Music expresses emotion. It can be a great challenge to bear your soul in a genuine way when performing music. It can be a challenge avoiding distractions whether it is noises from an adjacent room or a squeaky bench. Worse yet, you may find your mind wandering to concerns of daily life taking you away from your purpose as a performer – to reach the audience with a message only music can convey.
Perhaps the greatest challenge in offering true feelings in your music is when you are improvising, particularly freeform improvisations, not music based upon written scores. This is something most typically associated with jazz musicians, but not exclusively.
In the accompanying video, you will hear a performance of a freeform improvisation in which my purpose was purely to convey honest emotions.
Sometimes it can be a rewarding challenge to create musical forms such as Sonata or Theme and Variations. But in this instance, my goal was not to impress the listeners with displays of virtuosity or musical prowess, only to convey musical expression in a genuine way.
This is one of the greatest musical challenges! Fortunately, I had a great Baldwin SF-10 grand piano to inspire the performance with its beautiful sound. Please feel free to leave your thoughts about this subject.
Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Storeinfo@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Why are Hamburg Steinways so hard to find?” Steinway was started by German immigrants as an American company and later started building pianos both in New York and Hamburg, Germany.
The reason why they are so scarce in North America is because the New York factory services our whole hemisphere: North America, South America, and Central America. The Hamburg factory supplies pianos to Europe and Asia. So, there are very few over here and if you want to get one through the Steinway dealer network, it is going to cost a premium. The ones there are earmarked for their market and there are challenges to overcome such as overseas shipping. Something else is to consider is being able to buy Euros with Dollars which can increase costs as well..
There are a lot of reasons why they are very difficult to buy in North America and really scarce. Some people wonder, if they are better. That’s a whole other subject for you which I cover on the following video:
Musical expression is the personal take a musician has on the music they perform. It’s a uniquely individual experience. What do I mean by the term, “infinite expression” and how can you apply this to your music? Let’s start by explaining the two concepts of infinity and how they can relate to music.
The first concept of infinity is the idea of moving endlessly in any direction.
For example, if you go out into space and just keep going in any direction, you could theoretically go on forever. So, when it comes to music, what if you were to allow the music to flow in any direction with no limits? In the video included with this article, I demonstrate this concept with Chopin’s A flat Ballade No.3, Op.47.
If you listen to the piece in the video you might have an interesting response. Those who are intimately familiar with the piece would probably not be pleased with the performance. However, those of you who are new to the piece might have a more positive response. How can this be? In the context of the whole piece, adding so many liberties with timing, expression and voicing with infinite expression causes the music to go in so many different directions that it would be unsustainable. The whole piece wouldn’t hold together. It’s impossible to maintain the music cohesiveness for the duration of the piece playing in this manner. Infinite expression in this sense simply doesn’t work for classical performance.
The second concept of infinity is the idea of going halfway to a destination again and again repeatedly.
This presents another concept of infinity. Your musical framework allows for minute levels of expression and detail which is truly limitless. The nuance of each note, the levels and the balance of each chord, there are an infinite number of possibilities to add more character and expression to your performance. This concept of infinity can be applied to musical expression. This might sound like a complex concept, and it is, but I have provided an example of this type of performance in the video included in this article as well.
If you listen to the second performance in the video, you will notice how it contrasts with the first performance. While there are an infinite number of gradations of tone, balance and expression, there is a continuity that holds the music together.
I could play that section over again and again and never play it the same way twice!
Adding subtle details to different elements allows you to create character and expression while potentially never repeating yourself – a truly infinite form of expression.
Adding subtle details to your music within a framework allows for infinite possibilities in your music while still maintaining the intentions of the composer and the structure of the music. Yet with this concept, you can still add your own unique voice and expression to everything you perform. When you look at your performances in this way, it’s incredibly exciting – you can truly play a piece thousands of times and always add something fresh and creative.
I hope you have enjoyed this video and I encourage you to experiment with this type of expression in your music. Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
Hi, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, the question today is: Why are Steinways so expensive? I’m sitting in front of a concert grand Steinway that costs new over $200,000. Can you believe it? You might wonder, are they really worth that? Why do they have to cost so much? After all, you can get brand new pianos for less than $10,000. What’s up? Why are they so expensive? Well, there are a lot of reasons and we are going to get into it right now.
