Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is “Why is it So Hard to Sight-Read Ragtime Music?” Ragtime music is so much fun to listen to and it’s fun to play as well. But it’s extraordinarily difficult to sight-read! And you might wonder why. To give you an example as to why it is so difficult to sight-read ragtime music, I’m going to compare it to something that is as far removed from ragtime as you can get, which is Bach.
Baroque era music can be played without your hands jumping around the keyboard.
Even though the music is complex, you don’t need to look at your hands because it’s all right there under your fingers. The hands don’t leap around like they do in ragtime. Music which has octaves alternating with chords in the left hand, which is very typical of ragtime music, is all but impossible to play without looking at your hands. So if you’re reading the score, how do you look at your hands and the score? It can be maddening! There’s a lot of music that falls into that category where you just need to look at your hands to handle the leaps. But here’s the good news: if you go to the trouble of memorizing ragtime, it’s not particularly difficult to play! There’s a certain technique that’s required. It’s the same technique utilized in pieces of Liszt, such as the end of his 6th Hungarian Rhapsody. The left hand goes all over the place!
Leaping back and forth from octaves to chords makes sight-reading nearly impossible.
That’s why ragtime or any music that has fast leaps is extraordinarily difficult to read. Even some relatively simple accompaniments, like some works by Fritz Kreisler. They’re absolutely glorious works and they have very simple piano parts. But the left hand has leaps in several sections making it very hard to read. There are two ways you can approach this. One way is to have the score memorized. The other way is to work on practicing those leaps without looking. I love to be well prepared when I have an accompaniment like that so I can either choose to look down at the hands or follow the score. I like to practice keeping my eyes on the score and get it to the point where I can do it just by feel. Now think about this. There are some sensational blind pianists out there. So, it is possible to be able to sight-read music that has leaps, but it’s extraordinarily difficult.
Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is “Why is it So Hard to Sight-Read Ragtime Music?” Ragtime music is so much fun to listen to and it’s fun to play as well. But it’s extraordinarily difficult to sight-read!
I’m Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is, “The Secrets of Interlocking Octaves on the Piano.” What are interlocking octaves? It’s a great technique that creates a dazzling sound and it’s actually easier than it sounds! It’s always nice to have something that sounds hard but isn’t all that hard to play.
A good example of this is the end of the B-minor scherzo of Chopin. There’s a chromatic scale that goes all the way up the piano. But some people like to play interlocking octaves instead of just a simple chromatic scale. How do you do that? I’m going to show you the trick to it. It’s so easy!
Interlocking octaves are easier to play than the chromatic scale and it sounds very impressive.
Even though Chopin didn’t compose this section in octaves, a lot of pianists play it that way. I like to play it with interlocking octaves. It caps off the finale of this incredibly energetic piece – a final burst of musical energy. So how is this done? First of all, you have to know how to play octaves. I have other videos on that subject. You can click here to check it out:
To play a chromatic scale with two hands interlocking, each hand is playing a whole tone scale.
A chromatic scale is every single key on the piano, black and white next to each other, while a whole tone scale is every other key on the piano. So, the left hand plays a whole tone scale and the right hand plays the other notes of the chromatic scale, creating another whole tone scale. That’s the way it works. And when you put them together, indeed your thumbs are playing a chromatic scale. So there’s a chromatic scale with the thumbs. Just add the pinkies and you have interlocking octaves. That’s the secret to interlocking octaves!
If you can play octaves, interlocking octaves are a piece of cake. And as I said, they sound very impressive. It’s a virtuoso sound that doesn’t take virtuoso technique – just good octave technique. You too can play interlocking octaves like at the end of the Chopin B-minor scherzo. I hope this has been helpful for you. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
I’m Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is, “The Secrets of Interlocking Octaves on the Piano.” What are interlocking octaves? It’s a great technique that creates a dazzling sound and it’s actually e
This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store with a great subject today: The fundamental importance of arm weight for producing a good tone on the piano. You might wonder what I’m talking about. Before I get into that, let’s discuss the piano as a unique musical instrument.
