Piano and Music Videos

Welcome back to our ongoing series on The Burgmuller Studies. Please reference our past articles if you are new to this series: Part 1: La Candeur, Part 2: L’Arabesque, Part 3 La Pastorale, and Part 4 “Ballade”. Today we are going to explore the piece “Innocence”.

The Burgmuller studies are great pieces for intermediate students since they help to improve fundamental skills and introduce complex techniques while offering musically rewarding composition.

We are going to go beyond the basics of mastering the fingering and learning the music. Today we will talk about how to add spice and character to your playing. Fortunately, most of the dynamics are written in the score. Accentuating the rise and the fall of the phrases will make this piece come alive!

Look at the first two measures and if you watch the video you will see how to highlight the rise and fall of the phrase:

Bringing life to your music is essential. Imagine you have a conversation with someone and you talk in a monotone voice. Your listener will become bored very quickly. While you don’t want to be overly animated in your speaking, having some life and character really engages people in what you have to say. The same thing is true for your piano playing.

The other thing you’ll want to be aware of in this piece is observing the rests exactly as written. They are very important in delineating the phrasing.

The second section of this piece offers a total change of character. In the left hand, you have simple repeated 8th notes. You can practice them in chords first to get good fingering and hand positions:

The right hand requires mastering the fingering and phrasing. It’s crucial to pay attention to the staccatos and slurs:

If you watch the video you will hear how to accentuate the phrasing with the use of the wrist. This is a little different from the approach to single staccato notes which requires a simple down and up the motion of the wrist. You’ll use the wrist to go down on the first note, then you have three notes in a row after it. On the third note, you come back up with the wrist! So, you use the wrist to go down and up for the 3 note group.

Down on the C
Up on the E

Learning to delineate phrasing with the wrist is a great technique for developing pianists to master and this particular piece is a great way to learn it.

One more thing to take note of in this section is the crescendo that starts in the second half after the repeat. Make sure you bring this out and feature it in your performance; it really brings excitement to the music.

When you get to the end of the piece you’ll encounter this descending scale:

This can easily be learned by practicing slowly at first and working up the speed with the metronome gradually until you have mastered it.

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

Developing a solid octave technique on the piano can be a great challenge. Many pianists want to learn how to play octaves legato (smoothly connected) instead of having them sound choppy and disconnected. There are instances where octaves should be played staccato, but there are times when octaves are meant to blend as seamlessly as possible. Today we are going to discuss some methods and techniques to help you achieve smooth legato octaves in your playing.

You might think that the pedal would be a great option. However, you shouldn’t depend upon the pedal alone to achieve connected octaves. As I’ve stated in the past, learning to play without the pedal, is a very valuable skill for your practice. The pedal should be used to enhance the music but not as a crutch to connect what you can connect with your hands.

There is a very simple technique for connecting octaves. The secret is in focusing on the notes you can connect and not trying to connect what you can’t. Instead of playing all your octaves with the first and fifth finger, try alternating the fourth and fifth finger for the top notes in the right hand and the bottom notes in the left hand. But how do you tell which fingers to alternate? It’s actually very simple; use your fifth finger on all the white keys and use your fourth finger for all the black keys.

In reality, you’re not actually connecting both notes on the octaves, but it creates a great illusion – even without the pedal!

If your hands are big enough you can utilize the third, fourth and fifth fingers with octaves.

The great thing about learning to play octaves this way is that not only does it apply to playing octaves legato, it’s a great way to play them staccato as well since you spread the work among more fingers.

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

Welcome to the 4th part in our ongoing series on the Burgmuller Studies for piano. If you want to catch up on the past lessons here they are: Part 1 (La Candeur), Part 2 (L’Arabesque), and Part 3 (La Pastorale). Today we are going to be covering “Ballade” which is a wonderful piece for intermediate students that provides impressive music to perform.

The biggest challenge with this piece is going past just playing the right notes rhythm and fingering and putting some life into this music! The secret to making this piece come alive is in how you approach the phrasing and expression – particularly the dynamics. It’s not just about which notes are played, but how they are played.

This piece is in an A B A form, meaning there is a section at the beginning that repeats at the end with a middle contrasting section.

It’s important to articulate the staccatos in the right hand while maintaining a smooth legato in the left hand. These are essential principles that we’ve have talked about before: How to Play Staccato on the Piano, How to Play Piano: It’s all in the Wrist and How to Play Piano: Arm’s Equal Power and depth.

You need to learn when to play from the arm, when to utilize the fingers, and when to play from the wrist; these are fundamental skills for developing a first-class technique on the piano. It’s important to keep your fingers close to the keys when playing fast, and utilizing the wrist for short staccato notes.

As always, I recommend that you practice your music slowly and build up notch by notch on the metronome developing security in your playing. This will help keep your rhythm precise. As you progress faster, you will find it necessary to play with a lighter touch in order to accommodate more speed. When playing faster, keep your fingers closer to the keys and utilize the wrist for staccato notes.

The middle section of this piece has a slow lyrical line in the right hand with staccato 8th note chords in the left hand that is played lightly from the wrist.

In the left hand you make sure to keep your fingers close to the keys (less than an inch above) and play from the wrist – otherwise, it will be too heavy and will overtake the delicate right-hand melody.

In the right hand, you will utilize the weight of your arms to create a fluid line. You will need to play with substantial arm weight even though these notes are played piano. Ask any wind player and they will tell you that playing a quiet line takes as much energy, sometimes, even more, to play quietly; the same applies to the piano. Let your arms sink into the bottom of the keys and you will notice the lovely singing legato this produces as you transfer the weight smoothly from note to note.

The most challenging part of this piece is the ending. There is no shortcut to mastering this section. You must practice slowly at first and work your way up with the metronome. This section takes a commitment of time to master.

When you’re practicing with the metronome at slower speeds you will want to raise your fingers to delineate the notes. Play at a comfortably slow metronome speed until you feel secure and can play numerous times without problems. Move the metronome up one notch and start again. Keep doing this until you reach the desired speed. It is a great way to perfect your performance.

If you are having trouble, try practicing hands individually (WATCH: The Right Way to Practice Your Music). This will enable you to hear each hand separately listening for the evenness of the notes. Another great technique is playing the hands 2 octaves apart so you can hear things more clearly.

This is a really great piece for students and the music is rewarding. I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions about this piece or any other please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.

Fingering Patterns and Hand Positions

To sum up the idea behind that lesson, you should try to break down your music to chords wherever possible. By doing this you will be able to take in as many notes as you can in a hand position so you don’t have to jump around more than necessary.

The first piece I use in the video is Bach’s Prelude in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. I picked this piece because it is simply a series a broken chords – which makes it easy to demonstrate this lesson.

When you approach this piece, try playing block chords first instead of playing as written. It looks like this:

By grabbing as many notes as you can, it makes the piece much easier to learn and makes fingering choices obvious.

The trouble begins when you have to change hand positions.

For example, in the second movement of the Pathetique Sonata by Beethoven, when the first theme finishes, it repeats an octave higher. How do you approach this with the chord technique?

You see in the highlighted section that the piece goes up an octave. There is a technique for handling sections like this when you’re breaking down into chords. You figure out a “pivot note” to switch to a new hand position that gets over the new chord. Typically it’s a third or fourth finger crossing or as in this case, a thumb crossing. This instantly puts you in a new hand position!

Notice the position of my hands, as soon as I hit middle C, I am over the next chord.

By using this technique of identifying pivot notes to switch hand positions, it will guide your fingering choices.

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

I have been asked to create piano technique videos for the great website: VirtualSheetMusic.com
Here is one for you to enjoy. You may follow the link to watch others.