All posts by Robert Estrin

What is Breath in Music?

If you’ve played music for a while you’ve probably run across this term before and you might wonder what it means. Some people might dismiss it as being a term only applying to music which actually utilizes your breath but that is not the case.

The voice is the first musical instrument and to some extent all music derives from singing. Naturally with wind instruments this directly relates to using your breath but all instruments mimic the same concept. String instruments like violinists, cellists, and others utilize a technique that simulates the up and down of breathing with the bow. This technique should also apply to the piano – where phrases should rise and fall just like a breath does. When starting a new phrase it’s like starting a new breath.

Everything in life revolves around cycles and breathing is one of them. Unless you’re consciously aware of it you’d never notice your breaths but this same type of structure seeps into all aspects of our lives. Every day the sun rises and sets, ever since we were born we’ve been used to the simple nature of breathing in and out, and things like sitting at the beach and listening to the waves crash in and out are soothing things that remind of the cyclical nature of our existence. Music is no different.

But how does this translate to an instrument like the piano? You should really play every line you have like you are singing it. I encourage you to try this, you might be surprised at how much inherent expression it brings out in your music; it will give it character and life.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com

What is the Largest Piano in the World?

In past videos we have covered the different sizes of Upright Pianos and Grand Pianos. Today we will be covering something a little different; the biggest piano in the world!

The largest production piano in the world is the Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand which is nine and a half feet long. Is that the world’s largest piano? Not by a long shot.

The biggest piano that I’ve actually played is a twelve foot piano that was made by David Rubenstein. He has built two pianos – an eight foot piano and a twelve foot piano. Both of these are remarkably good pianos – especially considering these are the only pianos he has ever built. Both instruments were custom built – he did not use any parts from existing manufacturers. However, even the twelve foot piano is not the largest piano in the world.

An architect from Poland named Daniel Czapiewski created a piano that is 6 meters long – almost 20 feet – and weighs over two tons. Now is a piano this big going to be any better than a piano of only 9 feet long? Not necessarily. There is a lot of physics involved in creating sound with the piano and there is only so much energy your fingers can impart to a hammer. You could easily pass a point of diminishing returns and create something that is more of a novelty than an actual instrument. Now I have not had the opportunity to play this piano so I will have to reserve judgment for now but I am very interested to try it out one day.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Reinforcing Memory at the Piano

Memory can be one of the great challenges for musicians. You take the time to learn a piece, practice it again and again, and master it. Then you may forget something! Today we are going to discuss how to retain the music you’ve learned.

In the past we’ve discussed how to memorize music and you may reference that video for tips on that topic.

So, let’s say you have a piece you’ve memorized and you want to make sure you keep it on a high performance level. It might be a piece you played sometime ago, and while you remember most of it, there are certain parts that aren’t secure. Are there any tricks to keeping this information stored in your mind?

The first thing is to play with the score. Now you might be wondering, if you play with the score, doesn’t it negate the idea of memorizing the music? Afterall, it’s the exact opposite! Once you’ve memorized the music, that’s when the real work begins. Playing with the score will help solidify your knowledge of the music. You aren’t going to just play it through though, you study the score playing very slowly with no pedal. Take in all the notes, rhythm, fingering, phrasing and expression. Listen to what is going on in the piece and study it intently. This will greatly enhance your knowledge of the music and reinforce your memory like you never thought possible.

Another important practice tool to reinforce your memory of a piece is to play with the metronome. Make sure that you keep with the metronome and play the music exactly as written. Go through it several times while reading the music and playing with the metronome to make sure the rhythm is solid.

So the three basic ways to reinforce your musical memory:

1. Play slowly with the score
2. Keep your foot off the pedal
3. Play with the metronome

An advanced technique is to play your music away from the piano. Now this might sound strange (after all, how do you play music without the piano?) but it’s a great practicing technique. If you really think you’ve memorized your music, try playing it from memory – you can start by moving your fingers in your lap at first to make it easier. Imagine playing every note and nuance and see how much you really know playing mentally. It can be incredibly challenging but it’s extremely beneficial. Eventually you can play your music in your head by thinking it through. This will allow you to create the exact performance you have in mind without any physical constraints or problems with the instrument. This is a great way to strengthen your memory.