What was the first musical instrument ever?
The first musical instrument was obviously the human voice! Every other instrument imitates the human voice to one extent or another. Wind instruments, for example, have a clear connection with breath, flow of the phrase, natural progression from note to note, and the smoothness of the line. This is intrinsic not just to vocal performance, but also all wind instruments. String instruments have the bow to create the sense of line like the breath in singing.
What is the analog for the breath on the piano?
You might think, since phrases naturally ebb and flow like ocean waves, that you can simply calculate playing each note louder and louder towards the middle of the phrase, then gradually softer and softer towards the end of the phrase. However, if you try that, you’ll end up with a calculated performance. No surprise there! The secret of creating a smooth line at the piano is, gradually increasing and decreasing arm weight by transferring smoothly from note to note, growing toward the middle of the phrase, and diminishing toward the end of the phrase.
You can try it for yourself!
Play a phrase once while calculating each note getting progressively louder, then progressively softer. Then try playing the same phrase but using the continuous arm weight that ebbs and flows. You’ll find that no matter how much you try to craft the line based upon your musical inclinations, the first version will sound calculated. That is, after all, exactly what you are doing! When you play the phrase again, remember to use the concept of the breath by utilizing the natural weight of your arm. Instead of pushing down more, just support the weight of your arm with your fingers. Lean into it the keys even after initially playing them. Lean more toward the middle of the phrase and less toward the end. You’ll find that this creates a completely different sound. There is something engaging about imposing upon a phrase the idea of the breath and letting the notes flow naturally with that overarching concept. It creates a singing line that belies the reality of the percussive nature of the piano.
I’m interested in your impressions of how this works for you. If any of you have different ways of achieving the same sound, I’d love to hear from you! Once again, this is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
The fundamental importance of arm weight for producing a good tone on the piano. You might wonder what I’m talking about. Before I get into that, let’s discuss the piano as a unique musical instrument.
Hello, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store, with a viewer question. What is the best way to learn to play the piano? This is a very basic question, yet it doesn’t have a simple answer. In a perfect world, you would grow up in a household exposed to music. You would have a beautiful grand piano to practice on. Your parents would be nurturing and loving and find the best piano teacher they can for you. One who is good at dealing with children and is inspiring. Your parents would be encouraging and would have you play for company to showcase your hard work. You would have wonderful exposure and training from a young age.
That is one ideal situation, but one size does not fit all! For example, oftentimes people contact me who have always wanted to play piano their whole lives and finally have time. They are retired and want to learn to play the piano. Is that a good situation? Absolutely!
The key to being able to be successful at the piano is immersion.
You want to immerse yourself into piano in every way possible. Not just practicing playing the piano, but listening to concerts, getting together with other people and talking about the piano, reading about the piano, everything centered around the piano!
The more involved you are mentaly with the instrument as well as physically playing it, the more productive you will be at the piano.
What about this whole idea of finding a good teacher and studying from a young age? Is this really necessary? If you want to be a concert pianist and you decide to start in your 30s or 40s or later, chances are you are not going to achieve a world-class level of supreme technique on the piano. However, I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from trying. It tends to be harder, just like learning a new language later in life, although there are some people who do that amazingly well.
There is a whole additional aspect to this which is the style of music you want to play. If you want to be a classical player, particularly a concert-level player, you absolutely should get a first class teacher to show you the intricacies and stylistic differences of the period styles. They would show you how to deal with ornamentation and how to practice particularly thorny sections. To learn all of that you are going to want to have the help of an accomplished, experienced pianist guiding you. But suppose you just want to play popular music. Maybe you like to improvise or play New Age or Country music. Are lessons really essential for that? Not necessarily.
A lot of people can pick things up on their own.
