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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to take your piano playing to the next level. This is a really fascinating subject. This transcends piano. It even transcends other musical instruments! With almost anything anyone wants to master, it really comes down to a critical mass of practicing. What do I mean by this? The term critical mass is typically associated in physics with radioactive material. You put enough of it together and it starts a chain reaction. But you could have plutonium and it would never start a chain reaction, no matter how much you have, unless you put enough of it in one space at one time. That’s what causes the chain reaction. It’s the same thing with your piano practice or any other endeavor you want to master.

There has to be an extended period of time where you’re spending just about every waking moment at the piano.

Anyone who’s really mastered an instrument has gone through this process. Once you go through that process, you will be forever changed. You will be on another level. You can depend upon what you have given yourself with that experience. Another example of this, since I’m into physics, is something called escape velocity. For example, if you were to go into a rocket, and just keep going and going and going straight up, you will never go into orbit. In fact, the way to go into orbit is not by how far you go, but how fast you go. You have to reach a certain speed to escape the force of Earth’s gravitational pull. There has to be enough speed generated. You have to have enough energy to be able to get your piano playing on that level.

You can practice for your whole life one or two hours a day and never reach that pinnacle of achievement of a true virtuoso technique.

To be a really accomplished concert level player, you have to go through this process. There is no substitute for that. Now that I’ve made this bold statement, since a lot of people watch my videos, I’m interested in your feelings about this. It doesn’t have to be just piano, any field of endeavor. Are there any of you who feel you’ve mastered painting, or physics, or anything, and you haven’t gone through that process of total absorption for an extended amount of time? I want to hear from you! I want to know if it’s possible, because my feeling is that it’s not possible. I believe that’s what it takes, and there is no shortcut to that. You can grow. You can become better. But you’re never going to be on that top echelon level without going through this process. Talk to any friends you have who have mastered their instrument or their craft, and ask them if they’ve gone through this process. I’m really interested in the comments on this one here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

How to Take Your Piano Playing to the Next Level

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you the secrets of how to play softly on the piano. Have you ever tried to play something softly, but the notes just don’t play? You try to create beautiful melodic lines with decrescendos at the end of phrases, but the notes just drop out. What’s going on? Is something wrong with you? Is your piano broken?

It takes great energy to play softly on any instrument.

In a symphony orchestra, for example, when there is a quiet woodwind solo, whether it’s a clarinet, oboe, flute, or even a French horn solo, you’d be amazed at the energy they are utilizing in order to project the sound. Even though it’s soft, it has to somehow get out to the audience through a 60 or 80 piece orchestra. Yet it doesn’t sound loud because they are not expelling their air. They’re just putting the air under tremendous pressure with diaphragm support, much like a great singer can sing with a beautiful sustained sound and achieve whatever volume they want.

What’s the analog of breath on the piano?

I’ve talked a great deal about arm weight. It takes much more energy than you may think in order to project a quiet melody on the piano. A good example of this is the second movement of the famous Mozart C Major Sonata K545. It’s all pretty much soft throughout. If you play it without much intensity, it will sound lifeless. So you have to use some intensity. First of all, you need to overcome the accompaniment in the left hand! The accompaniment is supportive. It should be like the babbling brook under a boat floating on water. It supports it, but you don’t want to call attention to it.

One secret is to play very quietly keeping your fingers close to the keys.

Stay very close to the keys, and make sure you depress the keys all the way down. As long as the keys depress all the way in one motion, all the notes will play on a well regulated piano. But to project the melody, you have to use a tremendous amount of arm weight. What do I mean by that? I mean that when you play that first note, you are actually holding up your whole arm with that single finger. That finger is holding up your arm! You’re not holding up the arm with your shoulder anymore. That way, the weight can be transferred smoothly from note to note, achieving a beautiful line.

That is the way to project a melody in a piano context so it’s above the accompaniment.

Keep your left hand light, and just push the keys to the bottom with a minimum amount of effort. The right hand supports a tremendous amount of weight that transfers smoothly from key to key giving a singing line. And yes, it will still be piano! It’s also possible to get nuance in your phrasing, the rise and the fall of the melody as it goes up to the middle of the phrase, and then descends to the end of the phrase. Just like speaking. There is a natural rise in the middle of a sentence when you speak, and the sound tapers off when you finish. Music imitates life. And when I say life, I mean literally breathing! You have to have that rise and fall. You get the analog of the breath on the piano through the use of the weight of your arm.

Don’t be afraid to use a lot of energy.

It’s just like a musician in an orchestra projecting the melody from the back of the woodwind section. You have to do the same thing by utilizing arm weight, projecting melodies in your music that are written piano and pianissimo. That is the way to achieve it.

Let me know how this works for you! If you have questions about your piano, whether it’s capable of this, you can email me Robert@LivingPianos.com. I’m very responsive to comments, particularly on LivingPianos.com. You can post your comments on YouTube as well. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

The Secrets of Playing Softly on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why you must play on more than one piano. I am very fortunate because I’m always surrounded by pianos. As a matter of fact, when I was born, there was a piano in my bedroom, and my father had two pianos upstairs as well! We had four pianos in our house most of the time when I was growing up.

