| One thing that makes Hanon more aurally palatable is to play them
in tenths.. left hand starting on C2, right hand on E3.
Hand independence.. one thing that has helped me enourmously is
playing... boogie-woogie. It strengthens my left hand, which can
play autonomously, leaving the right to do scalar or chordal stuff,
including 3-against-4 type rhythms.
Czerny's 'Schule der Gelaufigkeit' (School of Velocity) is a solid
approach to scalar work, though without the determined effort to
make each hand do identical work.
re Hanon.. try playing it very slowly to a metronome, concentrating
on evenness of velocity.. and yes, I use drum parts sometimes as
metronome substitutes.
karl
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| When I took piano lessons, I used to have to do each Hanon exercise in all
(major) keys. You can also find other permutations on each exercise.
Scales (major, 3 minors, whatever other modes you want) - did each scale in all
keys, up/down 1 octave at quarter notes, 2 octaves at eighth notes, 3 octaves
at triplets, 4 octaves at sixteenths; same tempor. each variation started
from the same position on the keyboard. This was done parallel motion, you
can do contrary motion, diff. intervals etc.
Same thing w/ arpeggios - major, minor, 7ths, etc.
Chords, went thru the diff chords in diff. positions, all inversions,
transposing to all keys.
Tedious, but if that's what you need to do ...
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| Thanks for the Czerny pointer, K. I may check it out.
Gaylord - how in thunder can you work out fingerings for Hanon in "all
major keys"? I have been patently unsuccessful at doing this (and
believe me, I've tried). I've also been the 4th/8th/16th route ...
I've even been to the point of being able to play the first 15 or 20
exercises cleanly at around 140 bpm.
What I'm trying to do is to develop a bit more hand independence and
stretch while maintaining the speed that I have. So far, the only
thing that's worked at all is doing hands over on scales and Hanon.
Maybe I oughta break out the Bach again (sigh) - or take Karl's cue and
start playing some boogie or Joplin again.
Keep those cards and letters coming.
-b
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| (Not that I can do them now, but...)
A suggestion from my former teacher:
Once you can play an exercise at a given speed in, say, quarter notes,
learn it at the corresponding dotted rhythm before increasing the
tempo. The total exercise will take the same amount of time, but you
get practice playing some notes quickly. I found this helped a lot
when trying to overcome a tempo plateau.
--Bill Wake
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