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The greatest keyboard exercise ever�.


uhoh7

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The greatest keyboard exercise everâ¦.

 

I can hear those eyes rollingâ¦â¦LOL There is/has ever been quite a market for keyboard exercises on video, and in print. They can be helpful, tedious, or distracting. Elements of various excercises populate our practice riffs.

 

But I"m serious. I"m talking about one exercise which between 1708 and 1730 was independently published in Italy, France and the German speaking states. It was known and in some way adopted by every serious keyboard teacher and student from Naples to Moscow to the New World by 1830. It was considered a spectacular shortcut for learning to play and compose all types of music. Mozart, Beethoven, List, Chopin, Schoenberg, Rachmaninov all learned the exercise at young ages. The exercise was an elemental reference in keyboard instruction at the Paris conservatory into the 20th century.

 

It is one single exercise to rule them all......once in memory it can be adapted and elaborated upon endlessly. You might call it "the well tempered clavier in a nut".

 

After some months of playing with it, I think it is still the greatest keyboard exercise, for any level, any style (Not that I"m qualified to make that statement: but I believe it).

 

So before I resurrect this thingâ¦..who knows WTF I am talking about?

 

Did you ever come across a 'great' keyboard exercise that really stands out?

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Hanon & Czerny we"re my first ones, but Keith Emerson"s 'Take A Pebble' minor 9th left hand (w/ Right hand harmony) done chromatically really taught me multi zone dexterity.

 

Didn"t even know what a zone was when I was a kid doing recitals, but years later I was thankful I wood shedded 3 Fates, The Sheriff and Take A Pebble.

 

Years after that grateful for guts who took time write out the parts so I could unlearn the mistakes since there was no sheet music available.

 

Now days I watch DOMi doing The Bird and Oscar in amazement.

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Ya, "Take a Pebble"... I broke a bone in my left hand just below the pinky knuckle. My fingers were all scrunched up in the cast and I was afraid my pinky would end up crooked so I cut the cast off after one week. It was supposed to stay on for a month. Very tender at that point, but I played "Take a Pebble" everyday (gingerly at first) to get my finger back working properly. Worked like a charm.
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Chopin, Opus 10, No. 2 - for fingers 3,4 and 5 in right hand.

 

If you want to play something that"s beautiful music and will make your hand cry to stop, look no further.

 

There"s many performances, this fellow plays it very fast if not as expressive as some others.

 

[video:youtube]

2329.thumb.jpg.b062158874d0f3ceccded5537a047f43.jpg

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I play Hanon Book III daily, and then go to Czerny. I got up to playing the first three at tempo, and now I'm slowing them down to develop greater precision and accuracy, and will increase the tempo as I progress. I can definitely see the improvement that this brings.

Yamaha P-515, Hammond SK1, Casio PX5s, Motif ES rack, Kawai MP5, Kawai ESS110, Yamaha S03, iPad, and a bunch of stuff in the closet.

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I go with what Herbie does and his old beat up copy can be seen in videos and that is the Beringer book. I hear he still uses it for warmup.

 

Daily Technical Studies by Beringer

 

The other book I have worked out of from a online course is the Phillips book for finger independence. WARNING be careful with this book if try to over do the stretches you can hurt your hand(s). I know from experience trying to stretch too much and not roll the wrist messed me up for about a week.

 

Phillip book on independence

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You are referring of course to carrying an upright piano around the corner onto the landing and then up a flight of stairs.

 

My favorite reply ever :)

 

OK Here it is:

I"m sure my description here won"t be perfect, but should be good enough for you to easily get the gist.

 

We will have two basic forms: major and minor. To begin the left hand will simply climb up and down the bass note of the scale. In a minor the 6th and 7th bass notes are sharp going up.

 

Major Scale ©

51536769225_5a80756382_b.jpg

 

Minor Scale (Am)

51536087468_2f19ae9785_b.jpg

 

If we look at the major, we see three or two note 'chords' in the right hand, which differ going up and down in both major and minor.

 

While at first the bass note is fixed, later chord notes may be added to the left hand. The right hand has three possible 'positions' which are simply inversions of the chords shown. Only the first position is shown in both examples, you guys will easily deduce the inversions.

