This is a loaded question and it’s a topic that may cause controversy – especially among some piano teachers. There are different perspectives on this important subject. As always, I welcome everyone’s comments and suggestions when it comes to every topic we cover so please feel free to voice your opinion.
I also understand that some students can become frustrated by having to practice tedious exercises for hours and hours when they would much rather be playing music. But are these exercises in vain or is there a purpose to them?
Exercises are an important part of developing as a pianist. In many cases utilizing Hanon and Czerny can be a great way to develop strength in your playing. These exercises can help you develop pure technique without having to deal with nuanced expression, complex rhythms, melodies and countermelodies. By using Hanon or Czerny, you can learn exercises with lots of notes much much quicker than many piano pieces which can have additional elements of complexity not found in these exercises.
What about the relative value of learning exercises instead of learning music? A lot of times musical etudes – advanced ones such as Chopin or Moszkowski or student level etudes of Heller or Burgmuller – can provide the same benefit of strength building you get from Czerny or Hanon with the added benefit of providing pieces of music you can add to your repertoire.
There really is a balance you must reach when it comes to learning exercises versus learning music. In the early levels of studying the piano learning exercises provides a great way to develop strength. Hanon exercises can help you develop finger strength very quickly. The early exercises in the book are great for beginning pianist because you don’t have to deal with finger crossings or cumbersome musical challenges. It’s an easy and simple way to start playing the piano immediately developing strength in your fingers. Younger students can quickly master these exercises and prepare themselves for learning music.
Once you master all of your scales and arpeggios you can continue building strength simply by playing music. You will challenge yourself much more and develop your technique along with continuing to work on scales and arpeggios.
So yes, there are benefits to exercises, but you shouldn’t be relying on them as your only source of technical development. They provide a great foundation for building your technique but they are something you should augment with scales and arpeggios and substantial musical repertoire.
Many times you can actually create your own exercises by taking sections of music you have great difficulty with. Take these sections and generate patterns, bring out different voices, or create rhythmic variations to challenge yourself. Exercises come in all forms and sizes and you shouldn’t be afraid to create your own!
We would love to hear your opinions on this subject. Please leave us comments or contact me directly: Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
16 thoughts on “Are Czerny and Hanon a Waste of Time?”
Creativity definitely improves the benefits of technical practice — one of the most important being to keep the mind musically engaged and present rather than in an inattentive robotic fog !! For example, with Hanon, besides playing in different keys and in tenths and sixths as well as octaves, varying the touch and dynamics can also increase engagement; left hand legato, right hand stacatto, switch; both hands stacatto; when ascending start pianissimo and swell to fortissimo at the top, then descending back down to pianissimo; reverse starting fortissimo …; left hand forte, right hand piano; switch; etc.
This sounds like something I would have written – right on target!
I believe that you have covered these in some of your posts – 🙂 .
I have — as have countless others — benefitted greatly from your many, many excellent posts here. I have also benefitted and recommend the book, “Piano Playing With Piano Questions Answered” by Josef Hofmann, in which many excellent suggestions may be found.
I read that book years ago. I recommend anyone to listen to recordings of Josef Hofmann on YouTube. Rachmaninoff considered him to be the greatest pianists in the world!
I love all the studies of Czerny! In fact I would be happy to just play his exercises. I have all his books, I reached the level of the velocity book of Czerny. And I can feel the benefit of the studies of Hanon, to strengthen all the fingers in an equal manner. I hated Heller!
My sister is performing the Czerny Concerto for Piano Duet (1 piano, 4 hands) with the Cleveland Philharmonic this weekend. I’m sure you would love it!
