Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question from a viewer is, “Can You Play the Piano While Wearing Gloves?” That sounds like a silly question, but I started thinking about it. I’ve been in practice rooms that were so cold. What can you do about that? Can you play the piano with gloves on? Well, in advance of this video, I went out to my car and sure enough I had a pair of gloves there. I have not tried to play yet with these gloves. So this is going to be an experiment for all of us watching, as well as me. I remember as a kid just walking by the piano when I had my winter gloves on, and I was surprised that I could play! But that was a lot of years ago when I had the hands of a child. Let’s see what happens now! I’m going to play the beginning of Mozart’s famous C major Sonata K. 545 with gloves on. (You can watch the accompanying video performance.)
The answer is yes, you can play the piano while wearing gloves!
Now that’s kind of surprising, isn’t it? I remember the very first time I ever played the piano while wearing gloves. I was shocked that I could do it! The gloves don’t really add that much mass to your fingers in terms of hitting surrounding keys. If you’re somebody with big hands and fat fingers, the gloves might be such that you won’t be able to fit your fingers between the black keys. In fact, I’ve met pianists whose fingers don’t quite fit between the black keys as it is! Certainly on some old pianos where the black keys are thicker, it can be difficult to get your fingers between them if you have particularly large hands. With my modest hands I can play with gloves. So, I’m in good shape if I’m in a cold practice room!
I’m sure many of you want to try this now for yourselves. Tell me how it works out for you!
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos!
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question from a viewer is, “Can You Play the Piano While Wearing Gloves?” That sounds like a silly question, but I started thinking about it. I’ve been in practice
Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is, “Is there a standard for piano regulation?” The gut reaction, you’re probably all thinking is, of course, there must be a standard for piano regulation. I know this involves many precise measurements. I’ve got news for you, though. I’ve been around piano technicians my entire life. Some of my best friends are piano technicians! As a matter of fact, many of them, and I certainly depend upon them. Here’s the funny thing. I don’t care how great a piano technician is. Once they get done with a piano, you take another piano technician and they look at the work, how the regulation was performed, and they usually respond something like this, “Oh yeah, this is good, but I would take it down a little bit, and maybe a little bit higher, over here.” Everybody’s got their own ideas!
Is there a standard? Well, yes and no. Here’s the standard.
Yamaha has their specifications, for piano regulation. Steinway has theirs. There are little differences. There are some universals, certainly, but there are nuances of differences. Naturally, different pianos have slightly different geometry from one another. So, you can’t necessarily regulate every piano exactly the same. But perhaps even more significant is:
Every technician has slightly different ideas about regulation.
But I think the real key is this. Some pianos can be taken to a higher level of regulation than others. If things are really precise on a piano, you can take it to the edge of closeness where you know it’s still going to work and get optimal performance. But sometimes compromises are necessary. As a matter of fact, it’s typical that there are going to be some compromises in regulation because there’s no such thing as a perfect piano. You get something that has the best combination of power, speed, repetition fluency, control, and there are different ideas as to how to achieve that.
So, even though there’s a lot that piano technicians will agree upon, they all seem to have their own little nuances and preferences as to how things should be measured. Now, I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of comments on this one because there are technicians out there who may feel differently. I want to hear from you in the comments here in YouTube, and you can always contact us here at LivingPianos.com. Once again, we’re your Online Piano Store, providing good information. That’s why we bring these videos to you! So, if you have suggestions for future videos, keep them coming in and they’ll always be more for you, and you’re welcome to subscribe. Thanks again, Robert Estrin, here at Living Pianos.
Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is, “Is there a standard for piano regulation?” The gut reaction, you’re probably all thinking is, of course, there must be a standard for piano regulation. I
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is, “Why Does A Soft Pedal Make No Difference on Some Pianos?” On many pianos, the soft pedal creates a nice tonal change. Other pianos, it doesn’t seem to do anything at all! Are they broken? I’m talking about the una corda pedal. On grand and baby grand pianos, the left pedal shifts the entire action. So, the hammers don’t strike the three strings directly. Una corda, as a matter of fact, means one string. A long time ago, pianos only had two strings for each note. So, shifting the action made the hammers hit only one string. Modern pianos are a little bit different. The hammer doesn’t actually strike only one less string. The entire hammer hits at a different point.
The hammers on a piano that’s been played a lot will have grooves where the strings make contact.
Therefore, the felt is compacted, which gives a more brilliant tone than the softer felt surrounding. So, when you push down the soft pedal, you’ll hear a dramatic change on pianos that are broken in. Of course a piano with brand new hammers will have a minimal difference in tone when using the soft pedal, because the hammers are barely broken in. If there is a tonal change, it is extremely subtle, which is what you would expect.
