Thanks so much for your videos! I'm excited to learn about this book! I've worked with Edna G and John B as well as had the pleasure of playing for Mrs T back when the summer seminars were held at Amherst. Not much else to add, except that I'm so grateful for the material you make available to your followers!
Brilliant! I'd love to hear more about your experiences with all of those wonderful instructors. I haven't had a chance to really dive into it yet, but I also just learned of the "Fundamentals of Piano Technique: The Russian Method" by Leon and Olga Conus. The exercises predate Taubman by decades, yet many of them employ similar principles of wrist movement and arm alignment. They most definitely aren't for early beginner pianists and many would also need to be modified for pianists with smaller than "very large" hands, but if you haven't heard of them you might be interested in checking it out!
I already bought this book based on your other detailed videos. I started the exercises, but now I need to start trying to incorporate these new techniques into playing songs, classical or jazz. It will be a slow, gradual process.
Yes, it's a process. My in-person students who I start on this book to fix technique problems they've brought in, I've seen it take 6-12 months to break the old habits and incorporate new ones where they are just as automatic as the bad habits used to be. For students fresh and not needing to break old habits, its usually less time to become automatic... from as short as just a month to around 3 months. Thanks for watching!
saw this yesterday in an airport ... didn't see it all as was traveling. Went to Amazon and looked up the book not knowing you had an affiliate link. Woopsies. Still, very exited for this book and to reform some old ideas. Books will be here today, book 1 and 2, and look forward to your videos to come. Thanks so much for you sharing your passion!
Thank you so much for these detailed videos! Very helpful for people who can't access a tutor (or can't access a tutor familiar with this approach, which is almost everyone!). I hope you can make detailed videos of the whole book. Thanks again!
Wow, after watching this video I got a copy and started practicing some of the exercises and I could instantly feel an improvement when I was playing my normal repertoire, thanks!
I watched some of your videos on Hanon when I first started relearning piano this year (digital piano Xmas gift!), but just yesterday bought this book. I'm so glad you have these thorough lessons! I had dutifully dragged my 50 year old copies of the original Hanon books out of the cupboard, along with the childish Schaum books; after a few weeks I had pain in my back and hands, and was very discouraged. I ditched them all in favor of Bartok's Mikrokosmos series and a book from the 1940s called Hand Equalization Studies, which is based on Czerny and specifically different than Hanon. I realize I have mental/emotional healing to do re. those lessons, and that includes getting over Hanon.
I'm glad to hear you are back playing again! A little bit of daily technique practice is great, but I'd encourage you to find some more repertoire (the Bartok is a great start) to work on. Maybe you have more than you mention, but what you mention is super "exercise" driven and not a whole lot of fun and not very musical. I always encourage my own students to take about 20-25% of their total practice time and dedicate it to all of the technique they are working on (scales, arpeggios, any small etudes, etc), but the rest of practice time should be in some beautiful rep where we can make beautiful music and also still learn about technique as we go. :-)
You're right about what I mentioned above, but I was thinking mostly of the Hanon topic; I do have more music to try. My husband is a musician (piano and guitar) and has a collection; he gave me the new keyboard, and introduced me to Mikrokosmos. He also had two of the Music for Millions collections (from the 1960s, and still in print) which I've been using and in which I found some of the pieces in the RMC syllabus you recommend during the live stream today. I have some other collections - and he has stacks of music way beyond me at this point! I started the Satie Gymnopedie #1 because I love it - and I bought it for myself (I can mostly play it, though the last chords hurt my hand so I'm adjusting them). I've learned one of the Bartok 10 Easy Pieces ("Painful Struggle") also because I love it. So far one of my criteria is slow tempo markings 😀 Thank you for replying!
Honestly excited to see your videos tackling some of the content on this as this inspired me to buy and go through it. The visual aides would help a lot.
Great to hear! I'm hoping to get starting shooting videos for the first part of the book later today. We will see just how quickly I can get them edited and out to you to enjoy and practice with!
This video inspired me so much I ordered my own copy of Hanon-Faber (it'll be here tomorrow!!). Thank you!! I'm looking forward to diving into it and 'fixing' my technique with Hanon.
This sounds great, Scott! I hope you find it super helpful! If you need any further thoughts on the first 10 pages of the book, I have a series I've started that walks through each group of "gestures" and prep exercises in detail. You can find the playlist of the vids on my channel homepage!
@@PianistAcademy1 OK, almost 3 months of working in this book and it has CHANGED MY LIFE (thanks to your videos!). Pieces that I was struggling with are much easier, my scales are nice, smooth, even and I'm getting faster so quickly. I feel good at my Intermediate level, and I have confidence I'll keep improving. Thank you!
