice of pieces does not interest me. I am interested in the skills and concepts that are taught. If these concepts (and skills) are taught in either version, then the adult book would be fine for me. Technical proficiency, and especially the underlying grounding in good habits in posture and motion, would seem to be of utmost importance to an adult, so I imagine that this might be stressed more for us than for children. We can injure ourselves more easily. However, does this depend on the method book, or the teacher?

I'm a bit leery about an idea of how adults learn, because I have found a huge difference between us adults. Some of us seem to be diametrically opposed to each other in learning style, background, and/or outlook in any combination.

KS -

You are right I should have said "materials used to teach string instruments." The materials my children used for their violin and cello lessons were remarkably age neutral. There are etudes and pieces, and remarkably little clutter - no drawings, stories, etc.

[QUOTE] I'm a bit leery about an idea of how adults learn, because I have found a huge difference between us adults [QUOTE]

I'm leary about generalizations too - Unlike the publishers of method books, I'm not sure age is the best variable to use in assigning one series or another. Musical background, the student's goals and perhaps how quickly they catch on might be better variables to use in selecting a "method" or program of study.

I see that most of the teachers here wisely chose from among a couple of options depending on the situation

About the Alfred series:

I don't use it, but if my memory is not playing tricks on me, I believe that all versions of the books point towards levels 4, 5, and 6, and there is only one version of them.

It's a common assumption that adults and children learn very differently. In my experience, there are SOME adults and SOME children who learn in such a similar manner that it is striking. These are my best students, I think. There are differences, but they are not as large as commonly described.

I'm an adult beginner, and i thought I'd throw in my 2 cents here. My teacher has me following the Farber Piano Adventures children's series. I'm in book 3A and have been playing a year. I bought the Adult books too, thinking they might be better. My teacher said she really likes the flow of the children's series, and how it builds upon itself and the flow. Having tried both, I have to say _ she was right! For me, anyway. So I agree with those who say the foundation is really what is important. And I don't mind playing these pieces, because they are teaching me what I need to know!!

Enjoy, Diane

I keep making the point that there are a lot of parallels between reading music and reading music.

As a high school student I did as I was told in foreign language courses (Spanish) and was lost. As I remember it, the texbooks attempted to be "relevant" by teaching us ahead of where we really were, and almost everyone was lost.

The "Green Eggs and Ham" level is not about age or sophistication but about a level of fluency attained. An adult still has to go through the same stages.

You are right, Gary--reading music and reading music are SO parallel, they are the same line!



It seems by your last point, you think that the children's method books (regardless of which) are better suited than the adult ones?

The negatives about Czerny and company, are indeed that you can't isolate a certain technique, practice it to no end and believe the effects will carry over to whole pieces. It's a bit like spot reducing concept. You can't spot reduce. You can't target a body part and lose fat on that body part. You can lose fat only as long as you lose it thoroughly. While I wouldn't go to extremes promoting this idea, I do believe it has some merits. I think you learn more by practicing a whole piece which also includes a sections with thirds, than with practicing two or three studies where the only technique involved is thirds.

I beg to differ based on what worked for me, but I will also add that I am not interested in working only on studies, but a combination.
I have not done Hanon, which apparently repeats things endlessly. When I did preparatory Czerny he introduced one concept, and I could work on it and get it. He would build from exercise to exercise and it was varied. It DID carry over, and it also carried over into pieces after that.

Baseball players stand in the field throwing balls back and forth at each other, don't they? And then they go out and also play the game. Are they wasting their time with all that ball throwing?

I will tell you that playing only pieces - even doing exercises out of pieces - alone does not work for me. When I added studies, the pieces took off. I see this over and over again.

Besides, I have yet to practise a Czerny that is that narrow.

You're right. Two people born on the same day of the same year can be so different from each other, that age is practically irrelevant in determining anything, and is hardly a variable. After all the factors that would allow us to determine what and how a person learns, don't and will never appear magically in the mind and body through aging, but are all determinated by social experiences and self discoveries and of course individual differences. Aging per se has no intrinsic learning power. Levels, on the other hand, are more effective as a variable.
A beginner of 9 has nothing in common with the piano concertist of 9, but everything in common with the beginner of 52.



That's the gist of it.
The whole "children-friendly" concept is a marketing strategy. It was not created by thoughtfull consideration of why children are so profoundly different and need profoundly different commodities and learning material (which by itself is a stereotype) but by the desire to increase production and justify the higher cost of certain "targetized" products.

Piano playing is more instrumentalized and marketable. You can always start the piano and give up. You can buy small portable keyboards or play someone else instruments. You can be fulfilled with a beginner level and playing easy tunes. It has all the characteristics of use-and-throw commodities typical of a consumistic society. Strings are a big different.
You just need lot of lessons and patience, just to produce a sound, there are no an equivalent of cheap keyboards, you can't justify the purchase of an instrument as a "house furniture", there's no such big gray market for strings, there are less opportunities as a soloist. If strings were as easily exploitable by marketing strategies as pianos are, you would see the same sudden surge of method books, targetized products, weird DVDs and so on.

