Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to achieve consistency in your piano playing. There are many aspects to this, such as, revisiting the score, which I’ve talked about in other videos, committing the piece to memory, practicing performing, and many other elements. All of these techniques give you solidity in your playing. But what I’m going to talk about today is something that transcends all of that!

Growing up, I played both piano and French horn.

I spent equal amounts of time practicing both instruments. I had the good fortune of connecting with a phenomenal French horn teacher by the name of Hugh Cowden. He specialized in low horn. He was a fourth horn player. Horn sections are like no other sections of the orchestra because there are four independent parts unlike string sections which typically all play the same parts in each section. The first and second horns form a duet, with the first horn playing the high part and the second horn playing the low part, generally. The third horn is another high horn part, and the fourth horn is another low horn part. When the section is playing together, the fourth horn anchors the whole section. It’s a glorious sound! Hugh Cowden played in the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic. It was such a joy working with him! He would come to my home and we would spend whole afternoons together. It was unbelievable!

The French horn is different from piano in almost every respect.

There’s much more physiology involved in tone production on the horn. On the piano, the tone is produced by hammers hitting strings which transfers the sound to the soundboard through bridges. On the French horn, the tone is produced by your breath passing through your lips. And these muscles tire out after a while. Our lessons would consist of going from one piece of music to the next, concertos, sonatas, etudes, and a bunch of orchestral excerpts. Sometimes in the course of a lesson, there would be some things that were giving me problems. So he would keep coming back to those things, trying to get me to overcome them in the course of the lesson. Then we would play duets together, or we would go into my father’s studio and play records of great horn players and comment on them. It was an amazing experience working with him!

I would get to a certain point in the lesson where my chops were shot.

I would get to the point where I couldn’t play anymore. This happens on French horn when you get to a certain point and your lips just can’t do it anymore. All you can do is let them recover and pick up the horn the next day. But Hugh Cowden wouldn’t let me do that. He would have me work physically harder by supporting the air even more than I thought was possible. At first, the sound seemed fuzzy, but I would just use so much energy and make the attacks really strong, using the air and the breath and everything I knew about French horn playing multiplied by 10! And at the end of one of those four-hour marathon lessons, when I thought I was done long ago, I could play on a high level again. How is this possible?

This is the secret to consistency!

When you feel down and out and your mind isn’t doing what it needs to do, you must rely upon what you know to be the truths of your instrument and double down on everything! Use that concentration. Make sure you’re sitting properly. Think about the music and the phrasing and get into the flow of playing. Make yourself do the things you know work. Even when your mind is tired and you think you can’t do it, you can! You can overcome your natural limitations by just working harder, not just physically, but mentally reinforcing what works when you absolutely need it most. You will be shocked that such a thing is possible. And if it’s possible with the French horn, when the blood no longer wants to return to the lips, and the muscles are so fatigued that they won’t vibrate when you play the way you normally play, then it’s absolutely possible on the piano. Because when you’re fatigued on the piano, your fingers tend to regenerate rather quickly. It’s not like you play to a certain point and you just can’t play anymore. At least I have never suffered from that situation on the piano. Usually if I’m tired, I’ll wait a few minutes, and physically, things come back again.

On the piano it’s really more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge for most people.

I want you to try this technique the next time you think you’ve reached the end of what you can do. Of course, revisit the score and practice slowly going through the score carefully. But in a performance situation, you can muster up the energy if you rely upon doubling down upon the things you know work. Go for it in an extreme way! Reaffirm your concentration and see what’s possible for you when you think you’ve lost all consistency in your playing. Let me know how this works for you! Thanks so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to use the pedal on the piano. This is such a deep subject. I have other videos on the finer points about pedaling, how it imparts changes in tone, when to use it, when not to use it, and how to use the sustain pedal in conjunction with the soft pedal. But today I will cover the fundamentals. If you’ve ever wondered how the pedal works, you’ve come to the right place!

The interesting thing about the pedal is that it does not go down rhythmically.

If you’ve just started using the pedal the hardest thing about it is that it is not used rhythmically, because you want to tap your foot on the beat. It’s the most natural thing in the world! Yet that doesn’t work on the piano. It doesn’t work because if you push the pedal down when a note plays, you will capture the harmonies of the previous notes that were down. It’s a mess. Why is that? The fact of the matter is, when you push the pedal down, whatever notes are held down are going to continue holding down. When you play a note, you’re still holding down the previous notes to some extent, particularly if something is slurred.

