Hi, I’m Robert Estrin, this is LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is, “Can Your Piano Tuner Appraise Your Piano?” Let’s say you’ve had your piano for a number of years and you have a trusted technician who has maintained it for you. Let’s say you’re moving or you’re upgrading your piano and you want to sell it. Who better to ask than your piano tuner who knows your piano intimately and spends their entire life with pianos?
Most piano technicians have no idea about piano values.
Unless they happen to sell pianos on the side, which some piano technicians do, the vast majority of piano technicians really don’t know the value of pianos. The same thing is true of most piano teachers. Maybe they shopped for a piano 20 years ago and they knew everything about the piano market then. But the market changes so rapidly that even 5 or 10 years ago is not the same as what it is right now.
Most piano technicians have no idea about piano values.
If you have questions about the value of a piano for any reason, whether it’s for an insurance settlement or you want to trade the piano or sell it privately, you’re welcome to contact me personally at: Robert@LivingPianos.com. We are happy to assist you in any way we can here at LivingPianos.com. Send your questions to robert@livingpianos.com so I can answer them in upcoming videos. See you next time.
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin, this is LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is, “Can Your Piano Tuner Appraise Your Piano?” Let’s say you’ve had your piano for a number of years and you have a trusted technician who has maintai
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s topic is, “Did Wagner And Debussy Hate Each Other?” You may have heard about the rivalry and the distaste they had for one another. You can read about that. What I’m going to do is show you musically something quite extraordinary. Debussy mocked Wagner in his music and you can hear elements of humor where it’s least expected and most inappropriate, in Wagner’s famous Tristan theme from, Tristan and Isolde, one of the most deadly serious motifs and chord changes. The whole opera is built upon this chord progression.
Golliwog’s Cakewalk is a piece of Debussy that makes reference to Wagner’s Tristan theme.
But in a totally mocking way that you have to hear to believe! A cakewalk is a dance form. But what happens in the middle? If you listen to the familiar theme and how he pokes fun at it musically, it is an incredibly disrespectful use of Wagner’s music!
Stylistically, Debussy branched into a whole new type of music known as Impressionism, radically different from the deep emotional romanticism of Wagner.
They didn’t appreciate each other. I’d love to hear from all of you about your opinions of this and you are welcome to listen to the accompanying video example.
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. There are lots of videos to come. We welcome your suggestions for future videos. We’ll see you next time!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s topic is, “Did Wagner And Debussy Hate Each Other?” You may have heard about the rivalry and the distaste they had for one another. You can read about that. What I’
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. I’m Robert Estrin and today’s topic is, “What is the Meaning of a Musical Life?” It’s interesting that the parallels of what makes a meaningful musical life also transcend to life in general. So what is life about? Boy, that’s a big topic for today!
We need each other.
We are, by our very nature, social creatures. And in today’s world nearly everything we use was brought to us from past masters. For example, I play piano. I know a lot about pianos. Could I build a piano? Absolutely not. I don’t have the knowledge of how to build a piano. Just casting the plate alone would be a lifetime achievement for me, not to mention all the other intricacies of pianos. We depend upon computers and smartphones and televisions and cars, and most of us don’t even know the basics about many of these technologies. So in this way, we depend upon each other. What about in primitive societies? Well, they too are social creatures. Think of hunters and gatherers. People were specialized and dependent upon one another to keep watch when there was danger at night so people could sleep. We are an interdependent species. The only way we survive is by working together.
The meaning of a musical life is being able to reach people.
How do you do that? Obviously, in a musical performance, you are reaching people on a very deep personal level, and that is richly rewarding to be able to share feelings that are important to you with other people. But is that the only way to reach people? Certainly not. Teaching is another way to share with others. Obviously you can share a great deal with people, but it goes much deeper. Composing music, writing about music, recording music, even managing musicians, all of this is enriching to people. And the sharing is what brings meaning, not just to a musical life, but life in general. There’s a satisfaction that we get from giving to others in order to receive what we need to survive, because none of us can survive on our own. We depend upon each other.
It’s not a competition.
The meaning of a musical life isn’t to be better than everybody else. That’s a dead end really. First of all, you’re never going to do it all. There’s always going to be somebody better than you, at least in some aspects of the piano or any other instrument. Find your unique voice. What’s most important is having a passion for sharing and reaching people in the first place. That’s really what gives the joy and the meaning to your musical life!
