Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m talking about modes. You may have heard of modes. It may even have been explained to you in some way that seemed incomprehensible. How can you possibly remember all of your modes? Well, you can’t! I’m going to show you the easiest way to figure out all your modes. You’re going to know all your modes, and you’ll be able to play them in all keys if you know your key signatures or your major scales.

Let me first show you a major scale.

A major scale is just a series of whole steps and half steps. It’s actually all whole steps, except between the third and fourth and seventh and eighth notes. The white keys on the piano represent a C major scale because you have whole steps except between three and four and seven and eight (E-F and B-C). That’s the way all major scales work. So that can be transposed for all major scales. So what the heck are modes?

Modes are simply starting on a different note of the major scale!

The major scale is the Ionian mode. If you start on the second degree of a major scale, that’s called the Dorian mode. If you start on the third scale degree, you get the Phrygian mode. If you start on the fourth scale degree, you have the Lydian mode. If you start on the fifth note of the major scale, you have the Mixolydian mode. Starting on the sixth note, you have the Aeolian mode, which is also the natural minor scale. And finally, starting on the seventh scale degree, you have the Locrian mode, which is not used very often in music. Those are all the modes!

You can easily figure out all your modes, provided you know your major scales.

For example, if you were playing the Ionian mode in C, it’s the same as the C major scale. But if it’s the Dorian mode, it starts on two. Well, C is the second note of a B-flat major scale. So you just play the notes of a B-flat major scale, except starting on C. To play the Phrygian mode, you play all the notes of an A-flat major scale, except starting on the third note of the A-flat major scale which is C. For Lydian, you would start on the fourth note of the G major scale (also C). For Mixolydian, C is the fifth note of the F major scale. For Aeolian, C is the sixth note of an E-flat major scale. And finally, the Locrian is the seventh note of the D-flat major scale.

If you know your scales or your key signatures, you just start on any note of that scale.

Once again, if you start on the second note of the scale, it’s the Dorian mode. The third note of the scale is the Phrygian. The fourth note of the scale is the Lydian. The fifth note of the scale is the Mixolydian. The sixth note of the scale is the Aeolian. And the seventh note of the scale is the Locrian. You can start at any scale degree. That’s all there is to it! This is so much easier than memorizing seven different whole-step and half-step relationships. I couldn’t keep all of that in my head. And you don’t need to! Just think of key signatures and where you’re starting within that key signature, and you have all your modes.

What are modes for?

Modes are really useful in musical compositions from different periods. Before major and minor tonality were prevalent in Renaissance music, it was all based on modes. The Ionian mode (major scale), and the Aeolian mode (natural minor scale) came to dominate Western music in no small part because of the raised seventh. That’s why the minor scale has a raised seventh. The minor scale is usually in the harmonic form or the melodic form, both of which have raised sevenths. The melodic also has a raised sixth, giving that strong tonality of the raised seventh. Listen to the difference between a natural minor and the harmonic minor and how much more driven you are to resolve to the tonic note at the top of the scale with the harmonic minor with the raise seventh compared to the natural minor or Aeolian mode. The natural minor floats up there, but you don’t feel propelled to resolve to the last note of the sclae. It doesn’t really propel you the way the raised seventh does. These are the roots of tonality in a nutshell: the raised seventh that is brought about with the Ionian mode, which is your major scale, and the natural minor that has the harmonic and melodic versions that give you that strong sense of tonality. You may wonder about the Lydian Mode that has a raised seventh, but the two tri-tones in there give it a very austere quality and an ambiguity that you don’t get with major and minor tonalities.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to make your piano sound its best. This is a really important subject for any of you who own pianos. Many of you know that Living Pianos started in 2006 as the World’s First Online Piano Store. We have sold hundreds, if not thousands, of pianos over the years. With every single piano, it’s a project to get it to sound its best. So I thought I’d share some tips with you. I sometimes describe preparing a piano as one definition of infinity: going halfway to perfection again and again and again without ever reaching it. Of course, you can try to get as close as you can. Then maintaining it at that level is a challenge in itself.

