Piano and Music Videos

Here in California you can utilize the MTAC (Music Teachers’ Association of California). You may have a similar organization in your state and which can be a great place to start looking for a teacher. While these resources can provide you with a list of names, how do you know if any of them are good?

There is an interesting dynamic when it comes to teachers and their ability to play. Not all great teachers are fine pianists, and not all great pianists are capable teachers. You might wonder, how someone who can’t play the piano very well could be a great teacher? In some cases the person might have been a better player in their youth and as they’ve aged, their skills have diminished due to physical limitations. There are also some instances where high level musicians have no idea how they do what they do and can’t provide valuable instruction.

Another option is attending student recitals of teachers you’re researching. The solidity of their performances can give you great insights into the quality of the teaching.

You can also ask people around you locally who play the piano, who they’ve studied with, and why they like their teacher.

Once you find a teacher and call them up, one of the most important questions you can ask them is, “Do you teach how to practice?”. Listen carefully to their response. If they say yes, ask them for a brief explanation of how they approach it. A concise, well thought out answer is a good sign that they offer high quality instruction.

Teaching is not just assigning material and correcting mistakes, teaching students how to practice their music on their own and what they should be doing on a daily basis will help take their playing to a whole new level. Once a week is nowhere close to enough time to learn the piano. Your teacher should be providing you with instruction on what to do when you are away from your teacher the other 6 days of the week. This is essential.

You may run across teachers who have an incredible collection of talented students who are all extremely gifted. However, just because they have a number of students who are very talented doesn’t necessarily mean they are great teachers. There are a lot of instances where very accomplished pianists attract great students because of their reputation or the status of the school where they teach. They may be valuable as coaches to foster the growth of already accomplished pianists as opposed to offering formative instruction on their instruments. There are a some instances where this is exactly what a student needs, but it might not be right for you.

The most important thing is to select a teacher who matches your expectations. For example, if you want to learn classical music, find a teacher who specializes in classical music. The age group of the teachers’ students is also something to be aware of. Not all teachers are good with children while others specialize in teaching children or even very young children. There are so many teachers out there and finding the right one can be a real challenge. But with a little research you can find someone who offers the right instruction for you.

If you have any questions about this topic or any others, please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Welcome back to our multi-part series on the Burgmüller Studies. These pieces are really great for piano students at a fairly elementary level yet provide some gorgeous music. In the first lesson we covered La Candeur (Frankness) and last time we covered L’Arabesque. Today we are going to talk about how to approach La Pastorale – which is a great piece to introduce using the pedal to students.

If you followed my past lessons on Burgmüller you might notice how different each of these pieces sound. It’s a great way to introduce students to many different types of music that are both easily accessible and unique from one another.

The key to mastering this particular piece is a lot like the first lesson we covered which is to use the weight of your arms to maintain a smooth legato with rises and falls of dynamics in each phrase. This piece has the added challenge of a degree of complexity in the left hand. As opposed to the whole notes in La Candeur, you have a pattern of repeated chords:

I always recommend practicing your music without the pedal first in order to achieve a smooth legato. The same principle remains true here. Once you feel confident, you should add the pedal to add to the smoothness.

After you’ve practiced both hands independently try putting them together but still practicing without the pedal. You want to achieve a smooth legato in both hands without using the pedal as a crutch. Once you can play smoothly with confidence, go back and add the pedal.

Why is it so important to play notes legato if you’re going to add the pedal anyway?

This is a likely question you hear from intelligent students. Wouldn’t the pedal make everything smooth anyway? Not necessarily. You must capture all the notes of the first chord in each group whenever engaging the pedal. If you miss any of the notes on the pedal, you will lose the legato. By playing the chords long, you will ensure that all the notes are down when you press the pedal.

In the next section you will not need to use the pedal but you will face a different set of challenges. You have repeated notes in the left hand and a different rhythm to deal with in the right hand:

Make sure you play these notes legato. Not just in the right hand but the left hand as well. Repeated notes present a unique challenge. How can you play these notes legato? The secret is changing the fingers you use for each note. This way you can have one finger coming going up while another finger is going down. This technique will create a sense of connectivity in the notes and create a beautiful line. Try this section with this technique and see if you can tell the difference:

Notice 4-3-2 on these B flats. You’ll notice the right hand has the same technique:

Notice the 2-3-4 listed on those notes.

