Piano Drill Books
February 28, 2005 11:21 PM   Subscribe

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) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
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


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