Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how playing the piano is like learning how to walk. Obviously playing the piano seems much more complicated than walking. But have you ever seen a toddler taking their first steps? Each step is very careful and deliberate. They are trying not to fall down as they figure out all of the mechanisations of walking. And yet, we can walk and talk, and you don’t even have to think about walking! If there’s something in your path, you could possibly trip, That’s when you become cognizant of walking. But most of the time, you don’t need to think about it. How does this relate to piano playing? Let’s say you’re playing a 90 minute solo recital from memory. Obviously, no matter how skilled you are, there are going to be moments when you’re going to lose your concentration.
There’s a certain amount of motor memory or tactile memory that we depend upon.
Now, this isn’t something desirable. But it is a fact of life that you’re not going to be able to concentrate fully every single moment in your performance. I’m going to show you how this is true for piano playing, just like you can talk while walking. You don’t really have to think much about it. But I’m going to show you something in the accompanying video which proves how this same fact of life is present in your piano playing. We all depend upon this automatic pilot that we have. I’ll talk about the benefits and the dangers of that.
Learning to play the piano is similar to learning how to walk.
If you watch a toddler learning to walk, particularly the first time they are unaided, each step is a milestone. You can see the concentration it takes. The same is true in piano playing. When you’re learning something, at first it’s very complex. It’s a slow arduous process. But eventually, it becomes automatic! Your fingers just go where they’ve gone before, because you’ve done it so many times. Chances are, you’re going to remember where your hands go. Or your hands will remember where they go, because they’ve done it the same way hundreds of times before. This is sometimes described as, muscle memory.
There will be moments during a performance where you will lose your concentration.
Maybe there’s a noise in the audience or a key trips up on the keyboard, and yet you can manage to keep on going. Well, this is extremely dangerous, because your hands have no idea whether you’ve taken a repeat, whether you’re in an exposition, or a recapitulation. You could take wrong turns anywhere, because your hands are just doing what they’ve done before. But your hands don’t have intelligence. Your hands just have motor memory. So, how do you overcome this limitation? How do you get your memory so it’s not just motor memory? Rather than practice a piece over and over for months and then memorize it, you flip it.
The first thing you should do with a piece, after reading it through a couple of times, is to begin memorizing it.
Take small chunks at a time, putting the hands together and connecting phrases as you go. I’ve described this process many times before. Eventually, you will get to the point where you really know the score well. But how can you know if you’re just depending upon tactile or motor memory? How much is intentional? To better understand, take the motor memory completely out of the equation! The way to do that is to:
Practice the score away from the piano.
If you try to play the score without the benefit of your fingers moving, it’s really difficult. At first when you try this, you may need to move your fingers, even if it’s just in your lap. Eventually, you can get to the point where you’re not moving your fingers. Then you’re just thinking it all through with every nuance of sound and touch, knowing every finger and imagining the music in great detail. If you can get through your music like that, it’s almost impossible to have memory problems. It’s like singing a song that you’ve sung countless times before, or telling a story that you know so well. It’s part of you. So, that’s the way to overcome this limitation of what your motor memory can do. At the same time, you’ve got to be thankful that you have motor memory to rely upon for those times when you become distracted in your performance. But you want to do everything you can to not have to rely upon it.
I hope this has been interesting for you. I’d love to hear perspectives from all of you. Have you had this kind of experience? If you think that you’re playing just by feel without an intellect behind it, you can try this idea of playing away from the piano and let me know how it works for you. Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please consider joining the Living Pianos Patreon to help support us and get access to exclusive Living Pianos content!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how playing the piano is like learning how to walk. Obviously playing the piano seems much more complicated than walking. But have you ever seen a toddler taking their f
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is how Mozart can sound like Beethoven when the music is in a minor key. You might be thinking that Beethoven and Mozart have completely different musical personalities. That’s true. Even though they lived around the same time, you hear the fire and the passion of Beethoven and the elegance and sweetness of Mozart. So, what are the similarities between these two brilliant and unique composers?
Mozart wrote very few pieces in minor keys.