What are the things that you can do to make your piano sound its best?

First of all, we must assume that your piano’s parts are not worn out. If you have a piano with rusty strings that are lifeless, you’re not going to get a great sound. If your hammers are worn out, there’s only so much you can do if you don’t have food felt to work with. So I want to make the assumption that your piano isn’t worn out and that there are no major problems with it. Obviously, it’s going to make your piano a heck of a lot better if you take care of any issues you have with it.

Even brand new pianos don’t come out of the box anywhere close to their potential.

If you ever go to a piano store and they offer you a new piano in the box, run! You don’t want that. It’s up to the dealers to do the prep. You can actually do days of work on a piano, depending on how far you want to go with it. Most dealers are not going to spend that kind of time. It’s very expensive and time-consuming. They’re not going to do that with the vast majority of their pianos. Maybe only the really special ones. Here at Living Pianos, we’re different. We’re more of a boutique store. We have primarily top-tier pianos, and we go the extra mile on all of them. But that’s not the norm. So I’m going to tell you what you can do with your piano to make it sound its best.

Tuning your piano on a regular basis is the first step.

The more you tune your piano, the less you need to tune it. That sounds crazy, right? Well, it’s true. If you tune your piano a lot, it becomes so stable that it almost doesn’t go out of tune. But if you neglect the tuning for a number of years, then the next tuning won’t hold very long. So you want to get ahead of the curve. There are many other techniques that can enhance the tone and the playing of your piano.

Regulation has to do with the several adjustments that are made on each key.

One aspect of regulation is key height. If the keys of your piano are not all the same height, obviously you’re not going to be able to play smooth melodic lines. Another aspect is key dip. When you push your keys down, they should all go down the same amount. If they don’t, then how could you possibly get a consistent sound? Another aspect is let-off. If you look inside the piano, you’ll see that the hammers let off the strings after striking them. They should all let off at the same distance, so you get a consistent performance. And there are other things. There are about half a dozen adjustments on each key of a piano. So regulation is a pretty involved process.

There’s also the voicing of your piano.

One of the most important aspects of voicing is the shape of the hammer and the hardness of each hammer. You want to adjust the hammers to the right hardness to produce a warm or bright sound, or the amount of brightness that you like in all registers. This is an arduous task that few piano technicians know how to do. When we first moved from California to Cleveland, it took a while for us to find top-notch skilled technicians who are on a master level to perform that kind of work. I would recommend seeking out somebody who tunes for your local symphony or concert hall, because very few piano technicians really know how to do that kind of meticulous work. But it can really make a big difference in the sound of your piano. Even if you buy a brand new Steinway or Mason & Hamlin, that piano can be improved dramatically from the way it comes out of the factory.

What else can you do to improve the sound of your piano?

Another thing you can look at is string leveling. If the hammer hits the strings, and some strings are slightly higher than others, then the hammer is not going to make contact with all the strings equally, and you’re not going to get the same attack and sustain. Each string could be leveled, or the hammer could be shaped to impact all three strings at exactly the same time. There’s also damper regulation. When you play a chord on the piano and then release it slowly with the damper pedal, you want a smooth release. Sometimes you’ll hear funny noises if your damper felt is too hard. You may need new damper felt in order to get clean releases. At the end of a beautiful, slow movement, you may want to fade out the sound of a chord. The only way to do that is to release the pedal gradually. If the dampers are hard or they’re not regulated properly, you’re not going to get a consistent sound.

There are many other things that can be done to enhance the sound of your piano. One of them is string termination.

The strings have to terminate on either end of the speaking length of the string. At that point where the string meets metal, you want it to be a clean place. When you play your piano, the hammers are hitting the strings, and they might elevate just a fraction of an inch over time. If there’s not a clean termination at the points where they meet the bridge, how can it possibly transfer the sound appropriately to the soundboard? It can’t. Tapping the strings down at all the points of termination on the bridges can really enhance the sound. Now, keep in mind that if you do that, you’ll have to tune your piano. But if you’ve never done this on your piano and you are a strong player, it probably will make a big difference in getting a longer tone life. Because if you don’t get good, solid, clean termination of the strings, how can you possibly get consistency from note to note? Some notes will sustain longer than others.