Play your piano, and the soft pedal will make a bigger difference over time.
After six months or a year of playing a piano, the hammers will get grooved and the tone will brighten up. This is normal on all pianos. However, the soft pedal will engage a part of the hammer that isn’t normally played, and you’ll hear a dramatic difference in tone when depressing it. For example, a couple of months ago I was at a good friend’s house. He has a Yamaha that he plays a good deal. The hammers were pretty hard. So, pushing down the soft pedal sounded like a completely different piano! You wouldn’t believe the difference. The compacted felt of the grooves were bypassed just a fraction of an inch, and the fresh part of the felt hit the strings. That’s why on some pianos you won’t hear much difference with the soft pedal. A certain amount can be voiced or regulated. However, time is your best cure for a soft pedal that doesn’t do much.
‘m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is, “Why Does A Soft Pedal Make No Difference on Some Pianos?” On many pianos, the soft pedal creates a nice tonal change. Other pianos, it doesn’t seem to
Thanks for joining us here at LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is, “How Can A Piano With A Heavy Action Feel Light?” How can that be possible? Believe it or not, we have discovered this to be true! Sometimes we get a piano in and the action feels comfortable and light, but when the technicians weigh it out it’s really heavy. Typically, you want somewhere between 48 – 60 grams of down weight. Of course the lower notes on a piano are harder to push down than the higher notes. The keys are longer and the hammers have more felt. So, the action doesn’t have the same weight throughout the keyboard. But, generally, a piano should be somewhere in that 48 – 60 gram zone. A piano that has 65 – 70 grams of down weight in the middle register is a heavy piano. We have had some pianos with heavy actions that didn’t feel heavy. The flip side is also true. Sometimes a piano feels heavy and it’s not. You feel like you’re working so hard to push down the keys. How can this be?
It comes down to psychoacoustics.
The amount of energy you have to expend to get sound out makes you feel like a piano action is either heavy or light. For example, let’s say you’re playing a 9 foot concert grand piano with bright voicing and a heavy action in a very small, live room. If you play that piano in that room, you will feel like you barely have to touch the keys to get a big sound. The heavy action will feel light to you. The opposite can also be true. Let’s say you’re playing a small piano in a big room that has carpet, drapes, and soft furniture absorbing all the sound. You’re working so hard to get sound out that it feels heavy to you! So, there’s more to action weight than you might think. I will say this: If your piano action is extremely heavy, you could possibly do hand damage. So, you want to avoid actions that are out of that zone. Secondly, if a piano is really light, let’s say in the low 40s, it’s almost impossible to get very fast repetition because you don’t have any weight to overcome the friction of the action. That’s why there’s a certain zone of normal action weight. Within that range, there’s heavy normal and light normal. Psychoacoustics play a role in that as well.
It’s important to match your piano to your room to have the right playing experience.
There’s nothing worse than having a piano that you have to keep closed because it’s too loud. Or conversely, if you have a small grand piano in a school or a church in a big auditorium everyone’s pounding the heck out of it trying to get the sound out. This will wear out the piano quickly, and the piano will produce an ugly, harsh sound. So it’s very important to consider the acoustics in your room, as well as the weight of the action.
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos!
Thanks for joining us here at LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is, “How Can A Piano With A Heavy Action Feel Light?” How can that be possible? Believe it or not, we have discovered this to be true! Sometimes we
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is, “Should You Learn to Play The Piano One Hand at a Time?” I have seen elementary piano method books that go on and on with just right hand alone, then the left-hand alone. So the question is, is this a good way to learn the piano?
I would say with very few exceptions this is not a good approach.
What are the exceptions? First of all, very young children. Let’s say you have a four-year-old champing at the bit to learn piano, but they’ve got tiny hands and a short attention span. You don’t want to say, “No, you may not play the piano.” So maybe you show them how to do some simple things with one hand to let them see what it’s like. But anybody who’s really studying the piano, unless they have hand problems which is another issue, must delve into playing hands together from the very beginning of studying the piano.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t practice hands separately.
As a matter of fact, it’s an essential technique on the piano. That’s how you learn music, mastering a small section at a time hands separately, then putting the hands together. It’s kind of like if you want to learn how to ride a bicycle and you try with one leg. You miss the whole point of the experience! The most intrinsic difficulty of the piano is being able to play the hands together. Therefore, you must not avoid it. You need to face it! How? By practicing intelligently. Take small chunks, practice each hand separately and put them together slowly until you get the feel for it. If the music is simple enough, you should be able to play hands together. And as you mature, you’ll be able to play more and more complex music hands together, always relying upon hands separate work when necessary. So, that’s a simple answer to this. Hands separate on the piano doesn’t have much relevancy in my opinion beyond being a valuable practice technique in order to put the hands together more easily.