Mozart mostly wrote works in major keys. But the few pieces that he wrote in minor keys are among his greatest works! For example his 40th Symphony, in G Minor Symphony, or his Piano Concerto K 466 in D minor are masterworks. The few works Mozart composed in minor keys sounds a lot more like Beethoven. I have a way of proving it to you today. First, I’m going to share a brief theory lesson with you, so you can understand the significance of what I’m about to show you which is something truly extraordinary!
Major intervals become minor intervals when inverted.
This is an interesting subject and I’m going to demonstrate this. Major intervals include 2nds, 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths. They are major only when the top note is found in the major scale of the bottom note. For example, in C major if you play C and D, that’s a major second because D is the second note of the C major scale. If you invert the 2nd so the D is on the bottom and C is on top, you have a minor 7th because C is not the 7th note of the D major scale. The 7th note of the D major scale is C-sharp. So, the interval has become smaller by a half-step and is now minor. You can do the same thing with a 3rd in C major. Playing C and E, you have a major 3rd because E is the 3rd note of the C major scale. Invert the 3rd and you have E on the bottom and C on the top which is a minor 6th because C is not the 6th note of an E major scale. The 6th note of an E major scale is C-sharp. So, again, the interval has become smaller by a half-step and becomes minor. All major intervals when inverted become minor.
I’m going to play just the exposition of the famous Mozart C major Sonata, K 545. With the help of my computer, I’m going to invert it. So, every note that goes up goes down, and visa versa. What that’s going to effectively do is take this piece in the major and turn it into a whole other piece in the minor! With the keyboard switched around you wouldn’t even believe it’s the same piece! It’s all exactly the same notes and rhythms, except reversed. You can hear the minor characteristic. It sounds angry. And it sounds a little bit more like Beethoven than Mozart. Check out the video to hear this for yourself! You will be amazed. You will also hear the beginning of two sonatas both in C minor, one by Mozart, one by Beethoven. I’m not going to tell you which one is which. I want you to listen to these two sonatas and see if you can guess which one is Mozart and which one is Beethoven.
It’s remarkable how Mozart takes on a very different character when played in a minor key! I’m very interested to see how all you did out there with your guesses. If you didn’t know either of these works before, I wonder how many of you got it right. Let me know in the comments! Thanks again for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please consider joining the Living Pianos Patreon to help support us and get access to exclusive Living Pianos content!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is how Mozart can sound like Beethoven when the music is in a minor key. You might be thinking that Beethoven and Mozart have completely different musical personalities. ThatR
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you a personal story about the first Chopin piece I ever learned. It’s a funny thing. I was in my office going through music, because we just moved a few months ago and I’m still sorting through things. And what did I uncover but a book of Chopin music. It looks just like any old Schirmer edition of Chopin Preludes. But if you open it up you can see that this is the book I used to learn my first piece of Chopin, the E minor Prelude. You can even see where my father assigned the piece to me. It’s really something after all these years to uncover this. And it brings up a few really important points.
Chopin had an incredible output for the piano.
Chopin was incredibly prolific. He wrote ballades, scherzos, polonaises, etudes, mazurkas, and many waltzes, as well as monumental concert pieces, sonatas and concertos. Yet he wrote pieces that can be approached by relatively intermediate pianists. This isn’t to suggest that these preludes are in any way lacking or aren’t profoundly deep pieces of music, because they are. That’s what made me so unbelievably enthralled. I remember when I first played this piece, I couldn’t even imagine any other piece of music, much less another piece of Chopin, being as enthralling. I was just completely in love with this piece! The funny thing is in revisiting it, I still have that same passion for it! Truth be known, I’ve played this piece many times over the years and I never play it the same way twice. I want to just talk a little bit about this unique piece which I’m sure many of you know.
The interesting thing is how simple the melody of this piece is.
If you just listen to the melody of this piece out of context, without the accompaniment, it’s one of the most boring melodies you could ever imagine. How can this possibly be a beautiful piece of music? Well, it’s the lush, rich, ever-changing harmonies undulating underneath in eighth notes that brings this piece to life. Why did Chopin write eighth notes in the left hand with a slow melody on top? It’s because of the physics of the sound of the piano itself. If you just had sustained chords in the left hand it wouldn’t really work, because when you play a chord on the piano it just dies away.
