Hanon crap

So I can't play anything, cause I lack practise and skill, so I decided to look for the so well regarded Hanon exercises...meh!
Maybe done by a good pianist, but a horrible comunicator! The thing is completely un-clear!

It's like you are just catching the middle of someone giving a lesson, so you missed the introductory parts and now you can't follow on, and miss the details! I'm so frustrated...

http://sheetmusicarchive.net/compositions_b/hanpart1.pdf

Can anyone throw some light please? Like, which hands to use, whats the purpose? I must be dumb...

The purpose of hanon is to have every finger just as strong as any other. Your pinky finger and 4th finger are naturally weak, so this levels out your playing. It also improves finger dex. The key to playing this is to play it VERY slow to start out with, and play steady and even.

This first exersize focuses on helping to stretch your 4th and 5th finger a greater distance apart, this helps in reaching chords etc. It's a very good and invaluable tool to developing good solid technique. It trains your fingers to listen to your brains commands very well.

Well, i read that 4th and 5th part, but its says the number for all fingers and both hands on bass clef? I'm puzzled.

Phobik..I'm not sure if I get what you're confused at but I'll try to explain. I, myself, am only familiar with the first 3 exercises.

You don't really have to read every single note on every single bar. By reading the first 2 bars you can actually figure out the pattern of the exercises. I know when I first looked at these exercises all the notes made me dizzy.

Both hands start at the bass clef, one octave apart. Your right hand starts at the C, one octave below middle C. The left hand starts at the C lower than the right hand's starting C. You move your way up with this exercise. You start with your right hand's 1 finger(thumb) and the next note plays skip. Meaning since it starts out at C, you play the next key, E, with your 2 finger(pointer finger) and then the rest are just notes next to each other. By the time your pinky (5 finger) has to play a key, it would be playing the A key. Then the pattern repeats again:

This time you're moving your thumb over to the next key which is D. Then you play a skip--pointer playing the F key. Your pinky would be playing a B key.

For your left hand, you start with your pinky compared to the right hand which starts with the thumb. You pinky(5 finger) will play the C key below the right hand's starting C key. The next note you play is E key with your 4 finger (ring finger) and your thumb would play A. Pattern repeats and you move your pinky to D...and so on.

You see how you're just really moving your way up? You're doing this with both hands simultaneously. When you're moving your way up, you're working on your left hand's 4th and 5th finger's stretch. When you do the descending it's your right hand. Also, the descending is the same pattern.

Dalirus wrote:
You see how you're just really moving your way up? You're doing this with both hands simultaneously. When you're moving your way up, you're working on your left hand's 4th and 5th finger's stretch. When you do the descending it's your right hand. Also, the descending is the same pattern.

You've GOT IT! very good explanation, your right, you're just moving up the keyboard together, on the way up it works the LH on the way down is RH very good! thanks for helping!!! yay!

I like these exercises, among scales, because for one, it drives the people around me nuts when i'm practicising them

Edit: Damn, and I wrote all that...when you can just watch this:

Dalirus wrote:I like these exercises, among scales, because for one, it drives the people around me nuts when i'm practicising them

Edit: Damn, and I wrote all that...when you can just watch this:

that's a nice useful post! good job!

when i was watching this i'm like, "ohh!!! i should've done that! crap!"

Maybe you can do a video of some of the exercises Andrew like this dude. Of course, in your version, which always rocks.

Or maybe just other technical exercises too. I'm not sure if you're one of those teachers that shun these exercises. I don't even get why they hate 'em. o_O

Hmmm..... Andrew, why haven't you learned us the Hanon Exercise

EDIT:
I became very strong in my left hand after playing the guitar ^^

ok ok ok i'll see what i can do maybe i'll teach the first 2 exersizes

Dalirus wrote:I like these exercises, among scales, because for one, it drives the people around me nuts when i'm practicising them

Edit: Damn, and I wrote all that...when you can just watch this:

Whoa! Thanks! that really send some light on me! I wasn't getting the idea. Also I was using 12345 LH and 12345 RH as a reference, Hanon uses 54321 LH 12345 RH. Is this the appropriate way? I thought I recall Andrew mentioning it in a video.

it's important that you do it 54321 with your LH ascending and 54321 with your RH descending because the idea as Andrew said, of this exercise is to work out your 4th and 5th finger's stretching.

No use 12345 since your thumb and pointer finger can stretch pretty apart far

Dalirus wrote:No use 12345 since your thumb and pointer finger can stretch pretty apart far

"E.T. phone home"