There’s also the pedals.

I talked about the damper regulation, but what about the una corda pedal, also known as the soft pedal? When you depress the soft pedal, the action moves from side to side. It’s a different part of the hammer that impacts the strings. You can actually voice that part of the hammer that comes in contact with the strings when you depress the una corda pedal. There’s also the middle pedal, the sostenuto pedal. You have to make sure that it’s adjusted properly so it only holds the notes you want it to hold.

There are unique challenges with different pianos that you have to take into account.

These are just some of the common things that we do to pianos, which you can consider doing to your piano if you can find a high-level piano technician. It can make a world of difference to the sound of a piano. I work closely with our technicians, going back again and again. Sometimes, in the highest octave, you get to a certain note, and they will sound like a tapping sound instead of a pitched sound. That’s because of what’s called strike point. The hammer has so little string space up there that it might not be hitting the string precisely. It can be hitting where the string meets the bridge. To remedy this, the hammers have to be adjusted ever so slightly. Or sometimes, the entire action can be adjusted to move in or out just slightly, so the hammers are hitting exactly the point of the strings that they should be hitting.

There are so many techniques to make your piano sound its best!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I’m here today with an interesting question. What are there 2, 3, and 4 of in music? Those of you who are music theory aficionados might want to stop right now and see if you can figure out what the heck I’m talking about. I could actually start with what there is only one of!

What is there 1 of?

There is only one chromatic scale. It doesn’t matter where you start or stop. It’s all the same because you are just moving up by half-steps.

What are there 2 of?

There are, believe it or not, only two different whole-tone scales. Play a whole-tone scale starting on C. Then, go up a half-step, and you have another one. But go up one more half-step, and you’re back to the first one again! So I think you see where I’m going with this.

What are there 3 of?

There are only three different diminished seventh chords. What’s a diminished seventh chord? A diminished seventh chord is a chord built all with minor thirds. That is three half-steps apart. So we build the first one, starting on C. Three half-steps up is D-sharp, then F-sharp, then A. That’s your diminished seventh chord. Move that chord up a half-step, and you have another one. That’s the second one. Move another half-step, that’s the third one. But if you move up another half-step, you’re back to that first one again. So there’s one chromatic scale, two whole-tone scales, and three diminished seventh chords. You probably see the pattern here.

What are there 4 of?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, we’re going to discuss how to choose a piano. Different people are going to have markedly different criteria for choosing a piano. For example, if you’re an accomplished, seasoned concert pianist, you have very specific ideas of what you’re looking for, and you’ll want to try countless pianos to find exactly the touch and the tone that you’re after. But if you’re like most people, you haven’t had the opportunity to play a plethora of concert-level instruments, you might want to have a trusted person who knows a lot about pianos to help guide the process. I’m going to try to give you some pointers as to what to look for when you are after a piano.

Are you looking for an acoustic piano or a digital piano?

There are many reasons to choose one or the other. If you’re living in a place where sound is an issue, a digital piano might be necessary. There are also silent pianos that you can play with headphones digitally, but they can also be played acoustically. That’s one alternative for you. But you might want to just have a digital piano. Maybe you have a very limited budget, and an acoustic piano is just not in the cards for you. Maybe you’re living in a studio apartment, and you need to put the piano in the closet during the day. Maybe you do music composition and you want something that has a MIDI or USB interface so you can plug it into your computer. There are definitely good reasons to get a digital piano. But if you want the ultimate playing experience, an acoustic piano really offers that.

There are two main types of acoustic pianos: grands and uprights.

