What Hanon develops
Once a Hanon figure becomes familiar, it frees some attention for listening: did the little finger hurry, did the position change stay quiet, did both hands arrive together? Its repeating patterns give you a consistent setting for those questions. Choose a short portion and one audible goal; you need not play all twenty exercises to have a useful session.
Charles-Louis Hanon published The Virtuoso Pianist in 1873. Its 60 systematically sequenced exercises became a widely circulated technical supplement: short repeating figures make it easy to isolate coordination and compare an attempt with the next. The first 20 establish recurring finger patterns. Familiarity and repetition explain its practical appeal; they do not make every historical instruction necessary for every pianist. Source edition and date.
Preparation: read sixteenth notes and identify the note route in each hand. The examples here keep the hands one octave apart. Clefs reflect the original register; the hand label alone does not determine pitch.
A practical sequence
- Name the first pattern’s notes and check each hand’s fingers.
- Learn a short ascending excerpt and its descending counterpart separately.
- Join two neighboring measures without restarting the pulse at the new position.
- Apply one variation, then return to the original rhythm and sound.
This teaching chapter works through short examples from Nos. 1 and 2. Appendix J contains the complete routes for Nos. 1–20, with both directions, turning points, source fingerings, and final notes.
What the exercise can and cannot establish
Even notes within one figure do not prove that a scale crossing, a leap, or a voiced chord is secure. Use Hanon for the task it actually presents, then apply the result to a relevant musical phrase. Stop a repetition loop when it no longer has a clear listening question.
A small yielding wrist-and-arm motion can help organize two- or four-note groups. Try it slowly with a teacher if available: let the wrist respond naturally as the hand travels, rather than deliberately dipping or pumping it at every group. Keep the sound even and stop if the motion adds accents or strain. This is an optional coordination experiment, not a requirement for playing Hanon.
For a first session, choose two measures in each direction of No. 1. Later compare No. 2: a familiar visual pattern can contain a different skip or a different finger on a returning note. Keep the printed route in view until it is understood.
1. No. 1: learn the ascending pattern
Purpose: keep the opening skip and the following stepwise notes equally controlled. The first four measures below retain the original pitches. Both hands begin in bass clef, with the right hand one octave above the left.
The opening right-hand pattern is C–E–F–G–A–G–F–E, fingered 1–2–3–4–5–4–3–2. The left hand uses 5–4–3–2–1–2–3–4. Each new measure begins one scale step higher.
Practice a small amount well
Give yourself just one measure and one hand to begin with. Choose a tempo where all eight sixteenth notes fit into two steady quarter-note beats. A quarter note around 40 is a possible starting experiment; use a slower pulse if needed.
Connect two measures. Listen especially to the last note of one measure and the first note of the next: the pattern moves, but the pulse does not restart. Then play the four measures without stopping.
Listen for: the initial skip does not create a louder second note, and fingers 4 and 5 do not rush or drag.
Avoid: holding the hand stretched open throughout the measure, lifting fingers as high as possible, or repeating without a specific listening goal. These are editorial practice suggestions, not a reproduction of Hanon’s historical instructions.
Challenge: move the exercise up a half step
A familiar exercise can feel surprisingly new just one key higher. Try any of exercises 1–20 one semitone higher, moving every note by the same amount. No. 1 begins D♭–F–G♭–A♭–B♭–A♭–G♭–F. Preserve its intervals and rhythm; include the descending section. Begin slowly, hands separately, with one measure. Try the original fingers first and adjust if needed. The changed black-and-white-key pattern tests how well you know the exercise beyond its familiar keyboard shape.
2. No. 1: learn the descent separately
These are measures 15–18, the beginning of the descending section. They are not the previous four measures played backward, and they do not immediately follow measure 4. Both staves now use treble clef in the source register.
The first pattern is G–E–D–C–B–C–D–E. RH uses 5–4–3–2–1–2–3–4; LH uses 1–2–3–4–5–4–3–2. Each following measure starts one scale step lower.
Change one feature at a time
- Play legato, then lightly detached, without changing the fingering.
- Alternate long–short and short–long pairs within one measure.
- Give a mild accent to the first note of each four-note group, then remove it.
- Play the left hand a little more prominently, then restore equal balance.
After each variation, come back to equal sixteenths and listen for what has improved. A smoother join or a quieter thumb is a useful result, even if your tempo stays exactly where it was.
Ready to continue: you can play four measures in each direction with the correct notes and fingers, a steady pulse, and no accumulating tension.
Scope and source: these are two excerpts, not the complete exercise or its turnaround. Source: Hanon, The Virtuoso Pianist, Part I, No. 1, Mutopia transcription of Schirmer (1900). Repeated finger numbers have been filled in editorially. Attribution and adaptation details appear in the source notes.
3. No. 2: compare the opening leaps
No. 2 opens C–E–A–G–F–G–F–E, with a larger jump to A than the stepwise approach in No. 1. The four measures below retain the source register and rhythm.
RH uses 1–2–5–4–3–4–3–2. LH uses 5–3–1–2–3–2–3–4. Notice that the first LH E uses 3 but the returning E uses 4. The fingering prepares different parts of the route; matching a pitch name does not require using the same finger every time.
Practice the leap and the continuation
Give the opening leap a small piece of the phrase to belong to: play C–E–A with one hand, then continue through G–F. Keep A inside the phrase rather than landing on it with a special accent. Add the return to E, then the next measure’s opening D. The transition E–D should keep the same pulse as the notes within the pattern.
Listen for: the larger opening intervals and the smaller return intervals occupy equal sixteenth-note durations. If the leap interrupts the pulse, reduce the tempo or isolate the five-note group before repeating the complete excerpt.
Variation: change only the balance between hands for one pass. Then restore equal balance and check the note route again. Avoid combining a new fingering, new rhythm, and new dynamic goal on the first attempt.
4. No. 2: learn the different descending figure
Measures 15–18 begin the descending section, well after the previous excerpt ends. The first pattern is G–D–B–C–D–C–D–E. It is not the opening ascent reversed.
RH uses 5–2–1–2–3–2–3–4; LH uses 1–3–5–4–3–4–3–2. In the RH, the first D uses 2 and the later Ds use 3. Let the next few notes explain the finger choice. Learn the hand’s sequence together with the pitches rather than assigning one permanent finger to each key.
Practice G–D–B slowly, then attach C–D–C–D–E. Finally connect E to the next measure’s F. Although the sequence of starting notes moves down through the excerpt, not every local interval points downward.
Checkpoint: you can identify the opening three notes, play their fingers without hesitation, and continue through the repeated C–D motion with a steady pulse. Compare both directions separately before attempting to learn the complete exercise from its source score.
Scope and attribution: No. 2 excerpts use the same Schirmer (1900) / Mutopia 2037 transcription as No. 1. Notes, source register, and sixteenth-note rhythm are retained; repeated pattern fingerings are completed editorially. Adapted notation is CC BY-SA 4.0. No turning-point material has been inferred between the excerpts.