Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

There are many aspects of Mozart’s writing that are truly brilliant. Today we are going to bring up just one point which is something I’m sure you’ve heard but you may not be familiar with the term; it’s called “alberti bass”. What is alberti bass?

To demonstrate, I play the famous Mozart C major Sonata K. 545 playing the left hand in chords first. Then I will show you some variations and finally end up with the alberti bass as Mozart composed the piece. As soon as you hear it, you’ll instantly recognize it as something you hear all the time in Mozart’s piano music.

There are several embellishments you can try such as alternating between the bass note and the top two notes of each chord. Mozart takes it one step further alternating notes within the chord. When you hear this iconic sound, you’ll recognize it because you hear it in almost every piece Mozart wrote for the piano!

There are hundreds of examples of alberti bass in not only Mozart’s music, but it’s also a common technique of other classical composers such as Haydn and Beethoven. I hope this has been enjoyable for you! Again, this is Robert Estrin as Living Pianos. Robert@LivingPianos.com

Here is a clip from a past performance of Robert and Florence Estrin as they perform Ave Maria from the Irvine Classical music Series

This is a topic that is very important to anyone wanting to develop a refined technique on the piano. It is very important to practice the piano without using the pedal – the pedal should be something that enhances your music and not simply a crutch for making mediocre playing sound better.

Pedals on the piano are actually a modern development. When the piano was fist invented it didn’t have pedals, so connecting notes had to be accomplished with the fingers. Believe it or not, Johannes Brahms didn’t even have a sustain pedal on his practice piano!

The sustain pedal does just as its name implies – it holds (sustains) all the notes. When you hold the pedal down, the dampers stay hovering over the strings, when you release the pedal the dampers fall back onto the strings and dampen the sound.

The pedal is not just a tool for connecting notes; it’s capable of adding expressive elements to your music. The real challenge of the pedal is knowing when and how to use it. The only way to accomplish this is to practice your music without the pedal.

In the video included with this article I demonstrate how depending upon the pedal to connect notes instead of using your fingers can lead to sloppy playing and bad technique. But how can you avoid this?

The secret to connecting notes without the pedal is to develop a legato technique with both hands – not just with the melody but even repeated chords in the left hand. But why is this important?

If you can learn how to connect your notes just using your hands, you will be able to use the pedal to enhance your music tonally and make your melodies sing – you will find the best fingerings for passages, and rely on the pedal not as a crutch, and most of all, you will improve as a pianist.

Many people ask me, can you learn to play by ear or is it something you’re born with? I personally believe that everyone can improve their ability to play by ear. Some people just have an innate sense that allows them to play by ear without much effort, while others will have to work harder at it; the bottom line is, anyone can learn to do it.

Now there are limits to what you can achieve. If you’re tone deaf you probably won’t get to a level where you can transcribe Charlie Parker solos but you can definitely train your ear and improve.

Three pedals on a piano is the accepted norm on most pianos. Virtually all new grand pianos sold in the United States contain three pedals. Two pedal pianos are an increasingly rare breed but they do exist and we actually have some of them here in our showroom. The real question is, do you really need three pedals?

This is a loaded question and it’s a topic that may cause controversy – especially among some piano teachers. There are different perspectives on this important subject. As always, I welcome everyone’s comments and suggestions when it comes to every topic we cover so please feel free to voice your opinion.

I also understand that some students can become frustrated by having to practice tedious exercises for hours and hours when they would much rather be playing music. But are these exercises in vain or is there a purpose to them?

Exercises are an important part of developing as a pianist. In many cases utilizing Hanon and Czerny can be a great way to develop strength in your playing. These exercises can help you develop pure technique without having to deal with nuanced expression, complex rhythms, melodies and countermelodies. By using Hanon or Czerny, you can learn exercises with lots of notes much much quicker than many piano pieces which can have additional elements of complexity not found in these exercises.

What about the relative value of learning exercises instead of learning music? A lot of times musical etudes – advanced ones such as Chopin or Moszkowski or student level etudes of Heller or Burgmuller – can provide the same benefit of strength building you get from Czerny or Hanon with the added benefit of providing pieces of music you can add to your repertoire.

There really is a balance you must reach when it comes to learning exercises versus learning music. In the early levels of studying the piano learning exercises provides a great way to develop strength. Hanon exercises can help you develop finger strength very quickly. The early exercises in the book are great for beginning pianist because you don’t have to deal with finger crossings or cumbersome musical challenges. It’s an easy and simple way to start playing the piano immediately developing strength in your fingers. Younger students can quickly master these exercises and prepare themselves for learning music.

Once you master all of your scales and arpeggios you can continue building strength simply by playing music. You will challenge yourself much more and develop your technique along with continuing to work on scales and arpeggios.

So yes, there are benefits to exercises, but you shouldn’t be relying on them as your only source of technical development. They provide a great foundation for building your technique but they are something you should augment with scales and arpeggios and substantial musical repertoire.

Many times you can actually create your own exercises by taking sections of music you have great difficulty with. Take these sections and generate patterns, bring out different voices, or create rhythmic variations to challenge yourself. Exercises come in all forms and sizes and you shouldn’t be afraid to create your own!

When you think about the most impressive feats of human creation – from the great pyramids to an incredibly intricate piece of art-work – it all starts one piece at a time. Meticulously building something while often tedious – can lead to incredible results. The same principle applies when learning music and developing your skills as a musician.

Being able to play a piece of music up to speed and have it flow seamlessly and almost without effort is something you will have to build up to; this is not something that just comes naturally for most people. The best way to achieve this type of sound and skill in your playing – no matter what instrument – is to practice slowly and often with a metronome.

I’ve covered this topic when it comes specifically to piano but I thought I would create a new video and article for all instruments – as some of them present unique challenges. For example, sometimes on a wind instrument it’s not practical to practice slowly – because the breathing will be in all different places. However, when you get to a particularly fast passage it’s a good idea to slow things down, so you can get the finger movements and tonguing in-synch with one-another. If you just play fast all the time there will be a lack of precision.

I guarantee you that any great musician – no matter what instrument – has practiced slowly and continues to reinforce with slow practice throughout their musical career. It is simply something that every great musician does. They might not practice an entire piece slowly – and you don’t necessarily have to either – but you must practice faster and more difficult passage under tempo to develop security in your playing.

Now there is one huge caveat to practicing slowly: you must do it with a metronome and you must incrementally increase your speed. First of all, you will not want to increase the speed at all until you have complete control over the passage you are working on; it should come off completely smooth and almost effortlessly. Only then will you want to increase the speed on your metronome and make sure that you only move it up one notch at a time. Building speed and precision at this pace will allow you to conquer the most difficult passages with ease – they will become almost effortless when you are done with them.

If you have doubts about this method, I have an exercise for you to try. Take an old piece you have had at performance level – one you haven’t played in quite some time. You might have some trouble areas at first, and that’s fine. Take any parts where you are a bit rusty and try playing them slowly – you don’t even need the metronome for this at first. You will find that if you practice these parts slowly it’s the best way to get the piece back into a high performance level. Some key areas may require working one notch at a time increasing speed with the metronome. However, you may find instant results just from the slow practice!

Slow practice is something I recommend to all my students and it really is something you should do on any instrument. While there are some instruments where slow practice isn’t always a practical, all of them will benefit from slow practice in faster sections. If slow practice is something you haven’t tried or avoided until now I highly recommend adding it to your routine; you will love the outcome, I promise!