Piano Drill Books

February 28, 2005 11:21 PM

Piano Drill Books. Not very sexy, though always a highly practical tool for learning an instrument. This time its piano -- what do you have laying around? (similar: here, here, here)

Previous queries along this vein were related but generally of "I wish to pretend I can play a major instrument quickly". Well into faking it now, I want to get some plain old drill books to bulk out what my hands actually know.

In summation of the other threads, the books pointed to there were: Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book, Fake Books (but who needs that when you can read tab-format which is f-r-e-e on the Internet these days?) , and Play Piano In A Flash.

Thanks for your help. Gramma's piano thanks you also.

posted by Ogre Lawless to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

Czerny's technique book is classic and good
posted by alex3005 at 11:45 PM on February 28, 2005

Hanon
posted by caddis at 11:58 PM on February 28, 2005

what I was referring to is also offered online for free
posted by alex3005 at 11:58 PM on February 28, 2005

The Celebration Series from Fredrick Harris is what the Royal Conservatory of Music uses, and is what I grew up with.
posted by stray at 12:06 AM on March 1, 2005

Dohnanyi: Essential Finger Exercises
posted by gyc at 12:50 AM on March 1, 2005

Geoffrey Tankard's Pianoforte Technique on an Hour a Day is indispensible for building technique. It's a compendium of great technical exercises culled from the past few centuries. They're also designed to help you learn a little bit of harmony on the side.
posted by Jongo at 2:49 AM on March 1, 2005

Burgmuller: "25 easy and progressive pieces" opus 100
posted by ruelle at 4:13 AM on March 1, 2005

The Hanon, Czerny and Burgmuller books are excellent. I've also found the repetitious (and easy) preparatory exercises for piano by Aloys Schmitt invaluable - you can speed them up and climb up and down the entire keyboard and cause yourself pain, should you wish, but played at a walking pace they will build lots of strength very quickly.

And once you're past the drill stages and tackling repertoire, Bach's 2- and 3-part Inventions, each taken slowly until you're technically perfect, will ensure you have a basic technique which anyone would envy!
posted by paperpete at 4:33 AM on March 1, 2005

Josef Pischna: Technical Studies (60 Progressive Exercises) -- my teacher at the Boston Conservatory had all her students do the Pischna drills for technique work.
posted by mothershock at 7:05 AM on March 1, 2005