(43) Problems with Hanon Exercises

Since about 1900, Charles Louis Hanon's (1820-1900) exercises have been taught by a majority piano teachers. The popularity of exercises grew rapidly in the vacuum created by a lack of documented efficient practice methods until it culminated in the exercise craze of the 1930s with the publication of Cortot's "Rational Principles of Pianoforte Technique" that contained no principles but was just a compilation of exercises. The title illustrates the lack of understanding of how technique is acquired. Few teachers understood this until recently when knowledge about efficient practice methods became more available because of improving communications. Even today, there are pianists who claim that Hanon is helpful, from force of habit because they grew up with it.

I used Hanon exercises extensively in my youth which is why I know about their shortcomings. Czerny, Cramer-Bulow, etc., type lesson pieces, that I also used, share many of these disadvantages. Hanon is a prime example of how Cortot's "rational principles" [intuitive methods! (1) Practice Routines, the Intuitive Method] can mislead generations of pianists into using methods that are inferior to known efficient practice methods. Here are some reasons why the days of repeating Hanon for a lifetime are over:

(1) Hanon makes a surprising claim in his introduction with no rationale, explanation, or experimental evidence: "The Virtuoso Pianist, in 60 Exercises". Advanced teachers today know that such a claim is amateurish; yet Hanon has survived through generations of pianists because better alternatives were seldom taught from a lack of communication among piano teachers. Hanon implies that the ability to play these exercises will enable anyone to play anything -- which shows a lack of understanding of how technique is acquired. All advanced pianists today agree that Hanon is not for acquiring technique, but might be useful for "warming up". There are many better pieces for warming up than Hanon, such as etudes, numerous Bach compositions, scales, and arpeggios and, most importantly, your own repertoire. The skills needed to play any significant piece of music are incredibly diverse - almost infinite in number; certainly not 60 exercises.

(2) All 60 are mainly exercises in two hands playing the same notes an octave apart, plus a few in opposite directions. This HT motion is a major limitation for acquiring technique because the better hand cannot practice skills more advanced than the weaker hand. At slow speed, neither hand gets much workout. At maximum speed, the slow hand is stressed while the better hand is playing relaxed. Because technique is acquired mostly when playing relaxed, the weaker hand develops bad habits and the stronger hand gets stronger. The best way to strengthen the weaker hand is to practice that hand only. In fact, the best way to learn Hanon is to separate the hands as recommended in this book, but he is unaware of HS practice. Locking the two hands only teaches how to coordinate the hands, but does nothing to teach independent control of each hand. In practically all music, the two hands play different parts.

(3) There is no provision for resting a fatigued hand. This leads to stress and injury. A diligent student who fights the pain and fatigue in an effort to carry out Hanon's instructions will build up stress, acquire bad habits, and risk injury. The concept of relaxation is never even mentioned. Piano is an art for producing beauty; it is not a macho demonstration of how much punishment your hands, ears, and brain can take. Dedicated students often use Hanon as intense exercises in the belief that piano is like weight lifting and that "no pain, no gain"applies to piano. Such exercises might be performed up to the limit of human endurance, even until some pain is felt. "Strengthening the fingers for technique" is a terrible misconception; technique is a set of skills, not "finger strength" which will actually slow the fingers [Post Practice Improvement, Sleep, Fast/Slow Muscles].

(4) The Hanon exercises can destroy the student's musicality. It does not require a musical genius to compile a Hanon type of exercises. The joy of piano comes from the one- on-one conversations with the greatest geniuses that ever lived. For too many years, Hanon has taught the wrong message that technique and music can be learned separately. Bach's music benefits both the hands and the mind. Hanon excerpted most his material from Bach's Toccata and Fugue and other compositions — if it is from Bach, how can you go wrong? Hanon showed us how, by deleting the music! He also deleted almost all of Bach's technical lessons, because Hanon was not aware of them.

(5) Many pianists use Hanon as warm-up exercises. This conditions the hands so that it becomes impossible to play "cold", something any accomplished pianist should be able to do, within reasonable limits. Since the hands are cold for at most 10 to 20 minutes, "warming up"robs the student of this precious, tiny, window of opportunity for practicing cold [(41) Playing Cold, Warming Up, Conditioning]. Those who use Hanon for warm-ups can be misled into thinking that it is Hanon that is making their fingers fly, while in reality, any good practice session will do that. The Hanon teachings have led to the belief that only Mozart can just sit down and play, and that the rest of us can't perform such "magical feats". In order to be able to "play on demand", quit Hanon and practice playing cold - what Mozart did was common sense, not magic.

(6) If students used their "Hanon time" to practice real music, they would acquire a lot more technique. Who wouldn't rather play Mozart, Bach, Chopin, etc., than Hanon, acquire technique, and build a repertoire they can perform?

(7) Hanon gives no instructions on how to acquire technique. He cannot help if you get stuck at a difficult passage; he does not provide any diagnostics for why you can't play a given passage. The PSs provide both diagnostics and solutions for many situations. What little advice he does dispense, have all been shown to be wrong! So let's look into them:

(i) He recommends "lifting the fingers high", which will create stress and slow down the fingers. I have never seen a famous pianist lift the fingers high. Hanon's advice has misled students into thinking that piano should be played by lifting the finger and plonking it down. Ouch!

(ii) He recommends continuous practicing of both hands, as if piano technique is some kind of calisthenics. He is totally unaware of the benefits of HS practice.

(iii) He recommends playing his exercises every day, but once any skill is acquired, it doesn't need to be reacquired over and over. Once all 60 pieces are learned and up to speed, every hour that Hanon is repeated is a wasted hour -- what will we gain?

(iv) He is apparently aware of only the thumb under method, whereas the thumb over method is more important.

(v) In most exercises, he recommends fixed wrists which is only partially correct. His didn't understand what "quiet hands" means.

(vi) He does not teach a majority of the important hand motions, although there are a few wrist exercises for repetitions. His format of locked 2-hand practice limits the options for practicing different hand motions; it is impossible to experiment using Hanon.

(8) The Hanon exercises do not allow for practicing at the kinds of speeds possible with the PS exercises. Without the use of such speeds, certain fast speeds cannot be practiced and there is no possibility of practicing "over-technique", more technique than necessary to play that passage - a safety margin for performances.

(9) Hanon wastes time. The student ends up with insufficient time to develop a repertoire. A person who has 2 hrs to practice every day, playing Hanon for 1 hr as recommended, would waste half of his piano lifetime! Teachers, who don't know how to teach, assign Hanon in the hopes that the student will accidentally discover technique by repeating Hanon exercises. That technique could have been taught in a few days while it may take years to be discovered accidentally using Hanon, if ever. It took Liszt two years to discover TO; today, we can teach it in a week or less. The Hanon student becomes the next generation of teachers who assign Hanon exercises, etc., which explains why Hanon has persisted for this long, and why the acquisition of technique was such a mystery.

Thanks to improved documentation and communications, the Age of Exercises is finally over and piano pedagogy can advance freely, instead of getting stuck with incorrect beliefs that slowed progress for over 100 years. This book amply demonstrates that there are so many skills that musicians must learn that there is no time left for repeating the same exercises over and over and . . . . . . . . .