Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

Welcome back to my ongoing series featuring the Chopin Preludes. In past lessons I’ve given tips on Chopin Prelude No. 4 (E Minor) and Chopin Prelude No. 6 (B Minor). Like these past lessons, I will be providing a few tips for this Prelude. If you want more advanced lessons, you are in luck as I will be producing some advanced courses on selected repertoire very soon; to get more information please email me directly at Robert@LivingPianos.com.

The thing that makes this particular Prelude so special is that it’s short in length but rich in depth. So what is the best way to approach this piece?

You might have noticed that this piece is broken into short sections with slur markings over each phrase. If you watch the video attached to this article you will notice that I utilize a lifting motion to begin each phrase. I also employ a technique which brings out the top notes for more expressive playing.

Lifting is a method you must employ that replicates how wind and string instruments begin playing phrases. I have played the French horn for many years and one of the most striking differences between playing the piano and playing wind instruments is how you start the first note of a phrase. When playing the French horn, you have to prepare yourself for the first note by taking a big breath and starting the note with the tongue. On the piano you can play a note simply by pushing the key down! How can you prepare yourself to produce the precise sound you are after?

Here is a lifting technique that is simple and effective for beginning a phrase with the exact sound you have in mind:

First, start with a limp wrist, then bring your arm down to the keys while straightening up your wrist. This creates backwards leverage which produces a slower release of the note giving you more control. If you use this technique you will soon notice that you have absolute control over the start of your phrases.

In addition, each one of the phrases in this piece should have a rise and a fall – just like a breath. It is vital that you avoid remaining static with your playing; you should always be either rising or falling.

Bringing out the top notes is another extremely valuable technique for expressive playing. When you are playing quietly it is necessary to delineate the top notes to make them stand out; otherwise the melody gets lost. The general rule is, the quieter you play, the more difference there must be between melody and accompaniment. When you play louder, this isn’t a problem since top notes will come through. However, when you are playing quietly, you need to reach with your fingers to delineate the top notes and make them sing.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com. If you want more information on the upcoming advanced videos I have planned please email me.

This week we have a special presentation for you. I had the opportunity to interview Steinway artist: George Ko (www.georgeko.co) a professional pianist about how to select an instrument for a concert. We also discussed the piano industry in general. I hope you enjoy it. This is part of a continuing series of interviews with noted people in the piano world.

Welcome back to our ongoing series on technology and art. First we talked about Technology’s Impact on Music, next we discussed How Social Media and Technology Has Impacted Art and Music and today we are going to discuss the future of Music and Art in relation to advances in technology.

We can sit and wonder what music will sound like in the future but there is no definitive answer. All we can do is speculate based on past technological advances and how it impacted music through history. As instruments got louder, concert halls got bigger, ensembles got larger and music changed dramatically.

When recording and radio technologies were created, music continued to grow and expand. No longer would you have to be present for a performance – it could be re-created for you through recording and broadcast through radio signals into your home and eventually your car. Audiences could number in the millions – which was never possible before.

Multi-track recording would then change music again by offering new ways to record and collaborate. Now you didn’t even need musicians to be in the same room anymore for them to appear on a recording together – they could be in a different time and place and simply edit themselves into a track.

Despite all these advances, older music will never die. Throughout time there will still be people playing Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and all the music we know and love as Classical musicians. There will always be people honoring and immortalizing their works and it’s something that will probably stay true for every era of music – as long as someone keeps playing it the spirit, the sound, and the inspiration will never die.

So what does the future hold? As we’ve seen in the past, art is a form of expression that always seems to find a unique voice. One day someone will present something that you’ve never seen or heard before and they will find a unique voice within popular culture. What they will say and present is impossible to guess.

With the widespread adoption of social media and the prevalence of accessible art, I imagine the future of music will evolve around this concept where musicians can contribute to one another’s projects and inspiration and unique ideas will come to the surface and inspire others. We have seen this type of work with remixes – which is just another word for arrangements or transcriptions. Popular beats and rhythms have been used to create new music and in the future, it could be used to create something that no single person could ever conceive of.

As time goes on, new sounds will be created and in the hands of a master musician or composer, we can hear something truly unique and interesting that has never been heard before. There is a lot to look forward to when it comes to the future of music in relation to technology.

Music will never be universally loved. You probably have some genres of music that don’t appeal to you and your tastes don’t appeal to others. This is one of the reasons that art is so incredible – it can speak to you individually and reach you personally like nobody else. I would love to hear your opinions on this subject and how you think technology will continue to affect art in both positive and negative ways.

Thanks again for joining us at Living Pianos. If you have any comments about this subject or any subject at all please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Welcome back to our series on technology and art. If you missed Part 1, we discussed technology’s impact on art throughout history and how it has affected musicians in modern times. Today we are going to talk about the influence of social media, the internet, and the connected world’s impact on music and art.

At the end of the 19th century, the Vorsetzer was invented. It was the first of its kind, a player-piano type of technology that could record performances with technical and musical accuracy recreating the original artists’ interpretation. No longer would you have to see a performance to hear it. Now you could sit and listen to the performer as if you were there – by having it re-created on a player system! Suddenly, the world of music became more connected and global.

When I was growing up and studying a piece of music, I would go to the store and buy a couple different recordings of the piece by different artists. I would get a good sense of how other pianists would approach the same piece but I was limited to what was available at the store. Today, things are much more accessible. All you have to do is open your internet browser and you’ll have access to dozens of different pianists playing the same piece!

What does this accessibility do to our music and art? You would think that it would be a great benefit, right? Not necessarily.

