darin.wilson

Ah Hanon.

Mention the name to a pianist and see what kind of reaction you get. Some will
roll their eyes, some will lose all color in the face. Others will run screaming
from the room as images of piano teachers wielding rulers run feverishly through their minds.

“Hanon”, for those unfamiliar with the word, is the common short-hand term for Charles-Louis Hanon’s The Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises. Wikipedia describes it as “a compilation of 60 exercises meant to train the pianist in speed, precision, agility, and strength of all of the fingers and flexibility in the wrists.”

Pianists who have actually attempted to play the thing would probably describe it in much stronger language.

At first glance, the exercises seem tame enough. Each consists of a single, short phrase that’s repeated up and down across the keyboard with both hands in unison (this ensures that both hands develop evenly). Msr Hanon recommends starting most of the exercises at 60 beats per minute, then gradually working your way up to 108. How hard could that be?

As always, the devil is in the details.

The exercises are carefully graded and each presents you with a single, specific technical challenge: a solitary nut that your fingers have to crack. Like great games, they’re simple to learn, but fiendishly difficult to master, and getting up to that magical 108 mark, while retaining evenness and precision turns out to be much more of a challenge that you would expect.

I should know. I’ve been at it for awhile now and I’m still on exercise 4.

Only 56 more to go…oy.

I think it’s the dichotomy between simple-to-learn and a-real-bitch-to-master that makes Hanon the bête noire of the piano world. Pianists seem to have a kind of love-hate relationship with it. Most agree that, in the end, the work you have to do is good for the fingers, and pianists are often known to pull their aging copy off the shelf when they feel stuck in their progress and want to get back to basics. At the same time, it can be quite aggravating because the apparent simplicity of the exercises makes you feel like you ought to be able to play them without any trouble, and yet there’s trouble a-plenty when you really dig in. The road block to moving forward is that single challenge that the current exercise presents. If you could just get your fingers to do that one little thing correctly, you could move on. But they don’t – at least not yet – so you slow down and try it again.

And again. And again…

I realize I’m painting a pretty bleak picture, and I admit, at times the pictures does seem pretty bleak. But I know I want to stretch out a bit more in terms of technique, and something about these exercises is damned compelling. For better or for worse, I seem to be on for the ride, so away I go. Watch this space for developments.