I’d love to hear from you and how you have been able to incorporate music in your life in a meaningful way. This is a great discussion for us to have! You can figure out how to carve a path in your musical life that gives you great joy and meaning to yourself as well as others.
Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. I’m Robert Estrin and today’s topic is, “What is the Meaning of a Musical Life?” It’s interesting that the parallels of what makes a meaningful musical life also tran
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. Today’s subject is, “Why You Must Have Rhythmic Tension in Your Music.” What is rhythmic tension? What am I talking about? I’m going to tell you why it’s so important to have rhythmic tension in music and how to create it.
Rhythmic distortion is crucial when playing dance music.
By taking a piece of music that is a dance form, a waltz for example, there must be some distortions to the rhythm. Now you might think you should play exactly what the composer wrote. Truth be known, composers only wrote notes down as guidelines, a skeleton of the composition you must flesh out. So for example, if you were to play a Chopin Waltz with no rhythmic distortion, just absolutely straight where you could play it to a metronome, it would sound lifeless.
You can do your best job at creating the shadings, the expression and playing faithfully to the score, but it will still sound lifeless. Why is this? Well, there has to be motion in music and I chose a waltz for good reason, because dance music is based upon motion, the motion of the dance. A waltz has a strong first beat and a third beat that leads to the next first beat. It’s not just the emphasis, but it’s a pull from one beat to the next. And this rhythmic distortion is essential to be able to get the right feel, not just where it’s obvious in 19th Century music with rubato, or in this case a Chopin Waltz, but with nearly all styles of music.
How do you know if you’re distorting rhythm too much?
You certainly don’t want to play a different rhythm from what the composers wrote. So here’s the key: One way is to play right with the metronome, spot on every beat. Another approach where you may not be able to play along with the music perfectly, however, there is never a gain or loss of any beats. And more importantly, if you tried to tap along, you will feel the pulse. So you pull the listener into the performance. That’s what makes it so compelling! That’s why you must have this rhythmic variety in your music, which you could call distortion. But it is absolutely essential in order to bring your music to life.
I hope this has been interesting for you. I welcome differing viewpoints in the comments below!
Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. Today’s subject is, “Why You Must Have Rhythmic Tension in Your Music.” What is rhythmic tension? What am I talking about? I’m going to tell you why it’s so importan
Hi, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. Today’s subject is, “Five Signs You Have the Wrong Piano Teacher.” Choosing the right piano teacher for yourself or your children can be difficult. Today I will tell you five things to avoid when choosing a teacher.
1. They teach on a spinet piano.
Spinets, those very small upright pianos, don’t have the greatest sound because the strings are so short and the soundboards are small. But there’s more to it than that. Spinet pianos have an easier action than other pianos. Therefore, somebody who practices on a spinet is not really prepared to play a grand piano because a grand piano is so much harder to play. One of the nice things about going to a lesson with a teacher who has a nice grand piano, is that even if at home you only have an upright or even a spinet or digital piano, at least once a week, you see what it’s like to play a more formidable instrument. This prepares you for contests and concerts. That’s one tip. It’s not a deal breaker, but a clue that maybe they aren’t a high level teacher.
2. They babysit their kids during lessons.
You might think that would never happen but it absolutely does! Maybe the kids are in the next room watching TV or maybe they’re fighting with each other and the teacher is really not 100% focused on the lesson. Or worse yet, they babysit neighbors’ kids during lessons! This sounds like a joke, but you would not believe the kind of things that go on.
3. They call themselves piano teachers without any significant piano training.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t some great dedicated piano teachers out there. We appreciate them so much! But there are some who just put ads out and start taking students. Maybe they don’t really have the background or the inclination to really care enough. They’re trying to make money teaching piano without considering the best interests of their students.
4. They hit your hands with a ruler when you miss notes!
This one is a deal breaker. It’s hard to believe that this happens at all, but I have heard of this from many people. I believe it’s sick to inflict pain on students, especially children. You want a teacher to be nurturing and supportive in order to connect with you on a personal level and get you to practice and understand what it’s all about. Certainly inflicting pain is the furthest thing from anything that would be helpful, in my opinion. If any of you have had that kind of experience, I’d love for you to share it in the comments below.