Imagine what this would sound like with a string orchestra.
So much of Chopin’s music is evocative of the human voice or sustained strings, and yet it’s all done with a percussion instrument. Did you know that the piano is technically a percussion instrument? You’re not hitting it with sticks or mallets, but indeed there are hammers that are hitting the strings! To create a singing line out of the piano is really the art and magic of illusion. And when you have a score written by Chopin, it’s amazing how he brings it to life! That’s the mood you can create on the piano. How is it possible? By listening to the ever-changing harmonies while keeping them subtle enough to draw the attention to this incredibly simple melody. Each and every note of that melody takes on profound implications because of the ever shifting harmonies. In the accompanying video I play a performance of this for you so you can hear what I’m talking about. To revisit this prelude after all these years, and to share it with you, is a great pleasure. I hope you enjoy this performance of Chopin’s prelude in E minor.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this! I will be sharing more personal stories about my childhood and my life in music that I hope you enjoy! Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. This is your piano resource! Thanks again for joining me. See you next time!
Please consider joining the Living Pianos Patreon to help support us, and gain access to exclusive content not available anywhere else!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you a personal story about the first Chopin piece I ever learned. It’s a funny thing. I was in my office going through music, because we just moved a few
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about the ultimate musical form: The fugue. Even if you don’t know what a fugue is, you’ve heard them many times, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to Handel’s Messiah. The fugue is actually a technical type of form that can be utilized within compositions. There are also whole movements that are fugal. The master of writing counterpoint and fugues is Johann Sebastian Bach. He could craft such unbelievable compositions of counterpoint, of interweaving lines, that it’s a mathematical wonder that he could create such intricate music. But it’s the joy of the music and the emotional content that is most important!
What is the structure of a fugue?
A fugue is an amazing type of composition that is based upon counterpoint, the interweaving of separate lines. Rather than just having melody and harmony, imagine having more than one melody at the same time. Is this possible? Well, we all are familiar with a round. A fugue is a bit more complex than a simple round or canon. First let’s talk about a simpler form than a fugue, which is called an invention. Then you’ll understand and appreciate what goes into writing a fugue. An invention is simply two different lines or voices. One line played by one instrument and another line played with another instrument. One isn’t melody, one isn’t harmony. They’re both melodies that interweave with one another.
Bach wrote a whole bunch of inventions for the keyboard. To understand what an invention is and what counterpoint is about, listen to the beginning of Bach’s 1st Invention in C major. It starts off with what’s called the subject, which provides the seed for the whole composition! It starts off rather simply. Then the subject is repeated an octave lower, while the other hand plays the countersubject. The entire composition is built upon both the subject and the countersubject. Even though they’re independent lines that could be sung by different people or played on different instruments (or in the context of the keyboard, played with different hands), the way they intersect creates harmonies that are lush and beautiful.
Bach lived from 1685 to 1750, or dates around that. (Nobody is 100% sure.) He wrote Preludes and Fugues in every one of the major and minor keys. But that wasn’t enough for Bach! He wrote two complete books. So, you have all 12 major keys, all 12 minor keys – times two, for 48 preludes and fugues! It’s one of the milestones of musical literature.
What kind of things can be done with the subject and the countersubject of a fugue?
There is so much that can be done! Naturally, the subject and countersubject can be transposed. They can also be played slower or faster. This is referred to as augmentation and diminution. They can also be played backwards. This is called, retrograde. They can be played upside down as well which is called inversion. These can be combined, for example, retrograde/inversion. For a demonstration of this, listen to Bach’s fugue in C-sharp minorfrom book one. This is an example of a five-voice fugue. This means there are 5 separate lines of music interweaving with one another. Can you believe this? There are at least three voices in a fugue. The initial statements of the subject and countersubject are called the exposition which is followed by the development where the subject and countersubject are presented in many ways.
