Czerny - Practical Method for Beginners On Pianoforte, Op. 599 | Schirmer Library of Classics Vol. 146 | Piano Technique and Exercise Songbook for Students | Easy Piano Method Sheet Music for Scales Paperback – November 1, 1986

Great starting exercise book.

I am an adult learner who started from ground 0 in piano (and music education) in April of this year (2016). The book I chose to start with was the Alfred Adult All-In-One course Book One. I was really motivated and got to around page 90 of that book in about 3 weeks time. I guess I was trying too hard, my left hand started to hurt. I had to completely stop playing to rest my hand for about 2 weeks. I stopped learning from that book after that, plus I really didn't like the songs in that book. But by then, I had enough of the very basics to be able to learn to play some of the songs in Burgmuller Twenty Five Easy and Progressive Studies. For theories, I studied The Complete Book of Scale, Chords..... I even practiced using the Hanon book. I learned to play the complete Fur Elise (all three sections) to a fairly OK level. All seemed to go OK, until I came upon this new song. I heard on the radio and found the sheet for it. I spent 3 days on it and could not get past the first half page, I was literally mapping out each note to the fingers and was going note by note, finger by finger. Luckily, I came upon this brilliant young concert pianist Yuja Wang. She plays over 100 concerts every year all over the world and there are many clips of her amazing playing on youtube. In one of her interviews, she mentioned it usually takes her 3 days to learn a new concert piece, the kind that lasts 20, 30, 40 minutes. A light bulb went off in my head, she must not be learning it note by note, finger by finger. Long story short, in China, learning to play the piano is very popular. The serious students go through a very thorough training program that usually starts around age 6. The Czerny books are very much part of that regime. It is said if one masters Czerny book 599, followed by books 849 and then 299, that puts the person in the mid level of piano playing. While I will continue to search for more materials to supplement the three Czerny books, I know I am on the right path now. I needed to get through the past 8 months to be where I am today, I consider that pre-learning. The real learning starts with this book. In case anyone is interested, there are complete sets of training video on youtube for this book.

I used this book as a child, and repurchased now that I’m playing again as an adult. What I love the most is that although it’s exercise material, the pieces are very melodic, which is encouraging. Czerny was a student of Beethoven, and it shows. Highly recommend.

I bought this book a year ago and this has been the best investment made as a self-taught piano player. This book offers all the etudes needed to strengthen finger dexterity and improve sight reading skills! I would say this book best suits a beginner to intermediate piano player (ABRSM level 1-5.) Overall, the Czerny OP. 599 is a great supplemental book that offers all the technical music you would need in the beginning years of learning the piano.

You will see a lot of Czerny pieces available on the web and in videos but they are using a simplified fingering version of the pieces which defeats the purpose entirely. These pieces were designed to make you think and use odd fingering at times to help you grow as a player. By simplifying these pieces to use "logical" fingering, they just become another practice piece that is no better or worse than any other practice piece out there.Get the ORIGINAL arrangements and sweat your way through. These are not performance pieces, these are exercises to make you better overall. You will not master them quickly or easily.Consider it the Dark Souls of Piano pieces. Can be hard as heck but the first time you play it through the way it was intended to be played, you feel really amazing.

Good product

I used Opus 599 when I first learned to play the piano back in highschool. Interestingly, my mom happened to have a copy although she never played the piano and she convinced my teacher to use it on me. My teacher is a proponent of Hanon and I'm so thankful that she agreed to train me on Czerny. I'm sure Hanon is effective but I could never stand it! The Czerny etudes are very melodic so I have always had fun playing them. Unfortunately, when I went to college and after that started working, I stopped playing piano entirely. Now, 15 years later, I'm home a lot more and my husband bought me a piano! I tried to find the Czerny I used in the past but couldn't. Luckily my mom still has it and she emailed me a photo. It is exactly the same as this version (Schirmer's) except it was published by Carl Fischer - probably out of print already that's why I couldn't find it. Anyway, I highly recommend this book... you won't need anything else. Unlike the super tedious Hanon, it doesn't feel like a drudgery to go through each exercise. I was never able to play this book to the end but now I'm determined to do it. I already have School of Velocity on standby.

Adult learner started from scratch last November. I find this book is well designed and gradually introduces skills that I need. Each exercise introduces something new and the exercises build on each other. I have learned more from this book (so far through exercise 26) than any of my other sources.I do Hanon daily which feels like strength training. Czerny feels like musical training as well as flexibility with finger positions.