Hanon Now and Then

Every piano student has heard of Hanon.  They’re the finger exercises played before the real piano pieces are practiced.  Kind of like the appetizers before a meal or the stretches before a jog.  They get the fingers warmed up and working so students can prepare to be virtuosos in only sixty exercises.  (Or so the teacher can take a quick break while the student plays through them).  But contrary to popular opinion, the word “Hanon” isn’t a synonym for finger exercise, it’s the name of a real person.

Charles-Louis Hanon was born in Renescure, France on the 2nd of July, 1819.  He was a composer and pedagogue who lived to see the new century only briefly before dying of pneumonia on March 19, 1900, in Boulogne-sur-Ner.  He was a devout Christian, soft spoken and unpretentious. He gave to the poor and helped bring music instruction to the orphans in his community, never having had any children of his own. (Hanon Junior was created many years later by industrious music publishers).  His exercises have been adapted  in recent years for other instruments besides the piano, such as the guitar, trumpet, violin, and xylophone.  You can find Hanon for jazz, samba, blues, boogie-woogie, rock, and other rhythmic variations. (If Charles-Louis were alive today he would be very rich indeed with all of the royalty checks he would be receiving).

Knowing a bit of the history of any composer can help us interpret their music with care and understanding.  I know I won’t play Hanon again without thinking of his contributions to mankind both then and now.