Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

All performers experience a certain degree of stage fright. Standing in front of a room full of people is bound to intimidate anyone! Your pulse will rise and your hands may sweat, but there is nothing to worry about; it’s all natural behavior. This article (and video) will provide some tips on how to deal with this common problem that nearly every performer faces.

Stage fright is merely a normal physiological response dating back to the fight or flight response during prehistoric times. While these metabolic and stressful reactions aren’t necessary for a modern society, they aren’t going away anytime soon. In other words, you have to deal with them. You may learn to harness this energy in positive ways – but how is this possible?

There is a recurring dream I have where I am playing piano in front of a large audience. I am performing for memory when I realize that I haven’t finished learning the rest of the piece! It’s more of a nightmare, really.

This brings us to the first step in overcoming stage fright, being prepared.

Prepare like crazy! You never want to be in front of an audience unprepared; it’s suicide. Preparation enables you to relax and enjoy the performance which makes the experience rewarding for the audience.

Another vital aspect of overcoming nerves is to practice performing.

Practicing by yourself is great but in order to prepare effectively, you will need to play for an audience. This is something that many musicians overlook, but it is absolutely essential. You can start out with low-pressure situations playing for friends and family. Play for anyone who will listen. Treat it like a public performance. Start with smaller groups – even one person can be enough at first. Gradually build your way up to larger audiences. This also enhances the effectiveness of your practice. You will spot problem areas to focus on in practice. Also, you will get a feel for the pacing of your program.

You must prepare for a performance both physically and mentally.

There are a number of things you can do physically to prepare yourself. Being well rested is certainly important. However, you may not want to deviate from your normal routine too much. It’s a good idea to stay away from caffeine and sugar right before your perform since both can make you jittery which can have an adverse effect on your playing. It’s best to eat a balanced meal before the performance. Foods like bananas and rice are easy to digest. Make sure you time your meal so you aren’t too full or hungry during the performance.

Mental preparation is incredibly important for successful performing.

I’ve had times where I was running around all day before a performance – making calls, answering emails, making videos – and without a moment to spare I have to plop myself down and perform. How do I deal with that? The short answer is I think about my performance a great deal before the actual day of the concert. I spend a lot of time running through the performance in my mind, thinking not only about the music, but sensing the audience as well. Some people suggest blocking out the audience to avoid getting nervous; This can be a great mistake! In fact, a great exercise is to lie down with your eyes closed and imagine being on stage. Think about sitting down at the bench of the piano, looking at the logo on the front of the fallboard. Take a deep breath imagining that moment while sensing the audience around you! On the day of the actual performance, you will be prepared by taking a deep breath, looking at the fallboard, and rekindling the comfortable acceptance of the audience as you had earlier.

The short answer is, yes, you do! I’m going to show you a couple of ways to possibly get around it. First of all, it depends on how big the piano is. If it’s a spinet piano and you have a pickup truck as well as some strong people plus a ramp, sure you can go for it. Be sure that you know how to properly secure a piano in a truck with straps as well as being able to wrap it in moving blankets properly. I would recommend this for pianos that are not expensive. The reality is, moving a piano is a very specialized skill. I have a video on the subject you can reference to see how it is done. https://livingpianos.com/general/how-to-move-a-piano-tips-for-moving-a-piano

When you see professional movers move a grand piano, they make it look easy because they know how to use leverage properly. There are also tools you need such as a skid board. Even with uprights, you want to put them on a flat board as well as a dolly. There are upright dollies that you can rent that strap around the piano. The thing is, pianos are extraordinarily heavy. I would not recommend for anyone who has ever had any back problems to move any piano under any circumstances, even moving a piano from one part of a room to another. You can do damage if you don’t know how to lift properly even if you have a strong back.

The secret is lifting with your knees. Never lift with your back and always lift with your legs while keeping your back straight or you can do damage almost instantly with a piano.

Even a spinet weighs several hundred pounds. It’s just not worth saving a few hundred bucks to risk destroying your back. So how can you possibly get around it? Fortunately, there is a way! If you have a move, particularly a long distance move, you can hire local movers on each end to load it onto a U-Haul or into a truck. You can avoid the expense of the mover going the entire trip, and that could save you quite a bit of money. You will need to rent or borrow the proper equipment to move a piano such as a skid board and 4 wheel, flat dolly made specifically for grand pianos. Grand pianos are moved on their flat side, and the skid board adds stability and protection for the piano.

