Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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191 of 193 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'll bet your piano teacher sent you over here..., June 14, 2001
As a child, I hated technical exercise books like this. I remember the old teacher with the ruler, the Bartok book, the red pen, the check marks the circles, and ahhhhhhhhhh... I shudder... But now, years later, I've not only become a professional Jazz musician, but I teach too, and you know something, even though my particular method of teaching involves very little reading (mainly because I teach Jazz improv) this is the one book that not only do I reccomend to my students, but also that I've started picking up again, because actually the exercises are relevent to players of all levels. The reason is because regardless of what type of music you play, the finger pattern exercises in this book are universal and relevent. On the surface they look very simple, almost childish compared to some of the more nightmarish books (Czerny, anyone?) but the truth is, once you've mastered them, melodies will fall under your fingers and hopefully you'll feel as home on your piano as you do on your computer keyboard ...
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141 of 143 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
These exercises really work., August 20, 2003
If you want to strengthen your fingers and learn note patterns relevant to all types of music, you need this book. Yes, the exercises sound repetitive, and they'll drive anyone listening to you practice them nuts, but they work. And after practicing them for a while, you begin to realize that they are not as repetitive as they seem. The patterns vary in a way that becomes more obvious as you practice them more. The exercises are carefully designed to (1) strengthen the weak fingers of the hand (3-4-5), and (2) teach patterns of notes that recur not only in classical music but in melodies of all types of music. Each exercise varies in a manner that rests the fingers worked on in the previous exercise, so you can play through a series of them without overly tiring out your hands. For this reason they work great as warm-ups. The book is divided into three sections of 20 exercises each. I use the first 20 as warm-ups, playing them for about 15 minutes. The later exercises are more advanced and teach things like fast running octaves, arpeggios, and repeated notes. Since I started using these exercises, my hands are noticably stronger. I've been playing piano for 32+ years, and play at an advanced level. But these exercises (at least numbers 1 through 20) would be useful for a pianist of any level, from beginner to advanced. Yes, they can be boring to play, but the improvement you will notice from 15-20 minutes a day is worth it.
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73 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Better Book is Available, June 29, 2003
By A Customer
"The Virtuoso Pianist" is very useful and well edited. However, if you're willing to tolerate some poor editing there's a much better book: "Hanon Revisited".Hanon wrote his book in the 1920s and both hands play the same notes throughout the book. "Hanon Revisited," by Gold and Fizdale was written in the 1960s and is the same as Hanon for the right hand but the left hand plays counterpoint. This more recent book helps develop hand independence in addition to finger strength and finger independence, and also results in a stronger left hand than Hanon's book acomplishes.
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