5. They don’t teach you how to practice.
This last one is the most important thing. If a teacher doesn’t show you how to practice, even if they’re spectacular pianists, your progress is going to be hindered tremendously. You only go to a lesson once a week. But imagine a teacher who shows you what to do the other six days of the week. You are going to improve exponentially with a teacher who shows you step-by-step exactly what you should be doing at home. This is the most critical thing and maybe not the most obvious thing to look for in a teacher. If any of you have teachers and you get home and you have no idea where to even start, the teacher really isn’t giving you the tools you need. You want a teacher who will show you step-by-step how to practice. This way you can be productive without them, so eventually you won’t even need a teacher! You can practice on your own and accomplish great things.
I hope this has been helpful for you. I welcome your viewpoints in the comments below!
Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Hi, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. Today’s subject is, “Five Signs You Have the Wrong Piano Teacher.” Choosing the right piano teacher for yourself or your children can be difficult. Today I will tell you five things to
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. Today, I’m going to talk a bit about how you can develop a huge range of tone on your musical instrument. This isn’t just about the piano. This is about all instruments.
I want to start with the original instrument of all time, which is the human voice.
We all have this instrument with us. For millennia it was the only instrument, until people started banging on things and blowing through things. Eventually we invented a whole range of instruments. But it’s really important to remember that it all came from the human voice, and that’s how we express things.
With a wind instrument, or the human voice, how can you develop control?
My wife, Florence Estrin, is a concert flutist. www.florenceflutist.com She has remarkable control in her playing, from the very softest to the loudest, with purity of sound on all notes in all registers. How is such a thing possible? Well, I’ll tell you her secret. Every day, with very few exceptions, she goes through what are called long tones. What are long tones? It’s going through every single note on the flute, one by one, starting as soft as possible with a slow swell to very loud – then a slow swell to very soft, creating a long tone of expression, keeping the pitch the same, which is very difficult on wind instruments. She does this in octaves, making sure the pitch is coherent from octave to octave. She even has a flute that she can take on vacation that’s not so expensive. She can take it out at the hotel at some point, she’ll go through at least a few minutes. Now, why would she go through the pains of long tones on vacation? It’s because with a wind instrument like the flute, the tone production of the lips is so intrinsic to the instrument, that even taking one day off you lose a little bit of that muscle tone. So, it’s not worth taking several days off, because then it takes several days to get back on that high level.
How do you do such a thing on a piano?
On the piano, what we have is the arm weight. How do you utilize the arm weight to get a good tone? Well, if you were to play something on the piano and not use your arm weight, there’s no way to really control your playing. It becomes very calculated. I’ve talked about this before. Sometimes, you have to use the entire arm when you’re playing big chords. For example, the beginning of the Tchaikovsky, B Flat Minor Piano Concerto. If you play those big chords without the arms, you get a harsh sound, compared to playing utilizing the arm weight. What do I mean by the arm weight? By putting your fingers right on the surface of the keys, and then releasing the whole weight of the arms all at once to the bottom of the keybed you can achieve a beautiful sound.
Use arm weight as the analog of the breath.
Now when playing melodic lines, the entire arm doesn’t have to impact each chord or each note. Instead, you lean into the entire line, leaning heavier with more arm weight in the middle of the phrase, creating the line. Just like in speech, it goes up in the middle of the sentence and comes down at the end. Your music has to do that too. You will get a beautiful sound because you have the analog of the breath with the weight of the arm transferring from key to key, rather than playing each note with no weight of the arm, which creates a calculated performance. This is how you develop a huge range of tone on the piano where you don’t get that ugly harshness. You have the support of the arms, much like the support of the breath for a singer or a wind player. It creates that beautiful sound and control.
Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. Today, I’m going to talk a bit about how you can develop a huge range of tone on your musical instrument. This isn’t just about the piano. This is about all instruments. I want to start wit
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com and today’s subject is, “Why Crying is Essential for Your Musicianship.” You might think I’ve gone off the deep end with this subject. Crying and music? What does crying ha
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is “Technique vs Musicality” There will be a lot of opinions about this subject. But truth be known, you can’t really separate technique from musicality completely.
What is technique?
In its most abstract form, you might think of technique as being the physical capabilities, how fast, how loud, the control, trills octaves, etc. But in its essence, technique is being able to produce on the instrument what you hear in your head. Being able to create something in the outer world from your inner world. Ultimately, that is the secret of technique.