For example there is Bach’s fugue from his Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Minor from Book I. The subject of this fugue is incredibly simple. It has only 4 notes! As in all fugues, it is restated a fifth higher. This is the way fugues work. As in inventions, you have a counter subject. And once again, it can be altered in many ways. It can be played backwards, upside down, faster, slower, or it can be altered in combinations of techniques. But the entire work is built upon the seeds of the subject and countersubject. Listen to the first section of this fugue to get a feel for what a fugue sounds like. And listen for how this simple subject keeps coming back again and again along with the countersubject. It’s remarkable how 5 voices keep interweaving with one another! There are five separate lines going on. The writing requires mastery in order for a piece of music constructed this way to hold together.
Fugues are rarely pieces all by themselves.
Fugues are usually just parts of pieces. Even Bach wrote preludes and fugues which are two movement works. The only way to really appreciate a fugue is in context. Just like if you really wanted to appreciate a great motion picture, you wouldn’t watch just one or two scenes of it. You’d watch the whole movie! Because the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
So what I’m going to do for you is play a complete work of Bach that ends with an absolutely stupendous fugue. I’m going to perform on my grand piano so you can really get the full experience. Bach wrote several toccatas and they’re emotionally charged works. And his E Minor Toccata is one of my favorites. I’m going to play you the whole toccata. It’s not that long, and it ends with a brilliant fugue. Be sure to listen to the fugue subject. This is a three voice fugue, meaning there are three separate lines going on at the same time. The emotional content and how this affects you is unbelievable.
I’m a firm believer in listening to music to really understand it.
I could go deep into the weeds and show you the subject, countersubject and all of the permutations. At a certain point later on in fugues, there is often a section called a stretto, where the statement of the subject is interrupted before it can finish again and again. It creates a chaotic madness of emotional tension. We could go through and analyze it very methodically. But I learned a lot from my father, Morton Estrin. I’ve talked about him so much because he was my piano teacher, my theory teacher, my harmony teacher, sight-singing, everything! Aside from his private piano teaching, he gave many classes. He was a professor at Hofstra University. He also gave classes in our home where he had a big studio. One of the things I used to love was attending his classes. Whenever he would have a class about music, he would play recordings of music, and people coming from other teachers would ask, “What should I listen for?” If you go to a music conservatory, you understand where this question comes from. I remember in music conservatory, whenever we had any kind of theory, harmony or dictation, if we would listen to music it would be to listen for specific techniques, such as where the development starts or where the stretto is. We were told to listen for this, listen for that. But if somebody asked my father what to listen for he always said, “You listen to enjoy!” Because you will understand in an intuitive way what makes a fugue great by listening to a masterfully composed composition. So I hope you enjoy the performance of Bach’s Toccata in E Minor which accompanies this article.
So, that is just one example of how a fugue at the end of a toccata can build such tremendous emotion. It’s not all just about mathematics. You have to have a certain awe that someone could craft a composition that has such intricacy. These lines all coming together and forming this magnificent piece of music out of all these separate voices that somehow weave in and out of one another in ways that you can’t even imagine. It’s hard to believe what’s actually going on!
I hope this has enlightened you enough that you’ll take an active interest in listening to more fugues! Beethoven, Brahms and other composers also wrote magnificent fugues. If you are interested in part two where I get really deep into analyzing a fugue, telling you all the statements of the subject and countersubject, the retrograde, inversion, diminution, augmentation, and how it’s all crafted, I’m happy to do that for you. Just let me know in the comments or send me an email. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please consider joining the Living Pianos Patreon to help support us and get access to exclusive Living Pianos content!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about the ultimate musical form: The fugue. Even if you don’t know what a fugue is, you’ve heard them many times, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to Hand
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about how to tune your own piano. Can you tune your own piano? That is the real question. I’m going to provide you with the information so you will know if you can tune your piano, and if you want to tune your own piano. But more than that, I’m going to show you an incredibly valuable skill that you can all take to heart: how to touch up the tuning on your piano! That is something I think every pianist should learn how to do. I’ve been doing it for years. You’re going to love it once you learn how to do this!
What tools do you need to tune a piano?
