You might have heard this term and wondered exactly what it meant. Is an art-case piano something that affects the sound or function of a piano – or is it just a cosmetic difference? Today we will discuss what makes a piano an art-case instrument and how they differ from other pianos.

If you see a piano that has intricate carvings on the case, the music rack, or the legs it would probably classify as an art-case piano. There are many different models and types of art-case pianos but they are all similar in that they have more details in the case including the possibility of intricate woodwork and carvings that differ from traditional design pianos.

Here are a couple different examples of art-case piano designs:

Steinway Louis XV

French Provincial Art-Case Upright Piano

German-made Feurich with Burled Mahogany

Steinway Model A Art-Case from 1893

German-made Blüthner Art-Case

Sohmer American-made Art-Case

As you can see, there are many different types and designs of art-case pianos. So you might be wondering, does any of this effect the piano as an instrument?

Art-Cases are made by many different manufacturers in addition to their regular case designs. They are usually exactly the same pianos internally, but with more intricate elements in the cases. They have the exact same parts as their regular piano models and are not compromised as instruments in any way. So for example, the Steinway model A art-case is the same piano as the traditional spade leg Steinway model A.

So why would you want an art-case piano? It’s all based on your taste in furniture. After all, a piano is one of the most significant pieces of furniture you invest in as well as being a musical instrument. Some people prefer the more intricate woodwork and others would rather have a basic piano design. Art-cases tend to be a bit more expensive, but it’s purely an aesthetic preference.

I hope this is helpful and if you have any questions about this topic or any other, please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.

What is an Art-Case Piano? Piano Questions

You might have heard this term and wondered exactly what it meant. Is an art-case piano something that affects the sound or function of a piano – or is it just a cosmetic difference? Today we will discuss what makes a piano an art-case instrume

Tips for Playing Beethoven’s Fur Elise

Beethoven’s Fur Elise is one of the most recognizable pieces of music in history. Many people play this piece and certain mistakes are very common. I will give you some pointers how to approach this little gem of Beethoven. The beginning is not the

Console and Spinet Pianos can look almost identical from the outside case but what lies beneath separates them a great deal from one another.

Both spinets and consoles are upright-style pianos that are typically very short The fundamental difference between the two types of pianos are the actions.

Spinet Pianos

Spinet pianos have what’s called an indirect blow action (or drop action). The instruments are so small that they have to change the way the action works in order to fit them into the piano.

Compared to a typical piano action, spinet pianos have shorter keys and they have rods that connect each key to the rest of the action. This is why they are called indirect blow actions, because you don’t have a full length key that interacts directly with the action. Instead it drops down to the other part of the action.

Console Pianos

Whether it is short or tall, a console pianos have a regular style upright action where the key is much longer and connects directly to the action:

Pianos Today

Nobody makes spinet pianos anymore. At some point they lost favorability with consumers and have since been replaced by less expensive consoles that don’t have to sacrifice the quality of the actions.

Despite spinets having different actions, there were some higher quality models – the Baldwin Acrosonic being a classic example – that were decent pianos. The inherent limitations in console and spinet pianos lies more in the size of the pianos more than anything else. With a smaller soundboard and shorter strings, the pianos are limited in the amount of sound they can produce.

Generally console pianos are superior to spinet pianos because of the regular style actions and the slightly taller size of the instruments which offers a more rewarding sound.

I hope this is helpful and if you have any questions about this topic or any other, please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.

What’s the Difference Between a Console or Spinet Piano?

Console and Spinet Pianos can look almost identical from the outside case but what lies beneath separates them a great deal from one another. Both spinets and consoles are upright-style pianos that are typically very short The fundamental difference

The question today is, “Is Silence Music?” Naturally you may think, “How can silence be music?” Interestingly, there’s a pivotal piece of music that was composed in 1952 by John Cage called “Four Minutes, Thirty-three Seconds“. You may have heard of it.

“4’33” was written for piano in three movements and all three movements are nothing but rests. The artist comes on stage, opens the fallboard of the piano, and looks at his or her watch and waits the appropriate time for each of the three movements and that is the whole piece! What was he trying to prove? It’s actually a very interesting point that is made.

When you think about the whole universe, you cannot have matter without having space. Indeed, the space between things is as much of a reality as the objects in it. One cannot exist without the other. When I was attending the Manhattan School of Music, we studied the literary works of Carlos Castaneda in one of my classes. Castaneda conducted many different experiments to come to the realization of the meaning of life.

