Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises - Book 1

Rating:
Summary: You can almost teach yourself
Review: Ignore my title. No serious student of piano would teach themselves, though a few good ones have. And if you must do it that way, this book should be your first buy. I picked up Hanon 3 years ago when I got back into piano study. For a year and a half, I thought all this book had to offer was exercises. Good exercises, mind you, and that was sufficient for me. However, I only recently got deeper into this book and realized there is a great deal more here for advancing your piano skills -- like proper scale fingerings and such.

Hanon is based on a total of 60 exercises for finger strength, stability, and performance. It takes a long time to work up all 60, but once you are there, you can daily work through each one consecutively or otherwise to warm up and improve your skills.

This book is essential for any pianist, whether you are training classically or to play pop. Whether by ear or by reading (or hopefully both), it isn't a real challenge to learn the basic reading required for these exercises (they start in the key of C -- no black notes -- and stay that way for a while). The beginner can start with exercise one and move forward at their own pace.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT EXCERCISE BOOK
Review: This has got to be the greatest book for technical difficulties in classical music. It has 60 excercises to prepare you for the monumental difficulties of a Mozart piano concerto or sonata, a Beethoven sonata, or any classical composer for that matter. I warm up with this book everyday with a metronome before I even begin to practice my music, (I play all Mozart, I like Beethoven too, but I have a preference for Mozart, I just love his brilliant work. It doesn't make any difference what you play though, this book will guide you to all the technical difficulties like octaves, broken octaves, trills, threefold trills, etc...). There are three sections, each get harder in difficulty, but it is worth it. Your playing will improve ten-fold if you learn this book. Trust me, get this book and your playing will be like it has never been.