Stop right there, don't run away. I agree that Hanon has some severe drawbacks and limitations, I am here to explain how to overcome those limitations and draw on Hanon's method to develop what is objectively the most comprehensive way to develop not only your musical dexterity as Hanon intended, but also your musical vocabulary and fluency.
By objective standards, this method has the potential to increase your musical vocabulary by a factor of 168 or even more.
Now, let's look at Hanon for a second, the bane of every pianist. The first twenty exercises in The Virtuoso Pianist follow a particular method which has a surprising quality to it that is often overlooked. The method that the first twenty exercises follows goes something like this:
- Begin with a fingering pattern of semiquavers in 2/4 with two hands in unison starting in C major an octave apart.
- Ascend the diatonic modes of C major using the same fingering pattern for two octaves.
- Reverse the fingering pattern and descend the modes for two octaves.
What Hanon has effectively made every pianist do with this exercise is multiply a basic phrase by:
- Playing it through seven modes
- Across two octaves.
- Altering the phrase.
- Playing the altered phrase through seven modes
- Across two octaves.
So, he has given you one phrase that has been multiplied by 7 modes x 2 octaves = 14 new phrases, and then provided you with another 14 phrases, giving you a total of 28 phrases for the price of one! This may seem trivial but ask yourself this, when was the last time you seriously studied a phrase and played it in a different mode, different octave, different key, rhythm, scale, wait... Hanon didn't change keys, rhythm or scale in his first twenty exercises, his strict use of semiquavers in 2/4 in the key of C is precisely one of the reasons his method warrants so much criticism, along with the claim that 60 exercises total is all it takes to develop a virtuoso technique.
What I am getting at here is that Hanon had something right all along, and because us musicians tend to avoid critical thinking in favour of being opinionated egotists we never noticed! What Hanon has laid the foundation for is for us to effectively remove the limitations of Hanon's method and replace them with methods that make them theoretically limitless.
Let's focus on those limitations and systematically improve on them:
Hanon only provides sixty exercises.
There is no way that only sixty exercises are going to make anybody a virtuoso. That's like saying you can be fluent in a language by mastering just sixty phrases. Anybody who practices Hanon or any other technical exercises will use it as a supplement to learning and creating real music. So by learning Bach or composing your own music you're already increasing and improving your musical vocabulary. There is an innate problem with this though that most musicians are neglecting which I have mentioned in this article, which is the fact that when most of us learn or create a phrase we tend to ignore that it has at least seven times more value if we play it in all seven modes.
Hanon's exercises are limited to only a few scales.
To my immediate recollection, Hanon only uses the diatonic, melodic minor, harmonic minor, and chromatic scales. Most of the exercises he provides aren't even mentioned to be played in other scales.
You can go beyond this by changing the scale. Using Hanon's exercises that are in C major for an example, we could take that first exercise and once it has been played as it is written, play it in harmonic minor instead. Now we have taken a phrase, played it in 7 modes x 2 scales = 14 exercises.
Hanon's exercises use only one key per exercise (with a few exceptions).
So, Hanon has already given us a method that can effectively increase our musical vocabulary and musical dexterity by a factor of seven. But for the most part, his method avoids playing each exercise in all twelve keys.
By doing so, we can effectively multiply one phrase or exercise by 7 modes x 12 keys = 84 new phrases!
If we change the scale, then we can further multiply those eighty-four phrases by each scale that we use. So a phrase that is usually diatonic that can provide us with 84 phrases/exercises, provides us with another 84 for each new scale we assign to it. Playing a phrase this way just across two scales will yield us 168 ways to play just one phrase.
Hanon's exercises may possibly restrict hand independence.
Most of Hanon's exercises utilise both hands in a way that they will play the exact same notes at the exact same rhythm one octave apart. Honestly, I think this is a bad practice and may restrict the musician's independence of each hand. This is simply remedied by playing the exercise with one hand of your choice, and then providing accompaniment with the other hand. This accompaniment could be improvised, it could be pre-arranged and notated, the world is your oyster.
Hanon's exercises are rhythmically unimaginative.
Now, I can see why Hanon may have chosen the first twenty exercises to all be a set of eight semiquavers in bars of 2/4. It does provide uniformity but in my opinion that's kind of like training wheels.
Whether you are using Hanon's exercises, a Bach melody, or your own phrases, it is worthwhile to use rhythmic variation so music doesn't always feel like it's being experienced through the same rhythmic lens. I imagine somebody who played Hanon the way he intended (all sixty exercises in one sitting every day) would suffer from perceiving all music as being slurred and modified variations of the sixty exercises. To be clear, I don't simply mean to just slur your phrases and play them rubato or staccato, I mean use completely different rhythms such as various time signatures and subdivisions. It could be interesting to add subdivisions or even omit or extend some notes.
It's called The Virtuoso "Pianist".
The music police (I hate those guys) will not arrest you for playing these exercises on your guitar, clarinet, trumpet, cello or whatever. I have had a serious talk with the chief at the music police station and he said it is completely acceptable by all standards of the music law to compose technical exercises for one instrument and arrange them for any other instrument.
This can yield some very powerful results, playing a phrase across twelve keys on guitar is significantly easier than on piano, but playing it across seven modes is significantly more intricate and thus will benefit your dexterity and musical abilities profoundly.
Hanon emphasises finger dexterity over musicality.
Dexterity is required to be an able musician, but the emphasis should be on creating and enjoying music, or else you're proverbially stuck riding with training wheels.
Trying to attain virtuosity just by increasing dexterity is like trying to be a better speaker just by practicing mouth movements, or trying to be a better writer by practicing correct pen-holding technique and writing out the alphabet with attention to form. These can be useful exercises, but the context and expression that accompanies the exercise is really what is at the heart of any practice whether it be music, painting, sports etc.
Moving on:
Improving your musical vocabulary by playing it in the multitude of various modal and tonal contexts is more than meets the eye. By practicing this way, we are not merely adding to a memory bank of musical phrases. More importantly, we are actually exercising our ability to perceive music in fresh new ways. I encourage you to consider that you aren't just increasing your vocabulary and dexterity, but you are expanding and developing your understanding of musical relationships in ways that transcend the idea of boosting your musical vocabulary. More important than having a large vocabulary is knowing how to use it, and this should innately occur through quality practice and reflection.
As I'm a big fan of thinking and getting other people to think, I thought of something new to introduce in my articles to encourage musicians to improve their music by thinking while also giving me more material for future articles. I thought I could end each article with relevant thought exercises such as considerations/questions and visualisation exercises to stimulate musician's abilities in navigating and creating musical possibilities. I am also considering making posts solely on visualisation exercises. Gee, I've got so much to work on.
Consider and question:
- In the future, when I learn a piece, I will practice particular phrases across across seven modes, twelve keys, and in various scales. Potentially multiplying my musical vocabulary by a factor of 168 or more.
- What would learning a major piece in harmonic minor or another mode be like? What new musical ideas, contexts, and patterns will I absorb? How can I use this new knowledge?
- What scales am I unfamiliar with? I will practice those.
- Let's make phrases in new time signatures and rhythmic patterns, and then play them through modes, keys, and scales.
Visualise and imagine:
- Hear and visualise your hands playing a simple phrase in C major. Imagine the same phrase across all the modes of C major. Try this for all 12 keys.
- Hear and visualise that same phrase but in harmonic minor. Imagine it through all seven modes of harmonic minor across all twelve keys.
- Imagine this with different phrases and scales.
No comments:
Post a Comment