One of the teachings of Don Juan was when you look at a tree most people just look at the leaves of the tree, identify it and stop thinking about it because that is what we are programmed to do as human beings. He was trying to get the young man to understand that you can look at the tree and try not to classify it and indeed you can look at the space between the leaves and appreciate the beauty of that reality as well.

How does this relate to music? Music is all about timing and the rests in music are just as important as the notes. Sometimes, they are even more important. The time you take between notes is what sets the notes apart from one another. So yes, silence is music and almost all great pieces of music have silence in them. Perhaps not to the extent of Cage’s “4’33” which was really more of a statement and philosophical treatment on what music is. Silence must be taken seriously as a pivotal point in music. Thanks for joining me at Living Pianos. Robert@LivingPianos.com

Is Silence Music?

The question today is, “Is Silence Music?” Naturally you may think, “How can silence be music?” Interestingly, there’s a pivotal piece of music that was composed in 1952 by John Cage called “Four Minutes, Thirty-three Seconds&

This is a very important topic and a fundamental part of playing piano. I have another video about how to play louder with notes in the same hand but this video is going to cover how to achieve this with different hands.

This can be a real challenge when you have slow notes that have to be louder than fast notes. Why is this so difficult? On a piano, the longer a note holds the quieter it becomes. So when you have a slow melody against faster notes it presents a challenge to make the slower notes stand out.

In the video example above I play the beginning of the Chopin Prelude in E minor and play the two hands with equal force. You will notice that the right hand melody is completely covered up by the chords in the left hand. So what can you do?

It’s actually a very basic principle that’s based upon the human voice. To get a singing quality on the piano you have to translate the power of the breath to the weight of your arms. But how do you practice such a thing? My father Morton Estrin would demonstrate this to me by playing on my arm. What I noticed was that it wasn’t just the beginning of the notes where I could feel the pressure, it was the entire time he was playing a slow melody. I could feel the downward force throughout the entire melody! By doing this, the weight of the arm translates from note to note and creates a constant musical line – much like singing.

You should also keep in mind that if you are replicating the human voice when playing the melody you should build up to the middle of the phrase and decrescendo to the end of the phrase for a natural sounding musical line. This is achieved by using your arm weight to build up the sound and volume of the notes until you reach the climax of the phrase and slowly bring the phrase down in volume by decreasing the arm weight. This is how to make the melody “sing” like a voice.

But how do you control the volume of your other hand? You should touch the keys gently and use minimum motion. That way the melody notes in the other hand will project well.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

How to Play One Hand Louder Than the Other on the Piano

This is a very important topic and a fundamental part of playing piano. I have another video about how to play louder with notes in the same hand but this video is going to cover how to achieve this with different hands. This can be a real challenge

This is a very overlooked topic for many pianists. Ending a piece correctly is extremely important and is crucial to a great performance. While there is no one solution to the challenge, I will provide some tips on how to make your endings memorable.

For the example in the video above I use the Chopin Prelude in E Minor. The ending of this piece has three chords. It’s a simple ending but it can be a very powerful one with the right technique. You’ll want the music to linger in the air even after the sound has stopped.

The trick is to release the hands and pedals very slowly at the same time. This way if you have any issues with damper regulation on the piano the effects are minimized. You don’t want certain notes sticking out and being louder than others and you certainly don’t want an abrupt ending.

Many students will end a piece very abruptly and then take their hands and slap them down on their lap and act like it’s a relief to be done playing! Nothing sucks the mood out a room more than someone displaying negative emotions onstage.

When you hear great performances in concert halls there might be a few seconds of absolute silence after a piece. It’s a powerful tool to let the music and the emotion seep into your music. Sometimes music will actually end with fermata on the double bar even when there is no music. What is the composer telling you in a situation like this? They are visually representing what we have discussed here – letting you know that even though the music has stopped, the mood should linger in the air for a few moments. In this case it’s an actual part of the piece.

Another mistake that some people make is to rely completely on the pedal at the end of a piece. On a well regulated piano it might sound OK but taking your hands off the keyboard early will make the audience think the piece has ended – even if it technically hasn’t. This is true for changing movements as well. If you keep your hands on the keyboard it will let the audience know that there is more to come.

Thanks again for joining me, If you have any questions about this topic or any others please contact me directly: Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

How to End a Piece of Music

This is a very overlooked topic for many pianists. Ending a piece correctly is extremely important and is crucial to a great performance. While there is no one solution to the challenge, I will provide some tips on how to make your endings memorable.