 

Everyone was told to learn it all keys major and minor. By heart. Taking the task in bites: I choose to learn C major and Am in 'first position' up and down by heart, and then move out into the 12 keys from there. In 2 weeks I had a rough grasp in 12 keys of the first position, major and minor, and began to learn the inversions by heart, which are not as easy as simple 3rds in a chord scale.

 

This is not just any random chord progression. Your ears should tell you this if you just learn it in a single key. 300 years of experimentation, teaching and practice from the birth of two voice polyphony up to the very elaborate and contrasting styles of the 17th century went into the choice of these particular chords and their ordering. Supposedly the progression was invented independently by multiple masters, but in any case it spread very fast.

 

It came to have a name: the Rule of the Octave.

 

This is a method of learning harmony, voice leading and movements not through explanations and reading rules, but in practice through playing, improvising at length in all keys over this progression in both modes. In a later post I will try to elaborate on this with links etc, and also go into the steps which came after initial mastery of the two progressions in multiple keys.

 

By 1780 just about every keyboard student would be assigned this task. They learned to articulate the progression with both bar chords and arpeggios, much like we might do with a major key chord scale. They moved up and down, varying the time and suspensions to keep things interesting. You should find it highly "jamable". Today at the University classical players who want to study historical improvisation start with the Rule of the Octave. It takes them several months to learn it in all keys. Some courses require a video showing the player at 80 bpm in at least 6 keys before they can join.

 

If you have a chance just pick your favorite keys and run up and down, playing also with positions (RH inversions) and please post your first impressions. Good or bad. Can you name all these chords in modern terms? How would you characterize the dissonances? Are they affected by the 3 possible inversions? How do you like the minor?

 

This is an excerise meant to inspire playing. A doorway to the heart of any keyboard, it was in fact a real gateway for literally tens of thousands of keyboard players to a professional career, as it embodies so many core fundamentals. Give it a chance and you just might come to agree with me and alot of great dead keyboard players: the RO (rule of the octave) is the greatest single keyboard excercise anyone ever thought up. Or maybe you can show an even better one :)

 

Best to everyone

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Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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Best exercise to achieve what end?

 

Playing music is your best exercise. The best way to play stuff you're bad it is to do it more.

 

The holes that need plugging will reveal themselves soon enough.

 

This is true of course - however there are plenty of things you can do to just address muscle building and dexterity development. There"s lots of paths to get your hands stronger, some more direct, some more round about, some musical and some just plain work. 1000 hours to get where you want to be - everyone takes a different path.

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Best exercise to achieve what end?

 

Playing music is your best exercise. The best way to play stuff you're bad it is to do it more.

 

The holes that need plugging will reveal themselves soon enough.

 

This is true of course - however there are plenty of things you can do to just address muscle building and dexterity development. There"s lots of paths to get your hands stronger, some more direct, some more round about, some musical and some just plain work. 1000 hours to get where you want to be - everyone takes a different path.

Absolutely. And I spend plenty of woodshed time, particularly when there are going to be four or five days between gigs. Octaves, trems, and trills are my stiff-hand Kryptonite, and fortunately the work you do on these helps with lots of other stuff too. I just meant...there is no one size fits all "Greatest exercise," just like the personal trainer at the gym would need to know what your goals are before giving you the first thing to do. I'm a believer in functional training. All these years and I can't remember ever playing anything from Hanon Book 1 on a gig, even though I can practically play the entirety of it by heart.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
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...just like the personal trainer at the gym would need to know what your goals are before giving you the first thing to do.

 

Good point, I was just thinking this, too. It's not dissimilar to sports. Speed school is useful for all of them, even if you're not even playing the game you want to be better at.

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I go with what Herbie does and his old beat up copy can be seen in videos and that is the Beringer book. I hear he still uses it for warmup.

 

Daily Technical Studies by Beringer

 

The other book I have worked out of from a online course is the Phillips book for finger independence. WARNING be careful with this book if try to over do the stretches you can hurt your hand(s). I know from experience trying to stretch too much and not roll the wrist messed me up for about a week.