I'm starting with the Faber book for beginners and am about halfway through. I'll be sure to get that one, thanks for the plug. My daughter is back so hopefully she can edit the video and mine will be out for exercises FOR the pianist, with self-treatments. I just saw a musician who plays a stringed instrument with an electric cord attached and he was surprised at the finger strength he could achieve with them.
I'm not sure it's always an "either ... or" situation. As we've discussed, I've adapted Hanon to use only a few select exercises, and I use then in a wide variety of ways (although I had not included the Taubman rotation -- I'll definitely consider including that going forward). So I'm neither a "never practice or teach" or a "practice/teach every day" . I would suspect that other teachers have done similar things. However, it's great that this "official" alternative has come out to help "rescue" some of those hazardous "always" folks -- to at least inform, and perhaps give them "permission" to alter their approach and depart ("escape") from the Hanon altar of technic blood sacrifice ... As a follow-up -- this book sounds an order of magnitude better than the original "just Hanon" -- especially with the included notes on how to use the weight in the hands, the practice tips, and the Taubman gestures, etc. Looking at the table of contents I see that the book identifies and uses specific Hanon exercises to address specific technical competencies, which is how I also use Hanon -- as an adjunct resource rather than blindly jumping into a swamp of countless repetitive, marginally-beneficial mind/musically numbing exercises. My approach to technical studies is to find, use and adapt the best combination of technical studies to give the most comprehensive coverage in the least amount of time -- both daily practice time and overall developmental time (hence why I combine Hanon #1 and #5 to get the benefits of both in a single play-through). Having built a good versatile foundation, I go to the repertoire (etudes, sonatinas, sonatas, etc.) to incorporate and develop technic musically -- i.e. with musicality. Besides Hanon -- which attempts (somewhat absurdly) to capture every possible combination and order of 5 fingers -- there's Aloys Schmitt's "Preparitory Exercises", Op. 16 , which is somewhat more concise, less redundant than Hanon, and Louis Plaidy's "Technical Studies For The Piano" which is also more concise, less redundant, and better organized than Hanon. I've found Plaidy to be a good resource for technical studies for my beginning students -- especially the first few exercises in section III using the 3rd, 4th, and 5th fingers for strengthening and flexibility. Both Plaidy and Schmitt have good coverage of scales, arpeggios, octave, 3rds, 6ths, etc. If you're interested, here are a few books covering a fairly wide spectrum that I've found helpful and useful that others may also enjoy: Louis Plaidy: Technical Studies - as mentioned, similar coverage as Hanon and Schmitt, but better organized, less redundant. Ernest Hutcheson: Elements of Piano Technique -- a very concise guide that addresses specific technical areas. Josef Hofman: Piano Playing: With Piano Questions Answered -- a candid and interesting coverage of piano technic, practice and other aspects of the piano. George Kochevitsky: The Art of Piano Playing: A Scientific Approach -- interesting from the scientific point of view (mechanical, physiological, acoustic, psychological, etc.) - an historic view of piano technic as relating to different instruments, preferences, technology in different eras.
I'm not sure why I didn't see this comment before, sorry for the delay! I've read that Kochevitsky book and am a fan and believer in about 95% of what he talks about. I'll have to check out what those other resources talk about. It's interesting that the knowledge I have, that was passed to me by a handful of teachers, I know... but I have no book or "codified" source to point to, just personal experience with my own teachers over approximately 10 years and 500 hours of lessons. Many things I read I find out... yeah, that's what I do or I agree with, but I've never read them before, only experienced. I'm honestly not sure about teachers being mostly in the camp of "using Hanon for it's benefits yet putting it down otherwise." My interactions with hundreds of teachers online fuel some of the ideas behind the videos I create because... I find that A LOT of what is taught is not just incorrect, but actually detrimental in many many cases. And I have yet to take on a student from a previous teacher that doesn't need major correction in many departments. You just might be one of the few that "gets it" right from the beginning!
@@PianistAcademy1 -- well - the reason you didn't see this comment before is because I just added it (starting at "As a follow-on ..." to the original comment a few hours ago - no -- you're not losing your mind ... yet! ;-) I had such an epiphany my second year in college when my prof re-built my technic using the Leschetizky technic that I've been an avid and voracious reader of these things since. I've found a great deal of correlation/overlap in most of the more reputable online teachers (Josh Wright, Graham Fitch, Robert Estrin, DariaPiano, Annique - Heart of the keys, etc.) with elements from Leschetizky and Hofman (who also reflects much of Leschetizky) -- primarily being the approach to correct posture, position, transfer of weight, and relaxation/release (reduction/absence of tension). I'm new to the Taubman approach and need to know more -- I see it as effectively addressing many of the same issues involving weight transfer and release, so I'm interested in learning more. It seems that you are familiar with the Taubman approach and incorporate it in your playing and teaching -- I'm very impressed and interested. Can't wait to take the wraps off the Christmas CD -- I'm sure you'll be having quite a bit of fun with that one ! Wishing you the best!!