If you’ve followed my videos you might be familiar with some of my more advanced videos on this subject: How to Play Chords on the Piano Part 1 and Part 2; Diminished 7th Chords Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, and What are Parallel Chords? as well as some videos that cover the basics of scales: Relative Minor Scales, Major Scales, Whole Tone Scales, and Chromatic Scales. A lot of these videos go very well with this topic and they all relate to one-another.

So what is a chord? It might seem simple when you think about it but trying to put it into words can be challenging.

A chord is 3 or more notes arranged in thirds.

A scale is built upon whole-steps and half-steps (seconds) and a chord is built on the interval of a third. What is a third? It is essentially every other note of a scale. So if you were to play a C major scale (or any other major scale) and leave out every other note you would have a chord! It really is that simple; you can make a chord by simply playing every other note of a scale.

There are two types of thirds that are used in chords: major thirds with a total of four half-steps and minor thirds which contain three half-steps. Different combinations of major thirds and minor thirds are the fundamentals of Western harmony. There are expanded chords we can get into in another video but this is the basic information on what exactly a chords is.

And when it comes to chords, you don’t have to start on the first note of a scale, you can start on the second, the third and so on as long as you skip every other note of the scale.

Thanks so much for joining me here. We will be bringing you more videos on this topic very soon. If you have any questions please contact me directly Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.

What is a Chord?

If you’ve followed my videos you might be familiar with some of my more advanced videos on this subject: How to Play Chords on the Piano Part 1 and Part 2; Diminished 7th Chords Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, and What are Parallel Chords? as well as s

This is a very interesting topic that has been talked about and debated for years. Can music lessons really improve your thinking and comprehension? Can it really make you a better student?

A groundbreaking study from the University of California, Irvine a couple of decades ago by Dr. Gordon Shaw and Dr. Frances Rauscher seems to support this theory. They took a group of young students and divided them into three different groups. One group took computer lessons, one group took piano lessons, and one group was the control group who did neither. They administered these lessons for a few months. Before the instruction began, they administered standardized testing for math and English. After the instruction period ended, they had them take standardized tests again. Surprisingly, the students who took piano lessons scored higher on their math and English exams. The students in the other two groups saw no change in their test scores.

Interestingly, it has been discovered that students who just listen to Classical music during tests score higher than students who don’t listen to music. This is referred to as, “The Mozart Effect”.

There has been some debate about the overall effect of listening to classical music to boost intelligence but in the end, if you’re just getting to listen to Mozart and other Classical music, that’s good in of itself!

There have been a number of studies in recent years that have continued to support the theory that music lessons can help young people achieve better scores on their tests and increase their overall skills in critical thinking and comprehension.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com

Do Music Lessons Make You Smarter? The Mozart Effect

This is a very interesting topic that has been talked about and debated for years. Can music lessons really improve your thinking and comprehension? Can it really make you a better student? A groundbreaking study from the University of California, Ir

You would think there would be a standard height of keyboards on pianos. After all, you rarely take your piano with you when you perform, so having a normal height would seem like something you should expect. Sadly, this is not the case when it comes to the height of keyboards on pianos.

Most upright pianos have keyboards that are lower than grand pianos, yet some of large uprights from decades ago actually have higher keyboards than grand pianos!

The height of keyboards on pianos also differs by region. For example, most Asian pianos, piano manufactured in Japan, China, Korea and Indonesia, usually have higher keyboards than American made pianos.

One easy way of dealing with keyboards of different heights is having an adjustable artist bench. As we discussed in a past video, The Importance of the Piano Bench, getting yourself an adjustable artist bench is something that every pianist can benefit from. Most performance settings will have an artist bench that allows you to raise or lower the bench to your prefered height – so the keyboard height is no longer an issue.

Another odd thing about Asian pianos is that the benches tend to be lower than American piano benches. So, when you take into account the shorter benches and higher keyboards of Asian pianos, there is a substantial difference in your playing position compared to sitting at American pianos. Since most of my height is in my legs, I absolutely need an adjustable artist bench (or something to sit on) when playing Asian pianos. Yet, on American pianos, the height is usually just right!

I hope you found this video helpful. Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this topic or any others, please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Are Piano Keyboards All the Same Height?

You would think there would be a standard height of keyboards on pianos. After all, you rarely take your piano with you when you perform, so having a normal height would seem like something you should expect. Sadly, this is not the case when it comes