You will need a tuning wrench, sometimes referred to as a tuning hammer. Make sure it has a removable head. You should look for a star head, not a square head. Because with a square head, you only have four positions that you can put the tuning wrench. That is really cumbersome because as you’re going to discover, it’s really hard to move a tuning hammer! So, you want a star head that can be in many different positions. That’s going to be a lifesaver for you! Don’t skimp on your tools either. It’s not that expensive. There are tons of them on Amazon starting at less than $40. Then you just need a couple of wedges so you can mute out some of the strings. As you know, through most of the piano, there are three strings to each note. You need to be able to hear just two of the strings at a time when you’re tuning one string to another. For tuning grand pianos, this is really all you need. To tune a whole piano you can use software for the pitches, but these few tools are all you need to touch up your tuning.
Why is it so important to touch up the tuning of your piano?
It can take hundreds of tunings before you have the skills to get a piano not just to be in tune, but to hold its tuning any length of time at all. Any competent tuner can get a piano in tune. But the first time you play it, notes can go out of tune. It’s really hard to set the strings and pins in such a way that the pitches will hold. Touching up is a totally different ballgame. Let’s say you get your piano tuned. A few days later you’re playing it and notice notes drastically out of tune right in the middle of the piano. It can drive you crazy! You scheduled this tuning, you paid good money for it, and now your piano is just not fun to play at all. What do you do? Hire them back for another tuning a couple weeks later?
If you have the tools and the knowledge – You can touch up the tuning on select notes yourself!
Armed with these tools and the knowledge I’m going to show you, you can alleviate the problem of stubborn out of tune notes on your piano. And you can actually extend the tuning of your piano to last much longer just by going through and touching it up on a periodic basis. Let’s get right to work on this. Now, my piano is pretty well in tune. There are some notes in the very high register that are not perfect. But those high notes are really very difficult to tune. The slightest motion of the tuning wrench knocks the pitch way off. To get it just right is very difficult. The lowest notes on the piano are also difficult, for a different reason. Particularly on smaller pianos, there’s so little fundamental pitch it’s hard to tell what pitch you’re even hearing. But If a note in the very high or low register is out of tune, it’s not going to affect you that much. You’re not going to encounter those notes nearly as often as you will with notes in the middle register of the piano. So, that’s what I’m going to focus on here today, because it’s the most value with the least work.
Let’s start with middle C. Does it sound in tune to you? How do you know if a note is in tune or not? Do you look at a tuner to see if it’s in pitch? No, because the important thing is for a piano to be in tune with itself. If your piano is tuned to 442 and then you play A and you want it to be at 440, that A is going to be out of tune with the rest of the piano. When you’re touching up the tuning, it’s usually only one or two strings of a certain note that will be out of tune. A unison goes out to make it sound funny. It’s not the whole note that is going to go out. That rarely happens in any kind of uniform fashion.
You don’t need a chromatic tuner for what I’m showing you. You do need to listen.
When one of the three strings is out of tune on middle C on your piano, instead of the pure sound, you’ll hear waves. If it’s slightly out, the waves will cause a slow undulation. As it gets more out of tune, they become quicker and quicker. So, the first thing you do is find the three strings for middle C. By pushing down the key, you release the damper so that you can pluck them. Then you’re going to follow the string all the way back to find the pin that associates with the right string. When one string is low you can hear that slow wave. Listen for it. If it’s even further out of tune, that wave will get faster.
This is what I’m talking about. You’re playing your piano just after it’s been tuned and a note goes out for no particular reason. It can happen. The weather or just playing hard can knock a string out of tune. If it’s right in the middle of the piano like this, you won’t even want to play your piano. And you don’t want to spend a bunch of money getting the whole piano tuned again. Even just getting your tuner there, they have to charge you for their time, right? So what do you do? Well, the first thing you do is you identify which string is low. You want to listen for it, so listen to the separate strings. Go ahead, pluck them and listen. See if you can notice which one is lower. One thing you want to do is check to make sure the other two strings are in tune with one another. You can do this by muting the string that is low. Now you’re listening to the other two strings. Let’s say those two strings are absolutely in tune with one another. To be able to compare the out of tune string with an in tune string, having just one string sound with the out of tune string is better. So, you want to mute one of the two in tune strings so that you’re left with one string that’s in tune and the one that is low.
