A Dozen a Day: Preparatory: Technical Exercises for the Piano to Be Done Each Day Before Practicing

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Dozen A Day exercises can even be used for aural development, for example by altering the exercise and playing ‘spot the difference’, comparing sound with symbol. 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.” 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. Dozen A Day exercises can also be used as the starting point for improvising and composing in a lesson.

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 the context of an integrated approach to piano education, here are just some of the strategies which I have found productive and helpful for students: 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.” 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 hope that the suggestions in this review will help teachers and learners alike to find fresh engagement with these little marvels. Closing ThoughtsHow 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?

Because we are using the exercises holistically, rather than designating them as a “sight reading test”, we can get past any trauma that the student might associate with grade exams. Understanding intervals, reworking an exercise using a different time signature (e.g. simple vs. compound), writing in different octaves, key signatures and clefs can all be explored as they relevantly relate to the learner’s ongoing music tuition.

Each book offers six groups of twelve exercises, totalling 60 exercises per book and thus 360 across the full series. All the exercises are named after physical exercises or activities, suitably (and quirkily) illustrated. As a teacher using this material over several decades, I have found that while A Dozen A Day can be tremendously helpful as a set of technical exercises, the resource can also be used holistically to support many other learning objectives, as appropriate to each student’s needs and musical interests. 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. Dozen A Day exercises naturally lend themselves to written theory too, building on all the points made above. If your goal is weight loss, you can find more information in How Not to Diet and the accompanying Twenty-One Tweaks. In How Not to Diet, I noted: “A systematic review of successful weight-loss strategies concluded that given the metabolic slowing and increased appetite that accompanies weight loss, to achieve significant weight loss, calorie counts may need to drop as low as 1,200 calories a day for women and 1,500 calories a day for men.”

In her introduction to the books, Burnam gets straight to the point in explaining the value of A Dozen A Day:

A Dozen a Day – Music Staff Paper

Do not try to learn the entire first dozen exercises the first week you study this book! Just learn two or three exercises and do them each day before practising. When these are mastered, add another, then another, and keep adding until the twelve can be played perfectly. When the first dozen exercises, Group I, have been mastered and perfected, Group II may be introduced in the the same manner, and so on for the other Groups.” 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. Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as food, flowers, newspapers or magazines cannot be returned. We also do not accept products that are intimate or sanitary goods, hazardous materials, or flammable liquids or gases.