These short eight-bar exercises are generally regarded as some of the best, most versatile and comprehensive of Czerny's studies. Apart from helping to achieve speed, suppleness and versatility of tone and touch, these exercises concentrate on many essential aspects of piano technique: diatonic and chromatic scales, tone repetition, chords progressions and arpeggios, thirds and octaves, two-part playing in one hand, polyphony, alternating hands, trills and other ornamentation, etc.

This new edition is based on the first edition of 1853 and contains Czerny's original fingering.