Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. This is one of the most important concepts you can apply to your piano practice: you need to think in words. That might sound strange at first. After all, when you’re playing music, especially in performance, you want to let go of verbal thought and just feel the music. You want to be in a state of flow. But when you’re practicing, it’s a different story.

Where Verbal Thinking Matters Most

There is one critical time when using words can make all the difference. That’s the moment between repetitions. After you’ve played something once, before you play it again, you should pause and clearly state what you want to be different. Use real, concrete language. Say it out loud if it helps.

Too often, I see students finish a phrase, realize it didn’t sound quite right, and immediately dive back in. But they haven’t taken the time to figure out what they’re actually trying to improve. They’re just hoping the next try will be better. Do you ever find yourself doing that?

Define What Needs to Change

Let’s say you’ve just played a phrase. The notes were correct, but it sounded flat and lifeless. Before you try again, stop and think: what could make it better? You might say, “I want to add a gentle decrescendo at the end of this phrase.” That gives your next repetition a clear purpose.

Maybe after trying again, you realize it still needs work. Now you might say, “I want the phrase to start softer, build gradually, then fall away at the end.” This is how real musical shaping happens—by clearly defining your goals, one step at a time.

Repeating Without Intention Doesn’t Help

Mindless repetition is one of the biggest mistakes students make. If you play something over and over without deciding what needs to change, you’re often just reinforcing bad habits. Even if it sounds better by chance, how will you know what worked if you weren’t sure what you were aiming for? That’s why thinking in words matters so much. It forces you to practice with intention.

Practice with a Clear Mindset

Whenever you’re practicing to improve something, stop after each attempt and ask yourself: what do I want to change? Be specific. Don’t just say, “I want it to sound better.” Say, “I want a smoother legato,” or “I need to bring out the melody more in the right hand.” This simple habit transforms your practice. It makes every repetition count. You’ll waste less time, and your progress will be much more focused.

Let Yourself Just Play—But Know the Difference

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with just sitting down and playing for enjoyment. I do that too. It’s one of the joys of being a pianist! But when you’re practicing, draw a clear line. Practice is where you stop, reflect, and decide what you want to improve. Let that guide each repetition.

Try this in your next practice session. Pause between attempts, speak your intentions in clear words, and see how much more effective your work becomes. It’s a small change that can lead to big results.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin, and today I’m responding to a great viewer question. Someone asked if I could do an updated explanation of dotted rhythms, specifically using the first bars of Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata as an example. They mentioned still struggling to count the dotted rhythms there—and frankly, I understand. You’d be surprised how many performances of the Pathétique have imprecise rhythm at the opening!

How to Count the Rhythm Accurately

The first few measures of the Pathétique Sonata are instantly recognizable, but they require real rhythmic discipline to play correctly. Here’s the trick: you need to understand where the beats fall—and more importantly, where the subdivisions lie. I’ll often count while practicing, just to show the placement. But that’s just a means to an end. What you really need is to internalize the pulse and subdivide accurately.

Let’s say you’re just counting quarter notes—that’s a good start, but it’s not enough. If you rely solely on that, you’ll find it nearly impossible to keep tempo consistent when playing those dotted rhythms. Instead, you must feel both the main beat and the subdivisions—those quicker underlying pulses that help you place notes precisely.

Subdivision: The Key to Rhythmic Accuracy

For example, when you break down that opening rhythm, you’re really working with eighth notes. You need to feel them internally—even if you’re not playing every one. By subdividing, you’re able to execute those dotted rhythms with clarity and confidence. While subdividing the 32nd notes, you keep the larger 8th note beat in mind so your tempo doesn’t drift. That’s the balancing act: subdividing accurately while maintaining the pulse of the larger beats.

Playing Piano Is No Easy Feat!

This is what makes playing the piano so challenging—and so rewarding! You’re juggling multiple layers of awareness all at once. People often ask why the piano is considered so difficult. Well, imagine trying to keep rhythm, phrasing, dynamics, and finger technique all aligned in your two hands—and that’s just one passage!

The Secret? Break It Down

The good news is there’s a method to the madness. Whether you’re working on rhythm, sight-reading, memorization, technique, or theory, the secret is to break everything down into manageable steps. That’s the heart of my teaching: showing how to approach each of these pillars with a structured, clear methodology.

I’m Robert Estrin. Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Legato octaves can be one of the most beautiful expressive tools in piano playing—if you know how to approach them correctly. Today, I want to share a technique that can be a breakthrough for you. I was working with a student on the middle section of Chopin’s Nocturne in B-flat minor. This tip transformed his playing, and I think it could help many of you, too!