Yes, it’s controversial. However, it was with my last, most advanced teacher that I finally got the huge range of technique that I needed. Czerny offers an incredible variety of studies, from the simplest 5-finger things to the virtuosic studies that are as hard as anything. I highly recommend Joan Last’s Freedom Technique, which is out of print but available on Amazon, etc. Here you might get the most bang for your buck, as 5 minutes can be revelatory because the exercises are so smart and so short. Somebody mentioned doing Hanon in different keys, which really helps. Oddly, I find that doing technique with great care and some creativity can work out so many things (dynamic control or rhythmic precision, for example), so that those things are on tap easily when you’re in that Beethoven or Chopin or Ginastera piece. If you do technique, don’t be bored . . . if you treat it as a playing field away from the critics, you’ll approach everything you play with greater respect and delight.
I hated Czerny with a passion when I was a youth taking piano lessons but I suppose it did me some good. It also makes one aware of fingering. My poor husband hears me practice measures/phrases over and over. I told him, “It’s not always the notes I am practicing, it’s the fingering I am figuring out and memorizing.”
I have used Hanon for all the key signatures.
When choosing a scale to practice, I use the piece I am practicing to determine which scale will be played. EX: Chopin Etude, Opus 10, No. 3 would be E major. You might choose another scale based on the piece’s modulation.
In a similar way, Hanon can be used for all key signatures. You select a Hanon exercise and start the exercise where your selection’s key begins. EX: For F minor, you’d start where the Hanon excercise begins on ‘F’ and proceed with fingering that uses all of F minor’s flatted notes.
This procedure makes the Hanon more challenging , causing less drudgery from having to practice excercises.
In addition to playing Hanon in different keys, try playing them in tenth’s and sixth’s — not only does it add harmonic interest (i.e. they sound “pretty”), it increases the autonomy between the hands (especially in keys other than C). For a nice challenge try Hanon #1 in F# harmonic minor in tenth’s and sixth’s – there’s the added technical benefit (micro-adjustments) of the stretched minor 3rd interval between the 6th (D) and 7th (E# – a.k.a. F ) notes
These are all useful techniques. One more thing you probably also do is to play scales in contrary motion. Here’s one more: https://livingpianos.com/why-you-should-practice-scales-two-octaves-apart/
Robert, you mentioned that there are other composers that wrote etudes besides Hanon and Czerny, such as Chopin and Liszt. But I think they are for very advanced students, if I’m not mistaken. You also mentioned Heller and Burgmüller. I know Burgmüller and can actually play some of them, despite being (apparently) stuck permanently at a Beginner Level. But who is Heller — Did he write etudes suitable for beginners? Are there other etude composers you’d recommend for beginning or early intermediate students?
Also… I have often seen that practice sessions should have 4 parts:
1. Technique. I think technique means: scales, arpeggios, chords, triads, intervals, and Hanon exercises, and I guess Etudes, like Czerny?
2. Sight-reading (What exactly is sight reading? Aren’t we sight-reading when we play a Hanon or Czerny exercise every day? Or do piano teachers mean that every day we should grab a NEW piece of music that we have never seen before and try to play it? Or are there special sight reading materials or exercises for daily use? Where would we find them? )
3. Repertoire (Intentional practice on segments of a piece one might play for performance. These pieces often take months or even a year or more to learn.)
4. Improvisation (practice creating melodies in one hand, while playing chords or arpeggios in the other hand.)
I’m mainly puzzled about the “Sight Reading” step, because I feel like I am sight-reading all the time! At least I sound that way!
Thanks!
Having a smorgasbord approach to practicing as you articulate, can make practicing enjoyable and productive. You must know when you are practicing sight-reading, and when you are learning music. They have two entirely different practice techniques.
Stephen Heller was a 19th century pianist/composer. His etudes are intermediate level, similar in difficulty to Clementi sonatinas, but in a Romantic idiom.
Exercises are important, but I would avoid doing too much of it for morale reasons. What I mean is: do some exercises every time you practice, hopefully almost every day, but devote more time to the music.
And I think scales and arpeggios take precedence over Hanons and Czerny.
So there’s a lot to do and the question is allocation of time to this or that and in what order?
Practicing should have balance of what skillsets you work on. It doesn’t have to be the same proportions each day. Go with what is engaging and productive above all else.