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is, “Should You Learn to Play The Piano One Hand at a Time?” I have seen elementary piano method books that go on and on with just right hand alone, then the left-ha
This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Should You Practice Scales in Contrary Motion?” What does that even mean? Contrary motion is where your hands play in opposite directions from one another. How can you play in contrary motion? Wouldn’t your hands overlap? I’ll explain the value and we’ll talk about whether this is something important for you to practice on the piano. You can go through your scales up and down as you normally would in four octaves. Then, the hands go in opposite directions! Now, why would you ever want to do that? Is this written in music? Not very often.
The reason for this is to hear the independence of the hands more clearly.
When you’re playing hands together, whether the hands are precisely together or not is hard for you to hear because you’re playing the same notes in both hands. But when they start going in opposite directions, you can really hear better. Not only that, but your hands can then develop the ability to play independently from one another. You can really hone in your scale technique this way. So, of course learning all your major and minor scales and arpeggios is a very important skillset to have in your back pocket, particularly if you’re a classical pianist. But for any type of pianist, I think it’s incredibly valuable. Once you can do that, as well as scales in intervals of thirds, sixths and tenths, there’s no end to what can be done with scales.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the end all is scales, arpeggios and exercises.
Nothing could be further from the truth! It’s important to remember that the whole reason for exercises is in service of the music so that you can play repertoire on a high level. So spend only the time necessary playing scales to hone in your technique and devote most of your practice time to music. It’s more enjoyable and rewarding and you’ll get more out of it. At the end of the day, you’ll have music you can play! So put a fraction of your time into scales, arpeggios and exercises, but the majority of your time into learning and refining music. You will be richly rewarded!
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos.
This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Should You Practice Scales in Contrary Motion?” What does that even mean? Contrary motion is where your hands play in opposite directions from one another. How can you pla
This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with a question, “What Is the Right Fingering on the Piano?” Fingering is such a deep subject on the piano that I could give courses on it and have guest artists to share their ideas because, truth be known, fingering is not a one size fits all proposition.
Are there any fundamental fingerings that all pianists follow?
There are some essential fingerings that all pianists must learn. For example, unlike the violin and other string instruments which do not have standard fingering for scales and arpeggios, on the piano there is standard fingering. I should mention a little aside here. There is another school of thought for a tiny percentage of pianists called, “mirror fingering” in which the thumbs always play the same notes in both hands in scales and arpeggios. But that is a subject for another video.
Most pianists learn proper fingering for scales from “Hanon 60 Selected Studies for the Virtuoso Pianist.”
You can get the Hanon book on Amazon or most sheet music stores. It is the Bible of fingering for scales and arpeggios on the piano. All pianists must learn the correct fingering for scales and arpeggios, but what about in your music? If you’ve ever had sheet music that has fingering in it, and then you see another edition of the same piece, you might be shocked to discover that the fingerings are different! In fact, fingerings are different in various editions! So how do you know what’s right?
Fingering is as much art as it is science.
My father, Morton Estrin, was a concert pianist with enormous hands. I have relatively small hands. Just think of that alone. Something that might lie right under the fingers of somebody with big hands would be impossible for somebody with smaller hands to reach. We must accommodate our hand size. Even the thickness of the fingers and the stretch between the thumb and the other fingers, all of these things affects us. Here’s the key: You must practice to find the fingering that works for you. Does that mean that anything goes with fingering? Far from it!
It takes many years to learn how to find the right fingering.
There is no substitute for a good teacher, as well as having authoritative, well-edited, fingered editions. I use that in the plural because there’s nothing better than having multiple resources of fingering suggestions. When you’re running through a problem with a passage, one of the first things to look for are new fingering solutions. Sometimes the fingering, even though it seems like it should be perfectly good, might not work for you. You have to discover what fingerings work for you.
There are some hard and fast rules in fingering.
I mentioned scales and arpeggios, but there are other fingerings you must follow. For example, rapid repeated notes with one hand. If you try to do that with one finger, you’re never going to be able to get it up to speed. But, by using three fingers you can go much faster. So, there is one thing that is certainly a rule. You must change fingers when playing rapid repeated notes with one hand. In fact, I like changing fingers on repeated notes even when they’re slow because of the legato quality you can get. When you play a repeated note without changing fingers, it is difficult to get a smooth sound. But by changing fingers, one finger is going down while the next finger comes up, so you achieve smoother, more connected repeated notes.