The Usual Approach to Legato Octaves

If you’ve worked on legato octaves before, you probably know the general technique: using the fourth and fifth fingers on the top notes, and for those with larger hands, even the third finger at times to maintain legato on the top notes of the right hand (or the bottom notes of the left hand). That’s solid advice—and I’ve covered it in earlier videos. But today, I want to go a step further and share something counterintuitive, yet incredibly effective.

The Real Secret: Abandon Your Thumb!

Don’t try to connect the thumb. In fact, you should purposely disconnect the thumb. Why? Because when you try to connect the thumb from one octave to the next, something strange happens: you end up connecting nothing at all. The thumb is simply not capable of connecting from note to note in this context. It’s physically impossible. Instead, focus entirely on the top note of the octave. That’s where the melody lives. Use your fourth finger on black keys, to get the smooth connection you’re after.

Disconnecting the Thumb Creates Better Sound

There’s another benefit to this approach: it actually sounds better. When you stop trying to connect the thumb, you can shift your weight into your pinky and fourth fingers. That gives the top note of the octave more presence and warmth.

Here’s the comparison:

• With equal weight on both thumb and pinky, the sound tends to flatten out—especially in softer passages.

• With more weight in the pinky and the thumb playing detached, the sound becomes more lyrical and fluid.

Practice Tip: Exaggerate at First

The best way to learn this technique is to practice without the pedal and deliberately detach the thumb. That may feel extreme at first, but it ensures you’re not unintentionally trying to connect the thumb and compromising the top line.

Try this:

Play just the right hand (or whichever hand the octaves are in).

Play the thumb with a gentle staccato.

Focus all your attention on putting weight into your fourth and fifth fingers, particularly in softer passages.

Once that feels natural, you can ease up on how short the thumb plays, but that initial practice will build the foundation.

Isolating the Right Hand

To clarify further, I recommend playing just the right hand (or whichever hand has octaves). You’ll notice how lifting the thumb slightly earlier makes all the difference. It allows you to play beautifully connected top lines in your octaves and avoid tension.

Adding the Pedal Back In

Now that your hand is doing what it should, you can add the pedal. And voilà—you’ll hear a clear, connected top line floating beautifully over the harmony. That’s the power of not trying to do the impossible – not trying to connect the thumb since it is playing all the notes and can’t possibly connect.

So remember:

• Don’t try to connect the thumb in legato octaves—it can’t be done.

• Focus entirely on the top notes, using fourth and possibly third finger where possible.

• Put more weight into the pinky, and back off the thumb, particularly in quiet playing.

• Practice first without the pedal to really hear what’s going on.

• You’ll be amazed at how much smoother and more expressive your octaves become. Try this technique with Chopin’s B-flat minor Nocturne or any piece that calls for legato octaves—and let me know how it goes!

I’m Robert Estrin. Welcome to LivingPianos.com. In this second excerpt from my interview with Zsolt Bognár, I share the journey that led to the creation of Living Pianos—how a lifelong passion for performance, teaching, and technology came together in unexpected ways. If you’d like to hear the full story, be sure to watch the complete interview
here.

Zsolt Bognár:

So I’m curious to break this down in terms of how you perceive your musical balance. Being a pianist, making all these videos, producing and editing them. You teach over 30 students, and you’re selling pianos.

Robert Estrin:

Growing up I always had a lot of interests, but a real passion for music. My father, although he was professor of music at Hofstra University, he did the lion’s share of his teaching in a very large studio in the back of our home, where he had two grand pianos and theory classes and recitals.

“I was intimately involved with my father’s students, and many of them were incredibly accomplished, more so than I was.”

I’ve always had very small hands, and as a kid my hands were very weak and with spaghetti fingers, and even reaching an octave, even at the age of 13, was a struggle. So in terms of, you know, goals, I wasn’t like a child prodigy. But, you know, I always felt music would always be a part of my life. But I didn’t have any specific career ambitions. All I knew was I loved to perform. Performing has always been a passion of mine, and trying to figure out how to incorporate that into a life, into a career, of course, took many decades to figure out one path. And for many, many years,

it always seemed like there was an inverse proportional relationship between what was rewarding financially and what was artistically rewarding.

I started teaching in high school, assisting my father in his teaching, as my sister did before me, and she’s incidentally a pianist and a teacher right here in the Cleveland area, which we can get into as well. But I knew that I did not want to just teach, and yet, when I graduated from conservatory, what was the obvious thing? I had been teaching since high school, and my part-time job through college was teaching and accompanying. So that’s how I made my living initially. But I had so many other interests.