The benefits of grands are many because, while a tall upright can rival the sound of a mid-size grand, the action is inferior on even the finest upright pianos. To get a Steinway or a hand-built German piano, an upright costs tens of thousands of dollars. But the hammers on an upright are striking sideways. So there’s a limit to the speed of repetition compared to a grand piano where the hammers have the benefit of gravity since they go up and down. So if you’re an advanced player, and you’re playing things with rapid repetition or trills on upright pianos, those sorts of things can be very difficult. Even the finest uprights don’t match what a fine grand piano action is capable of. Grand pianos also project sound into the room instead of into the wall, so you get a glorious sound! And they’re beautiful pieces of furniture as well. But there are good reasons to get an upright. Maybe you have space or budgetary limitations that make a grand unattainable. A good upright can have a nice sound. And if you’re not playing something with rapid repetition—a lot of trills and other ornaments that require really fast repetition—a good upright could be a great choice for you.

The size of the piano is another important criterion.

All things being equal, bigger is better on pianos. What do I mean by that? Well, if you ever look inside a concert grand piano, the strings in the treble are very short, and they get longer and longer throughout the entire range of the piano. On a nine-foot piano, those bass strings are really long, so you get an even sound from the top to the bottom. Every other piano is a compromise. If you look at a baby grand piano, by the time you get to the middle register, the strings are all about the same length to the lowest notes of the bass. They just get thicker, and they don’t have the same true sound you’ll get out of a larger piano. Plus, the soundboard area is larger on bigger pianos, so you get a richer sound.

Another thing to consider is the acoustics of the room.

You don’t want to overwhelm a room with a piano that has too much volume because it will affect the way the piano sounds and the way you play it. It can actually damage your hearing. I have a good friend who has a beautiful Steinway model C, a phenomenal scale design at over seven feet. It’s blowing him out of the room! So he has to practice with earplugs. What a shame to have this glorious piano and not be able to fully enjoy it because he’s got to stuff his ears in order to play it without causing ear damage. So make sure you choose the right size piano for your space. And it’s not just the size of the room you need to consider. If you have an open floor plan, it doesn’t matter if the room is small, so long as the air volume is large. If your room has a wood floor and if there is no soft furniture, drapes, carpet, or rugs, even a larger room can be pretty resonant. A room that has carpeting, drapes, and soft furniture will absorb a lot of sound. Also, odd shapes along the wall, such as bookshelves, will diffuse the sound so it bounces around, giving it a more pleasing tone. There’s nothing worse than what are called standing waves. Have you ever been talking in a hallway and it sounds robotic? It’s like two mirrors facing each other, creating an infinite reflection. That’s exactly what happens with sound waves in a small space with parallel walls. The frequency of the waveform will amplify itself, and you’ll get resonant frequencies that are really nasty. You can mitigate that by utilizing absorbent material in strategic places.

Of course, you have to think about your budget.

You don’t have an infinite amount of money to spend. There are basically two types of pianos: hand-built pianos and Asian production pianos. What’s the difference? Well, a piano factory like Pearl River makes over a hundred thousand pianos a year. That’s an astounding number of pianos! It’s more than triple the number of new acoustic pianos that are sold in the United States each year. They can’t make pianos the same way Steinway does. Steinway only makes about 2400 pianos a year. Fazioli only makes 140 pianos a year! Obviously, they can do things differently from a company like Pearl River, Yamaha, or Kawai that mass-produces pianos. There’s a different methodology in the way the plates are made, the woods that are used, and a plethora of other things that can enhance the way a piano sounds and plays.

The problem with hand-built pianos is cost.

A Rolls-Royce costs much more than a Toyota because it’s hand-built from beginning to end. The same is true of pianos. With a company like Steinway, each piano is hand-made instead of having pretty much an assembly line of parts that are mass-produced. You can get a wide range of Asian production pianos, and some of them are very good instruments. Nobody is going to scoff at a CX-series Yamaha. They’re really well-made pianos. But Yamaha has two levels of pianos above the popular C series, and those are indeed hand-built pianos that cost as much or more than Steinway! So you have to figure out your budget.

Should you get a new piano or a used piano?