No, it is practicing, like you don't play whole pieces over and over when practicing, but isolate the hard parts and work on them.

The difference is that with a piece you can work on same technique at the same time, since there are different technical challenges occurring at the same time.

With the study you need to practice that very same technique (almost in isolation) for as long as the author thought you need to, rather than for as long as you actually need.

What I'm saying is that in my opinion the problem with technical studies is that they attempt to be pieces with a beginning and an end. You throw balls during baseball practice and you know decide when to begin and when to stop, you don't attempt to create a pseudo-match of ball throwing.



I believe you, but this surprises me. There's little difference with creating exercises out of piece and practicing studied, except that the exercises you create are strongly linked to the piece while the studies are not, and might not carry over to the ability to play the piece better. I believe that quality requires time. Most studies (by studies gurus) have been created by such amount and so fast, as if produced in a studies factory, that I tend to believe most are just random and not deeply pondered for their effective and utility. IMO

I have done that, Danny. It also works, and I'm capable of creating exercises out of pieces. I do not play a whole piece over and over - I don't know if I've ever done that.

The Czerny that I am doing essentially teaches from one study into the next one. It's almost like having a teacher there who shows you one thing, then when you've got it, he chains it to something else, and then adds to that again. It is incremental, and he goes back and forth. You have to look for it. It's not like repetitive baseball playing. I'm going in there and saying "Aha, so that's why he's doing this." Then I use the same strategy in pieces. I could set out an analysis over 5 or so studies to show what I mean but that's probably overkill. I'm telling you that this is helping me, and it is not something that I can find in pieces. I also like pieces.

I cannot create the kind of exercise that I find in these studies, because I don't have the knowledge that he is teaching THROUGH those exercises. It's subtle, or seems so to me.

Can you not stop, as well as choose a study to suit your needs?

As long as you self-teach yourself, you can. But a teacher would usually assign a study treating it like any other piece, which you must master and bring polished at the lesson. If studies were treated like something to freely practice on, for as long as you consider necessary, without a need to complete, polish or master them (in other words: without contaminating your repertory with technical studies) I believe they would be very usefull and far more effective.

Thank you, Danny. What you wrote makes me appreciate my teacher even more.

Muscle memory, anyone ?

I just joined the Forum, but I am an adult like you and have been taking piano lessons for the past 7 months.

Recently, after three weeks or so of practicing, I am able to play "Arabesque" by Friedlich Burgmuller". According to my teacher, this is a 4 fourth year level in piano learning, and she is very impressed by my ability, given that I have never taken piano before.

Back to your point of the childrens' books - "Piano Adventures by Faber and Faber".

I thought very carefully about my situation and how much I struggled to get going on the Arabesque. It dawned on me, that sure, I have the skill to play anything if I struggle long enough but I am missing something in between. My teacher, who usually teaches children and not adult, I feel, is intimidated in offending my desire to jump ahead. I realized I was hurting myself rather than building a solid background for my music. I kept on jumping from a piece of simple music to more complicated ones in a hurry.

One day a friend of mine, who directs the choir of my church pointed out to me that in learning music you must enjoy, the harmony, the history of the piece you play, the reasoning for the composer to have composed the music of his times etc...

I am not sure as to how I made the connection with what I am about to tell you next but I actually told my teacher to explain to me as to the best progressive books for learning piano. She compared the Bastien with the Farber and Farber and explained to me that for 26 years she has been using the latter ones with children and that is what she does best. So I bought the set of these books from the primer level all the way to the level 3a. Each level consists of at least three important books: One is the lesson book, the second is the theory book and the third is the performance, which are the ones I bought.

She was shocked when I told her I was willing to learn the way she teaches children. She told me I was the first adult that asked her to go back to children's books and that I had to promise her that I would not try to jump ahead.

The moral of this story is that sometimes we are our worst enemy.

So which are the books I used so far during my seven months of training Piano.
(by the way, my interest is only classical music.)

First few months ( 4 months) I began learning at a center where all they had were keyboard and the teacher they assigned me opted for using Alfred's basic piano for adults with the theory and the lessons.
Every time I asked for scales, he would move me to the next page of the book.
I hated this experience and I found the teacher very boring and very tunnel vision, but I learned lots from him and the Alfre's books (which I do not like),

After 5 months I quit and had it. I did not play for about a month and began to research the best teacher I could find. I was horrified later when I discovered that if you want to learn piano, you practice at a piano, not with a keyboard!

2nd teacher. A japanese concert pianist who would only teach children.

Everybody told me including the previous teacher who had mentioned her that she would never take me.... I do not believe in the "NEVER" word.
Long story, but I was traveling at the time and was on my way back from Germany when I called her from New York and she accepted me.
It was the best experienced I ever had.

We spend during the first couple of lessons what seemed to me years, just sitting me correctly in front of a PIANO and adopting the right positions for my hands and wrists!

She had me playing books by Bastien (children books that taught a principle in each lesson). I was in heaven and was practicing three hours a day and working as hard as I could.