So I expanded into a recording studio, which I put in my lower level of my home, and I did music production and composing for film and video, and I just always was expanding and expanding and expanding for a long, long time. But it wasn’t ultimately gratifying.

“I tried to figure out what I could possibly do in order to further my performing, and that’s when I came up with Living Piano.”

I go from three distinct periods: the ultimate harpsichord, the earliest piano that really was catching on, and then the modern piano. And I performed that dozens of times all over the state of California. And that was a way that I was able to promote my performing while bringing something that’s more than just another concert. It’s something you could talk about. And I got written up in papers and blogs because it was something fresh and new in music and with the piano, which is really a challenge. And that’s really when I turned the corner.

“I actually started making piano videos in the late 90s.”

A company in Irvine called Digevent engaged me along with a guitar and drum show for Keyboard Kaleidoscope, and I did 50 shows. They were one-hour live internet shows, cutting edge for the time, that I did for a year every week. I did many different topics. And yet they didn’t take off. They ended up getting sold to another company, and they never could get traction with these live events. They engaged us to do these shows, but it was a pitifully small audience, and I think it was because most people didn’t have the high-speed internet to be able to enjoy it and to partake in such a thing. But by the early 2000s the internet was working for people, and broadband was now becoming more ubiquitous.

“I always loved to make videos anyway. So I just started making them, and I kind of went all in on it.”

First, I engaged a young man who was a friend of my daughter’s who had just graduated from film school—Chapman University—and he wanted to do a showcase of his talent. So he made a documentary of my Living Piano: Journey Through Time Historic Concert Experience. And from there, little by little, he started doing more and more for me with my website until he ended up being full-time.

“Living Piano, the show, grew into Living Pianos because I had always been selling pianos, from the time I graduated from conservatory, because of teaching.”

Students would call me for lessons, and the first question I’d ask is, “Do you have a piano?” And half the time they would say no. And I would tell them, honestly, you’re better off with a piano and no lessons than lessons and no piano. So that’s when I started, looking for pianos I could have refurbished and sell, and there was such a big demand for this that I just always had extra pianos in my home. We ended up with this big live-work loft with, dozens of pianos. And so that always grew.

I’m Robert Estrin. Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Today I want to share something truly exciting with you—something I use every day in my own musical life. If you’ve seen my videos, you’ve probably noticed I often read music on my iPad. So what’s my go-to source for digital sheet music?

Virtual Sheet Music: The Original Innovator

I’ve been using Virtual Sheet Music for years. They were pioneers in the industry, dating all the way back to the 1990s. In fact, they were the first company to offer a truly viable alternative to printed sheet music. Over the years, the platform has continued to improve—but now, they’ve taken things to an entirely new level.

A Vast Library with Incredible Features

At first glance, Virtual Sheet Music already impresses with its extensive library and beautifully formatted sheet music. It’s incredibly easy to find what you’re looking for. But there’s much more under the hood. For almost any piece you find, you can not only view the music but also listen to it. Many titles include audio playback, and some even come with video tutorials and additional educational resources. The depth of available material varies depending on the piece, but what’s offered is always substantial.

Tools to Practice Smarter

Virtual Sheet Music offers some powerful playback tools. You can:

Adjust the playback speed

Loop specific sections to focus on tricky passages

Really dig into the music and absorb it fully

These features make it a phenomenal practice tool, not just for listening, but for learning.

Search and Explore with Ease

Let’s say you search for Flight of the Bumblebee. You’ll be amazed at how many different arrangements are available! From standard solo versions to unexpected combinations—piccolo and tuba, anyone? The flexibility is just mind-blowing.

Customize Your Own Arrangements

Here’s where things get really exciting. Suppose you want to arrange a piece for a custom ensemble. With just a few clicks, you can:

Choose your instruments

Instantly transpose the piece into any key

Make edits and tailor the arrangement to your needs

Export and print it—all without needing to learn a complex notation program

It’s that intuitive!

Play It Your Way

Once you’ve customized your music, you can:

Adjust the tempo

Choose your instruments

Playback your personalized arrangement in real time

It’s like having a full arranging and playback studio built right into your music viewer.

AI Assistant: Your Musical Companion

One of the newest features is the built-in AI assistant. It’s like having a knowledgeable teacher sitting right next to you.

Type in a question like “How do I practice scales on the piano?” and you’ll get a full, detailed regimen tailored to your needs. Want to learn about a specific composer or piece? Just ask! For example, you can inquire about Massenet or the origin of Meditation, and get instant, accurate answers.

