All posts by Robert Estrin

When to Add the Pedal in Your Piano Practice

When to Add the Pedal in Your Piano Practice

The question today is “When do you add the pedal in your piano practice?” Some of you may be thinking, “Why don’t you use the pedal the whole time?” There are good reasons to practice without the pedal. I have discussed this at great length in many videos. Today, we’re going to talk about when to add the pedal in your piano practice.

Why should you practice without the pedal?

As I’ve talked about before, in order to discover the best fingering to really connect the music with your hands, you want to be able to practice hearing all the notes clearly. The pedal is like the icing on the cake. It makes everything sound better! But, you want to try to achieve a beautiful, smooth performance playing without the pedal. If you do that, then adding the pedal is going to enrich your performance. More than that, you won’t use the pedal as a crutch to connect music that you can connect with your hands. This leaves the pedal as an expressive device to enhance tone instead of merely connecting what you should be able to do with your fingers.

I’m going to take a familiar section of the Chopin Ballade in G minor to show you on the accompanying video what to do when you are practicing this section of this famous piece. I’m going to play as written first with the pedal. Then I will show you when to add the pedal in your practice.

The first thing is to know how to practice to begin with!

As I’ve discussed in the past, it’s really important with solo piano repertoire to break down the music to its most intrinsic elements so that you can absorb all the details. Because if you try to learn too much at a time, there’s only so much you can assimilate at one time. It is necessary to take a small section at a time, hands separately, figuring out the notes, counting out the rhythm, figuring out the best fingering, as well as observing, phrasing, such as staccato and slurs, as well as all the expression marks such as dynamics (the loud and soft indications), accents, and all the rest of the details of the score.

If you are learning a fresh, new piece, you should tackle a small section as demonstrated on the accompanying video. You could take more. But it could take you more than twice as long to learn a phrase that is longer. More than that, if you are practicing a whole afternoon and want to keep practicing productively, it would be really challenging to take 16 major or 32 measure phrases. However, you could knock out smaller phrases very easily and sustain a longer practice.

Next you get the left hand securely memorized so you can play smoothly with comfort. Finally, you put the hands together. I suggest when putting the hands together the first time, challenge yourself by doing it from memory. You may need to go substantially slower at first in order to achieve this. You’ll know right away if your fingering needs work since you will hear things that are not connected. In fact:

One of the most important solutions to most technical problems is finding better fingering.

This transcends just this lesson today about when to add the pedal. I would suggest whenever you run into snags in your playing, investigate alternative fingering to solve problems.

Once you get hands together smoothly and memorized at a reasonable tempo (which is as fast as you can get it up to in one sitting before the point of diminishing returns), you are ready to add the pedal.

Instead of relying upon the pedal to connect notes that can be connected smoothly with your fingers, instead, you utilize the pedal to enhance the tone as well as to connect what you can’t connect with your hands. For example, in this phrase, you can extend the left hand broken chords to sustain longer than your fingers can possibly hold the notes which sounds much more beautiful. I had the good fortune of studying with many brilliant concert pianists, and all of them taught me the importance of practicing without the pedal. It’s an essential practice technique for the piano. So, remember to add the pedal to reward yourself as you master each phrase of music.

Even after you have the whole piece on a high level with the pedal, check your work without the pedal to keep your playing honest.

You piano playing will be on an entirely new level when you stop using the pedal as a crutch and learn how to connect the music with your hands. I hope this tutorial helps your piano practice and your playing. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store 949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com

What is a Tone Poem?

What is a Tone Poem?

Tone poems are programmatic pieces which are based upon stories.

They are typically large orchestral works, sometimes approaching an hour or more in length. Richard Strauss, Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) is one such epic work for symphony orchestra. Richard Wagner also composed tone poems as did Debussy. However, it was actually Franz Liszt who first developed the tone poem earlier in the 19th century even though he is known mostly as the quintessential virtuoso pianist and composer of brilliant piano works.

Since early childhood, throughout conservatory and beyond, I played both piano and French horn.

So, I have always been enamored with tone poems. The great tone poems of the late Romantic era are in my blood! I hope you enjoy the tone poem I have created for you. info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

3 Secrets to Playing Slow Music

3 SECRETS TO PLAYING SLOW MUSIC

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Today, I have three secrets to playing slow music. When you hear instrumentalists, such as pianists, you notice that many have a lot of technical achievement. But when you hear a great artist play a slow movement, magic can happen. It can reach the inner depths of your soul. This is the sign of a great musician. How do you approach slow movements in order to get that quality, to get that beauty and be able to reach people on an emotional level? These are the secrets I’m going to give to you today.

