Do you have a technical routine? Please share!

I'm around a ToneBase Level 8 and previously I'd just done scales/arps/short-arps/chords up-and-down in one key per day or week or so.

About a year ago I started trying out a routine similar to Dominic's Russian Chords after reading Boris Berman describe doing basically the same thing as a "Russion Tortune" routine in his "Notes from the Pianist's Bench". Berman's routine has 4 big components: scales (diatonic and chromatic), arps, what Berman calls "short arpeggios" (1-octave arpeggios, up and down the keyboard through all the inversions - I've had teachers call this "broken chords") and what Berman calls "broken chords" (1-octave arpeggios, up and down the keyboard through all the inversions alternating the notes i.e. fingered 1325/1425 rather than 1235/1245 way a "short arpeggio" would be fingered)

On top of doing all this generally up and down 4 octaves, Berman would also do everything above in contrary motion. Berman says it takes him about 30 minutes to do the entire set, and the audio examples that come with the book are of a "Tonebase Level 12" player ripping through a million well-played notes really fast.

Berman's routine became something of a monster for me for 6 months or so. I'd sometimes spend 2+ hours a day just on 2 of the 4 big things. In coordination with no-look sight-reading/hand-placement work I was doing, tasks like contrary motion short arps was something of a revelation for me helping learn to mentally visualize the hand I didn't have time to look at. That seems a helpful skill to keep working on.

Another idea I got from Berman's book that I like is playing 2-octaves apart rather than 1. I have wide shoulders so 1-octave is always a bit uncomfortable for me and it's easier to hear individual notes (mistakes) when playing 2 octaves apart.

An idea from Penelope Roskell that I like is re-do the "traditional" finging to avoid 4th-interval jumps/thumb-crossing-under: i.e. right hand c-major arps, start with 2 rather than 1.

I've since come to see the whole "Russian Torture" set all as another kind of sight-reading exercise, where the main thing being worked on is quickly thinking out how to get the fingers to hit the right notes in a ton of different combinations -- with a pervasive technique-work overtone suggesting that pushing the metronome numbers is the ultimate goal.

Maybe if I get up to a double digit "Tonebase Level" I'll come back to the full set, but I have no great childhood training I can rely on that "set" my technique in some perfect way that I can rely on to help me crank out a million notes with different sounds, motions and touches while thinking out new combinations of notes in real time. In lessons my problems are usually not hitting the  right notes, but how I hit them, and what kind of sound they make. Hence I've lately started trying out a 2 or 4 chord version of everything above (rather than 11) with less emphasis on speed, or at least much more varied speeds, and more emphasis on finding ways to change the sound and the motions I do behind the sound. I'm also working to bring chords as a #5 big-item back into my routine. Here is my current list of ways I'm trying to vary my approaches to all the exercises above. Some of these apply more to one big item or another i.e. chords vs. scales.

• Speed of movement between positions, length of note held
• Grouping rhythms/Pillars
• Movement source: back, elbow, fingers
• Amount of wrist/hand adjustment done for finger alignment
• Degree to which hands come out for key tips (+centers)
• Speed of finger placement: fully there vs. at the last instant
• Volume of sound/articulation/Berman-floor, shock-absorbing in fingers/wrist/elbows
• Force Source: back, shoulders, arms, wrist, fingers, rotation
• Amount of active finger movement
• Voicing of notes: top/bottom, inner, pairs
• Speed/degree of tension release/return to neutral

No idea how it will work out. Just the latest thing I'm trying

I've pretty much avoided technical exercises most of my study and typically just worked with teachers who came up with exercises from the more challenging measures of the pieces I was studying at that time. While I may have learned those pieces to an ok degree, I finally realized in recent years that I was deficient technically so my practice the past 1 1/2 has changed. I practice about 3 hours a day (spread out throughout the day) and 30-45 minutes is spent on technique. 

That routine is to run through major and minor (natural, harmonic and melodic) scales legato, staccato, loud and soft up and down the keyboard as well as contrary motion. In 2023, I chose a scale or two a week and focused solely on those but I would like to find a better way of cycling through all the circle of 5ths each week in 2024.

I also play the scales in 3rds, 6th and 10ths followed by chromatic scales in 3rds (legato and staccato).

Then, I proceed to arpeggios  (the same keys as the scales I am practicing) and then I move to diminished 7th and dominant 7th arpeggios. These are all played legato and then staccato. Then before ending, I usually do chord resolutions from the Dim7 and Dom7 chords back into the key that was previously selected for the scales and arpeggios that day or week. 

I usually pick one or two short Czerny and one to two short Burgmüller pieces as both sight reading exercises and then spend the week trying to play it as well as I can.

I'm looking to tweak this a bit now that I've done this for a year, I'm sure I'll make some changes in 2024, like adding some work on octaves and double thirds so I appreciate this topic and enjoyed reading what others are doing or have done. 

I take my technique from the Peery Academy. There are about 8 levels with different requirements. They become progressively more challenging, obviously. I pick a key a week. I generally just go around the circle of 5ths including relative minors to the majors. I work on just 1 key a week. The purpose of the exercises is to teach your hands control. It is about learning how to relax them and how to hold them and my whole body. I gain more awareness of my body as I work through my technical exercises. I also gain strength. I find this transfers very well to my playing of repertoire. I play more expressively because I know how to control my movement and I prevent injury as well. 
 

Some of the exercises, people would say are odd because you would never play a piece like that. But, I promise if you learn to play it the way it is explained, which is an exaggeration of the movement, when it comes time to really play the expression in music, it only enhances the movement and the sound. After all, it’s the sound we’re going for.

Look up muscle builders or power fingers with Peery for a better explanation of these exercises. I’ve attached the technique cycles here. I start at mm=100 with 4 notes per click and move the metronome up every week until I’m at mm=152. I stay there for a few weeks and then drop it back to 100. It has really helped me to increase my ability to play more quickly and with more confidence and with the ticky sound you want for Mozart and Bach for instance.

In addition to what is on the sheet, I also do scales on 3rds, 6ths, 10ths, octave scales with 3 different hand gestures, chromatic scales, trills and sometimes a rotation exercise. After my technique cycle, I play a Hanon exercise in the same Major key I’m working on for the week. I play it with muscle builders and power fingers and then quickly. Each of these techniques helps me use my hands in different ways and learn independent control of the fingers. This usually takes me about 10 minutes. I also give myself a Czerny Op. 599 every week. I play them very quickly with all of the expression. I hope that helps! Good luck!