@@aBachwardsfellow Are you familiar with "Basic Principles in Piano Playing" by Josef Lhevinne? It's a short one, but thinking about reading through it. I also have the Hofman book in my cart at Amazon. I found a free PDF of the Hutcheson online and will take a look at the Plaidy as well. Edna Goldansky is the current leading expert in Taubman. You might want to research her and watch some of her videos: www.golandskyinstitute.org/profile/edna-golandsky/ I hope you'll enjoy the new Christmas album. My release of 11 songs from 2013 is what really kicked me into shifting from classical performance into arranging and composition. Since then I've written another 5 or 6 Christmas arrangements. This season, the record label I mentioned is in the New Age and Easy Listening genre, so I need to keep the arrangements beautiful yet very simple. I wouldn't call it a bit of work that I'm going to be most proud of, BUT, it will be some of the most accessible music I've written (both for the ears and for the hands), so in that regard it will be something of a triumph.
@@PianistAcademy1 Thanks for the Taubman info! From what I've seen of Taubman's approach she definitely reduces/eliminates the tension created by over-use of the flexors in the forearms and other parts of the playing mechanism, and succeeds in getting a good musical transfer of weight into the keys via the "rotation". I'll enjoy finding out more - thanks! I found a .pdf of Lhevinne's book and am reading it with interest. At the onset he seems to focus on the values of rests and space in the music, and constrained use of the pedal, preferring rather to render the music more from the hands alone. Listening to his recording of the Chopin Ab polanaise, he makes the chords very short (almost stacatto) despite the score(at least the one I'm looking at) being marked with a pedal through the entire quarter-note, and is much more sparing of the pedal compared with Lang Lang's performance. I can also relate to Lhevinne's attempt on addressing rhythm ... I teach rhythm as a separate component initially, and cannot emphasize enough that rhythm can only be truly/authentically *experienced* as *motion within a person* . Non-auditory "rhythms" (a blinking light, a pendulum in another room) and even auditory rhythms can be seen and heard as a *pattern* -- but can only be experienced as *rhythm* when some part of the body is engaged -- a tapping foot or finger, a nodding head, swaying etc. Rhythm is best experienced as an over-arching "pulse" with smaller bits and pieces being some subdivision of that pulse. You can find a .pdf of Plaidy on imslp (remove spaces from link): imslp . org / wiki / Special : IMSLPImageHandler / 309463 % 2Fhfin
Just what I need, another Hanon book! 😆already have the original Hanon, Hanon Revisited (Gold and Fizdale, consists of diff patterns in each hand necessitating diff shapes in each hand), as well as Technical Variants on Hanon (Lindquist). Neither have detailed verbal instructions on execution however. Btw, I took lessons frim Edna Golandsky for a few years (rotation, in/out, shaping, walking hand and arm, etc.) That was abt 15 yrs ago! Sorry to say i stopped playing for too long after that. Coming across ur channel has inspired me to get back into it. Just purchased Hanon-Faber from Amazon. Will be delivered tomorrow! 😊
Edna is quite the pedagogue! Really awesome to hear you had an opportunity to work with her personally. I think the wording in the book will definitely remind you of your lessons with her!
Although modern piano actions tend to feel heavier than older ones, 100g downweight means there is something seriously wrong with your piano. Normal downweight on a modern piano should be in the upper 50g range in the bass, and mid 40g in the treble. But, downweight isn't the only thing. Excessive front key leads can give you a low downweight but too much inertia, making the piano play like a truck even though the downweight measurement is low. That being said, thanks for the practice tips, you have a great channel!
Just some quick digging around some piano tech sites and I was also able to find 50-ish gram range is what's desirable. I read that Horowitz's piano was in the mid 40s throughout... I had a chance to play it many years ago and found it incredibly difficult to control. Maybe someone should inform Faber about this? The book lists 110 grams as the standard "modern" piano downweight... He's done so much research I can't imagine it was a simple oversight or mistake, but now I'm not sure! Maybe it's the force required to generate enough inertia to sound a pitch at the softest volume? Thanks so much for bringing this up! I've learned something new :-)
@@PianistAcademy1 Must be referring to inertia, although I'm not sure how you'd measure that in grams without knowing other parameters such as the speed of the strike. My piano gram weight set tops out at 64g so I couldn't even measure a 100g static downweight! ;-)
My Mason A feels a bit heavy, how do you measure this? Have played lots of Steinway Ms and Ls having had access to practice rooms at 92nd Y and Juilliard and was surprised at the variations differences in actions.
