Piano and Music Videos

Can't find what you're looking for?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about what makes a teacher great. Great teachers are so rare. In public school I could count on one hand the truly great teachers I had throughout all my years of schooling. Oftentimes at a certain point in the year, the teacher would assign a paper. It had to be a certain length and you had to have a bibliography of the works you referenced. Everybody in the class would break out into a cold sweat. Why? Because nobody ever actually showed us how to write a paper! They would tell you to make an outline, as if that’s helpful. You wouldn’t even know how to make an outline! Nobody ever showed us how to approach such a thing. They just said, “Do it.” And that was the way it was so much of the time with homework. “Read the book,” they would say. But the people who wrote the books weren’t always great teachers either. I encounter this so much of the time with theory books, by the way. It can be so confusing that it goes right over students’ heads. If you already understand the theory, you can kind of grasp what they’re going for, but in the most convoluted and complex way. It doesn’t help someone to actually learn music theory.

In 11th grade I had a great teacher named Mr. Gray.

Mr. Gray changed my life because he actually showed us how to craft an English composition. To this day I am thankful for what he showed us. I still use the tools he provided in my writing today. It’s the way of organizing. There’s a methodology which I could go into another time, if any of you are interested. It’s a little off topic from music, but not really because in this world, we all have to express ourselves in print. Even if it’s just emails to people, you want to be concise. You want to be digestible and memorable. Organization is a big part of that. This is true for all teaching.

What is the most essential element to teaching?

What is the best way to convey ideas? The best way is to break things down to their component parts in a logical fashion. If you’ve ever had a great math teacher, you know what I’m talking about. Because when you have a math teacher who’s not great, you just feel completely overwhelmed. It can make you feel stupid! Because you think, “Why can’t I get this?” You’re looking at some mathematical equation that you can’t begin to solve because nobody’s given you the tools. But if you have a great math teacher who shows you the methodology, step by step, it’s enlightening. Not only that, it makes doing your homework fun because you understand what you’re doing. You’re not just trying to grope in the dark and hope you stumble upon answers. You know exactly what to do, step by step. That is what you look for in a teacher. This is true with any subject.

Music theory is one of those subjects that is often taught poorly.

I’m not going to mention the school by name, but I went to a school that was guilty of constantly teaching above the students’ comprehension. Part of it was the teachers would write the books that would be used in the class and they wanted to appear smarter than the students. What’s the best way to do that? Have a lot of jargon in the book that’s just not quite digestible. You seem smarter than your students and the students are looking to you for guidance. If you’ve ever felt that way with a teacher, it’s not you. It’s them! They are not giving you the tools you need.

A great teacher empowers you to solve problems.

Whether it’s how to play the piano, how to do math, or how to figure out music theory, a great teacher will completely solidify the basics. It’s the same thing with studying pieces of music. You must have a complete grasp of what you’re doing. It’s so satisfying when you’re anchored that way intellectually. Then you can build from there. Each concept builds on the previous. It’s obvious with a subject like math. But music is no different. In fact, most subjects need to be addressed this way so you can build logically from a solid foundation of understanding and have the tools and the steps needed for your daily work. And that’s how you know you have a great teacher in whatever subject you’re learning. When you have one, you’ll feel so grateful. It opens your mind because it’s not just the little tidbits you get at the lessons. It’s what you get not only throughout the week, but in the months, and yes, the years to follow. Just like the lessons I learned from Mr. Gray in 11th grade!

I hope this is 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

www.LivingPianos.com
www.Facebook.com/LivingPianos
949-244-3729

TEACHER RANT: What Makes a Great Teacher

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about what makes a teacher great. Great teachers are so rare. In public school I could count on one hand the truly great teachers I had throughout all my years of schoolin

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about how to keep your review pieces on performance level. I talk to so many people who wonder how they can learn new pieces without forgetting old pieces. People can end up studying the piano for years and still only have one piece they can play, the piece they’re working on that week! So, how do you keep old pieces in shape? How can you possibly have time to learn new pieces when you’re reviewing all your old pieces?

Of course the answer is, you can’t keep every piece you’ve ever played in your hands and in your head all the time. It becomes impossible! Once you amass a repertoire of five or six hours of music, you can’t possibly keep everything in shape. However, it is vitally important that you keep at least the last few pieces you’ve studied in your hands and in your head. Because there’s a pleasure and an ease you gain with music you’ve played for a long time. So, how do you do that without taking up all of your practice time?

The best, easiest, and most fun way of keeping your review pieces in shape is to play them!

Play your pieces all the time! play them every day! Why not? Obviously, if you have pieces like the Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven or the Bach Goldberg Variations, they’re going to take a while to play through. So, there are certain limitations depending upon the level you’re on. But certainly you should keep playing the pieces that you’ve studied within the past few weeks.