There was a time when I was first married that we had 27 pianos in our house!

I was teaching piano, and oftentimes, prospective students didn’t have pianos. This was before the days when you could buy a fairly inexpensive digital piano that would be serviceable for a beginning student. So I made it my business to have lots of inexpensive pianos around. I’ve been surrounded by pianos my entire life! Now with Living Pianos, I have a concert grand Steinway, a six-foot two-inch Steinway, a Mason and Hamlin grand, a Knabe grand, and I have a Chickering baby grand upstairs to name a few. I am loaded with pianos! But what about you?

How can you play more than one piano, and why should you?

Why is this so important? My wife is a flutist. My daughter is a violinist. So, like most instrumentalists, they can take their instruments with them wherever they go. So it’s no surprise when they show up for performances. The acoustics may offer challenges they’re not used to, but at least they have their own instruments with them. As pianists, we don’t have that luxury unless you’re only playing for yourself, by yourself in the same place all the time. If you never want to play for anybody else or with anybody else, then maybe you don’t need to play on more than one piano. But for most of us, you want to be able to play at school, at church, at friends’ houses, maybe you even play occasional concerts.

When you sit down at a piano you haven’t played before, everything feels different.

The pedals respond differently. The touch is different. The tone is different. The only way you can really learn to overcome that is by playing other pianos. Naturally, if you’re playing a concert, you want to have a chance to try out the piano beforehand, if at all possible. Sadly, a lot of times it’s not possible. You get to the hall, maybe a few minutes before and there’s noise. Maybe they’re vacuuming. You never get a chance to really try out the piano. And I’ve got new news for you. Even if you get the opportunity to play a piano in a hall before a performance, once people come into the room, it changes the acoustics and it can feel markedly different!

How can you play different pianos?

You can try to go to piano stores, although piano stores are not there for that purpose. You might not be welcome just to play pianos there. But some stores might allow you to play their pianos if you ask them very nicely. If you’re in the market for a piano, of course, they will welcome you to try different pianos. But I would never suggest that you pretend you’re looking for a piano and waste their time because they’re very busy and have work to do. You don’t want to take their precious time away from their job. Oftentimes, schools have multiple pianos, If you can figure out how to get in and play those pianos. Maybe at your own school or church or some other place, you can find a piano to play. If you’re on vacation and you’re jonesing for a piano, you might scope out the bar to see if there’s a piano there, or maybe tucked away in a corner outside of the convention rooms. I always make a beeline for these pianos when I’m on vacation!

There are many different places you can try out pianos. It’s really important. The way the tone develops, for example, in the bass on a larger grand is so different from that of a spinet or a console piano. If you’re playing on digital pianos all the time, you don’t even have anything close to the feel of a grand piano. So it’s vitally important if you want to be able to adjust to pianos you encounter.

Is that the only benefit? Far from it!

You will learn so much about your playing, about your technique when you play other instruments. You may discover that a problem you thought you had in your playing is actually your piano! Maybe your piano doesn’t repeat fast enough. Maybe the regulation isn’t great. Maybe the tone of your piano is lacking in one area or another and you’re constantly overcompensating.

When you play other instruments, you realize how individual your piano is, because every single piano is different.

In fact, even brand new pianos of the same make and model are markedly different from one another. Each instrument is its own work of art. So try to play on different pianos any opportunity you get. You will grow as a pianist and a musician, discovering new possibilities of tone and phrasing, and finding new technical solutions on different actions. Try it out. Let me know how it works for you! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Why You Must Play on More Than One Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. We now have over 1,300 videos here on Living Pianos and YouTube! After 1,300+ videos, what more is there to say? Well, quite a bit, really! Today’s subject is about how to develop more speed in your piano playing. I did a video about this years ago. It’s worth watching. You can see that video here. But today I’m going to share one particular secret which is the whole basis for developing speed at the piano. Before I get to that, I’m going to talk about the simple physics of the piano.

More motion equals greater volume – Less motion equals faster speed.

I’m going to break it down into finger technique and wrist technique. I’ll show you how both of them work. To demonstrate, I’m going to use the Ballade by Burgmuller. This is a great little piece to demonstrate both techniques. The right hand has chords which utilize wrist technique. While the left hand has fast 16th note finger work. So let’s first talk about the wrist technique first in the right hand. When you’re first learning this piece, you should articulate everything clearly by differentiating each finger and each wrist motion to achieve precision in your playing.

Wrist technique:

It’s just like if you want a lot of power doing anything. For example, let’s say you are hammering in some nails. You would naturally lift the hammer up high enough to gain momentum of the hammer. which provides more motion. You’re obviously going to get far greater power from the extra motion of your arm. Well, in piano, you don’t use your arms for this type of technique. But you do use your wrists. So in slow practice you want to articulate the chords with your wrist. Later, you can use less motion to achieve faster speed. When going slowly, you can play chords with quite a bit of power if desired. Now in this particular piece, it is written at a low dynamic level. But if you want to play them loud, more wrist motion will accomplish that. As you go faster, you use less motion and stay closer to the keys.