You’ll see these numbers over repeated notes quite a bit in this piece. The secret is to change fingers for repeated notes so you can achieve a smooth sound.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin here at Living Pianos. I hope this has been helpful for you and make sure to stay tuned to our future episodes in the Burgmüller studies on piano. If you have any questions about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.

Welcome back to our multi-part series on the Burgmuller Studies. These pieces are really great for piano students at a fairly elementary level yet provide some gorgeous music. Last time we covered La Candeur (Frankness) and this time we are going to discuss L’Arabesque.

Where La Candeur provided beautiful lyricism, L’Arabesque provides excitement. This is a great piece to study because it presents quite a few technical challenges. It also provides a great opportunity to explore phrasing – staccatos and slurs as well as accents. If you were to play this piece without those elements of phrasing it would be incredibly lifeless and dull.

How do you get this piece to sing and more specifically, how do you get it to be snappy and fun? It all comes down to the wrist. I encourage you to watch my original lesson on how to utilize your wrists but to describe it quickly here: The wrists must be identified separately from the arms. The arms are big and heavy and can’t give you the same quick motion the wrists can.

Take your hand and place it over the first chord in the piece. Place your fingers on the keys but don’t push down. Then slowly raise your wrist so your fingers are a little less than an inch above the keys, drop them and play the notes and then snap your wrist back into place over the keys. Keep practicing this and make sure that you aren’t using your arm at all – all the motion in your playing should come from the wrist. The arms are great for strength but they will not give you the speed you will need to play this piece; the motion must come from the wrist.

In this first section you should practice these chords with the wrist until you feel absolutely comfortable playing them.

The right hand in this piece also contains phrasing and it’s very important that you don’t overlook it. As we can seen in the picture below, there are notes with slurs connecting them and they end in a final note that is played staccato. It might not always be written as staccato but they should be played as such because it’s at the end of a slur. Why is this? Staccato means “not connected” and the end of a slur is not connected. In this piece, which has a brisk tempo, you will want to play the end of your slurs as staccato.

The best way to play these note groups is by playing the slurs and then ending by having your hand come up for the last note. It creates a nice sound and helps to play that last note staccato. Practice these groups of notes in your right hand – make sure you come up for the last note in each group until you are comfortable playing them.

Now try practicing with the hands together.

In the next section the left hand will continue with staccato chords but the right hand has eighth notes and it’s extremely important that you phrase these correctly. You’ll need to pay attention to the staccatos and legatos so that you can bring life to this music.

You can do the same type of motion with your wrists for the staccatos in this section. Release the wrist upward on them to get a nice snappy sound. On the accents, let your wrist come down for emphasis. When you put this together with the left hand it you will achieve excellent clarity of voices – the contrast of staccato and legato elements.

In the next section the hands reverse techniques. The right hand becomes legato and the left hand has staccato with the down up motion with the wrist.

Now we will flash forward to the end of the piece where you must move your hands instantly in order to play the last chord. This can be a real challenge for students but it’s a great learning experience which I have a method that will help in any situation like this.

You’ll need to get from here:

The here:

That’s not going to be easy! However, there is a relatively simple way to overcome this problem. You’ll need to find out the perfect hand position for that last series of notes. Go ahead and place your hands there and remember that position. Now, play the series of notes before it and right when you end, place your hands and arms over the last chord instantly. Don’t play any of the notes yet – just get your hands over the chord. Keep doing this until you consistently get in the right position. When you feel confident go ahead and play the last chord. Keep doing this until you can play it over and over again without any issues. This is an extremely helpful technique for all your music that requires large leaps. Here is an article and video on this subject:

I hope this lesson has been helpful for you. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions for future videos please contact us directly: info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

What are the challenges in this piece? You might notice by listening to it that it has a very lyrical, sustained melody. This piece doesn’t require using the pedal but the challenge is getting a smooth line throughout which requires learning to play legato. This is a great skill for any pianist and particularly good for young students just getting into more advanced music. You’ll also want to support the line with the weight of your arms – VIDEO: Arms Equal Power and Depth.

The secret to getting a sustained and beautiful tone is to have the weight of your arms supported by the fingers. You’ll want to transfer the weight from finger to finger to create a long and beautiful legato. You don’t want to apply pressure just at the start of a note but during the entire phrase. If you were to play on someone else’s arm they would feel a constant pressure from the weight of your fingers and arms pressing down, not just at the start of the notes.