First of all, Steinways are created to be the finest pianos possible. They are made with the best materials with highly skilled labor and have a long, rich history of piano manufacturing. There are a number of piano companies mostly in Germany, that make pianos on an extremely high level and cost as much as Steinway. On top of that,
Steinway in New York uses all union labor.
New York union labor! New York City labor – can you imagine the cost of that? The real estate in New York is incredibly expensive and all the woods and other materials are also premium quality which doesn’t come cheap.
More than that, even though they’ve been doing very well and had a banner year, they only built and sold about 1,100 pianos last year. They sold every one they built, which is a good thing! So, there is a demand for these pianos. Steinway does have the distinction of being extremely sought after both new and used. So dealers don’t typically discount them, or have to discount them, they sell all the ones they can possibly build as it is. Whereas other top-tier pianos, often times dealers have to discount them some in order to be able to sell them.
The Steinway name is so powerful because they essentially own the concert market.
No other companies can support concert grands in every major city in the world. That’s a very expensive endeavor at $200,000 a pop! Even in the used market, Steinways cost more than any other top-tier piano. It is partially because of the name. Also, the quality, the workmanship, and the materials are all top-notch. It is the same reason why, for example, a Toyota or Lexus has one price, but a Rolls Royce costs a lot more since they are not mass-produced.
That’s the long and short of it as to why Steinway costs so much. If you are looking for that Steinway sound and the Steinway performance and a piano that you can keep for generations, it could be worth it to you. Thanks so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
I explained how some 100+ year old pianos that have lived in a stable environment in regards to temperature and humidity, barely played, yet serviced on a regular basis can be like new! The flip side of this are pianos that live at the beach and get rusted out, or pianos in the desert with cracked soundboards. There are also pianos from schools which are worn out after just a few years. But there is another element to this.
There are certain eras of production of specific piano companies that are known for being either particularly stellar years of production, or conversely, years where quality was not up to par. However, this isn’t to suggest that every piano from a good period of production is a gem and every piano made during a lesser period of production is a dog. It’s more of a law of averages. Even brand new pianos of the same make and model have unique characteristics of sound and touch.
There are other things to consider. If a supposedly good period of production was many decades ago, it calls into question where the piano has lived, how much wear there is, as well as any major work that may have been done on the piano and the quality of the work.
You also have to consider that some piano companies have improved over the years. For example, there are many Chinese piano companies today making good pianos that didn’t even exist just a few decades ago! Even Japanese pianos were not up to an export quality of production until well into the 20th century.
So, the age of a piano matters, but it is a more complex subject than you may have thought. You are always welcome to contact us here at info@LivingPianos.com for answers to any of your piano questions! Robert Estrin 949-244-3729
When I first thought of this question, I was interested in what information was available from Google and on Youtube. I was surprised to find that there isn’t much information available on this subject! This is a really important subject for anyone who has studied Chopin Waltzes or Mazurkas. Chopin wrote a thick book of Mazurkas as well as a big book of Waltzes. These staples of the piano repertoire are stupendous pieces of music!
The Differences and Similarities of Waltzes and Mazurkas
First, there’s a great deal that Waltzes and Mazurkas have in common. Waltzes and Mazurkas were both dance forms of the 19th century. They are also both in ¾ time. So, what makes them different? In this video, I’m going to demonstrate the B-minor Waltz and the B-flat major Mazurka so you can hear them for yourself to see if you can figure out what’s different about them. Since they are both based upon dance forms in 3/4 time, you might wonder what sets them apart.
In a nutshell, the difference between Waltzes and Mazurkas is which beats are accented!
Let’s start with a Waltz. They typically have a strong first beat. The third beat is also somewhat strong, but the first beat is the strongest beat. In a Mazurka, the emphasis is on the second beat. On the accompanying video you will hear complete performances of the B-minor Waltz and the B-flat major Mazurka with all of the changes of sections. You can listen for the accented first beat in the waltz as well as the somewhat prominent third beat.
When listening to the Mazurka, notice the strong second beat. I chose these particular selections for you because they have similar tempos and are both energetic pieces. Some Waltzes have a solemn mood with slower tempos while there are Mazurkas which are highly introspective. They can be quite deep pieces of music. They’re well worth listening to and I may present these in future videos. I hope you get a sense of the fundamental differences between Waltzes and Mazurkas. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store 949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com
