backwoods
Nice to see some fellow Hanon users in this thread! I used to hate that thing.
I hope you get the cramping sorted out marcus3, maybe try slowing down a little and aiming for fluidity/even-ness. Always use a metronome. Eventaully you'll be able to go through the whole book in one sitting from memory.
Disregard the advice about disregarding Hanon- it's a solid book.
Speaking for myself and many other colleagues of mine, our teachers used Hanon ONLY to address some specific problems. So if I had a problem with a trill in my 3-4 fingers, I would do one exercise from Hanon 10mins a day for a couple of days. But that's it.
The only reason why Hanon is hated by all is because Hanon is unmusical and completely boring and unexciting. Any idea how many students are put off by the sight of that book and quit playing altogether?! One needs a lot of discipline to sit through 60 minutes of mind-numbing repetition, whereas it takes much less effort trying to learn a Bach prelude or some Chopin nocturne or etude, which presents the same kind of challenges that Hanon does but in a
musical context.
Apart from the total unmusicality of Hanon, it creates more problems than it solves. If you have a problem with tensing up like our friend here, Hanon will only amplify it and give you an RSI. If you spend one minute practicing a particular Hanon exercise meant to solve a particular problem as noted before each exercise, you spend one minute tensing up a particular set of muscle fibres which is not good at all!
Whereas in a musical context, you come across a bar which contains a trill or fast octaves of what have you, and that's it - you quickly move on to the next bit. This kind of practicing works because our brain is an amazing tool and there is something called post-practice improvement - the minute you play something, given that you are playing it in a correct manner, the brain will put it on the side and stay 'working on it'. Which is why the next time you play the same piece, you notice an improvement (again, if one is practicing correctly).
We don't practice our fingers. We practice our brain-nerve connection. When you "get that trill" it's not your fingers that are suddenly agile enough - it's your brain having learnt how to fire those neural impulses so that your fingers can play it smoothly and faster.
So there are things like post-practice improvement. There are also things like the anti-clicks that the brain creates when you constantly use a metronome - that's when your brain shuts out the metronome completely and it eventually makes your timing worse and completely destroys your inner clock and sense of pulse. It's good to practice with a metronome but only for a few moments to fix 'problem areas'.
I'm a concert pianist and I didn't just study how to play the piano. I studied music in a holistic way and I know the 'how' and the 'why' things happen in certain ways and not others. The most amazing pianists in the world do not spend hours a day slaving away at the keyboard - they just spend a decent amount of time practicing
properly.
I reached concert level with barely looking at Hanon or any other "exercise" books like Czerny at all. All I studied was musical pieces without having to resort to boring study-methods.
In essence, I studied Music, not exercises!
"Of course, you can play scales, Hanon and Czerny’s Etudes for hours every day, but if you’re practicing incorrectly, there will be no progress. Even worse – if played for too long,
these ‘boring’ technical exercises will not allow a complex development of your musical perception. Play them for some minutes before starting to work on the pieces, but remember to concentrate on the quality of the sound and on the arm posture as well!" ~
pianocareer.com (my emphasis)