While music is much more accessible now, a somewhat vanilla approach has evolved. If you listen to recordings of performers from the 1930’s, you will hear a lot of differences in individual performances. The same piece played by Rachmaninoff is incredibly different from Hoffmann, Lhévinne, Horowitz or Rubinstein. The differences in each of their performances are drastic and very apparent. Today’s differences between artists don’t exhibit the same type of individuality in their performances. Why is this?

With the advent of technology and the availability of content and recording capabilities so accessible, we have experienced a deluge of content. With the quantity of content has come a homogenized approach to music – performances tend to sound more the same. This is because when there are countless examples of particular pieces, people will tend to emulate influences in their playing. Dramatically different interpretations may be considered “wrong” by some people accustomed to the norm created by the massive number of established performances.

On the other hand, music from other countries and cultures is more accessible and able to be heard by a global audience that has never been accessible before. Suddenly, we are able to experience music we have never heard before! This helps to develop musicians from different cultures with unique influences. Some of the most interesting new music being written today is a hybrid of different styles from around the world – much like culinary artists creating fusions of Asian, French, Spanish or other elements in their creations.

So the social reach and accessibility of music has both good and bad qualities. On one hand, everyone can hear new music and have access to new sounds and influences. On the other hand, we have somewhat of a simplification of style for musical performances as a new “normal” is established through recordings, and people tend to be somewhat fearful to stray from the established standard.

I’m very interested to hear your opinions on this topic and how it’s affected your own music and performances. Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos, if you have any questions or comments about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.

I would love to hear everyone’s opinions on this topic. Please contact us directly if you have any questions or comments about this subject or any musical subject at all: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Today we are going to talk about a very important subject and something that is indispensable for every musician – identifying chords by ear. In an earlier video we talked about how to identify the differences in chords through their construction. Today we are going to explore how to tell the differences between chords from their sound.

Listening is very helpful for this subject, so watching the accompanying video is highly recommended.

Let’s start out with the most popular chord of all time, the major triad – three notes arranged in thirds with a major third on the bottom and a minor third on top. To put it in simpler terms, the first, third and fifth notes of any major scale. So in the key of C major, the major triad is composed of: C, E & G.

The major triad produces a pleasing sound. It’s something you’ve heard countless times and it produces a happy sound. Compare that to a minor chord (which has a minor third on the bottom and a major third on top) and the sound difference is very noticeable. The minor chord tends to evoke more melancholy emotions. Try playing the C major chord and the C minor chord one after the other. Listen to the differences in their tone. Now try playing a major and minor chord in a different key. See if you can identify the differences in sonority. Close your eyes and listen – you will start to be able to tell the difference just by the sound.

Telling the difference between major and minor by ear is something most people can distinguish by ear rather quickly. However, this is only the beginning!

When it comes to augmented and diminished chords, many people find it difficult to tell them apart at first. The diminished chord has two minor thirds – making it a smaller chord. A diminished chord has a strange quality to it that certainly distinguishes itself from the minor and major chords because of the diminished 5th created by the outer notes of the chord. Play a major, minor and then diminished chord in the key of your choice and see if you can discern the differences in the sound.

When it comes to augmented triads, you have two major thirds on the top and bottom. This creates an augmented 5th between the bottom and top notes. When you play augmented chords, you will notice its unique sonic character. At first you may confuse it with the diminished chord. But if you play back and forth between augmented and diminished chords in the same key, you will hear a striking difference in sound. Close your eyes and listen to the differences between the two chords. Listen for the larger outer interval in the augmented chord compared to the diminished triad.

Augmented triads suggest or imply whole tones since the chord is built upon every other note of a whole tone scale.

Soon you will get accustomed to the sound of these chords and you will be able to distinguish the differences between them just from the sound. If you keep practicing this and get better at identifying these chords, you will be able to expand upon the variety of harmonies you can identify by ear.

Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions or comments about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly at: Info@LivingPianos.com or (949) 244-3729.

This is a very tricky question. You might have seen in other videos of ours that we recommend tuning your piano at least once or twice a year – How Often Should You Tune a Piano?. So you might assume that with light playing and a stable environment your piano should stay in tune pretty well with one or two tunings a year. But it’s not that simple.

For example, here at Living Pianos we record videos of our pianos and we have them tuned – typically a day in advance and if we are lucky, the day of production. Yet even with the tunings, I find myself compelled to touch up select unisons because the pianos aren’t perfectly in tune even after just being tuned! You might wonder how this is possible considering we have the instruments in a controlled environment and tune them regularly. With pianos, tuning is never perfect for very long.

Take a concert setting for example. Many times a tuner will be tuning a piano right before an artist goes on stage to ensure that the piano sounds as good as possible. When the performer actually plays the piano – and especially if they are playing virtuoso music – the tuning will get knocked out quite easily. My father Morton Estrin would have his tuner touch up the piano during intermissions in his performances. At his recording sessions he would have a tuner there through the entire recording session touching up the piano every time a single note would go out of tune which was regularly during the sessions.

If you have a piano that is kept in a stable environment and tuned regularly it will eventually become extremely stable and the piano will hold its tuning quite well. On the hand, if you neglect to tune your piano it will be harder to get it into tune and it won’t stay in tune as long. This is why having regular tunings for your piano is so important and where the saying, “You can’t tune an out of tune piano.” comes from.

The ideal situation is having a live-in tuner who services your piano every day! I understand this is not possible for the vast majority of people. In practical terms, you will be fine if your piano drifts out of tune over time. If it becomes bothersome you should call your tuner and get it back in tune particularly if it drops in pitch overall. But it’s not essential to tune your piano more than a few times a year unless the piano gets tremendous use as in a practice rooms, teaching studios or restaurants – or if it is a critical situation such as in a recording studio or concert venue.

So, pianos are constantly going out of tune and need periodic tuning to maintain pitch. This is one reason some people choose digital pianos which require no tuning.

Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any comments or questions about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729