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If you learn piano with us, you might be assigned some Hanon exercises. In my younger years with piano lessons, I didn’t get this far, but I might have appreciated the challenge associated with it. One of our teachers provided the pro and con versions of these exercises, and I’m sharing them for your benefit.

Pro-Hanon vs Anti-Hanon

I’ll quote MTMS piano teacher Elias Blake: I have used them in my own practice and have found improvement in my technique as a result. He is in favor of them because of this personal experience with the practice of Hanon exercises.

Both of these articles are intriguing, and they leave me wondering if I can get my hands on a copy to practice and see where it leads me. I’m fascinated by all kinds of exercises for hands and fingers as a yoga teacher- and I generally teach older individuals who want to keep using their hands like when they were younger. I tell them that unless they’ve practiced an instrument, it’s very unlikely all of their fingers want to move independently at first. Then we practice moving our hands.

Remember we are what we practice. If your teacher says the Hanon exercises might help, please try them out. If you’d rather find that piece of sheet music that calls to you and practice it until it shines – that might be the way to go and you should discuss it with your teacher. I know in my life cross-training is a wonderful thing, because I learn how to do the things I had done before differently and bringing that new perspective has helped me improve.

Have you done Hanon exercises? Share your experiences with us! If you’re curious about the book, you can find it here.

Are you familiar with Modern/Techno music? This month’s composition station challenges you to try to write an 8 measure Modern/Techno piece. Techno music is a subset of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and often uses common time between 120 and 150 beats per minute. As an added challenge, you can try to use three different chords in your song. You can also try instruments you aren’t familiar with. The most important thing is always to have fun with the music!

Here are a couple songs for inspiration:

A few cool things to know Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King:

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. learned piano as a child from his mother.

He sang in the choir in church growing up.

He appreciated classical music.

Coretta Scott King studied music at Lincoln Normal School, Antioch College, and New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

She played trumpet and piano and sang in the chorus and school musicals.

These are his words about music, specifically about blues and jazz.

“God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations.

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.

This is triumphant music.

Modern Jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.

It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.

Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from the music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.

And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in a particular struggle of the Negro in America, there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith.

In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these.”

~Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.