Let’s say you’re working on a brand new piece, and you have the piece you did at your last lesson. Well, it’s better to have the last few pieces, at least three to five pieces. Otherwise, as I said, you could be playing the piano for years and never have anything really secure. Because there’s nothing like the security of playing a piece that you’ve known for a long time. The ease and security you gain from living with music is tremendous. If you never review those pieces, everything is kind of tentative and you never have that pleasure.

Simply playing through your pieces, is that all you have to do?

Playing through your pieces isn’t all you have to do, but most of the time that’s enough. On a daily basis or at least every other day, play through your review pieces. Play through a bunch of them. It’s fun because they’re pieces you already know. What’s the purpose of all this practicing if you’re not going to have anything you can play? You should enjoy playing the piano, not just practicing. You put in all this tedious work of learning music and working out all the technical details. The reward at the end of the line is being able to play! So of course play them, and play them for people. You’ll get better at performing simply by playing for other people.

Now, if you keep playing your pieces over and over again for weeks on end and that’s all you do, they will deteriorate over time. Because there are slight changes that happen. Which is why you must go back to the score on a periodic basis with your music if it’s something you’ve memorized. Put the score up and play with your foot off the pedal so you can hear the underlying performance without the benefit of the pedal which can obscure things. Sometimes you should use a metronome to make sure you’re playing at a constant tempo. This is a great way to reinforce your playing. Playing with the score slowly to a metronome with no pedal reinforces everything that you’ve learned before. It’s a refresher. I recommend it highly for all of your review pieces. This is particularly helpful with pieces you’ve recently learned that you’re trying to get on that ultimate level. This is a terrific way of doing that. You can actually work at different speeds. Start very slowly with the score, because it’s hard to read something you’ve memorized, particularly if it’s a piece that’s above your reading level. You undoubtedly read through it when you first got it just to see what it was about, and then you got to work and learned it. Going back trying to read it is a tough task, but it’s also vitally important if you want to keep your performance on a high level. Otherwise, it’s like a game of telephone where the message gets so garbled it ends up being a whole new message. If you play your piece over and over enough times and never refer to the score, you can end up with a whole different piece! So, it’s incredibly important to reference the score.

Choose wisely which pieces you keep in your repertoire.

Definitely keep at least the last two or three pieces you’ve learned in your repertoire so you can really solidify them and enjoy the fruits of your labor. You might also select some choice pieces that you’ve learned that you never want to forget. Play them often enough that they don’t get too far gone. If you find that they’ve deteriorated to a great extent, go back to the score. You might have to practice some sections, but don’t let them get so far gone that you have to practically start all over to learn them again. But even if you do, you’ll find if you’ve really learned a piece of music and committed it to memory, relearning it is much faster than initially learning it. So, that’s the good news for any of you out there who haven’t done this. Go ahead and relearn some of those pieces. At first it’ll seem arduous, but then you’ll quickly assimilate the score once again.

There are pieces I’ve learned and relearned multiple times. They become cemented almost as a part of my permanent repertoire. There’s a number of pieces that I just have all the time. Even if I haven’t played them in years, they’re still there. But it takes a long time to get to that point. In the meantime, play through your pieces on a regular basis and have fun with your music! 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

www.LivingPianos.com \
www.Facebook.com/LivingPianos
949-244-3729

How to Keep Your Review Pieces on Performance Level

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about how to keep your review pieces on performance level. I talk to so many people who wonder how they can learn new pieces without forgetting old pieces. People can end

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

www.LivingPianos.com
www.Facebook.com/LivingPianos
949-244-3729

What Is Anti-Practicing and Are You Doing it?

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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Do you think you can hear the difference between a Steinway and a Chinese piano? Many of you probably think it would be no problem. But it may be surprising to you what you hear. There have been studies on wines. When people think a bottle of wine is expensive, they’re always going to choose that as being a better wine. There’s a subjective nature to the taste and the bouquet of wines. Well, the same is true of pianos! Now, I’m not suggesting one is better than the other. I’m going to leave it up to you to decide. I’m going to provide you with a blind listening test!

We will be comparing a Steinway to a Chinese piano in our blind listening test!

I went through the archives of Living Pianos, because we have hundreds of piano videos, and I found two grand pianos of about the same size, both in brand new condition. One is a Steinway and one is a Chinese piano. The Chinese brand shall remain nameless for right now. At the end I will reveal which is which. But don’t cheat! Don’t go forward on this because I want you to really critically listen. If you’ve got good speakers or headphones, use them so you can really hear the instruments. Then I want you to write down your answer. Write it down on a piece of paper. I’m serious about this! Because it’s easy to change your mind once you know the answer. But if you commit it to paper, then you can’t argue that you thought something different. It’s harder to tell than you might think!

I found recordings of the beginning of the second movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10, No. 3. It’s the same exact piece of music you’re going to hear on both of these instruments. Remember, don’t cheat! I want you to really write down which one you think is the Steinway and which one is the Chinese piano so you get the most out of this. Here we go!

See video to hear for yourself!

