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My 14-year-old daughter is autistic but musical. She plays the piano around Grade 4. She loves exercises and enjoys the repetition and the sound. She has learned all her scales and associated arpeggios (major, harmonic and melodic minors). Could anyone recommend what she should do next? She plays repertoire as well but I think that she would like some musical exercises -- reassuringly familiar from her point of view and good for her from mine. Has anyone got any suggestions?
Sally

For general excercise techniques. Strengthening of the fingers and agility. Buy the book "The Virtuoso Pianist" by Hanon.

If your daughter likes repetitive stuff and also to improve ones strength and dexterity get this book.
It definetely helps with technique!!

thank you I will look for it
Sally

If you're in a hurry you can download them legally from http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/single ... poser_id=7. It's Part 1, 2 and 3 you want.

On the other hand the book is quite cheap from Amazon, and saves all that printing and collating.

Rgds.

" If your daughter likes repetitive stuff and also to improve ones strength and dexterity get this book."

I wouldn't recommend them at all. They are monotonous to the point of dulling all thinking and possibly ruining technique as a result. As far as the monotonous exercise go, beginning 5 finger exercises is far more useful. It promotes thoughts about harmonies and keys as well as preparing the hand for a whole variety of positions.

I speak from experience having played Hanon exercises for some time myself years ago. I gained no technique at all from it then. With more guidance they may have been more useful, but I've found just about ANY other exercises helped me far more.

Andrew

What would you recommend? I'm an ignoramus.
Sally

Various people have written something called 'five finger exercises' that are basically all the same. You start on C major (C to G in both hands) and go to C minor then apply the key signature of the next key (D flat) before going to that key (next key along) and you just keep going. For a younger player this would need to be done rather slowly initially, but in the long run they would be way better than Hanon. Hanon just makes the brain shut down. With this exercise it encourages thought about different keys and prepares the hand for all sorts of positions.

Did you say your daughter is on Grade 4 though? In truth, this is probably be a little early to try these yet, but if starting anything I'd try these at some point, way above Hanon. I really wouldn't recommend Hanon myself in any way at all. Basic scales and arpeggios are extremely valuable. You could encourage her to practise other keys beyond those listed. Broken chords can easily be practised in almost every key to great benefit, although only a few are prescribed in the exams. Correct practise of scales is very useful. I don't have time to go into massive detail but preparation of the hand is essential. An excellent practise is to stop and look at the scale. EVERY scale has the thumb in TWO places only. From there you can find a hand position. From there you see that every scale only has TWO places for each hand to go in. Eg. In E major the right hand cover E to B (with two black notes) and A to E (also with two black notes). The hand must get used to TWO places, rather than having 7 different notes. Practising covering black notes early (as soon as the thumb comes under, the hand moves to one of these two positions before going on- EVERY note must be covered before moving to the next finger). If you begin E major the two sharps MUST be touched by the relevant fingers before you even start. Most kids reach for each note individually in scales, but it's much easier to already be there. Once this compound movement is learned, all the potential difficulties merge into ONE movement that prepares the following notes. The reason famous pianists seem to have so little visible difficulty is because they all always finding the notes early, whereas amateurs are constantly reaching with every new note. This type of practising is 1000000000000x more useful than waving your fingers over endless white notes in Hanon. I could show you this in seconds at a piano, but it's harder to explain here. Let me know if this makes sense or not.

I'd recommend GOOD scale practise above all to you. This is really useful.

Andrew

Also, it's good to practise scales with clear accents every four notes (and even MORE importantly a total 'unaccent' on the other notes). Notice that the highest note of the scale is NOT an accent here.

Once this is mastered the next stage is to play scales without any accents all (the fours are still 'felt' but not emphasised, if that makes any sense to you). It's one very smooth line without any 'lumps' on the way (especially not on the thumb). This kind of practise is what builds true musical technique that will allow smooth musical execution of pieces, rather than simply accurate execution of the notes. There is little that is more useful than this type of practise, which is as much an exercise in LISTENING to the sound and judging how musical they are, as moving the fingers.

Andrew

thank you for writing so much. I will pass this onto her piano teacher. She's a lovely person with Grade 8 piano and a degree in Music Therapy. Also she has a (different) full time job and a family. So she's busy and not thinking about piano teaching most of the time. My daughter doesn't need music therapy but she does love her piano teacher. And her piano teacher loves her (most of the time). So I try to think about extension stuff ie how to go forward from here.
Thank you
Sally

The WIECK studies by Clara Schumann (published by Peters, I think) are musical and not unpleasant to listen to. They are the exercises set by Wieck for his daughter Clara, and his famous pupil Robert Schumann with whom Clara later eloped. I'm not sure how advanced they are (it's years since I played them) but I do remember that they didn't bore me into the ground like Hanon and Czerny. On the other hand, if your daughter is reassured by regularity and repetition, she might respond better to the Hanon and Czerny regime. Basically, I'd ask the teacher which she would advise; she knows your daughter far better than us and by now will have a very good idea of what her likes and dislikes are. Good luck!