My recommendation to you is to use a professional piano mover who specializes in moving only pianos. If you want to do it yourself with an upright, you must have strong people, a dolly and a truck with a ramp as well as the other essential supplies to protect your piano. Avoid moving a valuable piano yourself since anything can happen. For a fine piano, at least get professional piano movers to load and unload the piano on both ends. I hope this helps and thanks for joining us! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Whenever I meet new students, the first thing I do is listen to them play. Then I ask them a critical question, “Has anyone ever taught you how to practice?” One of the most important things a teacher can share with a student is how to practice. A teacher might be absolutely brilliant but their time with a student is very limited (typically an hour a week or less). The student’s progress is determined by what they do the other six days of the week. Effective practice is critically important.

I have previously produced videos on all three skills. (You can follow the links below.)

The first skill that any pianist needs to learn is memorization. With some instruments, you can actually play and look at the music the entire time. With the piano and other instruments, there is certain music that forces you to look at your hands (specifically music with big leaps). The complexity of some scores necessitates memorization. Here is a video on the subject:

If you look at a piece of music one of the very first things you will see are two numbers – it almost looks like a fraction. Some common time signatures you have undoubtedly seen before are 4/4 or 3/8 , these are not just arbitrary numbers, and they have a very important role in the timing of the piece.

But what do these numbers mean? Well the top number is easy; it tells you how many beats are in each measure – so in 3/8 time it you would have 3 beats per measure.

But what does the bottom number mean? When teaching, I sometimes refer to it as the mystery number because it surprises me how many students don’t know what it actually means! So in the example of 3/8 time, the bottom number 8 represents the kind of note getting ONE beat. So let’s break this down so it’s easier to understand. Here is the guide for what the bottom note stands for:

1 = Whole Note
2 = Half Note
4 = Quarter Note
8 = Eighth Note
16 = Sixteenth Note
32 = Thirty-second Note
64 = Sixty-fourth Note
128 = One-hundred-twenty-eighth Note

How many beats in each measure
Kind of note getting ONE beat

3 – There are 3 beats in a measure
8 – An eighth Note Gets ONE beat

Now one thing you would never see is something like 4/3 or 4/7 time because there is no 3rd or 7th note that exists in music – the bottom number will always represent the kind of note getting one beat.

A very crucial moment in the development of an instrumentalist or singer is the selection of their next musical piece. As a teacher, knowing what repertoire to give students in order to aid their development is incredibly important in furthering their progress. So what is the best piece to add to your repertoire? How do you know?

It is best to progress methodically while learning and mastering an instrument. It is a good idea to select a piece that will not take an inordinate amount of time to learn, as it could hinder progress. When a student progresses to an advanced level in their playing, musical selections can take weeks or even months to master. On an elementary level, however, you will not want to spend more than a couple of weeks on a particular piece before it’s learned. Of course, the student may live with the piece longer refining it further as they tackle additional repertoire.

Some teachers might give their students a piece that takes nearly half a year to learn. In that same amount of time, another teacher could give their student a dozen different pieces to learn which can each be mastered much more quickly. By the time the one student masters his only piece; the other student will have mastered twelve and may be on a more advanced level than the other student and will have a much larger repertoire!

Another important aspect of becoming a musician is having a repertoire of music to play. You wouldn’t want to know only 2 or 3 pieces of music. So, it’s better to learn many different pieces. If you take a progressive approach to learning music you will always be expanding your repertoire and your level of playing will gradually improve over time. It also offers the benefit of covering a wider range of composers and styles of composition.

One challenge with a progressive approach to repertoire is that one size doesn’t fit all! There is no guide to tell you what piece to pick next for everyone and there are plenty of occasions where students desperately want to learn a piece above their skill level. If they decide to tackle a such a piece, they will need to dramatically increase their level of practice; they will need to dedicate more time and energy then they ever have before into learning the piece. I have had students rise to the occasion and achieve their goal and become a higher level musician in the process. However, it is a rare student who is capable of this kind of quantum leap of development.