How do you create a slur on the piano?

A slur is a glide between notes. A singer or a French horn player does it very naturally and the notes between the slur are all there. On the piano, you can’t do that. So you tend to overlap notes, and that’s the way you create the illusion of a slur. But what happens when you pedal on the beat is the previously played notes are going to be held. If I play middle C and then a C sharp and I pedal at the same moment as I play the C sharp, you’re going to hear the C and the C sharp together. You will hear dissonance. The pedal must go down right after notes plays.

But here’s some good news for you, the pedal comes up exactly on the beat!

The pedal goes up exactly when you play a note. But the pedal goes down right after the note, arrhythmically. It’s important that you understand that, otherwise, you’re going to hear dissonance. It’s the nature of the pedal.

There’s so much more to the pedal. As a matter of fact, I will put links in the description of some other videos I have on pedaling. Decades ago, I made 50 hour-long presentations live on the internet, for a company in Irvine. My show was called Keyboard Kaleidoscope. One episode is an hour long show on the pedal that I will share with you in the notes below, in the description, and on LivingPianos.com! I hope this is helpful for you. Thanks so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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HOW TO USE THE PEDAL ON THE PIANO – KEYBOARD KALEIDOSCOPE – ROBERT ESTRIN

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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about anti-practicing. What is anti-practicing? Are you doing it? You may be. I’m going to give you 3 telltale signs today that you might be anti-practicing. What do I mean by anti-practicing? What I’m talking about are routines in your daily work that are destructive. Routines that actually build negative habits in your playing. There are many ways that you can be productive in your practice and an equal number of ways that you can be unproductive. One of the most telling signs that you may be damaging your work is playing too fast.

Playing too fast has so many negative repercussions in your playing.

One negative repercussion of playing too fast is changing your tempo. Let’s say you have a piece and it’s going pretty well. It’s fun to play it because it’s an exciting piece that you love, but there are just a few problem spots. So you accommodate by slowing down for those spots so you can enjoy playing through the music. Why is this such a bad thing to do? Occasionally you might want to try playing up to tempo to see how far you get and to see where the problem parts are so you can zero in and solve them. But if you’re in the habit of doing this on a regular basis, you get so used to playing it that way, making those accommodations, that it’s all but impossible to stop!

Obviously the metronome is an incredibly valuable tool. Find a speed at whcih you can play everything at that tempo and that will serve you really well. There are other techniques you can use as well, because you might not want to play all of it slowly all the time. Instead, play until you can’t keep up with the metronome and concentrate on those sections. You can simply do metronome speeds. Find the speed at which you can play the trouble passage, and increase by one or two notches at a time on your metronome until you get it up to speed. Or you can use other practice techniques, whatever solves the problems. Maybe you need to play hands separately. You can try stopping on a note that you always miss so you land on it a bunch of times accurately. Whatever it takes to feel secure in the parts that are giving you problems is worthwhile. Playing too fast is obviously going to be destructive if you do it on a regular basis without solving the underlying problems in the sections you can’t play up to speed.

The second telltale sign is going back just a little bit every time you make a mistake.

You’re playing through a piece and when you make a mistake you just go back and fix it. You think you fixed it, but of course you haven’t fixed it. All you’re doing is getting into the routine of going back slightly when you make a mistake. So during your performance you will do the same thing, because that’s what you’re used to doing. Solving this issue really takes multiple steps. You might think you solved it, but you haven’t. Because the next time, it’s likely to happen again. Those weaknesses are still there.

So how do you get rid of those insecurities?

First of all, when you have a little problem, you need to stop and get out the music to find exactly where the problem is. By the way, that’s the hardest part of all! You might think you’re the only one who has trouble finding where you are in the music. No. It’s hard even for me sometimes! But I take the time to do it each and every time because it’s the only way to know what the problem is and to clarify the solution in your mind. That way it’s not just a motor memory thing that you may or may not get, but intellectually, you understand the correction.