Thanks for sharing this resource and the detailed videos on each gesture. How much would your recommend practicing each exercise and how do you decide when to move on to the next one? I'm around Grade 3 level and have never done technical exercises like these before (only scales and arpeggios for about 10 minutes at the start of each hour-long practice session). Thanks!
Thanks for watching, Dima! I usually recommend about 25% of your practice time be spent on exercises (including scales and arpeggios). So that's about 15 minutes out of an hour. I'd take about 5 minutes on a single gesture, going slowly, really making sure the wrist and arm movement are just right before speeding it up. Lots of my in-person students make the mistake of 1) not dropping enough into the first notes, 2) feeling too much circle with the shoulder and elbow, and not with the wrist, 3) letting the fingers get lazy and not continuing to activate them while working on the wrist movement. If you can avoid those, you'll probably be in pretty good shape!
Mmm.. my teacher always tell me not to do dumb stuff with my wrists and forearm and pretty much keep them relaxed but not moving.. am i missing something here? Are these gestures any useful technique-wise or are these just propedeutical to hand choreography for concert pianists?
“Not moving” and “relaxed” are a bit of opposites, in my opinion. When you have to hold the body, any part of the body, in a position and not allow it to move, you are creating tension. Of course, it works the other way as well… too much movement, especially when it’s not productive toward technique, also can cause tension in the wrong places. Most often, artistic gestures by concert pianists are a combination of reinforcing the emotion they are conveying and also somehow related to the technique they have or are about to execute. That said, highly virtuosic technique without artistic gesture might *look* like not a whole lot is going on or even that it’s ‘easy.’ But in fact the opposite is true. There’s a LOT that’s been programmed in, that exists in minute doses, almost invisible to the eye, but that includes forearm rotation, movement of the wrist, and general movement of the upper body. There’s a surprising number of teachers who still teach today about stillness of the hand and the wrist… to the point of asking their students to balance quarters on top of the hands while they play. That was a very popular method of teaching for a VERY long time. But it’s quite detrimental to the physiological health of the mechanism we use to play AND it actually will prohibit the pianist from reaching their highest potential in speed, agility, power, and control at the piano. Even Chopin taught forearm rotation to his students, about 100 years prior to the origination of the Taubman technique I mention in the video. Chopin’s music is usually one of the first places students will learn about rotation, as he wrote many musical lines with that specific gesture in mind. Trying to play without it makes something difficult that much more difficult.
An important note with Hanon, and any exercises really. You must be aware of the students motivations and mental state. Some students react incredibly poorly to exercises and can't stand them. Other love them and gain great benefit! Don't force a student to do exercises if they don't react well to them.
What do you think of trying to reframe exercises into something else? For example, I stress scales quite a lot with private students. When they balk, or roll their eyes, or something else, I go straight into some cool examples of what scales teach us about music and how they can make our lives easier: a place to practice techniques, a gateway to learning passages in intermediate and advanced repertoire, a springboard for composition and improv.
Hi David! The exercises in this book are wonderful for technique building at any instrument, acoustic or digital. Some teachers would even argue that the exercises are slightly more necessary for pianists learning on a digital where you don’t get the same level of volume and resonant response as you do on an acoustic.
Are you using a method book right now? If you are, what company/level is it? And if you aren’t, maybe you could link to a piece you are working on? Then I could tell you for sure one way or the other!
@@bonjovi1612 I’d say you are in the perfect spot to begin this book. It might be a touch challenging at the beginning, but you will definitely be in the right place within a month or two!
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Thanks so much for your videos! I'm excited to learn about this book! I've worked with Edna G and John B as well as had the pleasure of playing for Mrs T back when the summer seminars were held at Amherst. Not much else to add, except that I'm so grateful for the material you make available to your followers!
Brilliant! I'd love to hear more about your experiences with all of those wonderful instructors.
I haven't had a chance to really dive into it yet, but I also just learned of the "Fundamentals of Piano Technique: The Russian Method" by Leon and Olga Conus. The exercises predate Taubman by decades, yet many of them employ similar principles of wrist movement and arm alignment. They most definitely aren't for early beginner pianists and many would also need to be modified for pianists with smaller than "very large" hands, but if you haven't heard of them you might be interested in checking it out!
I already bought this book based on your other detailed videos. I started the exercises, but now I need to start trying to incorporate these new techniques into playing songs, classical or jazz.
It will be a slow, gradual process.