Two months latter after telling me how terrific I was, she also had some bad news for me. She dropped me with the excuse that a long time student of hers was coming back and had decide to retake my spot. Latter I found out that she just wanted to fill up her two month empty spot because this individual only thinks of money. Because I was an adult she was charging way higher than any other student for those two months.

Her final advise was to read as much as I could on my own and to practice different pieces of music each day. That was the extent of her good bye advise.
I felt devasted and seriously thought I would not go back to piano. She also told me that I would have a difficult time finding other teachers because usually they do not take adults.

I was devasted but also mad, that this unethical idiot whom I adored as a teacher had done this to me. I began to call on the phone in and out of the state were I live for Russian method teachers.... and other methods and did not get a single call back. But, it must have been meant to be as to what happened next. Finally someone called who had just moved from Texas where she had taught classical music for 26 years. She had also been a concert pianist and had played abroad and also play with the Japanese Chamber of Music. No, she is not Japanese. Her fees were reasonable and I began with her.

This is the teacher that is a bit timid in telling adults what not to do because she only teaches children.

I almost forgot that with the Japanese teacher I had to begin from the beginning again, and I am glad I did and should have remembered this experience.

What books am I using with the new teacher until I decided to do a deep search and arrived to the conclusion that there is nothing like a solid foundation such as buying the Piano Adventure books?

These are the books I have been using for the past month and a half or so:
The Developing Artist Preparatory Piano Literature (compiled and edited by Faber and Faber) and the Essential Keyboard Repertoire Volume I Selected and edited by Lynn Freeman Olson.

Because of my interest to close my gap between my sighreading skills and my finger dexterity (which I am lucky to have) I bought the series by Four Star called Sight Reading and Ear tests (I believe is about 9 books or so.)

Finally I got Piano Literature Volume Three by James Bastien , where I learned the first song: The Arabesque, already mention.
From Essential Keyboard I am already playing a few selections including "Polonaise"
from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach.

So I have gone back to children books but I am sure that every so often I will "sin" again and jump ahead. I love Chopin and I told her, so she mentioned a book which I already bought and I will bring to my class next week: "Essential Composer Series for Piano. Chopin Edited by Avis Romm."

All those advanced books I have bought with CD and have listen to them many times and then tried the sightreading books, which I am still using.
I also discovered Sibelius sofware (a note reading program) that has been my companion in reading the more difficult pieces. I scan new piano pieces to learn and the note sofware will help me read these notes. Even now I have a small
keyboard next to the computer for those situations to figure notes in a hurry. After that I go to my piano and continue to practice.

Sure piano learning has a method, but I also believe there is a certain madness in each of us that takes us into different routes for our learning travels. Each road is different and each person will gather resources for his learning in different ways.
I am unstopable and for as long as I am alive I will continue to strive forward with the piano and learn as much as I can.

I take one hour of piano lesson each week. I used to practice three hours now all I have time to do is an hour or two at the most a day.
I tremendously believe in "mental play". Look it up! It is a method where you are constantly rehearsing in my head as you sightread and without a piano.

Get yourself some good "apps" for your iphone or ipad if you have them. If you do not, do not complain and continue to move ahead. These are my recommendations.

Regards

I'm going to admit to this here.

I use childrens book methods for Adults if they are complete beginners. Bastien Piano Basics. I also teach them scales immediately and get them to start learning music theory / chords.

The reason I start with Bastien is because I think it's very easy to teach technique when it's systematically organized with pieces that for the most part , add new techniques every few pages.

I haven't had any adults complain yet as I tell them up front that I think it's the best method for their moneys worth and if their objective is to play their favorite song within a month, then perhaps my studio is not right for them. But if they want to develop a strong foundation in music and be able to play the piano then stick with the basics like the methodology books.

I think they blow through the Bastien books at a quicker rate and are less keen on wanting to focus on proper technique - they just want to hear the sounds and their reading skills mature faster as well. But then when they get to book 2 or 3 , they notice they have a hard time playing them and I politely mention they need to focus more on the technique now.

This is often repeated, but I don't think it's completely true. Making your own exercises means that your progress is limited by your own perceptive abilities in technical analysis of music, and your own creativity in building coherent exercises out of real music - music that is (from a purely exercise point of view) incoherent.

Requiring every student's technical ability to be subordinate to his (potentially excellent but also potentially dismal) ability to organize and create useful exercises for himself is in my opinion neither fair nor effective. And exercises composed by his own teacher are in general no better for him than exercises from a book (assuming the book is appropriate to the situation) - exercises made by someone else are still made by someone else, even if that "else" happens to be in the same room.

To me, "every student should only create his own exercises" is just as logical as "every student should only play music that he composed himself".


I do believe in creating one's own technical exercises, but I believe it mostly belongs to students who are already musically pretty independent. (i.e. who can regularly choose themselves new music from the library and work it up to a reasonably good standard without any guidance.)

Which Czerny are you referring to?

I think that was about 2-3 years ago. Since then I have a teacher and my approach to fingering has changed. That Czerny started at a preliminary level using whole notes. I'm afraid that I don't have it anymore. I got the name and link from this forum at the time.