Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. Today, three secrets to memorizing music. The three secrets all come down to one thing, and I’ll tell you how they relate to three aspects that will help you in memorizing music. Memorizing music is tough, it’s hard work if you’re doing it correctly. If you just play through a piece over and over in hopes that eventually it will assimilate, that’s not a very efficient way to learn music. You need to be organized, and I have videos on how to approach memorization.

The three secrets come down to memorizing every day.

Why does that give you three benefits? Well first of all, obviously if you’re memorizing every day you’re going to learn more. If you only try to do it once or twice a week, or every other day, you’re limited in how much you’re going to be able to learn by the sheer amount of time.

The second thing about memorizing every day is you get to reinforce your work from the previous day.

Otherwise, you’re going two steps forward, one step backward every day trying to get back what you learned, even the next day is a big challenge. But if you wait a couple of days you will have forgotten a great deal, and so you really are not going to be as productive.

Third reason is that since memorizing is very taxing, there’s only so much you can do at peak performance in one sitting.

If you do it every day, you get your mind when it’s fresh, and that’s a tremendous benefit to you. You can soak up a bunch of music before you get to that point of diminishing returns.

Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with a really fascinating show that I think you’re going to really appreciate, which is how to reach the last row in a concert hall.

If you’ve ever been to a performance of a world-class pianist, it’s an unforgettable experience. I had the opportunity to hear Vladimir Horowitz on several occasions. The first time was when he made one of his many comebacks, and every time he did this, it was a huge event. This was in 1974, and he was playing a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House.  And if you have any idea of the scope of the size of that hall, you wonder how could you possibly play a concert in a hall that big?

I actually camped out at Lincoln Center, the tickets went on sale 6 AM and I got there at nine at night – I was number 311 in line already!  Can you imagine? Interesting thing is that about 2:30 in the morning, Horowitz and his wife came by with coffee and donuts for the people waiting camped out there. It was really something. I get tickets and it was limited to only two.  And my tickets were way, way up. The amazing thing was he was able to project a sound that came right through to the last row with beauty and singing quality. That was really something.

Well, here’s the interesting thing. Just a couple of months later, I was studying with Constance Keene at the Manhattan School of Music, and she was really good friends with the Horowitz’s. She actually was able to get tickets to a Carnegie Hall Concert he was giving. On this occasion, I was in one of the very front box seats and I could actually hear what he was doing that made it possible for me to enjoy his performance from the last row. Everything was punctuated much bigger.

Have you ever been to a museum and seen a great painting of one of the impressionists? You look from a distance and it’s just gorgeous colors and patterns, and you get up close and see all these angularities to the strokes. It was kind of like that hearing him so close in that front box seat.  I could hear what he was doing in order to project to the back of the concert hall. In the video included with this article, I demonstrate this for you. I’ll show you what a delicate way of playing Mozart sounds like and then a way of playing Mozart that would go to the last row of the hall.

In the video above, you’ll hear a perfectly valid and wonderful way to play Mozart with a nice characteristic delicacy. The G major is a 283 Köchel.

Up until recently I’ve been playing it that way and I’ve been experimenting with a completely different way of playing it. Using a lot more arm weight, projecting a bigger sound, one that would carry through in a very large hall. When you listen to the video, compare these different styles.

So it’s not a right or wrong proposition here.  And I would say to a great extent, it comes down to where you’re performing.  In a big hall, approach a piece by playing bigger and with more arm weight, while punctuating the fast notes. Rather than playing everything in a fluid matter the way I did the first time, lighten up so that you can negotiate them. So that’s the secret.  You have to play with more arm weight, more angularity, and punctuate fast passages by detaching the notes from one another so they carry through, even with the reverb of a large hall.

So these are some pointers for you.  You’ve got to always listen to the piano and the room you’re playing in so that you can produce a sound that carries through to the last row.

The question today, “Is it okay to tap your foot when you play the piano?” It’s an interesting question. You see a lot of pianists tapping their feet and you wonder, “Well, if it helps you to keep time, isn’t it a good thing?” Well, yes and no.

It depends upon to a great extent the style of music you’re playing.

In groove-oriented music, tapping your foot can really be a help. Jazz musicians, particularly with something with an intricate rhythm, are able to maintain the pulse with bodily motion It is something some great jazz artists do successfully.

What about classical music?

If you want to maintain a good, steady beat, there is no substitute for using a metronome, which will measure your music. Why is a metronome preferable to tapping your foot? There are a lot of reasons.

First of all, if you tap your foot, you may get faster and slower. Alos, you may not be playing exactly with your foot. But the worst thing is this. You get used to tapping your foot, and then you can’t control it anymore!

