Frank’s cautionary take on the usefulness of Hanon the Virtuoso Pianist for improving one’s piano technique…
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Lesson Goals
To make an honest assessment of the usefulness and limitations of Hanon the Virtuoso Pianist and similar methods (Cortot, Czerny, others, and exercises in general) for improving one’s piano technique.
Prerequisites
LOVE of music and the discipline to study and practice the right things the right way.
Two Huge Myths Regarding Piano Technique
Myth #1. Great piano technique is achieved by making your fingers stronger, faster, and more independent.
Myth #2. You can make your fingers stronger, faster, and more independent by doing physical exercises day after day after day for years and years and years.
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Hanon the Virtuoso Pianist, an Introduction
The single italicized paragraph in the image below (from Hanon, the Virtuoso Pianist) may be the single biggest lie ever told in the history of piano technique… and is responsible for countless years and tears of frustration and devastated musical lives. It is nothing short of pure piano teaching EVIL!
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How Can So Many People be So Wrong?
The mythical claims of the finger training school touted by Hanon the Virtuoso Pianist are perpetuated by at least five conspiring problems:
- In the early stages, doing finger training exercises seems to improve one’s playing.
- Millions of ignorant but well meaning teachers continue to subscribe to doing Hanon exercises to their students.
- Millions of trusting students believe what their teachers tell them.
- Publishers continue to publish and profit from such “exercise” books (Hanon, Cortot, Czerny, etc) by the millions.
- Hanon has achieved canonical status, like a set of holy scriptures that one dares not question lest they be charged with musical blasphemy.
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Problems with the Finger Training School
If you believe the finger training myth, you are doomed to failure and mediocrity–for at least five huge reasons:
- It’s anatomically impossible to make all your fingers equally strong, fast, and independent.
- Even if it was anatomically possible to make all your fingers equally strong, fast, and independent you still haven’t scratched the surface of understanding piano technique.
- Piano technique is not a general purpose skill. Piano technique requires a choreography that is always specific to the particular passage of music you are playing and how you want to interpret that passage.
- General-purpose exercises will never be comprehensive enough to solve the countless unique technical problems that you are going to encounter in real music.
- The unique choreography required to play a particular piece of music can only be discovered by studying and practicing that particular piece of music.
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More Problems with the Finger Training School
In the early stages of learning how to play, physical training creates the illusion of progress, but such progress is extremely limited in the following ways:
- Doing something is better than doing nothing, but the same may be said about doing anything more than nothing.
- If you subscribe to the finger training school, you will never master anything; you will just get slightly better at doing things the wrong way.
- If you subscribe to the finger training school, and even if you do the exercise the “right” way, any improvements will be extremely small and painfully slow.
- Because progress will be extremely small and painfully slow, you will eventually give up trying… because you’ll mistakenly believe that you are untalented, that you just don’t have what it takes.
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Why You Should Buy Hanon the Virtuoso Pianist
Spoiler Alert: It’s not for the reason most people might think!
So, why should you buy your own copy of Hanon? Answer: Because it would be so cool to own the existence proof of a form of collective insanity!
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Advice for Developing Your Piano Technique
If you want to play with freedom and ease, you must reject the finger training school of piano technique and proceed as follows:
- Stop believing the myth that fluent piano technique is about training your fingers to be like smart little hammers on the end of a stick.
- Beware of any method that subscribes to the “finger training school” of technique.
- Stop wasting precious time learning music that you have no intentions of keeping in your repertoire.
- Stop wasting precious time doing physical exercises.; instead spend your time internalizing real music.
- Once you understand the basic principles of technique, get go right to the music that you want to play.
- In other words, you get good at Bach by studying and practicing Bach, good at Rock by studying and practicing Rock, and good at Jazz by studying and practicing Jazz.
- In studying the music that you want to play, you will discover the particular technical problems that you need to solve, problems that you can now give your full and focused attention.
- If you study and practice the right way, you should expect quantum leaps in improvement, not slight improvements over years and years of arduous effort.
- Just do it!
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Special Note from Frank to Critics Who Disagree
I’ve been widely criticized by many players and teachers who claim that Hanon has made them better players. I do not doubt that’s the case, but such a claim begs the question: “Compared to what?” My point, as I said above, is that doing something is better than doing nothing, but the same may be said about doing anything more than nothing. Furthermore, I’d be a nickel that those who claim that Hanon has revolutionized their playing are accomplished precisely because they did not follow Hanon’s advice above.
The HUGE Takeaway
If you subscribe to the finger training school of piano technique, you will never master anything. At best, you might make extremely slow and painful progress, just getting slightly better at doing things the wrong way–the hard way. And because progress will be extremely small and painfully slow, you will eventually quit, mistakenly believing you’re untalented… a major tragedy for anyone who loves music.
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