Once again, you pluck the strings to be sure you got it right. Push down the key to release the damper so you can pluck them. Now you’re ready to adjust the pitch. When you try this the first time you will develop a deep respect for your piano technician, because it’s really hard to get even one string in tune! Now, you might just luck out and get it right on the first pull. It can happen. But you might go back and forth for five or ten minutes trying to get it locked in. It’s hard to believe how much effect the minuscule motion on your tuning hammer has on the string.
I’ve seen my piano technician, who’s a master concert technician, struggling to get the string locked to the right position. This is because there’s huge amounts of tension on the strings.
Tension builds up at all the points of termination. Right near where the felt is, there’s tremendous tension. As soon as you hit a note hard, that tension is released on the other side where there is termination at the bridge. You can get a note in tune, but with the first loud strike of the note, the string tension equalizes across the points of termination. That’s why it’s so important once you get your piano tuned to give a couple of hard blows to the key so that the first time you play it loud, it doesn’t go out of tune.
Now you want to pull the low string up to pitch very gently. As you do this you will want to check to make sure you didn’t pull it too far. Listen to the strings again. First the string that is in tune, and then the one that was low before to see if it’s still low. If it’s still low you are going to pull a little bit more. When it’s really close it’s tough to hear which one’s higher and which one’s lower. Once again, push the key down and pluck them. Now if it’s extremely close, you can listen to the difference between the slow undulation of the out of tune string played with the in tune string, compared to the purity of the two strings that are in tune with one another. Once you’ve gotten the two strings sounding in tune, listen to all three strings. Now that note sounds good!
What you’ve just done is tune one string on a piano that has somewhere between 220 to 240 strings!
It gets more complicated if your piano is really out of tune. The pitch of the whole piano could be slightly low. As you start tuning one section of the piano, the pressure that is exerted on the bridge in one area pushes the soundboard down affecting the previously tuned area of your piano. So, you have to go through the tuning at least a couple of times to get anything to hold. Tuning a whole piano is very complicated. You also have the factor that smaller pianos don’t have such pure sounds. They have a lot of what are called overtones, which are color tones that are higher notes contained within the lower notes. Sometimes those can conflict with the fundamental pitch of other notes. So, skilled tuners know how to finesse the tuning to get a sweet sound out of all different pianos.
There is good news for you if you want to learn how to tune a piano like a pro!
There are software programs that can take the tunings from great tuners and take into account the size of the piano and the pitch you’re starting with. By sampling all the A’s on the piano, for example, it knows how much stretch you need. It’s still an arduous task to tune a whole piano. So, I recommend all of you get your feet wet by touching up your piano. This is something that will really prolong the tuning of your piano and save you when you have one or two notes that are out of tune driving you nuts! Touch up tuning is a great skill to develop! I hope this is enjoyable for you! If you’re interested in learning more about piano tuning I’m happy to share with you a bit more about it. Today I’ve given you a valuable skill that any of you should be able to take to heart and make your piano sound better, longer, by touching up the tuning. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about how to tune your own piano. Can you tune your own piano? That is the real question. I’m going to provide you with the information so you will know if you c
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about creepy music. Let’s think about film for a minute. When I think of some of the greatest suspense and creepiness in film, I think of Alfred Hitchcock. Movies like Psycho or The Birds. In these films, it’s not what you’re seeing. It’s not thrusting upon you all this crazy stuff on the screen. Instead, it’s just in your head. You’re wondering what’s going to happen next because of the overtones and undertones. Just like in music, if you throw a bunch of stuff at someone, it might be a little bit jarring. It could even be scary! But slow and simple sounds with dissonance might just make you wonder, “What’s happening next?” Music with too much dissonance gets ugly, and there’s a place for that. Obviously we’ve all seen films that are jarring, but what we’re talking about today is something a little bit different. What I have for you is some original music that explores what this little bit of dissonance can do in music to keep you on the edge of your seat wondering what’s happening next. It’s what you don’t hear! So, I hope you enjoy this and see what you think about this. See Video for Performance
So, that’s an example of music that utilizes dissonance to create a mood.