If you have technical problems in a passage and you’ve worked and worked but you never can get it, try experimenting with new fingering. Get another edition with fingerings and try them out. You will be rewarded! It is one of the things that will come to you after you’ve studied piano for a long time. You’ll start to understand fingering in a way that allows for solutions to technical and musical challenges on the piano.
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos.
This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with a question, “What Is the Right Fingering on the Piano?” Fingering is such a deep subject on the piano that I could give courses on it and have guest artists to share their ideas because,
Thanks for joining us here at LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is, “Is Juilliard the Best Music School in the World?” Almost everybody has heard of Juilliard and indeed, there are some sensational musicians who have come out of the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. But is Juilliard the best music school in the world? I can tell you that the Juilliard Orchestra is made up of absolutely top-notch musicians. There are so many violin and cello soloists who go to the Juilliard School that you’ve got a whole string section of soloists! Across the board it’s a great school. Located right in Lincoln Center. What could be better?
As great as Juilliard is, there are two music schools even more elite: The Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia and the Colburn School in Los Angeles.
Curtis and Colburn are magnificent institutions with illustrious faculties. They are both total scholarship schools, so it’s a complete free ride for everyone who goes there. It’s extraordinarily difficult to get in, but a top-notch experience. At Curtis, pianists even get a piano in their apartment to practice on! Also, Curtis has the Philadelphia Orchestra right there. Many of the members of the orchestra are on faculty! And of course Colburn has the benefit of the LA Philharmonic being right there too. The endowments are incredible! So while Juilliard isn’t quite that elite, it’s certainly a great school.
There is a new Juilliard School now in Shanghai!
Shanghai is the epicenter of the piano world. To put it into perspective, there are around 6 million piano students here in the United States, but China has well over 50 million piano students! It’s pretty remarkable. It’s a magnificent idea to open a Juilliard school in China where it’s really needed. It will be interesting to see the next generation of musicians coming out of China, particularly on piano, which is so popular there.
I would love to hear from all of you!
Are there any other schools you consider to be the best? I’m sure there are many schools in Europe that are very selective and have illustrious faculties as well. I just mentioned two schools here in the United States that are incredibly well endowed. Let me know your thoughts on this subject!
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos.
Thanks for joining us here at LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is, “Is Juilliard the Best Music School in the World?” Almost everybody has heard of Juilliard and indeed, there are some sensational musician
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin, and this is LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is, “Can You Bring Out Notes on a Keyboard with No Dynamics?” How could you possibly bring out notes in a chord on a harpsichord or an organ? You might think it’s impossible, but there is a way!
There are a lot of keyboard instruments that don’t have loud and soft like the piano does.
I’ve had the good fortune of not only performing on piano but also on harpsichord and other early keyboard instruments. I’ve also had vast experience with music synthesizers and samplers and other types of keyboards, some of which don’t respond to touch. So how could you possibly bring out notes in a chord on an instrument that doesn’t respond to touch?
The secret is holding some notes longer than others!
When you hold the top notes longer than the bottom notes in a chord, it creates the illusion of those notes being louder. It draws your attention to those notes, even though they’re all the same volume. You can bring out the bottom line the same way by playing the upper notes in a detached manner. The piano is capable of dynamics. You can play the top notes or the bottom notes louder. So, why would you ever have to do that as a pianist? If you’re playing Baroque music written for the harpsichord, like Scarlatti for example, they didn’t have the capability of playing dynamics. The only way to achieve dynamics on a harpsichord is with a two manual harpsichord where one keyboard is louder than the other. So it’s a valuable technique in Baroque music.
You can utilize this technique in your playing to bring out notes, not just with volume.
By practicing this way, you will develop the ability of bringing out notes in volume because you’ve practiced bringing them out by playing some notes longer than others. This is an extremely valuable practice technique, particularly if you’re playing counterpoint. But it’s also incredibly valuable to develop the balance in your playing when playing chords. For example, in the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, you want to bring out the top line in the second movement. A great way to practice this is to play those inner notes gently with finger staccato so you delineate them in your hand and in your head. You can control them. If you can play with different articulations, with different lines in your music, you will easily be able to control them in volume. This is a great technique that is essential on the harpsichord and the organ. But it is also a tremendous practice technique to gain control of all the notes you’re playing within a chord on the piano.
I hope this lesson is valuable for you! 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. See you next time!
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin, and this is LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is, “Can You Bring Out Notes on a Keyboard with No Dynamics?” How could you possibly bring out notes in a chord on a harpsichord or an organ? You might think i