Here again, there are many different things to consider. If you’re buying an inexpensive Asian production piano, realize that there’s a limited lifespan. This is because you’re not going to rebuild a piano that’s not that costly to begin with. If you buy, for example, a $25,000 piano new, that might seem like a lot of money, but it can easily cost that much or more to rebuild a piano. So I hate to say it, but most Asian production pianos aren’t worth restoring because the cost of restoring them exceeds their potential value. So it makes sense to look for used Steinways, Mason & Hamlins, Bechsteins, and other top-tier hand-built pianos. Some of the best value pianos could be brands that are no longer made, like Chickering, Knabe, or Baldwin. These pianos were great in their day. Sadly, these American-produced pianos no longer exist. But you could find a good Baldwin used that maybe isn’t even that old. Maybe the piano is all original and still in good shape. The piano could be worth restoring because Baldwin cost as much as Steinway when they were originally made. And many of them are equal in quality to a new Steinway or Mason & Hamlin, which are the only companies still producing pianos in the United States. Some Mason & Hamlin models are made in China today, so be sure you notice the distinction there.

Every piano is unique.

If you play brand new pianos of the same make and model, each one has a different character of sound and touch. Hand-built pianos like Steinway are notably unique from one to the next, which can be a great thing if you find the one you’re looking for. You really have to try each one to make sure it suits you. Asian production pianos like Yamaha and Kawai are more consistent than other pianos because the manufacturing is very tightly controlled. A lot of robotics are used. But even then, no two trees are alike. So soundboards and bridges are going to have different sonic characteristics. There’s also a lot of handwork. Even on inexpensive Chinese pianos, the bridges are hand-notched. So there’s a lot of handwork, even on Asian production pianos. They’re not just all made in a factory by machines. There are a lot of people working in those factories. So each one is unique. You must try the specific piano because even pianos of the same make and model can vary quite a bit in sound and feel. So you really want to try, or at least listen to, the piano you are buying. We provide first-class recordings with excellent Neumann microphones of our pianos, so you can easily get a comparison from one to the next and hear what you like.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to learn the piano. For me, it’s hard to imagine any other way because, from the youngest age, I started private lessons with my father, Morton Estrin, who was not only an incredible concert pianist, but also one of the most amazing teachers. I was very fortunate to have that opportunity.

Private lessons are a great way to learn to play the piano if you can find the right teacher.

I can’t tell you how many horror stories I’ve heard from people. Some teachers are just mean. Some will even hit their students’ hands with rulers! Many times, people study for years and years and discover they really haven’t learned how to play anything with solidity and confidence, because teaching any subject is an art that very few people possess, sadly. But I’ve known many people who have picked up piano on their own just by playing and listening. And they have managed to figure out how to play things to their own satisfaction. Formal piano instruction isn’t one size fits all. Some people can just pick it up on their own.

There are other ways of learning the piano.

Online resources are tremendous these days. I’ve seen people who have had great success just from watching YouTube videos with the notes going down, almost like Guitar Hero. To me, that seems much harder than reading the notation. But some people just want to learn which keys to push down. And you know, some people do very well just with that. But there are many other online resources. Here at LivingPianos.com, we have thousands of articles and videos on just about every subject you can imagine. What other possible avenues are there for learning the piano?

Piano classes are a great way to get introduced to the piano.

With piano classes, you have the social element, which can make it fun and enriching. However, I have taught piano classes, and the problem is that everybody has drastically different abilities on the piano. So private lessons are much better for really getting to any sophisticated level on the instrument. It’s not like some people are better and some people are worse. It’s the types of abilities. There are so many different skill sets that are necessary to play the piano. There’s the actual physiology and what type of hands you have, the connection from reading the score to the hands, the sense of rhythm, the sense of pitch, the sense of sound and tone. There are so many different aspects! People have talents in some areas and weaknesses in others. In a class situation, it’s very difficult for a teacher to really cater to everybody, and so it brings down the median level because the teacher can’t possibly be sensitive to everybody’s needs. But if you just want to get your feet wet, see how you like it, and meet other people who are interested in the piano, a piano class can be a good choice.