Not a jarring or scary mood, but creepy and suspenseful. This transcends so many things. If you’re in a conversation with someone, for example, and they stop talking and they’re just looking at you, it’s very creepy after a while. It leaves you wondering, “What the heck are they thinking?” It’s much creepier than anything they could be saying. So, it’s that reserve that builds tension. In cooking it’s the same thing. You could throw a bunch of spice in something, and it could be borderline inedible. But just that little bit of spice can make a dish pop. It’s the same thing with your music. And it’s not just for this particular mood of creepy music. It’s how you parse your words in conversation, and how you delineate music without showing it all, to keep people guessing. What’s beyond? What’s coming next? And that’s one of the secrets of creating moods in music! I hope this is helpful for you! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about creepy music. Let’s think about film for a minute. When I think of some of the greatest suspense and creepiness in film, I think of Alfred Hitchcock. Movies li
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The topic today is about the magic of the five finger position on the piano. This is particularly important for beginning students. First I’m going to explain what I mean. Put your five fingers over five keys, for example right now I’m over C, D, E, F, G in both hands. Interestingly, when young students are playing, you’ll notice that they will constantly be looking down, even if they are in a five finger position. But the keys aren’t going to go anywhere! If you just leave your hands in this position you should be able to have your eyes closed and play whatever key you want. This is a great way to develop reading skills, because you know which fingers go down in each hand in order to play those five notes.
Of course, it can be shifted to other keys.
You might rest your fingers over G, A, B, C, D. Whatever the position, once you are comfortable in that position you should be able to play without looking down at your hands at all. This is invaluable, because as music gets more complex you can do things like reach one note beyond. It’s not a far reach to be able to play one key beyond in one hand or the other. Getting that sense of the keyboard, of where the notes are and where your hands are on them without having to look down is so important. And if you don’t do it in the five finger position when you first start, you’ll likely never do it. So it’s really important to get comfortable playing in that position without having to look down at your hands, to develop your connection between your fingers and the keyboard, irrespective of looking at them.
That is the secret of the five finger position!
There’s amazing things you can do just with five keys on the piano! So test yourself. Close your eyes and play, and see if you can hit the keys you intend to hit. Naturally, if you’re at a more advanced level, go back to some easier music. If you find your reading skills are really lacking, try to find books that are in that five finger position and sight read without looking down at your hands at all. Get comfortable with that, and build up from there. This could be a tremendous help for you to develop your sight reading skills with that connection to the keyboard just from the feel of the keys. I hope this is helpful for you! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please consider joining the Living Pianos Patreon to help support us and get access to extra Living Pianos content! www.patreon.com/robertestrin
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The topic today is about the magic of the five finger position on the piano. This is particularly important for beginning students. First I’m going to explain what I mean. Put your five fing
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is very thought-provoking. Can you learn to play the piano while you sleep? This might sound absurd, but there’s actually scientific evidence supporting the idea that there is a possibility of learning music while you sleep!
There was a study where researchers taught a group of people to play piano melodies using a technique borrowed from the video game Guitar Hero. Afterwards, all the volunteers slept. When they woke up, they were all asked to play the music again. Unbeknownst to the sleeping participants, one group heard the melody they had just learned as they slept, while the other group did not. The volunteers who heard the music while they slept, even though they had no memory of it, played the melody far better than those who didn’t hear it. So indeed, you can absorb some information while sleeping.
Things you think about just before bedtime can seep into your subconscious.
There have been other studies showing how what you think about just before going to bed affects you. Now you probably are already somewhat aware of this phenomenon. Did you ever think of scary things before going to bed? Maybe you watched a horror movie before bed and then had nightmares. So, you can actually leverage your practice time by doing some practicing, or at least mentally refreshing the music you learned during the day, just before going to bed. That way it’s percolating in your head and will get reinforced.
Sometimes I will have music going on in my head all night long!