Once you can play the correction faithfully repeatedly, you get it up to tempo, it’s smooth, and you can play it at least three times in a row perfectly, are you done? No. You’re not done yet because you still have to put it into context. What I recommend is to go back a little bit first, maybe two measures before the part that you already got perfect three times in a row. Go back two measures before that and play that perfectly three times in a row. Finally, go back to the beginning of the piece or section and make sure you can think it all through playing accurately. Because strangely enough, even after cementing a correction, and even after being able to go back a couple of measures and get through it beautifully over and over again, you’re still going to find that when you go back to the beginning of the piece the same mistake will creep in again because you’re not used to getting there from that point. So you have to think it all through! Once you play through two or three times from the beginning perfectly, you’ve got it solved until the next part. So go to the next problem part and do exactly the same thing until you can faithfully go through the whole piece.

The third telltale sign is playing your mistake.

The 3rd telltale sign that you may be anti-practicing is playing your mistake. As soon as you make a mistake you wonder, “What did I do wrong?” So you go back and play it incorrectly again to understand what the mistake was. I know it’s so tempting to want to see what you did wrong, but all you’re doing is concentrating on the mistake. You’re cementing the mistake! This is the very definition of anti-practicing! You don’t want to think about your mistakes. You want to focus on the corrections!

Those are the 3 things to concentrate on!

Don’t play too fast! However, you can try your music up to speed, just to see where you need to focus your attention. Don’t just stop and go back a little bit and think you’ve corrected mistakes because you haven’t. You may think you have because you went back and played it correctly, but the same thing is likely to happen again unless you go back further and further incorporating the correction. And don’t ever try to find your mistakes. Instead, focus on the corrections! That’s what will be paramount in your mind and your performance will be stronger as a result. I hope these tips are helpful for you! Thanks so much 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

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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about the importance of practicing with raised fingers. Playing the piano with raised fingers is a completely different scenario from practicing the piano with raised fingers. I want to qualify this right out of the gate so you don’t get scared that I’m telling you to do something that could lead to injury. This is a technique used judiciously to help you solidify your technique, but certainly not something you do in performance. You may wonder why you would do something in practice that you would never do in your performance? Well, there are very good reasons for this which I will explain now.

The physiology of the hands is such that it’s much easier to push fingers down than to lift them up.

If you want to prove this to yourself, just put your hands on a flat surface anywhere, and then just try to lift only your fourth finger. It’s hard to do because the tendons and the nerves are shared among those fingers. So it makes it tough to gain independence.

Why is it a good idea to practice with raised fingers?

Well, there are actually two reasons for this. One is that it helps to strengthen the independence of your fingers so you can practice the release of notes. If you’ve ever heard somebody play sloppy scales, one aspect is the evenness of the attack. But the other aspect is the evenness of the durations of notes, the space between notes. If I played a scale with all the notes hitting evenly, but don’t release some of the notes the same length as others, it would sound sloppy because some notes overlap and some don’t. It’s haphazard. And as I mentioned, lifting fingers up is so much more difficult than pushing them down. Also, it teaches your hands and your head which fingers are down and which fingers are up. So in slow scale practice, by raising fingers, you identify which notes are down and which fingers are up. So when you go faster you have the control of releases, not just attacks of notes.

The stretch you get is akin to the warm up of an athlete.

Stretching is so important! This is a great way you can stretch your fingers while at the same time teach yourself the release of the notes in slow practice. Naturally, when you play up to tempo, you abandon this because it’s not possible or recommended to raise fingers when trying to play up to tempo. It’s not only impossible, but it would not be good for your hands to do such a thing. But it’s a tremendous technique, not just for practicing scales. You can use this technique anytime you want to identify which notes are down and which notes are up so you can achieve a clean sound. With this kind of practice everything is exaggerated. So whatever sloppiness you have is eradicated because you really get to dig into the keys and feel every key that’s down and keep other fingers up and out of the way. And this is why slow practicing with raised fingers can be incredibly valuable for you!

Always be aware of how you feel and never do anything that causes you pain!

This applies not just for raised finger practice, but everything you do on the piano. How you sit at the piano, the relaxed nature of your shoulders. You must be aware of all these things because you want your hands to last your whole life because it is the lifeblood for playing the piano!

