All posts by Robert Estrin

How to Learn a New Piece of Music on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. This is Robert Estrin. Today the subject is, how to approach a new piece of music on the piano. I randomly opened this big fat book of Chopin Mazurkas to the Mazurka in A-flat Opus 24 No. 3. I do not know this piece. I literally flipped through the book, and we’re going to see what happens.

The first thing you want to do when you’re approaching a new piece of music is to sight read it through to get acquainted with it. There’s a fundamental difference in the way you’d sight read a piece when you’re playing it for someone, or certainly when you’re accompanying someone where you have to keep everything moving. If you’re playing with someone else, you must stay together. When sight reading a piece for someone, you do the best you can even though you may have to flesh some of it out leaving out some inner notes. You must surmise what it should sound like and do the best you can. But in this case, when you’re reading to get acquainted (not playing for or with someone), you want to make sure you’re playing everything accurately, even if you have to play slower.

So, I want to start off and sight read this piece. I’m going to do it the way I would if I was playing it for someone and when it starts, maybe I’ll know if I’ve heard this Mazurka before! You can listen on the accompanying video.

That went pretty well. But at this point you will notice, it wasn’t entirely accurate. I was sort of getting the chord changes. Since there is a repeated section, I’m going to stop. If I was playing it for somebody, I’d make my way through it, perhaps not using the best fingering and not quite getting all the notes. However, if I was reading this to get acquainted with it, I wouldn’t do that. Instead, I would take it slowly figuring out the exact notes. I would figure out how to negotiate the music properly. I wouldn’t get too hung up because I wouldn’t want to start practicing yet. I just want to get acquainted. So, you have to draw the line of how far to go with your reading in order to get a sense of the music, yet not start pounding out wrong notes and cementing mistakes. So let’s see how to approach learning a new piece.

I am going to use no pedal so I can hear everything clearly. This will give a sense of the harmony. I had it mostly right! I did spot a double flat that I had missed.

The first time I went through it, it wasn’t perfect, but it was like a performance at least. So if somebody wanted to hear the piece, it could be satisfying for them because I wasn’t stopping and starting all the time. However, when you’re approaching a new piece of music, you want to take a moment to make sure you’re playing the correct notes, the correct harmonies. Double check your accidentals and things of that nature.

Now, the next step, after you’ve read through the whole piece in the matter I’ve described, you really don’t want to read the piece ever again, if you want to read pieces, pick another Marzuka or another piece of music entirely. Why is this? If you continue to sight read the piece, unless you played it perfectly, the first time through, you’re going to continue to miss things. And even though I played fairly accurately most of the piece the first time, there are all kinds of details on the score that are essential for the piece that are important such as, the exact place where slurs end, where dynamic start and end, and other fine details. Composers aren’t haphazard with these details. These are intrinsic to the composition and must be learned meticulously.

The very next thing to do after the precursory reading, is to go to the very beginning and break it down to the smallest possible elements checking everything. I could probably start from the beginning and read it through five or six times and sort of know it and then I could go back and keep reconstructing the score trying to fill in the details I didn’t quite get. But that’s not very effective practice.

On a piece like this, I might be able to get away with it honestly, because I can almost read it! But if I was learning a Bach fugue or a late Beethoven Sonata, or a piece of Ravel, there’s no way that method would work! So, you might as well use this practice technique with everything you learn which is the method I described in a video years ago that’s worth watching.

I’m just going to show you that here with this piece. The very next thing I would do if I was learning this piece, even if it was a piece of Mozart which is relatively easy to memorize, is to break it down as follows.

Start at the beginning taking just the right hand, the very, first tiny phrase.

Believe it or not, that’s all you should take because you can learn that really quickly and it’s satisfying. You will notice things like how the music starts with a decrescendo, and then you have a decrescendo. Also, the very first note starts with an accent. That doesn’t take very long to learn, so you might as well get all these details learned right away.

You want to check your work constantly as you go. Work out the fingering as well as the notes, the phrasing and the expression – everything!

Before moving on, be sure everything is solid. Play it until it becomes automatic and you don’t even have to think about it!

Next, you take the left hand. Solidify the music until it is memorized.

Check everything over and make sure there are no other markings, no indications of expression or phrasing that you may have missed.

Before putting the hands together, refresh your memory of the right-hand part you learned earlier.

Make sure you still remember it. Check it with the score once more. You might wonder why you need to go through such tremendous pains to learn a piece of music. It’s because you never want to have to unlearn something. You must make sure you are learning things correctly.

Next is the hardest parts – putting the hands together!

It’s important to put the hands together from memory the first time. You must challenge yourself even if you have to play much slower. Again, check your work with the score. You will hear subtle differences when you follow details precisely.

Finally, you add the pedal – That’s your reward for a job well done!

Keep playing until you are happy with your performance. Then you can go on to the next phrase and learn it the same way.

If you practice this way, you will be able to play your music exactly as you intend it to sound.

