Behdad Posted March 10, 2020 Posted March 10, 2020 Hi! I've composed an etude for fingers warming up and I named it: New age Hanon! You can see my performing of it and also read a review by Cathy Parsons from MainlyPiano.com . Hope you enjoy! Pianist/composer Behdad Bahrami has created three versions of what he calls “New Age Hanon.” Each version contains five exercises that flow together as one and are much more melodic and musical than the standard Hanon exercises. Each version is a little different, becoming somewhat more difficult in the left hand by Version 3. Each version is about 4 1/2 pages, so they are a good workout, but not daunting. To make these exercises even more fun, Bahrami has created downloadable backing tracks at seven different tempi that range from 60 beats per minute to 120. These tracks have a strong rhythm that will make them appealing for all ages and many different musical style preferences - not just new age. Right now, the downloads for the scores and the backing tracks are free (please see the links to the left of this review). What a great way to get your fingers, wrists and arms warmed up and strengthened! There is one important difference in these exercises from the traditional Hanon exercises - they do not move up and down the piano keyboard in succession. They do move around the keyboard, but the movement is more like chord changes (I-IV-V) than scales. The fingering is given for each exercise, making the changes easy to spot once you get rolling. Behdad has also created a video for the exercises that is available on YouTube. Fun to watch and very helpful, as it shows his hands in action! It is entertaining as well as educational. I found a few minor problem areas when I was playing the exercises that Behdad said he will fix. In the meantime, here are a few things to watch out for: Version 1: M51-53 has some incorrect notes on the left hand, and M37, 63 and 66 have 10th chords that are hard for many people to reach. Those can be rolled or shortened to an octave. Version 2: M63 and 66 have tenth chords that can be rolled or shortened. Version 3: The fingering for the first exercise (measure 1) should be 4 5 1 2 instead or 4 5 2 3. It also has tenth chords in M63 and 66. Other than those small things, these exercises are a refreshing change from regular old Hanon! Quote
SSC Posted March 16, 2020 Posted March 16, 2020 That reads like a press release, and it's really strange that you're writing in the third person since, well, I'm assuming you're the one that made the thing. Either way, I think that etudes are all fine and dandy, but personally I try to keep my technique exercises as anti-musical as possible so I can concentrate on counting and everything ELSE that's not music. To me they are basically like doing pushups or squats or whatever, it's something that needs to be done well, but since you're repeating it every day it needs to also be very efficient. So, with that said, and with efficiency in mind, a good warm up would make both hands work with equal workloads, as to immediately prepare them to work on equal level (which is pretty important.) Besides the symmetry being important, it saves time. Obviously you could just invert the exercise every few bars and swap the left and right hand parts, but honestly the cool thing about Hanon is how efficient it is in working immediately on finger independence symmetrically right from the first exercise. Yours is a little too much music and less, well, pushups. It's cute and all, but honestly you could think more in terms of efficiency rather than musicality and it will help the purpose of the etude greatly. I'm not saying it has to be entirely void of musical thought (if there's such a thing,) but a shift in focus would go a long way. Quote
Behdad Posted March 17, 2020 Author Posted March 17, 2020 Thank you for your comment :) First of all I should mention that the purple text is not written by me. This a review I paste here. Also I should say I’ve wrote three versions of the etude as mentioned in the review. In every new version the left hand has more important role. This is version I that you can see in the video, version II has more complicated left hand arpeggios with 16 notes and version III is unison like the Hanon. You can also combine these versions yourself. Quote
Behdad Posted August 21, 2021 Author Posted August 21, 2021 Hi! I wrote a new version of the etude! In this version both hands exercise equally. I also attached the pdf. Please check it out! Thanks PDF New age Hanon Quote
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