Summer 2023
Another Hanon revisit....
Hey all, been thinking about pedagogy lately and how to bring it into the 21st century. One set of exercises in particular than continue to be relevant today as they were in the 19th century is those of CL Hanon.Check him out here at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Louis_Hanon
https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Virtuoso_Pianist_(Hanon,_Charles-Louis)
These fundamental now public domain exercises provide an essential foundation in playing. Years ago, I didn’t get through them all, but more recently, I am able to appreciate in particular the foundations offered, especially from the middle parts, starting at exercise 38 to about exercise 44. I had played all the scales in the last century, although the sharps before the flats, unlike in Hanon’s order. In fact, Hanon’s order studies the circle of 5ths more like a jazz rather than a classical musician might but nevertheless, either order can work. However, I never really looked very closely at his arpeggio exercises until more recently. Rather, I had developed variations of these in application on the gig scene over the years. So returning to them as formally written proved interesting but straightforward, at least to me. However, they might still be be intimidating to less experienced readers as presented. Therefore, I have informed some of my students to look for patterns, as each is repetitive through the different octaves rather than getting hung up on the particulars of the notation.
This is an important point though to remember, as for the last 3 years I have had the opportunity to look at more pieces of standard music notation than I had in all my years of formal study. One thing in particular that I have found is that standard notation can often appear more complex than it actually is when one takes into account the recognition of such patterns and fundamentals associated with executing them. Therefore when approaching new material, looking at it from a “higher level” often proves useful and once the performer is aware of the themes present, individual technicalities tend to fall into place regardless of notation style.