I hope you find this practice technique to be helpful for you. Try it out and see how it works for you! And when practicing with raised fingers, you don’t want to use a lot of arm weight. You want to just use the fingers. Teach your fingers which notes are down and which notes are up and you will have a cleaner technique to show for it! Thanks so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about why you should be playing the piano with your hands crossed. Now what do I mean by that? There are a lot of places in music where the hands cross in order to accomplish a certain sound or texture in the playing. But what I’m talking about today is entirely different. The physiology of our hands is just wrong for piano playing in one fundamental way. Your strongest fingers are in the middle and the weakest fingers are on the ends. Yet you want to bring out the treble, you want to bring out the bass. But you have these big, heavy, strong fingers, right in the middle obscuring everything!

If you were to play the piano without compensating for this weakness, you’d end up with a pretty awful sound.

Imagine just letting your thumbs be and letting the balance come out the way it naturally would with the hands. It wouldn’t sound right because the thumbs are just really strong and your pinkies and fourth fingers are weak. So you have to learn how to lessen the thumbs and bring out top notes and bottom notes. This is one of the most difficult aspects of playing the piano! It’s not easy to balance notes because your hands are designed exactly the wrong way to accomplish it! Crossing your hands corrects that imbalance, but obviously presents a whole other set of problems. So I’m not actually recommending you do that. But in a perfect world, there would be some way of achieving this.

So how do you learn to balance?

One terrific way to learn how to balance is to play with different articulations. Underplay the notes that are accompaniment and play legato for melody notes. Playing inner voices with a gentle finger staccato teaches your hand which notes to bring out and which ones are less important. You can do this with virtually any music you play. Interestingly, you don’t have to restrict it to just the top line and the bottom line. When you’re playing counterpoint, for example, you can bring out whatever line you choose. And not just in counterpoint. This is a phenomenal technique for developing the ability to bring out whatever you want within a polyphonic texture. Until we have some way of compensating for the fact that our hands are built backwards for the piano, this is a technique I recommend for you! Thanks so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today we’re going to discuss how to achieve speed and lightness in your piano playing. These two things are related. It’s simple physics really. Moving a great deal of mass takes more work than moving a smaller amount of mass. So minimizing motion in your fast playing is really the secret. I’ve talked about this with finger work, so today the focus is going to be on the wrists. The wrists are incredibly important on the piano for so many things that the fingers just can’t do because they don’t have enough power. First I’m going to give a little refresher on how this applies to finger work. Then I’m going to show you wrist technique and how minimizing motion gives you more speed and lightness with the wrists as well.

Minimize motion of the fingers when playing fast.

A piano melody, even one that is quiet, still has to project. It takes a certain amount of arm weight supported by the fingers to achieve this. This is analogous to the breath of a wind instrument or the bow of a violin. You can get a nice warm melody that projects and creates a fluid line by utilizing the fingers and the arm weight. But you can’t use that much finger motion when you want to play at a much faster tempo. You have to stay closer to the keys. Your fingers need to be close to the keys and rounded, so there’s a minimum amount of motion necessary. It makes it much easier to play fast and light.

The wrists are necessary for articulating staccatos, phrasing, accents, and chord technique.

For an example, I’m choosing a piece that I’ve taught countless times, the Ballade by Burgmuller. Students often play the staccatos with their arms, which creates a ponderous sound because the arms are so big and heavy. It’s better to utilize the wrists instead of the arms. However, trying to get the speed faster with that much motion can be incredibly difficult. But by staying closer to the keys you can play faster and lighter. When you want speed, stay closer to the keys in your finger work and use less wrist motion. Certainly don’t use the arms! The arms have a real limit of speed. Playing fast staccatos with the arms is all but impossible. But the wrists can go very fast. The wrists have much less mass to move compared with the arms, so already that helps. To get even more speed, agility and lightness in quick playing that is not just finger work, stay closer to the keys and have a minimal amount of motion. Then you’ll be able to go much faster!

Try this technique on whatever music you’re playing!

If you’re playing rapid finger work and you find that you’ve hit a brick wall, try lightening up and staying closer to the keys. In chord technique and staccatos, use the wrists, not the arms because they are much faster and more agile. And as you get quicker, stay closer to the keys and use less motion. That’s the tip for today! I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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