By taking very small phrases, you can spoonfeed the music to yourself. This is important because you can practice like this all day long because it’s relatively easy. Where if you try to memorize eight measure phrases or 16 measure phrases, you may be able to do it. But it would take so long that you may be limited in how many phrases you can emass in one practice session. However, you can work through this entire piece of two measure phrases and never get mentally tired. And better than that, you know it’s secure since you’re looking at every detail and solidifying as you go..

Next, you want to put the phrases together from the beginning.

First, refresh your memory of the first phrase you learned earlier. Check your work with the score. Play many times until it is secure from memory putting the two phrases together. Now you can reward yourself playing with the pedal!

So, that is the secret of productive piano practice. You must take your time focusing your attention on all the details as you learn. Remember, first read through the piece, a little bit more carefully than you’d read it if you were just reading it for somebody or accompanying somebody certainly. Take the time to make sure you have all the notes and at least have an idea of places you need to work out fingering later, even if you can’t quite get it initially. And then get to work and practice. Don’t take more than you can bite off at a time. If you’re taking more than a minute to learn something, you’re taking too much, because that way you can learn something every single minute of your practice and make it really productive and sustain a long practice. Even if you could read through the whole piece a bunch of times and almost have it memorized, and almost is the key word here, you don’t want to do that. You want it to be learned perfectly. You want to get every last detail of the score because that’s what makes it sound so beautiful!

Chopin was a master and crafted his music taking advantage of every marking in the score. Don’t get used to playing it wrong, because the correct phrasing and expression and fingering are going to bring the piece to life.

I hope this has been enlightening for you and you see the way I work and I recommend that you try it with your music. You can go through the whole piece connecting phrases as you go, memorising first just after you’ve just read through it and you won’t believe the difference it will make it your practice.

I hope that’s been helpful for you again, this is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store. info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

Can You Create Music in Your Sleep?

Every day, the first thing I do when I get up is to go to the piano and play music – often times before I’ve even gotten dressed! After an entire night, there is always fresh music percolating in my head. Sometimes I play music in my dreams. It can be something from my classical repertoire. Other times it is music that comes to me while I am sleeping!

Is it good to play the piano first thing in the morning? I believe there are great benefits to playing when you first arise. Before you have to deal with the myriad tasks that are demanded of you, taking a moment to enjoy the beauty of music starts your day with fresh creativity that stays with you! It also gives you an opportunity to limber up your hands for further play and practice.

In the accompanying video, you will hear an improvisation that I played first thing in the morning. Hope you enjoy it!

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

Can You Tune Your Piano with a Machine?

Let’s get some historical context to this question. When I was growing up, if we saw a piano tuner come into a home carrying a strobe tuner, and that’s all that was available at that time, well, you knew right away that you had basically an incompetent tuner. Why is this? Because the technology at the time wasn’t accurate enough to take into account so many aspects of tuning a piano, like stretch-tuning.

What is stretch-tuning?

If a piano is mathematically, perfectly in tune, it’s actually out of tune because your ears hear pitches in the high register flat. They have to be stretched. And the strobe tuner just does simple math, so it’s not going to sound right.

The technology has come a long way. Any really experienced tuner knows that you can’t tune a baby grand the same way you would tune a concert grand. In fact, each piano requires a different method of tuning. You may wonder, “Why is that?”

There’s something called overtones. The fundamental pitch, that is the pitch you hear when you strike a note, is only part of the sound, and there are overtones coloring the sound.

And those must also balance and mesh with other notes, so a small piano, for example, may have very strong overtones at a certain register, and those overtones have to sound good with fundamental pitches of higher notes. It’s very complicated.

How can machines possibly take that into account? By having virtual tunings of hundreds of first-class piano technicians, their models are loaded in the software. It’s possible to tune a piano with software like CyberTuner or TuneLab is another one. What they do is, first you punch in the size of the piano. The next thing is really interesting. It has you play all the octaves of the piano, one by one, so it hears where the piano is in pitch.

This is incredibly helpful because it can save vast amounts of time. Normally, if a piano is low in pitch, it takes a couple of passes, of pitch raises, because once you raise the pitch in one section, the other section goes out of tune, so it takes several tunings.

By playing all the notes of the piano, and it knows what size piano, it knows how much to stretch the tuning in different registers of the piano, so that by the time you’re done, it’s decently in tune. It’s pretty incredible technology.

Here’s the thing, though. Many tuners today use technology, but there are also tuners who tune completely by ear, and increasingly, I find that tuners utilize both because ultimately, there are decisions that can be made by a fine tuner, but checking the work and getting suggestions with the technology, nobody can complain about that, right?

If you think that maybe you can just take one of these software programs and be able to tune your piano, realize that not only is an arduous task, tuning a piano, but just setting the tuning pins and the strings so they’re going to hold, you’ve got to tune a lot of pianos in order to get to that point.

So you should have a healthy respect for your piano technician.

I hope this has been helpful for you. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

Can Weather Affect Your Music?

Living in Southern California, we are used to almost perfect weather. I remember when first moving to California, the weather broadcast seemed like a joke because every single day it was the same, perfect, “Disneyland” sky! So, the question is how weather affects your music.

There is an element of physiology involved. Naturally, if you suffer from joint problems, cold or wet weather may exacerbate your condition. More than that:

There are studies showing how sunlight can affect your mood through your body’s natural circadian rhythms.

