Hanon — Part I

Charles-Louis Hanon's The Virtuoso Pianist (1873) opens with twenty preparatory exercises that build finger independence and strength — especially the weak 4th and 5th — and bring the left hand up to the level of the right. Here all twenty are transcribed to notation you can read and hear.

How Hanon says to practise: lift each finger firmly and play with an even, strong tone; keep the wrist loose; play hands together, two octaves up and down; start with the metronome at 60 and only push the tempo (toward ~108) once every note is clean; practise daily.

Read & hear — one exercise at a time

Pick a number, press Play, and read a beat ahead — right hand in gold, left hand in blue. A highlight band sweeps the staff while the keyboard lights up. Tempo follows the metronome bar (start slow).

Transposing keeps the pattern near middle C and draws the matching key signature — great for taking one exercise through every key, as Hanon intended.

Notes parsed from the Mutopia Project engraving (typeset by Javier Ruiz-Alma, CC BY-SA); fingerings are Hanon's where he marked them. Music is public domain (Hanon, 1873).

All 60 exercises & the original score

These twenty are just Part I. To read the full engraved score for all three parts — Part II (scales, arpeggios, broken chords) and Part III (octaves, repeated notes, trills, tremolos) included — use the score reader on the Sight-reading page, where the complete PDF is embedded with a Part I / II / III selector and downloads.

Read the score · all 60 exercises Back to Exercises

Prefer to hear each exercise transposed to every key, with audio? hanon-online.com has the whole book.