Yes, it's a process. My in-person students who I start on this book to fix technique problems they've brought in, I've seen it take 6-12 months to break the old habits and incorporate new ones where they are just as automatic as the bad habits used to be. For students fresh and not needing to break old habits, its usually less time to become automatic... from as short as just a month to around 3 months. Thanks for watching!
saw this yesterday in an airport ... didn't see it all as was traveling. Went to Amazon and looked up the book not knowing you had an affiliate link. Woopsies. Still, very exited for this book and to reform some old ideas. Books will be here today, book 1 and 2, and look forward to your videos to come. Thanks so much for you sharing your passion!
I hope the new thoughts on these old exercises are helpful!
Thank you so much for these detailed videos! Very helpful for people who can't access a tutor (or can't access a tutor familiar with this approach, which is almost everyone!). I hope you can make detailed videos of the whole book. Thanks again!
Thanks for watching, Paul! I'm glad you found them helpful!
I’ve got this and this is the way to do Hanon healthily. Love it
Thanks so much for watching!
😂 I love how passion you are when you are talking about the book. I will give it a go, thank you so much for sharing this!
Awesome! Thanks for watching, and let me know how the exercises go!
Wow, after watching this video I got a copy and started practicing some of the exercises and I could instantly feel an improvement when I was playing my normal repertoire, thanks!
Perfect! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you for introducing us to this wonderful book!!! Truly appreciate it. Got my copy yesterday and love it.
Absolutely! I hope you'll tune in again when I upload demonstrations of the gestures and more as I go through the book in detail!
@@PianistAcademy1 Definitely!
You sold me 😄 Picking up my copy and I look forward to your future videos!
Haha, thanks Kimberly! I’ll be sure and get to at least the walkthroughs of the first few pages very soon!
I watched some of your videos on Hanon when I first started relearning piano this year (digital piano Xmas gift!), but just yesterday bought this book. I'm so glad you have these thorough lessons! I had dutifully dragged my 50 year old copies of the original Hanon books out of the cupboard, along with the childish Schaum books; after a few weeks I had pain in my back and hands, and was very discouraged. I ditched them all in favor of Bartok's Mikrokosmos series and a book from the 1940s called Hand Equalization Studies, which is based on Czerny and specifically different than Hanon. I realize I have mental/emotional healing to do re. those lessons, and that includes getting over Hanon.
I'm glad to hear you are back playing again! A little bit of daily technique practice is great, but I'd encourage you to find some more repertoire (the Bartok is a great start) to work on. Maybe you have more than you mention, but what you mention is super "exercise" driven and not a whole lot of fun and not very musical. I always encourage my own students to take about 20-25% of their total practice time and dedicate it to all of the technique they are working on (scales, arpeggios, any small etudes, etc), but the rest of practice time should be in some beautiful rep where we can make beautiful music and also still learn about technique as we go. :-)
You're right about what I mentioned above, but I was thinking mostly of the Hanon topic; I do have more music to try. My husband is a musician (piano and guitar) and has a collection; he gave me the new keyboard, and introduced me to Mikrokosmos. He also had two of the Music for Millions collections (from the 1960s, and still in print) which I've been using and in which I found some of the pieces in the RMC syllabus you recommend during the live stream today. I have some other collections - and he has stacks of music way beyond me at this point! I started the Satie Gymnopedie #1 because I love it - and I bought it for myself (I can mostly play it, though the last chords hurt my hand so I'm adjusting them). I've learned one of the Bartok 10 Easy Pieces ("Painful Struggle") also because I love it. So far one of my criteria is slow tempo markings 😀 Thank you for replying!
Honestly excited to see your videos tackling some of the content on this as this inspired me to buy and go through it. The visual aides would help a lot.
Great to hear! I'm hoping to get starting shooting videos for the first part of the book later today. We will see just how quickly I can get them edited and out to you to enjoy and practice with!
I AM SOO BUYING THIS THIS BOOK!!!
Two at music school with a piano major didnt help me with this!
This video inspired me so much I ordered my own copy of Hanon-Faber (it'll be here tomorrow!!). Thank you!! I'm looking forward to diving into it and 'fixing' my technique with Hanon.
This sounds great, Scott! I hope you find it super helpful! If you need any further thoughts on the first 10 pages of the book, I have a series I've started that walks through each group of "gestures" and prep exercises in detail. You can find the playlist of the vids on my channel homepage!
@@PianistAcademy1 OK, almost 3 months of working in this book and it has CHANGED MY LIFE (thanks to your videos!). Pieces that I was struggling with are much easier, my scales are nice, smooth, even and I'm getting faster so quickly. I feel good at my Intermediate level, and I have confidence I'll keep improving. Thank you!
@@healer1964 Absolutely fantastic, Scott! Great work, and thanks for letting me know!
I'm starting with the Faber book for beginners and am about halfway through. I'll be sure to get that one, thanks for the plug. My daughter is back so hopefully she can edit the video and mine will be out for exercises FOR the pianist, with self-treatments. I just saw a musician who plays a stringed instrument with an electric cord attached and he was surprised at the finger strength he could achieve with them.
