Hanon for Hurdy

[Ken of Bend]

So for the past year I've been practicing Hanon finger exercises on
the piano. If you are not familiar with it, it's an ancient book of
60 pages of short finger patterns that slowly move up and down the
piano keyboard to increase ones ability to play really fast. The
patterns are easy to learn which is the intention as speed is what you
want here, but the patterns vary to exercise all fingers equally and
to develop muscle memory. I would love to see something similar for
the hurdy gurdy but with some changes. For example a pattern would
not only exercise fingers for speed, but also exercise ones ability to
switch fingers rapidly or do finger crossovers, or improve ones
ability to "flicker" (or whatever that quick twittery thing the finger
does is called) and so on. Maybe it could incorporate nifty dog
patterns (similar to what Tobie was teaching in her troupette class)
as well and synchronized dog/fingering exercises. Any of you gurdy
experts up for the challange? Maybe it could be a group effort and be
something that could evolve over time.

[Simon Wascher]

Hello,

I for my part tend to point you at Chuan C. Chang's critical remarks
on the Hanon exercises instead of contributing :-)
You might look up his 'Fundamentals of Piano Practice' chapter 7h:
'Problems with Hanon Exercises' (at about 2/3 down the page) http://members.aol.com/chang8828/exercises.htm
.

Pick yourself some of the worlds finest music and exercise the real
thing ;-)

kind regards,

Simon Wascher

[Jim Petersen]

maybe i am not following your train of thoughts... but there are at least a dozen left hand finger exercises in the Muskette  book that seem to cover everything you need for HG....   peace   jp Grey Aengus (aka Jim) http://www.greyaengus.com   often in error, never in doubt --- On Sun, 10/12/08, Ken of Bend <k...@bendbroadband.com> wrote:

[Ken of Bend]

Thanks for posting that. It's an interesting article. In defense of
Hanon, I have to say my control over the keyboard has improved
dramatically since doing his exercises. In addition it's freed my
mind up as far as melody experimentation goes as I don't have to think
about where to put my fingers, I just sort of wish them to go
somewhere useful and they sometimes do. They may have a limited
usefulness especially for professional piano players (which I'm not)
but they sure have helped me. I think it has helped me develop on the
HG as well although I've only been playing about 5 months so I can't
say for sure as I have no pre-Hanon experience on the HG.

On Oct 12, 4:02 pm, Simon Wascher <2...@simonwascher.info> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I for my part tend to point you at Chuan C. Chang's critical remarks  
> on the Hanon exercises instead of contributing :-)
> You might look up his 'Fundamentals of Piano Practice' chapter 7h:  

> 'Problems with Hanon Exercises' (at about 2/3 down the page)http://members.aol.com/chang8828/exercises.htm

[Ken of Bend]

You know, I got about a third of the way through the Muskett book, and
it accidently got buried under some other books and I forgot all about
it. Now that I look through it, yes there are some interesting
exercises in the book and I'm going to have to work on these. I'm not
sure these are the kinds of exercises I had in mind, but I guess I
need to explore them first before I can say.

On Oct 13, 6:01 am, Jim Petersen <hdji...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> maybe i am not following your train of thoughts... but there are at least a dozen left hand finger exercises in the Muskette  book that seem to cover everything you need for HG....
>  
> peace
>  
> jp
>

> Grey Aengus (aka Jim)http://www.greyaengus.com

[Derek Lofthouse]

There is a book for the 'gurdy. I cant remember who it is by though, I just
have a few photocopied pages. Its in french (of course) and has several
fingering excercises you do to different rythmic patterns. One side of the
page is for g/d the other for c/g gurdies.

derek

[Augusto de Ornellas Abreu]

I've heard Valentin Clastrier's book is very good...

[Leonard Williams]

There is an easily learned left-hand exercise for guitar which might
be adapted to the hurdy-gurdy. Starting at any fret, play fingers 1,2,3,
then 4 on each string, back and forth across the fretboard. Next do 1,3,2,
then 4; next 1,4,2,3. Now 2,1,3,4; 2,3,1,4; 2,4,1,3. Etc. See the
pattern? Every possible sequence of the four fingers is incorporated.
Perhaps instead of moving across the fretboard (impossible on H-G), one
could move up to the next set of tangents, adjusting to their closer
spacing.

Regards,
Leonard Williams

> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~

[R.T. Taylor]

This book and tape should be of value to you and might be the book that Derek is thinking of.

Doigtés et virtuosité, exercises gradués pour la vielle
By Laurent Bitaud, 1988, Ëditions J.M. Fuzeau, Courlay.

It is in French, with cassette tape.
The lessons and tape are created for both G/C and D/G hurdy guryds and are easy to follow even if you are not fluent in French.

It is a nice mixture of finger exercises and right hand skills and for fun there are a few tunes thrown in. If you like practicing finger work, this is for you.

Laurent's students seem to be very skilled in both the left and right hand. So maybe this might work for you.

I don't know of any place that sells it now.

..........................................................................

Another book and cassette duo that is great to learn from is the book
Pratique du jeu de vielle Centre-France by Maxou.

The original book is in French and is available from AMTA
http://www.amta.com.fr/fr/production/titre.asp?codetitre=44

The cassette and the English version do not seem to be on the AMTA web site but I think I saw a copy in English at their store in Riom last May.

Maxou has a wonderful way of making it simple to understand and progress by playing tunes or parts of tunes to understand how you can play both left and right hands skillfully. You can make up your own left or right hand excersizes based on Maxou's instruction. There are some really nice tunes in the book and it is a good way to hear and see how you can play the left and right hands together and also disassociated.

Laurent's book is like going inside to school and Maxou's book is like going outside to play.

I find both types of books useful. And I use both techniques when I teach.
rt.

[Derek Lofthouse]

thanks RT pretty sure thats the one

seems to be pretty good, once i focus and use it for a month or 2 solid, we
will see if there are any results.

derek
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