Listening to other performances of your music can also help. But there is nothing better than pulling out the score and referring to it again and again. In order to truly understand a piece and retain it in your mind you need to learn the score and reinforce the memory constantly.

I hope this is helpful and if you have any questions about this topic or any other, please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.

What does A-440 mean?

If you’ve played the piano you may be familiar with the term “A-440”. You might wonder what this actually refers to and if it’s something you need to be concerned with. Today we are going to go into detail on this subject and share everything you need to know about what A-440.

All sound is simply a series of vibrations that go through the air. The strings on a piano go through a certain number of vibration cycles per second – this is what actually produces the sound we hear. If you were to put a piano string under a microscope and slowed it way down, you would see the string moving back and forth for each vibration cycle. The air around the string also vibrates at the same frequency and when it hits your eardrums you will eventually hear the sound from the vibration the string has produced since your eardrums will sympathetically vibrate at the same speed.

So what does this all have to do with A-440? Everything! The A note above middle C should produce 440 vibration cycles per second when it is properly tuned. This is where the term A-440 comes from. You can actually test this on your own piano using a tuner or a tuner app on your smartphone.

Is it a bad thing if your piano is not tuned to A-440? It could be. Modern pianos are meant to be tuned and played at A-440 so they sound their best when they are tuned at that pitch. Some people actually like to tune their pianos a bit higher than A-440 because it produces a brighter sound they prefer. Some European orchestras tune to A-442 or even A-444 since they prefer that sound.

A-440 is the standard pitch for modern instruments.

This is especially important when you are playing with other instruments. Some instruments are able to tune up or down a certain degree and others don’t have this ability. If you were playing with someone who plays vibes or other mallet based instruments there is no way to tune these instruments. So, playing a piano tuned off of the standard A-440 pitch would sound quite ugly when played with an instrument tuned at concert pitch of A-440.

One more thing to note is that when you double the frequency of a note you simply get the same note an octave higher. So for example, if you play the A above A-440 you will produce A-880. Likewise, if you were to play an A an octave lower it would be A-220, or 220 cycles per second.

I recommend checking your piano periodically to ensure that it’s around the proper pitch. If the piano ever drops or even goes up in pitch it could take several tunings to make it stable again and achieve the correct pitch.

I hope this has been helpful for you and I would love to hear your comments about this subject. Thanks again for joining us at Living Pianos Info@LivingPianos.com

How to approach Bach’s Two Part Inventions – Part 3

Welcome back to our multi-part series on Bach’s two part Inventions. In Part 1 of our lesson we talked about how to understand these pieces as well as the importance of understanding counterpoint when approaching the inventions. In Part 2 of our lesson we discussed some techniques for Invention #8 – The F major invention.

Today we are going to discuss Invention #4 – the D minor invention. Again, we are going to discuss the importance of delineating the subject and countersubject in these pieces. I will take the subject and countersubject at the beginning of the piece to demonstrate how phrasing can help bring out the most in this work:

Here is the subject

And here is the countersubject

By delineating the phrasing in this section you will be able to make the structure of this piece clear. How do you achieve this? You will want to play the 16th note subject legato and the 8th note countersubject staccato. By doing this you will be able to hear every note clearly, yet they combine beautifully together.

As you continue to advance through the inventions you will be able to experiment with your own phrasing. The key to getting these pieces to make musical sense is to delineate the lines to create clear counterpoint. You will bring out the individual lines and allow them to bounce off one another creating a wonderful sound!

I recommend these pieces if you are starting out with playing Baroque music or want to expose yourself to brilliant counterpoint. After you learn these pieces and go on to learn more pieces of Bach or other Baroque composers, you will encounter four or even five voice fugues. Learning to delineate two voices will bring you a long way towards learning how to handle even more complex scores.

Thanks again for joining us at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this subject or any other subjects please contact us directly: info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729