However you choose to learn the piano, it can be greatly rewarding!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, we’re going to talk about how to care for your piano. If you have a nice instrument, you want it to last a long time. Not only that, you want it to play well for you on a regular basis. I’m going to give you some simple tips today that will help you extend the life of your piano and make it play better for the time you own it.

The first thing is the environment your piano is in.

It’s vital to provide a stable environment for your piano in regards to temperature and humidity. It’s really pretty simple. If it’s a place you would be comfortable sitting day in and day out, your piano is going to do great! Excessive humidity takes its toll on a piano. The strings can rust, and the action can become sluggish because wherever there’s friction, there are felt bushings. And those felt bushings can absorb moisture. As a result, it gums up, and everything becomes sluggish. On the flip side, you don’t want to keep your piano in a really dry environment. Let’s say you have a home with forced hot air, or worse yet, if the hot air vent is under your piano, it could actually dry out the soundboard and crack it. You could destroy your piano, and it could take tens of thousands of dollars of work to either replace or repair the soundboard. So you really want a median humidity in the 45-50% range. If you get down to single digits or up to 85-90% humidity, you’ll have problems over time. Also, if you have big swings in temperature, it can affect the tuning stability.

Equally important is the maintenance of your piano.

I can’t tell you how many times people contact us and say, “I got a piano. It’s perfect. It just needs tuned.” And by that, they mean they have a piano that they haven’t tuned in ten years. It’s like if you had a car and hadn’t changed the oil in ten years. Your piano is not going to be the same. It’s going to take major work to get it in tune. And it’s possible that the piano might start breaking strings. It can be really tough. So you want to maintain your piano on a regular basis. What does that really mean?

The Piano Technicians Guild recommends four tunings a year, and that’s a good number.

Now, believe it or not, some people should tune their pianos even more than that. My father had two grand pianos in his studio, and because he taught on the pianos and practiced on them, he had them tuned every month! You might think that’s excessive, but the more you play a piano, the more it goes out of tune. In a perfect world, your piano would be tuned every day! But of course, that’s not practical. Four times a year is a good amount for most people. And the real minimum is twice a year. Why twice a year? Well, when you go from heat to air conditioning, and then back again later in the season, the piano can shift. Interestingly, it might sound okay, but the whole piano might lose pitch. Sometimes, a piano can even go higher than pitch! The secret to keeping your piano in tune is keeping it as stable as possible.

The more you tune a piano, the longer it will hold its tuning.

If a piano hasn’t been tuned for a long time, the next tuning won’t hold very long. So keep up with your tuning. Put it in your calendar. You have two or three strings on most notes of the piano. If they’re not right in tune with each other, you hear waves or beats. It doesn’t have a pure sound. If you hear that, it’s time to tune your piano. If you’re wondering if your piano has lost pitch, there are tuner apps you can get on your phone, and you can check to make sure the pitch is stable. If you start seeing that A has deviated from 440 more than 1 or 2 cycles, it may be time to tune your piano.

Lastly, but also important, is the furniture.

After all, a piano is one of the most significant pieces of furniture you have in your home. You want to keep it looking nice. What do you need to do? Well, simply dust your piano with either a cotton cloth or a microfiber cloth. That’s all you should need to do most of the time. If you get smudges on your piano, you can dampen the cloth slightly. If it’s a piano with a hand-rubbed finish where you can see the lines, or if there’s woodgrain in your piano, rub in the direction of the lines. And that’s really all you want to do. Because if you use any product on your piano, it builds up over time and has to be professionally removed.

What about the inside of the piano?

If you keep your piano open all the time, dust will collect in there. You can try blowing it out with a vacuum cleaner, but that can get pretty messy. Even then, the soundboard can get really gummed up with dust. Your piano technician will have a tool to get under there. They actually take out the action and then get under there with the tool and clean it for you. You don’t have to do that that often, but you want to keep up on it so it doesn’t get really dirty because then it can actually inhibit the sound, and it gets harder to clean if you go a really long time. That’s one reason why it’s best to keep your piano closed, particularly at night if you keep your windows open.

So those are the main things to think about.