Number one is: Make sure you take the right tempo.

A lot of people play slow movements too slowly. For example, if someone were to perform Debussy, Clair de Lune, you may hear it played very slowly. Now, it might be okay at the beginning, but by the time you get to the middle and compare the tempo they’re playing in the middle of the piece, often, they’re going faster because it gets ponderous after awhile at such a slow tempo.

Another clue for you when you’re taking a tempo that is too slow is that you will find that if there are repeats, you won’t want to take them. They don’t seem to work. So, if you have a piece of music and think, “Mozart didn’t mean all those repeats”. Yes, he did! And if they don’t work, it’s a clue that you are playing too slow a tempo. Another thing related to this is to:

Hold long notes long enough.

There’s nothing worse than robbing long notes. But it’s so easy to rob long notes because you’re just sitting there doing nothing! It’s easy to count to yourself and accelerate your counting in your head. You can lose the pulse.

A lot of performers play very slowly and rob the long notes, such as again, the beginning of Clair de Lune. To me, that is simply playing out of rhythm. But you’d be surprised how many performances you’ll find online of very renowned concert pianists playing this piece and robbing the long notes. Holding all the long notes for their full written value gives the music soul, doesn’t it? You’ve got to take the right tempo and you must hold the long notes long enough. What else is there? The other thing is to:

Think of the long note as the pulse.

This enables you to have a slow pulse with a faster tempo. An example is the second movement of the K. 332 Mozart Sonata in F major. First, you could play it thinking of each sixteenth note as the beat. The left hand has sixteenth notes, and each one of those can be punctuated as the beat. Then, instead of thinking each sixteenth note as the beat, try thinking each eighth note as the beat. It’s already going to be better. Rachmaninoff said,

“The bigger the phrase, the bigger the musician.”

Well, related to this is, the longer note that you feel as the pulse, the more freedom you have with your music. Now try feeling the quarter note as the pulse. This also gives you the benefit of being able to take a faster tempo but still having a relaxed feel to your music. Even with a slightly faster tempo, but with the quarter note as the pulse, it doesn’t feel hurried! Those are three secrets to being able to play slow music.

Make sure to hold long notes long enough, feel the long note as the beat, and choose the right tempo.

Don’t take slow pieces too slowly. If you do those three tips, it will enhance the performance of your slow music. I’d love to hear from all of you and give me your perspective. And if you haven’t subscribed to LivingPianosVideos’ YouTube channel, go for it! You’ll get all the fresh videos. We produce them for you every week.

Thanks for joining me again,  Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store.   info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

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The Power of Interlocking Phrases

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THE POWER OF INTERLOCKING PHRASES

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store with a fantastic tip for your memorization, which is the power of interlocking phrases.

Now, what am I talking about here? Well, if you’ve spent time memorizing music, you know that the most efficient way to do it is to take a small section at a time, because after all, there’s a limit to how much you can learn at once. What can really help you is by watching this video and reading the article on how to memorize:

HOW TO PRACTICE THE PIANO PART 1 – MEMORIZING MUSIC

You take each hand separately a small section at a time, mastering each hand and then putting them together and getting that memorized.

But How Do You Get the Phrases Together?

You learn this section, that section, and you’re going to have a whole bunch of random phrases. That’s where the interlocking phrases come in. For example, in the above video, if you are learning a Mozart sonata like the K545, the famous C-major sonata of Mozart, you start with the first phrase to learn. But instead of doing that, go one note further as demonstrated in the accompanying video. That extra note is where you start learning your next phrase. That way, after you learn the first phrase and get that solid, you have a common note between the two phrases. When you finally get the second phrase learned, you go back to the beginning, and you’ll be able to be on the first note of the second phrase.

Interlocking Phrases Is So Helpful!

Beyond that, when you get into more advanced stages of learning your music, you might find that you have all the phrases learned but you can’t get through everything in a fluid manner. Then you can try interlocking at different points. For example, you do the first four measures, and then you try the second measure to the sixth measure. Then you practice off-setting the points at which the phrases connect because one of the biggest challenges with memorizing music is getting everything smoothly put together.