You can even ask about the key of a piece or music theory topics like chord structure or transposition.

A Powerful Metronome Built In

Let’s not forget the built-in metronome. It’s one of the best online metronomes I’ve ever seen. It has precise settings that progress correctly: 72, 76, 80… perfect for gradually increasing your tempo. It’s straightforward, yet powerful.

Accompaniment and More

Need an accompanist? No problem. Choose a piece with accompaniment, then:

Start playback

Loop a section

Practice hands separately or together

You also get access to music theory tutorials, from note reading to more advanced topics like seventh chords and inversions. Whether you’re brushing up on basics or diving into deeper study, the resources are all there.

A Membership That Pays for Itself

I’ve been a member for years, and I can tell you—it’s worth it. Sure, there are other places to get sheet music online, but nothing compares to the ease of use and flexibility that Virtual Sheet Music offers.

Best of all? Around 99% of the music I use is included for free with membership. Some recently copyrighted material may have a small fee, but even then, you’ll get a generous discount.

Bonus Features for Performers

If you’re using an iPad (like I do), you can turn pages with a foot pedal. But Virtual Sheet Music goes even further: you can actually set it to turn pages with a tilt of your head—right to go forward, left to go back! It’s incredibly useful for live performances or smooth practice sessions.

The Bottom Line

Virtual Sheet Music is perfect for anyone serious about their music. Whether you’re a student, teacher, or performer, you’ll find this platform brings all the music you love right to your fingertips.

I’m thrilled to share this with you, and I hope you give it a try. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. I’m here to help!

I’m Robert Estrin. Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Improving your piano playing doesn’t have to feel mysterious or overwhelming. When you understand the core elements of the process, real progress becomes not only possible but enjoyable. We’re going to break it down into the essential elements: reading music, learning music, refining music, and developing your technique. If you embrace the process in each of these areas, you can make huge strides in your playing in a short amount of time.

The Problem: Wanting It All Now

Here’s the problem. You sit down to practice or play something, and you just want it all now. The temptation is to try to skip the steps, thinking that you’ll get there faster. But in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Let’s start with reading. You want to develop your reading so you can sit down and enjoy playing music at sight. And what a joy that is! You see people do this and think, “I should be able to do that.” So you take out your favorite Chopin or Debussy or Beethoven, and you struggle. You don’t get to the enjoyment part. It’s deflating. It makes you feel like you just can’t do it, and you put it away feeling dejected. The good news is, while there’s a lot of great and very complex piano music, there’s also great music at a simpler level that you can enjoy right now. If you start playing music on your level, you’ll build up gradually. Play something you can feel the satisfaction of doing well. Do that every day, and your reading will grow. Try reading with other musicians. That’s a great way to improve. Eventually, yes, you’ll be able to read the music you’ve always wanted to play. But start at a realistic level, and don’t feel it’s beneath you to do simpler music. Don’t think you won’t gain anything from it. You absolutely will if you play it well. That’s the key to developing your reading.

Learning Music

Learning music is much the same idea. Choose music that won’t take you six months or a year to learn. You could learn dozens of pieces in that time. That way, you’re incrementally increasing both the difficulty and your command of the music.

When you sit down to practice, you see a whole piece with several pages and think, “Oh my gosh, I better learn as much of this as I can.” So you work through the first page again and again, trying to take it all in. But that’s way too much to absorb at one time. Worse, you start developing bad habits by playing music again and again—not the way you want it to sound—thinking you’ll make it sound better later. That’s a big fallacy. Instead, take tiny chunks of music. If you watched me practice, you’d be astounded at how small the sections are that I work on. I break things down into digestible pieces, work hands separately, then together—methodically. I resist the temptation to just read through the piece again and again when it’s not sounding the way I ultimately want it to. I read through the piece only on the first day. After that, I get right down to work. You should do the same. Don’t feel like you’ve wasted time just because you’ve only learned four measures in a practice session.

Look through your music. You’ll be amazed at how much repetition there is. Repetition and development are the foundations of music composition. So by learning thoroughly, you allow the story of the music to unfold naturally. Like reading a book, one part leads to the next. Learn one small section. Understand the logic of that section. Perfect it. Move to the next section. Connect them. Each day, reinforce what you learned the previous days. Instead of trying to take on more than you can absorb in one sitting, try this method for just one week. Resist the urge to read through everything. Limit yourself to small sections at a time, and you’ll see real growth.