Looking forward to seeing your exercises!
You have my interest. I started Hanon 1 & 2 and already feel stuck. My hands and forearms seem to lock up. I’ll check this book out, thank you!
Yes, good Hanon practice needs lots of attention! My first deep-dive video into the gestures in this book will come out this coming Saturday.
I'm not sure it's always an "either ... or" situation. As we've discussed, I've adapted Hanon to use only a few select exercises, and I use then in a wide variety of ways (although I had not included the Taubman rotation -- I'll definitely consider including that going forward). So I'm neither a "never practice or teach" or a "practice/teach every day" . I would suspect that other teachers have done similar things. However, it's great that this "official" alternative has come out to help "rescue" some of those hazardous "always" folks -- to at least inform, and perhaps give them "permission" to alter their approach and depart ("escape") from the Hanon altar of technic blood sacrifice ...
As a follow-up -- this book sounds an order of magnitude better than the original "just Hanon" -- especially with the included notes on how to use the weight in the hands, the practice tips, and the Taubman gestures, etc. Looking at the table of contents I see that the book identifies and uses specific Hanon exercises to address specific technical competencies, which is how I also use Hanon -- as an adjunct resource rather than blindly jumping into a swamp of countless repetitive, marginally-beneficial mind/musically numbing exercises. My approach to technical studies is to find, use and adapt the best combination of technical studies to give the most comprehensive coverage in the least amount of time -- both daily practice time and overall developmental time (hence why I combine Hanon #1 and #5 to get the benefits of both in a single play-through). Having built a good versatile foundation, I go to the repertoire (etudes, sonatinas, sonatas, etc.) to incorporate and develop technic musically -- i.e. with musicality.
Besides Hanon -- which attempts (somewhat absurdly) to capture every possible combination and order of 5 fingers -- there's Aloys Schmitt's "Preparitory Exercises", Op. 16 , which is somewhat more concise, less redundant than Hanon, and Louis Plaidy's "Technical Studies For The Piano" which is also more concise, less redundant, and better organized than Hanon. I've found Plaidy to be a good resource for technical studies for my beginning students -- especially the first few exercises in section III using the 3rd, 4th, and 5th fingers for strengthening and flexibility. Both Plaidy and Schmitt have good coverage of scales, arpeggios, octave, 3rds, 6ths, etc.
If you're interested, here are a few books covering a fairly wide spectrum that I've found helpful and useful that others may also enjoy:
Louis Plaidy: Technical Studies - as mentioned, similar coverage as Hanon and Schmitt, but better organized, less redundant.
Ernest Hutcheson: Elements of Piano Technique -- a very concise guide that addresses specific technical areas.
Josef Hofman: Piano Playing: With Piano Questions Answered -- a candid and interesting coverage of piano technic, practice and other aspects of the piano.
George Kochevitsky: The Art of Piano Playing: A Scientific Approach -- interesting from the scientific point of view (mechanical, physiological, acoustic, psychological, etc.) - an historic view of piano technic as relating to different instruments, preferences, technology in different eras.
I'm not sure why I didn't see this comment before, sorry for the delay! I've read that Kochevitsky book and am a fan and believer in about 95% of what he talks about. I'll have to check out what those other resources talk about. It's interesting that the knowledge I have, that was passed to me by a handful of teachers, I know... but I have no book or "codified" source to point to, just personal experience with my own teachers over approximately 10 years and 500 hours of lessons. Many things I read I find out... yeah, that's what I do or I agree with, but I've never read them before, only experienced.
I'm honestly not sure about teachers being mostly in the camp of "using Hanon for it's benefits yet putting it down otherwise." My interactions with hundreds of teachers online fuel some of the ideas behind the videos I create because... I find that A LOT of what is taught is not just incorrect, but actually detrimental in many many cases. And I have yet to take on a student from a previous teacher that doesn't need major correction in many departments. You just might be one of the few that "gets it" right from the beginning!
@@PianistAcademy1 -- well - the reason you didn't see this comment before is because I just added it (starting at "As a follow-on ..." to the original comment a few hours ago - no -- you're not losing your mind ... yet! ;-)
I had such an epiphany my second year in college when my prof re-built my technic using the Leschetizky technic that I've been an avid and voracious reader of these things since. I've found a great deal of correlation/overlap in most of the more reputable online teachers (Josh Wright, Graham Fitch, Robert Estrin, DariaPiano, Annique - Heart of the keys, etc.) with elements from Leschetizky and Hofman (who also reflects much of Leschetizky) -- primarily being the approach to correct posture, position, transfer of weight, and relaxation/release (reduction/absence of tension).