So, that is the power of interlocking phrases in learning music. I hope this tip if helpful for you. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. If you haven’t already subscribed to my YouTube channel, go for it, because you’ll get all the fresh videos. Thanks for joining me. Robert@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

3 Secrets to Memorizing Music

Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. Today, three secrets to memorizing music. The three secrets all come down to one thing, and I’ll tell you how they relate to three aspects that will help you in memorizing music. Memorizing music is tough, it’s hard work if you’re doing it correctly. If you just play through a piece over and over in hopes that eventually it will assimilate, that’s not a very efficient way to learn music. You need to be organized, and I have videos on how to approach memorization.

The three secrets come down to memorizing every day.

Why does that give you three benefits? Well first of all, obviously if you’re memorizing every day you’re going to learn more. If you only try to do it once or twice a week, or every other day, you’re limited in how much you’re going to be able to learn by the sheer amount of time.

The second thing about memorizing every day is you get to reinforce your work from the previous day.

Otherwise, you’re going two steps forward, one step backward every day trying to get back what you learned, even the next day is a big challenge. But if you wait a couple of days you will have forgotten a great deal, and so you really are not going to be as productive.

Third reason is that since memorizing is very taxing, there’s only so much you can do at peak performance in one sitting.

If you do it every day, you get your mind when it’s fresh, and that’s a tremendous benefit to you. You can soak up a bunch of music before you get to that point of diminishing returns.

So remember, if you’re serious about memorizing music, get to it every day. There’s so many benefits to that, and you will be rewarded with amassing great amounts of repertoire in your music. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Remember to subscribe to the YouTube channel, and you can even hit the bell so you’ll be notified when there’s new videos for you.

See you next time.

949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com

How to Reach the Last Row in a Concert Hall

Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with a really fascinating show that I think you’re going to really appreciate, which is how to reach the last row in a concert hall.

If you’ve ever been to a performance of a world-class pianist, it’s an unforgettable experience. I had the opportunity to hear Vladimir Horowitz on several occasions. The first time was when he made one of his many comebacks, and every time he did this, it was a huge event. This was in 1974, and he was playing a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House.  And if you have any idea of the scope of the size of that hall, you wonder how could you possibly play a concert in a hall that big?

I actually camped out at Lincoln Center, the tickets went on sale 6 AM and I got there at nine at night – I was number 311 in line already!  Can you imagine? Interesting thing is that about 2:30 in the morning, Horowitz and his wife came by with coffee and donuts for the people waiting camped out there. It was really something. I get tickets and it was limited to only two.  And my tickets were way, way up. The amazing thing was he was able to project a sound that came right through to the last row with beauty and singing quality. That was really something.

Well, here’s the interesting thing. Just a couple of months later, I was studying with Constance Keene at the Manhattan School of Music, and she was really good friends with the Horowitz’s. She actually was able to get tickets to a Carnegie Hall Concert he was giving. On this occasion, I was in one of the very front box seats and I could actually hear what he was doing that made it possible for me to enjoy his performance from the last row. Everything was punctuated much bigger.

Have you ever been to a museum and seen a great painting of one of the impressionists? You look from a distance and it’s just gorgeous colors and patterns, and you get up close and see all these angularities to the strokes. It was kind of like that hearing him so close in that front box seat.  I could hear what he was doing in order to project to the back of the concert hall. In the video included with this article, I demonstrate this for you. I’ll show you what a delicate way of playing Mozart sounds like and then a way of playing Mozart that would go to the last row of the hall.

In the video above, you’ll hear a perfectly valid and wonderful way to play Mozart with a nice characteristic delicacy. The G major is a 283 Köchel.

Up until recently I’ve been playing it that way and I’ve been experimenting with a completely different way of playing it. Using a lot more arm weight, projecting a bigger sound, one that would carry through in a very large hall. When you listen to the video, compare these different styles.

So it’s not a right or wrong proposition here.  And I would say to a great extent, it comes down to where you’re performing.  In a big hall, approach a piece by playing bigger and with more arm weight, while punctuating the fast notes. Rather than playing everything in a fluid matter the way I did the first time, lighten up so that you can negotiate them. So that’s the secret.  You have to play with more arm weight, more angularity, and punctuate fast passages by detaching the notes from one another so they carry through, even with the reverb of a large hall.

So these are some pointers for you.  You’ve got to always listen to the piano and the room you’re playing in so that you can produce a sound that carries through to the last row.

Thanks so much for joining me again.  This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com,  your online piano store.
949-244-3729  info@LivingPianos.com