What happens when you have to use the pedals? If you’re tapping your right foot, you’re totally out of luck, and even if you’re tapping the left foot, you can’t use the soft pedal (the una corda).

And it’s distracting to the audience.

Imagine someone playing a beautiful, delicate, slow movement or a nocturne, and you see a foot going. It’s inappropriate. You don’t want to distract the audience from the music.

Now, I will give you a little trick that I sometimes use. Sometimes, just to make sure, particularly in slow movements when you want to make sure you’re holding long notes long enough, (which is a whole other subject for another video coming to you soon) I will tap my toe in my shoe, or the heel of my foot very gently where there’s really no visible motion of the foot. But it helps me make sure not to rob long notes. This is really valuable in slow movements.

But if you’re playing something fast, if you want to tap your foot along, it’s really not going to help you. If you want to solidify your tempo and rhythm, use the metronome. And for other styles of music, playing with a rhythm section is great.

There are even programs like Band-in-a-Box or Garage Band,

or any of a number of intelligent arranger keyboards that you can play along with. This provides not just a click, but a whole rhythmic style which can be even more helpful. You can have a virtual rhythm section accompany you in your practice, so when you get together with real musicians, you’re at home.

So these are some perspectives on tapping your foot. I wouldn’t say it’s a complete no-no, but it certainly can be distracting in classical performances if it’s visible.

Thanks so much. I enjoy your comments by the way. Keep them coming, and remember to subscribe to LivingPianos.com so you’ll get all the fresh videos. Again, Robert Estrin here at Living Pianos, Your Online Piano Store 949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com

The question today is, “How do you deal with page turns on the piano?” This can be a real problem. One solution that works great is simply to memorize your music! When this isn’t the case, in some pieces, you might be lucky enough to have rests in just the right places giving you time to turn the page. Or, perhaps there’s a place where the left-hand doesn’t do anything and you have a moment to grab the page. But most of the time, this isn’t the case.

That’s why in a lot of concerts of chamber music, when you have a pianist playing with other musicians which is generally done with the score, you’ll see a page-turner on stage. If you don’t have that luxury? Is there anything you can do?

I’ve got some pointers for you! First of all:

You must practice your page turns!

Make sure to fold over the bottom of the pages so you can easily grab them. Then you want to really work on those sections so you can get through them. You may have to take your left hand up just for a moment and leave out a note or two. If you learn the part well enough, you might know a little bit past the page turns or you might have parts memorized just a bit before the page turns so you can get through the piece without disrupting the music.

Another trick that I have done is to copy parts of the score and put them above the pages or on the side of the pages. I have had some scores that I will copy all the pages and put them all the way across in one long sheet taped together. If the piece is too long, at a certain point with perhaps four or five pages taped together, I’ll (somewhat violently) rip off the top set of pages, revealing another set of pages underneath! So you have one disruption instead of several every time there’s a page turn.

For solo repertoire, there are so many benefits to memorization, aside from the issues of page turning. I recommend it really highly. But when you’re in a pinch and you don’t have a page turner, these are some solutions.

What about technology? Well, fortunately,

You can use on iPad or other tablet

and you can turn the pages very quickly, or even use a pedal to turn the pages for you! If the music you’re looking for isn’t available online, you can scan it and turn it into a PDF to have on your device.

A great product is a pedal by AirTurn for turning pages.

VirtualSheetMusic.com also has great technology. You not only can use AirTurn pedals to turn the pages, you can actually use your head! You set how much range of motion it takes to turn the pages, so you don’t accidentally set it off, and whenever you want the pages to turn, you simply move your head to the side and your page turns for you!

So there are solutions for you when memorization isn’t in the cards for you. I hope this has been helpful. Thanks for the great questions. Again, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

Music expresses emotions. So, you may wonder how your mood affects your musical performance. In this video, you will hear a freeform, Classical improvisation with a dark mood. Just prior to recording, I experienced frustration getting the camera to cooperate when all I wanted to do was play music for you! Perhaps the emotions inspired the character of the music.

Music expresses emotion. It can be a great challenge to bear your soul in a genuine way when performing music. It can be a challenge avoiding distractions whether it is noises from an adjacent room or a squeaky bench. Worse yet, you may find your mind wandering to concerns of daily life taking you away from your purpose as a performer – to reach the audience with a message only music can convey.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in offering true feelings in your music is when you are improvising, particularly freeform improvisations, not music based upon written scores. This is something most typically associated with jazz musicians, but not exclusively.

In the accompanying video, you will hear a performance of a freeform improvisation in which my purpose was purely to convey honest emotions.

Sometimes it can be a rewarding challenge to create musical forms such as Sonata or Theme and Variations. But in this instance, my goal was not to impress the listeners with displays of virtuosity or musical prowess, only to convey musical expression in a genuine way.