Some people are able to watch YouTube videos and figure out music. I have seen people do surprisingly well with that method. I’m talking about the type of video that shows you each of the notes you need to play. Some of them are like video games. While I can’t even imagine learning to play the piano that way, I’ve encountered people who can play relatively well who have learned from YouTube in this manner.
There isn’t just one way to learn to play the piano.
If you are learning to play popular styles, learning to play by ear is essential. To give you an extreme example of how playing by ear is necessary and how having a classical background might not help you, years ago we were having a birthday party in my father’s teaching studio. We had a bunch of people over and one of my dad’s former students was there. She had graduated from Juilliard in Piano Performance and was doing her Masters work studying with Sascha Gorodnitzki, one of their top teachers. She was working on Rachmaninoff concertos and was a very accomplished pianist. My father said, “Laurie, play Happy Birthday!” She broke into a cold sweat wondering which note it started on. Can you imagine that?
Somebody who could play virtuoso piano music couldn’t play the simplest song by ear.
There can be a myopic way of looking at the piano in conservatories. It is all about the Classical traditions. For the most part, they ignore all styles of music that you are likely to encounter in the real world. After graduation, most working engagements playing piano involves playing with other musicians, not solo playing. Accompanying is something sought after and can be rewarding if your sight-reading is good. However, playing events, parties, weddings, or other things of that nature involves an entirely different methodology. You’ve got to be able to make up arrangements. You have to be able to groove with other people by listening and playing by ear. It is a lot of fun and can be richly rewarding. You don’t necessarily have to start young. You don’t necessarily need formal training in order to do that.
There is more than one way to learn how to play the piano depending on what your goals are.
That’s the lesson for today. If you immerse yourself in piano, no matter how you go about it, you are going to learn how to play the piano in one way or another. I hope this has been enlightening and helpful as well as inspiring to those of you wanting to learn to play the piano if you have thought you had lost your opportunity. That is nonsense. It is never too late! Give it a whirl. As long as you enjoy it, it is worthwhile for you. Once again, I am Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Thanks for joining me.
Hello, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store, with a viewer question. What is the best way to learn to play the piano? This is a very basic question, yet it doesn’t have a simple answer. In a perfect world, you would g
This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com with a really interesting question for you: What is an opus? You probably have heard this when you go to concerts and see, for example, a piano Sonata no. 7, opus 10 no. 3 by Beethoven. You may have wondered what this means. You have the number of the piece, the key of the piece, what does opus mean?
Opus numbers started way back in the time of Handel in the 1700s. It is a way of organizing music so generally, lower opus numbers are earlier works, and higher opus numbers are later works. However, it is not quite so simple. If you have sonatas numbered, that already tells you when they were written. Why would you still need opus numbers? Chopin wrote a whole book of mazurkas and an entire book of waltzes. Many of them are in the same key and to be able to identify them, opus numbers can be very handy.
Let’s say Beethoven had three sonatas he wanted to publish. He would go to his publisher with the works. If the last works he published were, “opus 9”, these new compositions would be cataloged as, “opus 10”. If he presents three piano sonatas opus 10, they will be designated as opus 10 no. 1, opus 10 no. 2, and opus 10 no 3. That is a whole body of work. Next time he composes music it will be cataloged as opus 11. It could be piano pieces, string quartets, or a symphony. It depends on what is in that opus. It could be one work or a group of works.
Each opus represents a group of works published together
Here is where it gets a little tricky. Sometimes opuses are out of order. For example, the Opus 49 Sonatas of Beethoven come to mind. He wrote two sonatas that were published pretty late, Opus 49, yet they were written much earlier. While these pieces were composed earlier in his life, he didn’t publish them until later on.
You can’t always go by opus numbers in regards to the date that something was written.