Refining Your Playing

Now, what about refinement? You might think, “I’ve got all this music—I’ve got to get it to a higher level.” So you try to go through everything just to keep it in your fingers. But if you’re not careful, that can work against you. If you’ve already learned the music but it’s not where you want it yet, go slower than you think you need to. Anything you play wrong, you’re going to have to unlearn later. So go very slowly. Better yet, focus on digestible sections of music for refinement. Maybe the first few lines of your piece are fine, but when you get to the fourth or fifth line, there’s a four-measure phrase that just isn’t coming together. With laser focus, practice just those four measures. Use your metronome. Find the speed at which you can play it absolutely perfectly and with confidence. Once you can do that, increase the tempo one notch at a time. You won’t even feel it! You’ll get those four measures up to speed, then connect them with the previous section. Move on to the next part that needs attention. Don’t work scattershot. Focus 90% of your effort on the 10% of music that needs it most. You’ll make far greater progress, and the quality of your playing will soar.

Practicing Technique

Now let’s talk about pure technique. Scales, arpeggios—you might think, “I hate doing that. I don’t want to spend hours on this.” The good news is, you don’t have to! Just spend a few minutes a day. Maybe you’ve worked on scales and arpeggios before, but they’re rusty. Or maybe you’ve never learned all of them, and now it feels overwhelming. After all, there are 12 major keys, 12 minor keys, harmonic and melodic minors, and arpeggios. It’s a lot. But don’t be overwhelmed! Focus on one scale for a whole week. What’s the hurry? You’ve got a lifetime to develop your playing. That’s really the point of all of this: embrace the process. Don’t feel rushed. Don’t feel like you have to accomplish everything every day. Focus on a small amount of music. Bring a high level of playing to just a little bit of music. That mastery will carry over to everything else you play. You’ll gain insights into how to conquer music. You’ll feel the comfort that comes from truly being in control of your reading, your learning, and your technique. Take it one bit at a time. Build day by day. Don’t feel overwhelmed. Focus on what needs the most work. You’ll see your playing rise to a level you never imagined.

I’m Robert Estrin. Welcome to LivingPianos.com. If you’ve been studying piano for any amount of time, you’ve probably asked yourself this question: Why is the left hand so hard? Well, you’re definitely not alone. It’s something pianists on all levels wrestle with. Let’s dive into the reasons why the left hand tends to feel more difficult and what’s really going on under the surface.

Right-Hand Dominance: The Most Obvious Reason

Most people are right-handed. That means the right hand is generally stronger, more coordinated, and more naturally adept at fine motor movements. So it makes sense that the right hand feels easier at the piano. But that’s just the beginning.

The Melody is in the Right Hand

When you’re learning a piece like Mozart’s Sonata in C Major, K. 545, what stands out? The melody. And where is the melody? Almost always in the right hand.

The left hand, in contrast, often plays the accompaniment—the harmonic and rhythmic foundation. Try playing the left hand of that piece by itself. It might not even sound like much on its own. That’s because it’s not designed to stand alone. The melody is what we latch onto by ear, and learning something tuneful is always easier.

Reading the Bass Clef: An Early Challenge

When you’re just starting out, reading notes in the bass clef is a challenge on its own. It’s generally easier to count up the musical alphabet from middle C than it is to go down into the bass register. That alone makes the left hand harder in the beginning. But even after you become fluent in reading bass clef, the left hand still often feels more difficult. So while reading may be part of the initial struggle, it’s far from the whole picture.

The Left Hand Plays Larger Intervals

I’m Robert Estrin. Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Are you struggling to break a bad practice habit? Science might have the answer for you. Let’s explore how to replace detrimental habits with effective techniques.

Understanding the Habit Loop

Understanding the habit loop—cue, routine, reward—can help you identify and alter unwanted behaviors. Replacing a bad habit with a positive one that offers a similar reward is key. Let’s discuss strategies to rewire your brain for better practice habits.

Implementing Change

By applying this approach, you can transform detrimental habits into productive ones, paving the way for continuous improvement. For example, if you find that you aren’t implementing practice of scales and arpeggios in your practice, but you see the value in this, try putting your Hanon book right in the center of your music rack and make it a new daily routine to start with just five or ten minutes of scales and arpeggios. It’s simply the act of starting that makes all the difference in the world. Once you do this for several days, it becomes routine, which is exactly the point! You can do this with almost anything in your piano practice, as well as in your life.

By understanding and applying the science of habit formation, you can effectively overcome bad habits and cultivate a more productive and fulfilling practice routine.