This is one of the greatest musical challenges! Fortunately, I had a great Baldwin SF-10 grand piano to inspire the performance with its beautiful sound. Please feel free to leave your thoughts about this subject.

This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Why are Hamburg Steinways so hard to find?” Steinway was started by German immigrants as an American company and later started building pianos both in New York and Hamburg, Germany.

The reason why they are so scarce in North America is because the New York factory services our whole hemisphere: North America, South America, and Central America. The Hamburg factory supplies pianos to Europe and Asia. So, there are very few over here and if you want to get one through the Steinway dealer network, it is going to cost a premium. The ones there are earmarked for their market and there are challenges to overcome such as overseas shipping. Something else is to consider is being able to buy Euros with Dollars which can increase costs as well..

There are a lot of reasons why they are very difficult to buy in North America and really scarce. Some people wonder, if they are better. That’s a whole other subject for you which I cover on the following video:

Musical expression is the personal take a musician has on the music they perform. It’s a uniquely individual experience. What do I mean by the term, “infinite expression” and how can you apply this to your music? Let’s start by explaining the two concepts of infinity and how they can relate to music.

The first concept of infinity is the idea of moving endlessly in any direction.

For example, if you go out into space and just keep going in any direction, you could theoretically go on forever. So, when it comes to music, what if you were to allow the music to flow in any direction with no limits? In the video included with this article, I demonstrate this concept with Chopin’s A flat Ballade No.3, Op.47.

If you listen to the piece in the video you might have an interesting response. Those who are intimately familiar with the piece would probably not be pleased with the performance. However, those of you who are new to the piece might have a more positive response. How can this be? In the context of the whole piece, adding so many liberties with timing, expression and voicing with infinite expression causes the music to go in so many different directions that it would be unsustainable. The whole piece wouldn’t hold together. It’s impossible to maintain the music cohesiveness for the duration of the piece playing in this manner. Infinite expression in this sense simply doesn’t work for classical performance.

The second concept of infinity is the idea of going halfway to a destination again and again repeatedly.

This presents another concept of infinity. Your musical framework allows for minute levels of expression and detail which is truly limitless. The nuance of each note, the levels and the balance of each chord, there are an infinite number of possibilities to add more character and expression to your performance. This concept of infinity can be applied to musical expression. This might sound like a complex concept, and it is, but I have provided an example of this type of performance in the video included in this article as well.

If you listen to the second performance in the video, you will notice how it contrasts with the first performance. While there are an infinite number of gradations of tone, balance and expression, there is a continuity that holds the music together.

I could play that section over again and again and never play it the same way twice!

Adding subtle details to different elements allows you to create character and expression while potentially never repeating yourself – a truly infinite form of expression.

Adding subtle details to your music within a framework allows for infinite possibilities in your music while still maintaining the intentions of the composer and the structure of the music. Yet with this concept, you can still add your own unique voice and expression to everything you perform. When you look at your performances in this way, it’s incredibly exciting – you can truly play a piece thousands of times and always add something fresh and creative.

Hi, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, the question today is: Why are Steinways so expensive? I’m sitting in front of a concert grand Steinway that costs new over $200,000. Can you believe it? You might wonder, are they really worth that? Why do they have to cost so much? After all, you can get brand new pianos for less than $10,000. What’s up? Why are they so expensive? Well, there are a lot of reasons and we are going to get into it right now.

First of all, Steinways are created to be the finest pianos possible. They are made with the best materials with highly skilled labor and have a long, rich history of piano manufacturing. There are a number of piano companies mostly in Germany, that make pianos on an extremely high level and cost as much as Steinway. On top of that,

Steinway in New York uses all union labor.

New York union labor! New York City labor – can you imagine the cost of that? The real estate in New York is incredibly expensive and all the woods and other materials are also premium quality which doesn’t come cheap.

More than that, even though they’ve been doing very well and had a banner year, they only built and sold about 1,100 pianos last year. They sold every one they built, which is a good thing! So, there is a demand for these pianos. Steinway does have the distinction of being extremely sought after both new and used. So dealers don’t typically discount them, or have to discount them, they sell all the ones they can possibly build as it is. Whereas other top-tier pianos, often times dealers have to discount them some in order to be able to sell them.

The Steinway name is so powerful because they essentially own the concert market.

No other companies can support concert grands in every major city in the world. That’s a very expensive endeavor at $200,000 a pop! Even in the used market, Steinways cost more than any other top-tier piano. It is partially because of the name. Also, the quality, the workmanship, and the materials are all top-notch. It is the same reason why, for example, a Toyota or Lexus has one price, but a Rolls Royce costs a lot more since they are not mass-produced.