One of my commenters - Mike - asked me what I thought about Hanon.
Now for those of you who don't play the Piano - and have never heard of
Hanon - this is a book of Really Good exercises to use for developing
technique in Piano Playing.
So after Mike mentioned Hanon - I got my Hanon book out this morning and
thought about it.
And here's the conclusion I came to:
Sure Hanon is good - but why prepare for playing the Rach 3 with mere finger
exercises - that are devoid of Great Melodies and Passion - when you can make
use of Chopin's Etudes - and have more fun doing it.
Now recently I went through Chopin's Etudes and told which ones I felt were
not true 'studies' for the Piano. These should be avoided in using Chopin's
Etudes for Study - because it is too tempting to try and Play them for their
Wonderful Greatnes and Overwhelming Beauty.
So what I intend to do - is to go through the Chopin Etudes again - and find
out which ones I should work on for technique - and which ones I should avoid.
The Rach 3 probably won't be here until next week - so I can use the time now
to have a game plan for technique.
Mike - what do you think?
Well, I was advised that I should play scales instead of the Hanon exercises. Unfortunately this means starting with the C major and playing it till it becomes second nature. Not sure I have the patience to play 20 minutes of C major scale per day.
ReplyDeletebftm
Mike - I think what I will do is still use Hanon - but alternate it with the Chopin Etudes.
ReplyDeleteI've already gone through Opus 10 and made notes about what Etudes are good for what technique.
I'm glad you menioned Scales. I will definitely be working on scales - for Tonality. And anyway - some of them are very tricky and are good for fingering.
I actually love Technique. There are some Really good books out there on Technique.
Thanks Mike.
Chopin, was the third most accomplished piano in the world, and the first if we look at the fusion of emotion and technique.Really it's great job!
ReplyDeleteChopin Technique