 

Phillip book on independence

 

Enjoy beating up your hands this weekend, all.

 

http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/b/bd/IMSLP286934-PMLP465946-Isidor_Philipp_Exercises_for_Independence_of_the_Fingers.pdf

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I stopped playing exercises with locked hands. I focus of each hand separately. I came to the conclusion that each hand was a crutch to the other. I am not suggesting you never play locked hands during practice but separating my hands has exposed my weak areas (and there are many.) :facepalm:

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School of velocity is the one I tackled at the end of my pedagogical experiences.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Great conversation, please continue to share exercises you love or hate!

 

I came across the RO (rule of the octave), over a year ago, and I ran up and down it by sightâ¦..thinking hmmmmm, yesâ¦but I had other distractions, new instruments, other exercises for keyboards etc. It kept appearing as I tried to catch up with rapidly evolving keyboard scholarship, which the pandemic has made easier to find.

 

Now that I have been able to focus and put several weeks into really learning the ROâ¦.to quote Sammy Cahn: 'I fall in Love too Easily.' I have fallen hard.

 

The Rule of the Octave gets logarithmicaly more interesting and more fun as you learn it. Most patterns and exercises I put in multiple keys are stale by the time I have them in my head. About 40 hours in, the RO is far more interesting to my ears than when I started. This is not usual. WTF?

 

I have the first inversion major and minor mostly in memory in all keys. Right now I"m cramming the other inversions, which in the case of the second, rising fourth, and the 2 6ths and 7ths (in the minor), which have irregular intervals, takes considerable repetition. I"m breaking it into bits and moving the bits between keys. 1-2-3 all positions, in all keys, for example. Then 3-4-5. I do 6-7-8-7-6 last.

 

Sounds like a grind but no. The harmonies are fresh. After endless work on 2-5-1s et alâ¦changes of the standardsâ-wonderful but I"ve been playing them for 30 years+ Badly, but I do hit the notes usually. I hear the harmonies and I catch wrong notes. They are sweet but no longer exotic to my ear. The Rule of the Octave sounds like something new, more complex. More mysterious. Deeper. Why?

 

What is that minor 2nd? The novel harmonic variation has me jamming as I"m working out the inversions. Barry Harris would love all the 6ths, but another thing he would love is the drop 2s (or whatever is getting dropped) which appear magically in the inversions. The RO has some very pretty spreads.

 

How could something so old be so fresh? Next post I will reference some of the thinking behind the progression, which is eye opening, and which by 1800 was known by everyone seriously training musicians of any type in Europe or the Americas, but is now forgotten, at least on the ground. The last 20 years of digging has unearthed a lot about music history, keyboard in particular. Unless you have a lifetime of training, starting with transposing hexachords on the fly as a choirchild, the once famous 'RULES' underneath the RO will make your head hurt, I promise.

 

The whole purpose of the RO is to avoid painful 'thinking' as long as possible. Once you really 'have it', THEN the 6 WAYS to prepare a 4th interval isn"t so gag inducing. With an elemental vocabulary, the magic suspensions become intriguing. The RO under your fingertips is a practical tool to play with and explore the original tradition of counterpoint and voice leading, ignored for almost a century. Toss your Fux out the window, if you have any.

 

Give the RO a hard listen it"s going to start rhyming with many different styles you know. I would bet a six-pack both Art Tatum"s music professor in St Louis and whoever ran that school Armstrong went to, knew the RO up and down, inside and out.

 

What 'happened' to the RO and why it"s getting a revival now?â¦.more later. The remarkable changes of the RO filled the heads of generations of players and traveled to everyplace which heard an organ, clavichord, harpsichord or piano. Let them sing awhile, see if they don"t seduce youâ¦â¦.. :)

 

Along the way you may note there is no shortage of fingering puzzles. The RO is a keyboard exercise at every level.

 

A pertinent trivia question: in 1720 the two largest cites in Europe were: Paris andâ¦â¦â¦?. I bet nobody gets it. Every musician at the time would have known. No other city in Europe employed, trained or exported more musicians, more keyboardists, for the next 100 years.