What is so special today is that it is the first day in months that it hasn’t been rainy or at least cloudy here in “sunny” California! So, we are going to hear the impact this has on my music for you in the accompanying video. Hope you enjoy!

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

Letting Go of Ego in Your Music

Today’s show is intrinsically important for a wide range of people and careers, and it’s applicable to almost everything! The subject is, letting go of the ego in your music. You may wonder what I mean by that? In order to play a public performance, you have to have a great deal of confidence. I’m not talking about preparing a great deal to have the ability to go out in front of people and do your best. That’s important as long as it’s reality-based. Obviously, if you aren’t prepared, and you expect wonderful things to magically happen in performance, then you are somewhat delusional! But having confidence and going out with the right attitude, realizing that no one’s going to get hurt no matter what happens is necessary. Here is where the ego may enter into things.

You must understand that it’s not all about you.

Ultimately, when you perform, you want to be able to let go of how people are thinking and feeling about you, which seems kind of contradictory. You’re in front of people, you’re performing, but this doesn’t apply just for performing.

This relates to composing as well.

You may try composing music you think people want to hear. For example, you hear music that’s popular, that’s getting on a lot of playlists and you’re thinking, “Well maybe I should compose something like that.” This is really not an honest approach. You want to have personal conviction for what you do, and if you let go of the id and just be one with the music you can reach a much deeper level. of expression.

Where this is perhaps most challenging is not in composing where you have time to go over the score again and again and decide to burn it if it’s not an honest expression, or even performing where at least you get a chance to refine the music again and again and have a pretty good idea of what’s going to come out at your performance. But in improvisation where you really let go – that is a time that I find personally is the most intrinsically challenging in order to be honest in expression, because it’s so hard not to have that part looking down on you thinking, “Hey is that cool. Are people going to like that?”

It is necessary to have kind of two brains, the brain that’s doing and the brain that’s watching.

One example of that is at a live performance when you make sure you’re not getting too excited. You’re in front of an audience and things are going great and you’re taking a really fast tempo, possibly faster than you’ve ever taken before. You have to have that other part of yourself looking down in kind of a motherly or a fatherly way saying, “Be careful Bob, don’t get carried away!” keeping things under control even though it’s exciting. There is always that duality. But what I’m talking about is something not about watching over yourself in a caring way, but in an egotistical way, in a way that smacks of, “Am I showing how cool I am? Are those changes sophisticated enough to impress people? I hope people are blown away with my technique. Maybe I should take this section faster so people think I’m great.”

That is dangerous because it alienates the audience.

Audiences don’t care how good you are.

They just want to feel what you’re feeling and if you’re just feeling it’s all about you, then they’re not going to get the sense that you care about them.

On the accompanying video, I’m going to play an improvisation off the cuff with no preconceived notions – totally raw.

I have no idea what it’s going to be, and it is a little scary. It is like being emotionally naked, and I hope I can keep the internal chatter at bay and just give you an honest expression of what I’m feeling wherever it takes me. I don’t know where that will be until I play and get into it. So here we go, and this is all about getting rid of the ego in your music. Let’s see if I can achieve some sense of that here right now for you.

Well you know it’s a funny thing. I play freeform improvisations all the time and it’s so much easier to do them when not being put on the spot. I think I got some nice things there. I wish that everything I played was recorded because I’d love to share them with you! I’ll do more of these for you, because you never know what will come out.

The message today is to let go of the ego, and play from your heart without worrying about how you’re being judged. This goes for everything you do whether it’s writing, painting even talking to people in conversation. It’s not about showing off and showing how great you are – it’s about listening to people and trying to reach people because that’s all we have in this world ultimately, isn’t it? I hope this has been inspiring for you.

This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

Can Organists Play the Piano?

The organ and piano share a similar keyboard layout. So, you may wonder how easy it is for an organist to play the piano and for pianists to approach the organ. One of the first challenges pianists face playing the organ is being able to play melodies with their feet on the pedals of an organ!

Organist, Roger Chaussee is going to demonstrate playing on our 1927 Steinway model L grand piano. This model L has just been rebuilt with new strings, pinblock, hammers, and other action parts. You will hear Roger first explore the unique sonorities this instrument offers with something that is quite rare:

A Classical Improvisation!

Playing classical improvisations is almost a lost art but is something Roger and I both enjoy doing. You can see the beauty of the refinished cabinet and internals of this piano which look very much like it did nearly a century ago when it was originally manufactured.

One of the challenges of organists approaching the piano is the expressive possibilities of the touch of a piano since organs don’t respond to how hard or soft you depress the keys. Fortunately, Roger began his musical studies on the piano. So, you can enjoy his expressive playing of some original music in the accompanying video.

Pianists often times miss the aid of the sustain pedal when playing the organ.

Fortunately, pianists like myself practice the piano with no pedal a great deal making the transition to organ a bit more seamless. But the many registrations of sound possible on the organ offers a whole other level to explore!

I hope you enjoy this exploration of playing the piano and organ on this Steinway grand piano. Thanks for joining Roger and me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729