Finger technique:

It isn’t just your wrists! It also is true of finger work. As you begin to learn a piece, use raised fingers and sink your fingers into the keys, much like you do when practicing exercises or scales and arpeggios at a slow speed, because it helps to delineate the release of notes. It’s actually far harder to lift up previously played fingers than to play new notes. What do I mean by this? Well, you can demonstrate this for yourself. Put your hand on a flat surface, and lift your fingers one at a time. You will notice the fourth and fifth fingers are particularly hard to lift up when your other fingers are down. However, pushing your fingers down is not so hard.

One of the most important finger techniques to develop on the piano is the release of previously played notes.

If you don’t practice releasing notes, you can get a blurry sound. Worse yet, imagine if your thumb didn’t release and couldn’t play again! The first three notes of this piece are C, B natural, and then C again. If the C doesn’t come up in time, it won’t replay after the B plays because it would still be down. That’s why in slow practice, practicing with an exaggerated motion of the fingers can really help your hand learn which fingers are down and which fingers are up. Try this and you’ll see the power you can get by using strong, raised fingers. Typically you don’t play this way in performance, but in practice it can be extremely valuable when you’re first learning a piece. You want to really articulate the notes to figure out your hand position, and to feel your fingers really dig into the keys. You want to start very slowly with a lot of motion and raised fingers. As the tempo increases, you’ll notice that the fingers stay closer and closer to the keys. Again, less motion equals more speed.

It’s simple physics really. When you need power, you use more motion. And when you need speed, you use less motion.

That’s the lesson for today! Try this in your playing. If you come to a passage you’re working on, and you can’t get fast enough speed, try lightening up. Stay closer to the keys, and you’ll be astounded at how much faster you can play by simply using less motion! I hope this lesson is helpful for you. I’m producing a lot more videos and it’s all for you! You can email me and let me know what you’d like to see in future videos. Tell me what topics you are interested in. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

How to Develop More Speed in Your Piano Playing

It is a great challenge to find enough time to practice! Even piano performance majors in conservatories have to deal with course loads to satisfy degree requirements. In my recent interview with Madame Ruth Slencyznska, I asked her how she managed to find time to practice, particularly when she was traveling from continent to continent playing concerts. Her answer was to steal moments!

My father had the same philosophy. Whenever a student couldn’t make a lesson, he would take advantage of the time by practicing. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you take advantage of every spare moment!

Dinner isn’t quite ready, practice! Waiting for a return phone call, practice!

In the accompanying video, I took advantage of a 15 minute slot I had available before teaching a student. I showed how you can learn at least a couple of phrases in a short practice session. These little bursts of productivity can really add up over time. You must take advantage of any time you have to squeeze in more practice time!

You will see in the video how I concentrate on learning very small chunks of music at a time. This has many benefits. First, if you only have a small amount of time, you are guaranteed to be able to learn something. Also, when you have more extended practice time, you can sustain a longer period of productivity by never exceeding what you can absorb at any one time.

Try this out for yourselves. You will find that even when you think there isn’t enough time to do anything productive, you could end up with more time than you imagine. Instead of just scrolling on your phone waiting impatiently, you can instead forge ahead with learning your music! Let me know how this works out for you.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Stealing Moments to Practice: Advice from Ruth Slenczynska

I get questions from piano students all the time asking, “How can I determine what level player I am?” Students from India have specific designations from organizations like ABRSM that have regimented repertoire putting students in specific categories of levels. Many music organizations like Music Teachers’ Association of California also categorize students by numeric levels. I laugh sometimes when I see repertoire with designations of, Easy, Intermediate and Advanced, and such, with pieces of the standard literature sometimes being called, ”Easy”. But there are no ways to categorize levels of playing since people have drastically different aptitudes. Someone may have a great affinity for Baroque music, but a weak sense of rhythm. Or someone may be a phenomenal sight-reader, but they can’t play anything from memory, or play anything on a really refined level. I would say that someone playing Beethoven Sonatas and large works of Chopin (like his Ballades and Scherzi) for example, may be considered advanced, but only if they are playing these pieces honestly.

There is a huge range of levels within intermediate and advanced music on the piano.

Ultimately, it isn’t important to categorize yourself into any particular piano level. You are growing as a musician as long as you are practicing, and most importantly, expanding your repertoire. Every new piece you learn adds to your skill as a pianist, and increases the depth of your musicianship. There will always be new pieces to learn, new styles to assimilate, and new techniques to explore. No matter how much music you learn, or how accomplished you become at the piano, there are always vast new areas of music for you on the piano. There also will always be people who can do things on the piano you can’t do no matter how accomplished you become.

It’s about the journey, not the destination.

So, enjoy your practice! And don’t worry about what level you are on. That’s my advice to you. If you spend productive time at the piano on a regular basis, you will continue to grow as a pianist.

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