For the most part, gradual progression is the best practice for becoming a better musician and mastering your instrument. It seems that some teachers will want to glorify their own image based on what their students are studying and force them to progress too rapidly rather than letting them develop refinement in their playing. It is much more important to master your music than simply being able to get through pieces.

For a lot of musicians, it’s impossible to ignore emotion in music; it comes out naturally. However, there are ways you can express yourself and show more emotion in your music – making it a much more powerful experience for your audience.

You might find that the music you are studying or playing gives you an emotional impact but you might wonder if you are translating that to your instrument and the audience. You must overcome the technical challenges needed to express yourself freely. The first thing you will need to do is practice your music thoroughly tackling problems and technical issues.

Now here is the fundamental problem. If you practice a piece over and over again in hopes of being able to play it perfectly, will you still have the same love and emotion for it? Or will the task of studying and practicing a piece extensively destroy the enjoyment you once had for it? It’s a common problem for musicians who lock themselves up in a practice room for hours every day trying to perfect their music only to emerge with a disdain for the music they once loved. There have been a number of times I’ve attended recitals and watched incredibly capable instrumentalist put on boring performances! All too often the performers have lost track of why they are playing their music, to begin with; they’ve lost their love of music and possibly the joy of life.

But how do you avoid this while mastering your music? The first thing you can do is to practice effectively. Practicing with the metronome a great deal builds a solid foundation. This can offer you freedom when performing (without the metronome) since you will not stray too far from becoming self-indulgent when expressing yourself. Practicing the piano without the pedal is also fundamental building clarity in your music. These are simple and effective practice techniques. When you finally get to add the pedal and play without the metronome, it feels so good hearing the music in all its glory. The benefit of the structured practice gives you the freedom to express yourself in performance.

Another important thing to do is to play for other people on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter how much you practice until you get out in front of an audience and actually perform, the music doesn’t come to life. It’s like practicing for a job interview – no matter how much you practice, it will never prepare you for the actual conversation. It’s all about communicating which involves give and take.

Most of all, you must find a balance in life. You need to enjoy your life and your work and you can never achieve this if you let your work consume your life. Sometimes the best thing to do is to step away from the music and allow yourself to recoup and eventually fall in love with it again. Like the old saying goes, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”. You really should feel this way about your music. When you are away from it coming back feels so good! You will experience joy in your life and in your music!

Some musical scores can be extremely complex. Sometimes there are situations when someone needs a pianist desperately and there simply isn’t enough time to completely digest the score. People will be grateful for you to be able to accommodate them. This is when simplifying a score can sometimes be a lifesaver!

One example might be attending a Christmas party and a singer hands you some music and asks if you could perform a few Christmas carols for the group. You pick up the book and take a look and realize the pieces are embellished arrangements which contain a lot more notes than you would be able to play instantly. Don’t worry; there is a solution to this. I’m going to provide a few tips to help you achieve this.

Piano scores are much more complex than most instruments because you have two hands playing in multiple staffs. In the case I just described, removing some notes can still leave the integrity of the song; but which ones should you play? Usually, the top note is the melody and the bottom note, the bass provides the structure; these are essential to play. As long as you have the bass and melody you can work on fleshing out what’s in the middle. Generally, you would want to avoid doing this sort of thing with serious musical compositions unless it’s a desperate situation with no alternatives for the soloist or group you are accompanying. But arrangements are a great place to use this technique since they are arrangements anyway. In fact, sometimes you may encounter simplified arrangements you may want to embellish!

Overall, simplification can be useful to familiarize yourself with an accompaniment with a tight deadline or to enjoy playing musical arrangements for fun. And remember, the easy way to simplify is to offer the structure which consists of the bass, the melody and whatever other notes you can add to make a pleasing musical performance.

Learning to play softly on the piano is really a challenge and a skill of fine art. It is very challenging to master but when it’s executed well, the results can be amazing. So this article and video will provide some tips on how to improve your playing.