Is technique more important than musicality?
Pretend for a moment that somebody out there just wants technique. They don’t care about the musicality. They’re just making it into a sporting event. Can you really achieve something with that? You might think that if somebody could play faster and louder, or slower and more delicately, and every nuance of touch on such a high level, that they would probably have a career because they’d be so phenomenal. But the truth is, having tremendous technique on the piano is very common. Believe it or not. I know most people haven’t met concert pianists, but there are so many concert pianists around the world who you’ve probably never heard of. If you heard them, you’d be astounded thinking that they’re greatest pianists in the world because they can play so well.
Now let’s talk about musicality.
Can you be musical without technique? Well, just imagine if you considered yourself to be a writer. You’ve got great stories, but you can’t really write and you aren’t a good orator either. You have to have a command of language in order to be able to express anything in writing! It’s the same thing with music. You can’t have musicality abstracted from technique. It takes a technique to be able to produce music. Here’s the good news: The repertoire for piano is so vast that someone who is a relative beginner, if they have a natural emotion in their music, if a teacher guides them with appropriate level of music, it’s possible to play musically even with a very basic technique.
Even beginners can play with musicality.
There’s a piece by Cuthbert Harrison from the book, “ABC Manuals” that I loved as a kid and taught countless times. Because I taught this piece so many times, I heard a lot of kids play it and nobody did what I did with it, which was to play it very slowly. Usually with kids, the more they get to know a piece, the faster it goes. But so much can be done with this relatively simple piece of music that doesn’t take very much technique. You can achieve a great deal of musicality just with the voicing of the notes.
Technique and musicality are both necessary for any musician.
So, if you want to explore musical possibilities and total control, the secret is choosing a piece of music that you can have total command over. I know many of you want to play certain pieces of music you’ve heard for your whole life and that you love so much. But you’re doing yourself a disservice if you spend all your time with music that is above the level at which you can play what you hear in your head and achieve it on the instrument. Start with that premise. And you will develop a technique in service of the music, which is what it’s all about! You can’t really separate technique and musicality. You need to have both in order to achieve greatness on your instrument. And that’s the lesson for today!
Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is “Technique vs Musicality” There will be a lot of opinions about this subject. But truth be known, you can’t really separate technique from musicality comp
Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is “Why is it So Hard to Sight-Read Ragtime Music?” Ragtime music is so much fun to listen to and it’s fun to play as well. But it’s extraordinarily difficult to sight-read! And you might wonder why. To give you an example as to why it is so difficult to sight-read ragtime music, I’m going to compare it to something that is as far removed from ragtime as you can get, which is Bach.
Baroque era music can be played without your hands jumping around the keyboard.
Even though the music is complex, you don’t need to look at your hands because it’s all right there under your fingers. The hands don’t leap around like they do in ragtime. Music which has octaves alternating with chords in the left hand, which is very typical of ragtime music, is all but impossible to play without looking at your hands. So if you’re reading the score, how do you look at your hands and the score? It can be maddening! There’s a lot of music that falls into that category where you just need to look at your hands to handle the leaps. But here’s the good news: if you go to the trouble of memorizing ragtime, it’s not particularly difficult to play! There’s a certain technique that’s required. It’s the same technique utilized in pieces of Liszt, such as the end of his 6th Hungarian Rhapsody. The left hand goes all over the place!
Leaping back and forth from octaves to chords makes sight-reading nearly impossible.
That’s why ragtime or any music that has fast leaps is extraordinarily difficult to read. Even some relatively simple accompaniments, like some works by Fritz Kreisler. They’re absolutely glorious works and they have very simple piano parts. But the left hand has leaps in several sections making it very hard to read. There are two ways you can approach this. One way is to have the score memorized. The other way is to work on practicing those leaps without looking. I love to be well prepared when I have an accompaniment like that so I can either choose to look down at the hands or follow the score. I like to practice keeping my eyes on the score and get it to the point where I can do it just by feel. Now think about this. There are some sensational blind pianists out there. So, it is possible to be able to sight-read music that has leaps, but it’s extraordinarily difficult.
Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is “Why is it So Hard to Sight-Read Ragtime Music?” Ragtime music is so much fun to listen to and it’s fun to play as well. But it’s extraordinarily difficult to sight-read!