I'm new to the Taubman approach and need to know more -- I see it as effectively addressing many of the same issues involving weight transfer and release, so I'm interested in learning more. It seems that you are familiar with the Taubman approach and incorporate it in your playing and teaching -- I'm very impressed and interested.
Can't wait to take the wraps off the Christmas CD -- I'm sure you'll be having quite a bit of fun with that one ! Wishing you the best!!
@@aBachwardsfellow Are you familiar with "Basic Principles in Piano Playing" by Josef Lhevinne? It's a short one, but thinking about reading through it. I also have the Hofman book in my cart at Amazon. I found a free PDF of the Hutcheson online and will take a look at the Plaidy as well.
Edna Goldansky is the current leading expert in Taubman. You might want to research her and watch some of her videos: www.golandskyinstitute.org/profile/edna-golandsky/
I hope you'll enjoy the new Christmas album. My release of 11 songs from 2013 is what really kicked me into shifting from classical performance into arranging and composition. Since then I've written another 5 or 6 Christmas arrangements. This season, the record label I mentioned is in the New Age and Easy Listening genre, so I need to keep the arrangements beautiful yet very simple. I wouldn't call it a bit of work that I'm going to be most proud of, BUT, it will be some of the most accessible music I've written (both for the ears and for the hands), so in that regard it will be something of a triumph.
@@PianistAcademy1 Thanks for the Taubman info!
From what I've seen of Taubman's approach she definitely reduces/eliminates the tension created by over-use of the flexors in the forearms and other parts of the playing mechanism, and succeeds in getting a good musical transfer of weight into the keys via the "rotation". I'll enjoy finding out more - thanks!
I found a .pdf of Lhevinne's book and am reading it with interest. At the onset he seems to focus on the values of rests and space in the music, and constrained use of the pedal, preferring rather to render the music more from the hands alone. Listening to his recording of the Chopin Ab polanaise, he makes the chords very short (almost stacatto) despite the score(at least the one I'm looking at) being marked with a pedal through the entire quarter-note, and is much more sparing of the pedal compared with Lang Lang's performance.
I can also relate to Lhevinne's attempt on addressing rhythm ... I teach rhythm as a separate component initially, and cannot emphasize enough that rhythm can only be truly/authentically *experienced* as *motion within a person* . Non-auditory "rhythms" (a blinking light, a pendulum in another room) and even auditory rhythms can be seen and heard as a *pattern* -- but can only be experienced as *rhythm* when some part of the body is engaged -- a tapping foot or finger, a nodding head, swaying etc. Rhythm is best experienced as an over-arching "pulse" with smaller bits and pieces being some subdivision of that pulse.
You can find a .pdf of Plaidy on imslp (remove spaces from link):
imslp . org / wiki / Special : IMSLPImageHandler / 309463 % 2Fhfin
@@aBachwardsfellow I’ll look for a PDF. It’s only $6 but half of your comments from him I think I’ll disagree with haha.
Just what I need, another Hanon book! 😆already have the original Hanon, Hanon Revisited (Gold and Fizdale, consists of diff patterns in each hand necessitating diff shapes in each hand), as well as Technical Variants on Hanon (Lindquist). Neither have detailed verbal instructions on execution however. Btw, I took lessons frim Edna Golandsky for a few years (rotation, in/out, shaping, walking hand and arm, etc.) That was abt 15 yrs ago! Sorry to say i stopped playing for too long after that. Coming across ur channel has inspired me to get back into it. Just purchased Hanon-Faber from Amazon. Will be delivered tomorrow! 😊
Edna is quite the pedagogue! Really awesome to hear you had an opportunity to work with her personally. I think the wording in the book will definitely remind you of your lessons with her!
@@PianistAcademy1Looking forward to 8/3 Q&A. Marked my calendar.
Although modern piano actions tend to feel heavier than older ones, 100g downweight means there is something seriously wrong with your piano. Normal downweight on a modern piano should be in the upper 50g range in the bass, and mid 40g in the treble. But, downweight isn't the only thing. Excessive front key leads can give you a low downweight but too much inertia, making the piano play like a truck even though the downweight measurement is low. That being said, thanks for the practice tips, you have a great channel!
Just some quick digging around some piano tech sites and I was also able to find 50-ish gram range is what's desirable. I read that Horowitz's piano was in the mid 40s throughout... I had a chance to play it many years ago and found it incredibly difficult to control. Maybe someone should inform Faber about this? The book lists 110 grams as the standard "modern" piano downweight... He's done so much research I can't imagine it was a simple oversight or mistake, but now I'm not sure! Maybe it's the force required to generate enough inertia to sound a pitch at the softest volume? Thanks so much for bringing this up! I've learned something new :-)
@@PianistAcademy1 Must be referring to inertia, although I'm not sure how you'd measure that in grams without knowing other parameters such as the speed of the strike. My piano gram weight set tops out at 64g so I couldn't even measure a 100g static downweight! ;-)
My Mason A feels a bit heavy, how do you measure this?