I want to mention first that you will need to have your piano regulated and voiced on a very high level to achieve consistent, quiet playing. If the notes don’t respond mechanically or sonically in a uniform fashion, you simply can’t achieve pianissimo playing since some notes will drop out.

I was very lucky growing up with my father, Morton Estrin, who is a concert pianist. We had several fine pianos around our house and in his studio, and I also got a chance to try out concert instruments when he was selecting pianos for performance and recording.

He has a reputation for being able to fill even the largest concert halls with tremendous sound; in fact, smaller halls were sometimes not big enough to handle the sound. However, while he was known for his massive strength, he had an incredible skill for pianissimo as well. This is a skill that is really daring for most pianists; as playing quietly really demands the audience’s full attention – even ruffling your feet can disturb the sound of the piano. However, playing like this can open up worlds of expression in the music.

But how do you achieve this? How do you play quietly and still maintain control of your playing? My father would describe pianissimo playing like this: think of the energy of the sun. Now imagine blocking it all out except for one single pinhole. The energy that flows through that one pinhole; that is what pianissimo playing is about. There is an intensity even at very low volume.

When it comes to playing quietly on a wind instrument or a string instrument there is the breath and the bow which provide continuity. So what can you use on the piano to get the smoothness of line in very soft playing?

You could try calculating each note successively louder, then softer trying to get a smooth phrase. However, if you use this approach it will sound calculated! You will not achieve a singing line.

The secret is to use the weight of your arm and to transfer the weight from finger to finger smoothly. When playing pianissimo you will also want to stay as close to the keys as you can making sure they aren’t depressed at all. Use minimum motion. The arm weight provides the analog to the breath of the human voice! It provides a continuum of energy creating the illusion of a singing line.

Keep in mind that the piano is technically not capable of a true singing line since all notes are fading away as soon as they begin. Yet, by utilizing the weight of the arm, you can achieve smooth, pianissimo playing with great control.

This really is a great topic to cover and there is a ton of information for you. There are two distinctly different types of repeated notes: slow repeated notes and fast repeated notes. I’m going to cover both of these techniques this week.

Let’s start with fast repeated notes. The easiest way to handle a fast note played over and over again would be to use two hands. However, for most music this is not going to be an option. Most of the time you will have to learn how to handle fast repeated notes with one hand, and the only way to achieve this is by changing fingers. You MUST change fingers in order to play the notes fast enough.

The most important thing is finding a fingering that works for you. Typically, 3-2-1 is a very good fingering for playing fast repeated notes. In the video above I demonstrate this on one of Scarlatti’s sonatas. I provide some additional instructions specifically on how to approach this; if you have time to watch, you may appreciate this.

Another thing to keep in mind when approaching fast repeated notes is that upright pianos will not be able to handle it. Not all grand or baby grand pianos can even handle the high level of repetition needed but it will need to be regulated well in order to play fast repeated notes.

So how is it done? It is absolutely essential to keep your fingers right over the keys. There isn’t time to make any motion beyond what is needed, so keep your fingers hovering very close over the keys. Also, keep your hand relatively stable, curve your fingers (keep them rounded) and try to hit the middle of the key. It’s best to practice slowly, with a metronome, and work your way up to speed slowly.

When it comes to slow repeated notes there are different schools of thought on how to approach them. I have a bias in the technique I use, however, the method I use is also used by many great pianists.

In the video I demonstrate these techniques on a Mozart Sonata. If you have the time to watch I would definitely recommend it.

Make sure that slow repeated notes are played as smoothly as possible. The big problem with the piano is that no matter how hard you try to connect repeated notes of the same note, they will always be detached in some way. This is because the dampers will always end the notes when they are released.

The trick is to not play the notes with one finger. Just like playing fast repeated notes, if you play with a finger pattern (like 3-2-1) you will be able to get a much better legato. Now the one problem with this is that if you if try and play the notes slowly with different fingers, you may find that a note doesn’t play. This is because the weight of your arm will most likely have your finger pushed down too hard for repetition. The trick is to keep the hand floating above the key putting minimal arm weight into playing. Having a high release of each finger allows the next finger to play the key again. If you do this, you will produce a stunning legato.

Make sure to practice the above technique without the pedal and try to achieve the smoothest legato you can.