Every time I wake up, I’ll still be at that same place in the music. The same themes keep playing mentally. Indeed, your subconscious is affected by your consciousness just before bedtime, and even while you’re sleeping. I’m not sure if there’s any way of leveraging the time you’re asleep by playing recordings of pieces you are learning. But certainly refreshing the music you played throughout the day just before bedtime is going to help you reinforce things by cementing it in your subconscious.
I bet you didn’t expect this, but there are scientific studies proving this phenomena. I do it all the time! Sometimes I actually come up with music in the middle of the night. Surprisingly, I’ll play it through a few times in my head and in the morning I still remember it! So, you can cement things through your sleep, by just refreshing before bedtime. Try it out and see how it works for you! Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please consider joining the Living Pianos Patreon to help support us and get access to extra Living Pianos content!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is very thought-provoking. Can you learn to play the piano while you sleep? This might sound absurd, but there’s actually scientific evidence supporting the idea that ther
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question comes from a viewer. Mike asks, “How has technology changed how we learn and experience music?” This is a deep subject. I’m going to give some pointers and a bit of a historical perspective.
We take modern technology for granted to a great extent. But early in the 20th century, pianists and musicians of every ilk had no idea what other people did in music. People would only know the few musicians who toured in their area. Until finally, when recording came about, people were able to hear other performers! People living in rural areas didn’t even have access to symphony orchestras. So, people would learn how to play four hand arrangements of Beethoven symphonies (and others), because there were no opportunities to hear the music any other way.
Today it’s so easy. You can just go on YouTube or Spotify and instantly have access to many performances of almost anything you can think of!
One thing that this has done is make performers much more homogenous. If you listen to recordings from the infancy of recording in the 1930s, the variety of interpretations was astounding because everybody didn’t hear everybody else. There wasn’t a “normal” performance at that point. Listen to Cortot, Schnabel, Rachmaninoff, Hofmann or Levine and you can’t believe the variety of ideas in their interpretations of pieces. So, it’s a little bit sad that people now are so highly influenced by each other that everybody sounds more and more like one another. That’s one of the downsides. The positive is being exposed to so many great instrumentalists, as well as so much music literally at your fingertips. It’s phenomenal! So it’s a balance, but overall I think it’s positive.
In terms of learning music, MIDI, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface that came about in the 1980s, was a tremendous development.
Previous to MIDI, anybody who wanted a computer music system had to invest tens of thousands of dollars in a turnkey system by a company that offered them. For example, New England Digital had the Synclavier system, Fairlight had theirs. This was very expensive! MIDI enabled products from any manufacturer to connect to any other. So this ushered in things like music notation transcription software. With this you could take any keyboard that has MIDI and it could print out the music on your computer. What a time saver that is!
The downside of that is some people will just play into their computers, not really giving thought to each note. When you’re working with a pencil, much less a quill and ink, you are thinking about every note you’re writing, because it’s an arduous task and you don’t want to get it wrong. But if you could just play things in, the same thought isn’t required. I’ve seen some compositions where it was obvious they didn’t really understand what they were writing, because the way it was notated didn’t make sense rhythmically. Just because you have these tools doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to be used in a positive way.
There are music education software programs for things like note reading.
It used to be the best tools in music education you could hope for were flashcards. Now you have apps that can help you learn to read music! There are even music software programs that can show you if you’re playing something right. It shows you what notes you missed! So there are tremendous opportunities and developments in music education regarding technology, not to mention what’s possible with recording. You can use an iPhone to make what would have been a professional video or audio recording in the 1980s, and share it with the world at the click of a few buttons. It’s pretty remarkable!
Overall I’d say technology is ushering in a lot of positive new learning strategies. And we have easy access to almost everything ever recorded! We have all kinds of tools at our disposal and yes, they can be used positively. But it doesn’t mean that we’re going to have better music just because we have these tools. Having great teachers is invaluable, technology or not. So, that’s my take on this subject. It’s a deep subject. We can get a lot of discussions going in the comments on YouTube! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please consider joining the Living Pianos Patreon to help support us and get access to extra Living Pianos content! www.patreon.com/robertestrin
We take modern technology for granted to a great extent. But early in the 20th century, pianists and musicians of every ilk had no idea what other people did in music. People would only know the few musicians who toured in their area. Until finally,
