This book helped me with a series of very small and manageable exercises to improve my finger dexterity and flexibility. Some exercises gradually get harder and test your hand and finger coordination and geography (playing both hands together). It tests and improves different aspects of your piano practice and should be done daily to achieve the best results. The combination of simple joy and pedagogic value embedded in this classic material has not only stood the test of time, but remains as accessible, worthwhile and engaging as ever, seemingly transcending the fads of fashion.

A Dozen A Day_ Book 1 - Edna Mae Burnam.pdf - Documents and E A Dozen A Day_ Book 1 - Edna Mae Burnam.pdf - Documents and E

A bonus: it can be helpful to talk to the student about technical problems the exercise helps with, asking them to identify passages in their new, active and recent repertoire which will benefit. Hussey has also written a new performance piece to conclude each of the six books, bringing the total exercise count up to 366. All Year Round, indeed! Using the Material The last exercise in each dozen, across all six books, is always called Fit As A Fiddle And Ready To Go. The obvious idea here is that at the start of practice, the current Group of 12 exercises provide a suitably varied and helpful warmup routine. I would suggest this may depend on other factors, of course, and much can be gained from targeted use of individual exercises from within the cycle, as I will explain later.Many people do exercises every morning before they go to work. Likewise, we should all give our fingers exercises every day BEFORE we begin our practising.” A Dozen A Day Book One: Primary contains pre-practice technical exercises for the Piano. The purpose of this book is to help develop strong hands and flexible fingers. While the first three books are broadly appropriate for players working towards UK Initial, Grades 1 and 2 respectively, the later three books have scope to be used more freely; individual exercises are useful and appropriate right up to Grade 8. Dozen A Day exercises naturally lend themselves to written theory too, building on all the points made above.

A Dozen a Day: Technical Exercises for the Piano to Be Done A Dozen a Day: Technical Exercises for the Piano to Be Done

While various songbooks and extras have appeared over the years, the core Dozen A Day material comprises six short exercise books: It is also worth noting at this point that Burnam herself suggested learning a couple of exercises at a time, playing them slowly and softly at first, then introducing a range of dynamics and speeding up the tempi. How might the musical ideas from two or three simple exercises be combined into a larger piece? What narrative can the piece then be given, and how will it develop? Can a basic Dozen A Day exercise be used as the core material for a piece which expresses a particular emotion, idea, story, mood or colour? Together the exercises form a rich resource for piano teachers and students to draw upon, and with the addition of the book’s special thematic index, it’s easy to focus on specific areas of technique.” However you choose to introduce and use exercises from A Dozen A Day, remember that like any cycle of technical exercises, using them inappropriately won’t just potentially mitigate against any benefits, but could cause fresh problems for players. The advice of an expert teacher is always crucial when developing good technique at the piano.In her introduction to the books, Burnam gets straight to the point in explaining the value of A Dozen A Day: With its brilliant Thematic Index, and kept ever within reach, this bumper book succeeds wonderfully as a teacher’s companion, making Burnam’s exercises ever-accessible without encroaching too seriously on lesson time. I have been using these little books with my students since I first started teaching in the 1990’s, and although they have featured less prominently in my studio in recent years, they continue to make their appearance, and offer a hugely useful resource which can be used from the very first lessons, and right up to advanced level.