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Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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What was the other (Paris being one) big city in Europe? (Trivia question above) The forgotten Music Mecca of Europe: Naples. A candid painting of Austrian tourists, a certain father and son in Naples in 1771, I think.

 

51566784977_c64dcd0ed9_c.jpg

 

Here is a fun exercise the orphans of the famous conservatories in Naples would have recognised in 1700:

 

Can you name this schema?

 

51568212494_0835473648_c.jpg

 

This is a modern way of describing schema, white circles being bass notes over which you play 2 thirds of the scale tones (3 and 5 of the bass note, not tonic), black circles are the right hand melody notes, with respect to the key. Pick your favorite keys and embellish as you like :)

 

It should sound very familar ;)

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MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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[video:youtube]

 

I did most of this book in my late teens/early 20s. I enjoyed it a lot, was very into speed back then. I"m glad I did it. The muscle and motor memory has gotten me through some tough spots on sight reading gigs on more than one occasion!

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Count me as another that has used Keith Emerson's "Take A Pebble" extensively as an exercise. Especially for LH/RH independence.

 

UhOh7- can you point to a book that documents this exercise?

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Count me as another that has used Keith Emerson's "Take A Pebble" extensively as an exercise. Especially for LH/RH independence.

 

UhOh7- can you point to a book that documents this exercise?

 

I can do better: here is the horse's mouth himself:

 

[video:youtube]

 

His book and related videos

 

Here is a 7 minute review of the book by a highly-regarded guy:

[video:youtube]

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Studying how music was widely taught between 1600 and 1900, informed by recent revelations and discoveries of scholars and other interested parties, it's clear the methods of the first conservatories had profound influence on the music we know and play today. While everyone was familar with their techniques and excersises in 1800, much of what they taught was forgotten, ignored or disparaged in the 20th century teaching of music composed by people like Mozart, who ironically were steeped in the traditions, and regarded them as fundamental.

 

Here is the daddy of all keyboard excercises, preceding the "rule of the octave" by at least 100 years. Everyone on keyboard used it as a student, a musician, a composer. It is the most fundamental "schema". If you try it, and move it through the keys, it's familarity should provide some evidence to this effect.

51602895893_d8134b11de_c.jpg

 

This collection of four versions of the "ascending 5-6 " by two masters who ran conservatories in Naples, and the legendary harpsichord teacher Pasquini (Rome) was compiled by Sanguinetti in "The Art of Partimento", 2012, considered now a landmark work. Regarding this excersise he writes:

 

"One of the greatest advantages of the 5â6 is that it easily removes the parallel fifths, making use of diatonic triads possible on every scale degree. Its strength as a voice-leading corrective is so remarkable that it is also used in combination with other patterns (such as ascending 10â9â8) to remove parallel fifths in inner voices."

 

Instead of learning pieces by rote, students were encourged to play with these excercises in all keys and use them to answer all sorts of puzzles such as making multiple voices play nice together :) They were exposed to a large vocabulary of phrases and repostes, openings and clausure or "cadences", and that was the basis for daily improvisation thoughout their musical lives.

 

One thing all these researchers seem to have in common is awe and delight at Jazz improvisation based on lead sheets. "Partimenti" were seemingly simple bass lines which actually contained even more information than a modern lead sheet. Many thousands still exist. But knowledge was $$$ so their actual use has been largely a mystery till about 2007.

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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[quote=uhoh7

 

OK Here it is:

I"m sure my description here won"t be perfect, but should be good enough for you to easily get the gist.

 

We will have two basic forms: major and minor. To begin the left hand will simply climb up and down the bass note of the scale. In a minor the 6th and 7th bass notes are sharp going up.

 

Major Scale ©

51536769225_5a80756382_b.jpg

 

Hi,

 

I don"t know where this is from, but some of the figuring isn"t right. The sharp six in chord two, and the the sharp 5 in chord seven, for example. The only accidental needed is in bar 11. The ordering of some figures is a bit confusing, but I think it"s trying to show something else.

 

Good post though! The way harmony was taught many, many years ago was from a practical perspective, and these kind of things are a reminder of that.

 

Thanks

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