If you were to calculate the volume of each note louder and louder to the top of the phrase, then quieter and quieter, you would end up with calculated playing, not a smooth line. Using the weight of your arm – almost as if it were the breath in music – to get louder during the middle of a phrase and softer towards the end of a phrase, you will create a very dramatic and pleasing tone throughout. You want the piano to mimic a wind instrument or a singing voice in it’s tone.

In another part of the piece you have a section which almost sounds like it could be written for two different instruments in the right hand:

On the top you have these half notes:

And on the bottom you have a completely different voice:

It’s important to leave the top (half notes) down while you play the other notes. How can you achieve this? By practicing the long notes legato and the short notes staccato from the fingers. This creates independence of the fingers to assure delineation of the two lines. Without doing this you might end up holding down all the notes or not holding the half notes for their full value – which would be incorrect.

Thanks again for joining me, I look forward to our next lesson on Burgmuller. If you have any comments or questions for this topic or any topic at all please contact me directly: info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

No, you didn’t click the wrong link today, even though this might sound like a topic for The Flute Show! Learning to breathe properly while you are playing the piano is an essential skill for any pianist. We can all understand that breathing is required to live but it has a great deal to do with performing music as well. Today we are going to discuss a couple of components of how breathing can positively and negatively affect your performances.

Let’s say you are playing a technically demanding piece like the Military Polonaise of Chopin. It’s going to take a lot of energy and you’re going to have to remind yourself to take some deep breaths. If you don’t plan for this you might end some sections out of breath and winded. During a musical performance, you have so much on your mind that it’s common to forget something as essential as breathing! You don’t have to plan your breathing ahead of time but you should definitely remind yourself from time to time that you need to breathe. Before you enter a complicated section you should take the time to take a deep breath. This will enhance your performance and help to settle your nerves.

Beyond just breathing, you need to relax your mind and body enough so that it won’t be a problem in the first place. It’s difficult to tell someone to just get on stage and to be completely calm; of course, most people will be at least somewhat nervous. Over time and with experience you will learn to calm your nerves and become more comfortable while playing. Learning to direct your energy into your playing as opposed to succumbing to your nerves will make a big difference.

Breathing can also be incredibly important while you’re playing with other musicians. In chamber music, for example, the breath of the pianist can actually guide the other musicians; it can help cue them as to where to play and where a phrase ends. If you pay close attention you might notice that all the musicians breathe in unison in a fine chamber group – even though some might be playing string instruments which don’t require the breath to produce a tone.

Breathing is such an integral part of playing music that even on an instrument that doesn’t require breathing – like the piano – we as musicians still want to feel the breath in music. I cover this more in-depth in an earlier video about breath in music. I also have a topic that explains why singing your music is a great way to practice separate parts and get an idea for how the music should flow.

No matter what instrument you play you should definitely be aware of your breathing and how it affects your overall performance. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

This is a great piece because it was written in an era when pianos had no pedals. This allows the students to focus on the clarity and execution of their fingers. The two big techniques to master and differentiate in this lesson are finger technique and wrist technique.

The first recommendation I have for this piece is to memorize it. It is not that hard to memorize and it will serve you well to do so because you won’t have to be looking back and forth at the score while you are playing it.

Right in the beginning you will notice that you have a lot of different phrasing in this movement. You’ll need to learn how to utilize your wrists independently from your arms to get the proper sound and learn how to separate staccato from the legato articulations. If you play staccato from your wrist, you’ll be able to get a crisp sound.

In the right hand you have many passages of slurred notes which end with a staccato note. To tackle this, you press down on the first note of the slur and come up with the wrist on the staccato note. By utilizing the wrist in these sections you will be able to create a smooth slur with a crisp staccato. If you use your arm instead of your wrist, you will get a cumbersome sound because your arms are too heavy to respond quickly enough.

The other important thing for practicing this piece is to practice with the metronome. There is not much nuance of tempo. so it’s imperative that you learn to play the piece with the metronome to get the timing as precise as possible. I recommend starting slowly and working your way up to tempo to develop clean playing with security.

You’ll also want to make dynamic changes in this piece sudden and impactful. Play with extreme, sudden dynamic changes to give the piece clarity.

Thanks again for joining me here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this piece or any questions at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729