Have played lots of Steinway Ms and Ls having had access to practice rooms at 92nd Y and Juilliard and was surprised at the variations differences in actions.
and ..
4. PREVENTING injuries and stilted progress for countless thousands of developing students ... :-)
Haha yes! I should’ve included that one!
Thanks for sharing this resource and the detailed videos on each gesture. How much would your recommend practicing each exercise and how do you decide when to move on to the next one? I'm around Grade 3 level and have never done technical exercises like these before (only scales and arpeggios for about 10 minutes at the start of each hour-long practice session). Thanks!
Thanks for watching, Dima! I usually recommend about 25% of your practice time be spent on exercises (including scales and arpeggios). So that's about 15 minutes out of an hour.
I'd take about 5 minutes on a single gesture, going slowly, really making sure the wrist and arm movement are just right before speeding it up. Lots of my in-person students make the mistake of 1) not dropping enough into the first notes, 2) feeling too much circle with the shoulder and elbow, and not with the wrist, 3) letting the fingers get lazy and not continuing to activate them while working on the wrist movement. If you can avoid those, you'll probably be in pretty good shape!
Mmm.. my teacher always tell me not to do dumb stuff with my wrists and forearm and pretty much keep them relaxed but not moving.. am i missing something here? Are these gestures any useful technique-wise or are these just propedeutical to hand choreography for concert pianists?
“Not moving” and “relaxed” are a bit of opposites, in my opinion. When you have to hold the body, any part of the body, in a position and not allow it to move, you are creating tension. Of course, it works the other way as well… too much movement, especially when it’s not productive toward technique, also can cause tension in the wrong places.
Most often, artistic gestures by concert pianists are a combination of reinforcing the emotion they are conveying and also somehow related to the technique they have or are about to execute. That said, highly virtuosic technique without artistic gesture might *look* like not a whole lot is going on or even that it’s ‘easy.’ But in fact the opposite is true. There’s a LOT that’s been programmed in, that exists in minute doses, almost invisible to the eye, but that includes forearm rotation, movement of the wrist, and general movement of the upper body.
There’s a surprising number of teachers who still teach today about stillness of the hand and the wrist… to the point of asking their students to balance quarters on top of the hands while they play. That was a very popular method of teaching for a VERY long time. But it’s quite detrimental to the physiological health of the mechanism we use to play AND it actually will prohibit the pianist from reaching their highest potential in speed, agility, power, and control at the piano. Even Chopin taught forearm rotation to his students, about 100 years prior to the origination of the Taubman technique I mention in the video. Chopin’s music is usually one of the first places students will learn about rotation, as he wrote many musical lines with that specific gesture in mind. Trying to play without it makes something difficult that much more difficult.
And the Kindle version of Hanon is even cheaper!
I want an ipad/computer version of this book.
Same! I'd like to be able to purchase a simple PDF and load it into Forscore... not a digital file linked to Kindle etc.
An important note with Hanon, and any exercises really. You must be aware of the students motivations and mental state. Some students react incredibly poorly to exercises and can't stand them. Other love them and gain great benefit! Don't force a student to do exercises if they don't react well to them.
What do you think of trying to reframe exercises into something else? For example, I stress scales quite a lot with private students. When they balk, or roll their eyes, or something else, I go straight into some cool examples of what scales teach us about music and how they can make our lives easier: a place to practice techniques, a gateway to learning passages in intermediate and advanced repertoire, a springboard for composition and improv.
Does this book apply to digital pianos? Or does it work only for acoustic piano players
Hi David! The exercises in this book are wonderful for technique building at any instrument, acoustic or digital. Some teachers would even argue that the exercises are slightly more necessary for pianists learning on a digital where you don’t get the same level of volume and resonant response as you do on an acoustic.
Hi, I’m a beginner, playing for just under a year. Is it too soon to practice these exercises?
Are you using a method book right now? If you are, what company/level is it? And if you aren’t, maybe you could link to a piece you are working on? Then I could tell you for sure one way or the other!
Hi and thank you for the reply. Yes, I’m using Fabers Adult Piano Adventures Method books and have started Book 2. I hope that helps. Many thanks
@@bonjovi1612 I’d say you are in the perfect spot to begin this book. It might be a touch challenging at the beginning, but you will definitely be in the right place within a month or two!
Thank you very much, I’ll order it up and post my thoughts here. Please keep up the videos they’re very helpful.