Three Piano Exercises You'll Love (Exercises, Inventions and Ideas, Part 1)

[@mikeonthepiano]

These tutorials are excellent, Bill. Looking forward to seeing more in the future! 😎🎹

[@BillHilton]

Thanks Mike - really glad you like them!

[@happydays1259]

Hi Bill! I see another excelent beginner-ish tutorial. Thanks for the effort to keep us "freeloaders" educated. I forwarded the video to my co-worker who as of yesterday ownes a yamaha digital p-125 and has a goal to start playing. I will definetely try the first two becaue swing seems pure fun and the finger switching technique is something I have never intentionally practiced. The third exercise has a Hannon smell to it and I do Hannon exercises on a fairly regular basis.

[@lio3234]

U are an excellent teacher thank you so much for all the piano lessons

[@BillHilton]

You're very welcome!

[@abecadlo6556]

Hey Bill! I have recently noticed that I’m relaying too much on fingers 1,2,3 and that it limits my movement while improvising. This is just so strange that when I notice a problem, you come with just a perfect task for me. Thanks!

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome - glad to be of help!

[@MartiA1973]

First class explanations and details.

[@BillHilton]

Thanks Marti - glad you liked it!

[@TheDavidlloydjones]

Gotta go get some work done. Pleasure to see your good stuff, Bill! Thanks.

[@BillHilton]

Any time, David!

[@CosmicallyBookish]

This was great! Thank you so much

[@BillHilton]

Thank you - I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@mairaalcantara3946]

Thanks!!!❤❤❤

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome!

[@pathaks1]

Very nicely put to make it challenging ❤

[@BillHilton]

Thank you!

[@KellyAnnStiksma]

What keyboards do you recommend? Yours looks cool

[@BillHilton]

I'd always aim for something with 88 weighted, touch-sensitive keys and a sustain pedal, Kelly - they usually get marketed as "digital pianos". Mine's a Nord Piano 88 (and I love it) and it's what's called a stage piano, which is kind of a subset of digital pianos: very rough and tough (it's designed for touring) but it has quite noisy keys. For home use, I usually recommend the Roland FP-series, which are all excellent and I think offer the best quality for the money you spend.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Hilton channels Hanon, but with flair. Merci Bill.

[@BillHilton]

De rien, Lawrence - glad you liked it!

[@Elijahmaardi]

❤i did it

[@BillHilton]

Well done!

[@sargfowler9603]

I must admit, I'm one of the self taught piano players. I don't enjoy exercises because I don't think they really add anything to my playing skills. I'd prefer to learn a new song and challenge myself by choosing one that's more difficult than my previous learnt songs. The swinging examples do sound a bit better than most though!

[@happydays1259]

I found that a properly chosen exercises can be very helpful to prep me for the next piece. Many parts of the new piece appear "almost like that exercise", i get to playing the new piece faster.

[@BillHilton]

That's really interesting, because you're absolutely one of the people I'm targeting with this! I think the problem is that the value of exercises isn't obvious: adult learners have limited time, so it's natural that they tend to focus on stuff that delivers obvious results (learning a new song) and bypass things that seem irrelevant (like exercises). I think the long-term value of exercises is that they increase control and dexterity (basically, fine motor skills in hands and fingers) in a systematic and comprehensive way that has applicable benefits across everything that is subsequently learned: in others words, the skills exercises help to develop, although subtle, are 100% transferable across songs/pieces/whatever - whereas if you focus only on learning new songs/pieces that challenge you (which is obviously essential, whatever exercises you do) the skills you develop there will not be 100% transferable to the next thing you do, even if they short-term results are clearer. I'm increasingly convinced that this is one of the advantages that child learners (apparently) have: because they're disproportionately likely to have formal lessons, they're disproportionately like to spend a lot of time on exercises... and that gives them an edge with fine motor control and skill transferability. Anyway - sorry, this is all a bit inchoate - one of the aims of the EI&I project is to try to solve that problem and narrow the gap between adult learners and child learners by getting adults doing more exercises by making exercises more engaging. Does all that make some kind of sense? I'm glad you liked the swinging one!

[@sargfowler9603]

@@BillHilton Thank you for the reply and your kind words. I'll give this a go to see if it improves my playing.

[@BillHilton]

@@sargfowler9603 You’re welcome - please do let me know how you get on, because I’m really interested in feedback on this 👍

[@mgame10]

​@@BillHiltonI have the same problem and I'm a teenager but I will try these exercises I am also self taught

[@hectorh8504]

Can you do a video on scales?

[@BillHilton]

I'm thinking about doing one fairly soon, actually, Hector. I made one YEARS ago - you can see it at kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioTRlmCPnKd9m7M though it's showing its age now - and there's quite a lot of stuff on scales spread through my beginners course (playlist link: kzbin.info/aero/PLpOuhygfD7QnP46wUgQudOySX_z2UOhXs ) but I really need to make something new and fresh, especially since (as you can probably tell from this video) I'm more and more interested in the potential scales and exercises have for helping adult learners, who tend to underuse them. So watch this space...!

[@hectorh8504]

@@BillHilton Thanks for that!

[@winnerufgiug6109]

Hello. Can you please tell me an excerpt of which piece is Jordan Rudess playing? Dream Theater keyboardist, here on this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHrCeWRsr659nKs at 25.44 minutes

[@BillHilton]

Yup, that's an adaptation of Fučík's "Entrance of the Gladiators".