However, they provide a way to clarify what works you are referring to. That is the whole purpose of opus numbers. Why do I bring this all up? It is a little personal story. Years ago, I composed a piece that was a mammoth work for synthesizers, digital pianos, and a whole host of other technologies. I called it “Opus 1” because I thought it was a cool name. I just did an improvisation in my living room after visiting my daughter in Portland, Oregon. I hadn’t touched the piano in a few days and I just came in, hit record, and sat down. I’m calling it “Opus 2” for you.
I hope you enjoyed this brief tutorial on what “opus” means. If you have any questions I’m always here for you: robert@livingpianos.com I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for joining me again. This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com with a really interesting question for you: What is an opus? You probably have heard this when you go to concerts and see, for example, a piano Sonata no. 7, opus 10 no. 3 by Beethoven. You may have wondere
Welcome to LivingPianos.com I am Robert Estrin and I am so pleased to have a return visit from pianist and novelist Jack Kohl. Today we are going to discuss, “Can You Play the Piano with 4 Hands?” Truth be told, I can’t, at least not by myself! However, there is a whole genre of 4 hand piano music. You are going to get a taste of it today and there is a wealth of literature as well as people who specialize in collaborative piano. My sister is a member of the Double Digit Piano Duo and we have also played 4-hand piano music together. The other related genre is 2 piano music. Jack has played 2 pianos some, and I have played 2 pianos as well. In fact, my sister and I played a 2 piano concert together a few months ago! We also did some 4 hand piano music as well. They are markedly different experiences. What makes playing two pianos different from performing 4 hand music? What are the special challenges of 4 hand piano music?
Try listening to the Beethoven Sonata Opus 6 for 4 hands. It is played with one piano with two pianists. You’ll be able to get a taste for what 4 hand music is like with this wonderful piece of music. There are also great compositions for 4 hand piano by Schumann, Mozart, Debussy and others.
I’m sure most instrumentalists would be thrilled if they had as much music in their solo repertoire as there is for 4 hand piano!
There are some challenges pianists face working collaboratively. The secondo player who sits on the left side of the bench handles the pedaling. The primo player who sits at the treble end of the keyboard has to make sure the secondo pianist pedals appropriately for them. You really have to work as a team. Sometimes in four-hand piano music, the hands are actually intersecting. The hands will be nesting between one another.
There are some places where you have to work out getting out of each other’s way. Sometimes you may have to lift off very quickly to get out of the way so that you don’t collide!
Beyond that, there is another aspect that is fundamental to collaborative piano and that is the balance you create. You have to think of your duo as being one big pianist. Normally as a pianist, you are bringing out the melody on the very top as well as the bass on the bottom of the keyboard. But, if you are on the top with a 4-hand piano piece, if you play the bass loud, you’re actually playing an inner voice loud! Likewise, when the secondo is playing, if they bring out their melody with their right hand, that is also an inner voice, not the melody. It just steps over everything.
The secondo player must lighten up their right hand and the primo must play their left hand delicately in order to sound like one pianist creating a beautiful balance. Together, you become one instrument.
There is so much to 4 hand piano music. I want to thank Jack for coming here today and if you haven’t read any of his novels they are pretty amazing. “Bone Over Ivory” has just been released. It is a great read, not too long, and I think it is something you’ll really enjoy. He brings to his literature love and a deep understanding of piano because he is a very accomplished pianist and has done quite a bit of piano performing before he centered his career in creative writing. He has degrees in solo piano performance. Rather than getting knocked out of that world, not being a competition type of pianist with the “fastest fingers in the West”, he decided he wanted to stay in piano by becoming a generalist. He has experience playing in theater pits as well as accompanying. The metaphorical implications of all of that have never been wasted on him. He keeps a journal and writes down observations about piano playing. He has written three novels and “Bone Over Ivory” is a book of essays you can enjoy.
Welcome to LivingPianos.com I am Robert Estrin and I am so pleased to have a return visit from pianist and novelist Jack Kohl. Today we are going to discuss, “Can You Play the Piano with 4 Hands?” Truth be told, I can’t, at least not by myself!
