I show students how the wrist and arm move outward and downward to allow the outside fingers to reach and align with their keys.

Most students need help in aligning the outside of the hand this prevents sagging and sets the stage for properly stroking 4th and 5th fingers. One student might need help in establishing a comfortable, relaxed arm stroke, (a petting-the-cat motion), while another might need assistance in swinging their thumbs independently. Instead, I make up simple corrective exercises tailored to the specific need. I postpone their use if there is any doubt. I introduce them after about 18 months of study if students are heading in the right direction – that is, comfortably making good sounds, swinging arms freely at the shoulders, covering lateral distance with ease, listening carefully, and playing with minimal tension and good alignment of the hand and fingers. Etude practice is useful in reinforcing and speeding the development of these positive accomplishments.

But they should be introduced only when students are ready and can be made aware of the HOW and WHY of etude practice.Ī minimal technical maturity should be attained before using etudes.

Their predictable harmonic language promotes sight-reading skills, and the learned patterns often translate directly to literature study. In general etudes promote finger strength and independence, evenness, endurance, speed, and dynamic control. Etudes exploit all kinds of technical fancy – from lateral jumps to singing legato lines, from double notes and rotation to speed of repetition, from short staccatos to control of the overall dynamic, from sheer velocity to the voicing of complex textures. Dozens of lesser composers, concerned more with pedagogy, have also specialised in the genre. They penned difficult etudes of sheer beauty meant for the concert hall. Many great composers, who were pianists themselves, have written etudes: Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and others come to mind. Czerny wrote over a thousand of various kinds and levels. Teachers should show students ho w to move before making challenging physical demands.Įtudes are historically important. Some physically gifted students do improve as a result of the blind challenge of an etude’s hothouse environment, but many do not. Doing it wrong serves only to solidify bad habits. Students must be shown how the fingers, hands, and arms move, position, and interact to promote efficiency. Velocity and control are ultimate goals, but initially they are not as important as/arm, that is, learning to play the patterns with an optimal coordination. Students profit by working the patterns, not struggling to decipher the notes. I think of an etude as a short piece that exploits one or two useful technical patterns, and which, while physically challenging, is relatively accessible. In the following article Marilyn Neeley and Seymour Fink share their ideas on this topic. They are in three volumes beginning at the intermediate level and include selections from Op. Musicians sometimes disparage him for not being a composer at the level of Beethoven, but as Fernando Laires said, “Czerny’s purpose in his studies was to give students the skill to play Beethoven.” For editions, I personally prefer the Czerny studies selected by Emil Liebling (Theodore Presser). As a student of Beethoven and the only teacher of Franz Liszt, Carl Czerny is important pedagogically. I always teach Hanon, since it exercises all five fingers equally, and I ask students to transpose them to all keys. The etude is usually built upon a pattern that expands and repeats until it becomes easy and automatic while in repertoire, patterns typically are changing too quickly to develop the same familiarity and coordination.Īfter deciding to include etudes in my students’ assignments, the decision had to be made as to w hi c h ones were best. In recent years I have been teaching more etudes as I have realised that the piano etude is the intermediate ground between the “pure” technique (such as scales, arpeggios, chords) and the repertoire.

Czerny etudes by difficulty