That was an interesting listening experience. I bet many of you have very definite ideas and some of you may be wondering which one is which. Well first of all let me tell you what these pianos are and then I’ll tell you which one was first and which one was second. The Steinway is a 2010 Model O which is right around 5′ 10″ in brand new condition. The Chinese piano is the 2017 Hailun Model 178, also 5′ 10″.

So which one was which? Have you written it down on paper? I’m serious about this because it’s easy to cheat yourself. You don’t want to be wrong here, do you? Because there’s a drastic price difference. You could buy several of those Hailuns for the price of a Steinway. So which one is which?

The first performance you heard was the Steinway and the second performance was the Hailun.

I don’t know how many of you are shocked and how many of you got it right. But there’s no right or wrong answer because every piano has something to offer. Every piano is unique. If you play several brand new Steinway model O’s in the showroom, each one will have a unique character of sound, as do the Hailuns. All pianos are made of wood and other organic materials and are highly crafted.

Now, I should tell you that there was a slight difference in these two performances. The first one was made later in my studio where I had much higher end microphones. I had a pair of Neumanns recording the Steinway and I only had a pair of Audio-Technica 4033s, which are relatively inexpensive large diaphragm condensers on the Hailun. So they were recorded in different rooms with different microphones. So this wasn’t totally scientific. The Hailun didn’t have the benefit of expensive, high-end microphones. But nevertheless you can get some idea of the different characteristics of the sound of these pianos. It was an interesting playing experience. I can hear what I went for and what came out on these performances. But I’m more interested in what you heard! Be honest in the comments. I’m very interested in how everybody responds to this! Thanks so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

Steinway 2010 Model O Grand Piano – Living Pianos Online Piano Store
https://youtu.be/beWmW4C4y7U

New Hailun Model 178 Grand Piano – Living Pianos Online Piano Store
https://youtu.be/izQ-ZUSa0Jw
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!

www.LivingPianos.com
www.Facebook.com/LivingPianos
949-244-3729

Steinway VS Chinese Piano – Can You Hear the Difference?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Do you think you can hear the difference between a Steinway and a Chinese piano? Many of you probably think it would be no problem. But it may be surprising to you what you hear. There have been s

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about avoiding injury in your piano playing. Is pain ever OK? You know they say, “No pain, no gain,” but I’m going to come right out and say no, pain is not okay in piano playing. There are some exceptions, but I want to make it very clear that pain is always a warning sign that something is wrong. I’m going to bring up the exceptions, but first I want to show you ways you can mitigate pain in your piano playing. Of course if you’re having any kind of serious issues, particularly anything recurring, you should see a doctor to find out what is going on, because pain is not good.

How can you avoid pain in your piano playing?

First of all, it’s incredibly important how you sit at the piano. Take the time to make sure you’re sitting at the appropriate distance from the keyboard. Use a seat that you can adjust to exactly the right height as well. You can use an adjustable artist bench, or put books or a pillow on the bench to raise the height if necessary. Being at the right height is really critical. Generally speaking, you want your hands straight with your arms parallel to the floor. This is very comfortable because your wrists are straight. You don’t want your wrists to be bent. Imagine sitting at the piano so low that your wrists are lower than your fingers the whole time you’re practicing. That stresses the nerves and the tendons and your wrists can become swollen and sore just from being in that position. So take the time to make sure you are sitting at the right height.

How far should your bench be from the keyboard?

Sometimes you see people sitting too close to the piano. This is extraordinarily tension-inducing, particularly when playing in the extreme high and low registers of the keyboard. You want to be far enough away so there’s a wide angle to your arms. You don’t want your arms right at your sides. You also don’t want the bench to be right up against the back of your knees because you have no flexibility for getting from one end of the keyboard to the other quickly, as you have to do in a lot of different music. So sitting in the right place and having the right angle of your wrists is vitally important.

Your piano and environment also play a role.

If you feel pain and you wonder why, there’s the possibility that your piano action might need work. Maybe you’re playing on a piano that has 65 – 70 grams of down-weight and it just takes too much effort to push the keys down. Regulation, lubrication and easing of key bushings can possibly get things moving better. Another problem is if your piano has a really dead sound and you’re trying to fill a room that is too large for the instrument. You may overcompensate in your playing. There may be ambient sounds of air conditioning or some other sounds you’re constantly trying to overcome. You may be playing way harder than you think even if your action isn’t heavy. That could really be taxing to your hands. So that’s another thing to be aware of.

Is pain ever OK?

I talked in the beginning about the exceptions, about no pain, no gain. Is there any truth to that? Well, there is a little bit. Any of you who exercise know that if you’re weightlifting or running, the lactic acid naturally builds up in your muscles and you feel a soreness that can possibly be described as pain. But it’s a pain that goes away as soon as you stop. It’s a normal part of the growth of muscles. In fact, the only way muscles grow is by tearing down and rebuilding. This is the physiology of exercise. A little bit of that happens in piano playing. If you’ve ever done wrist exercises or even scales, when you finish you will feel tired. You’ll feel a certain soreness, at least temporarily, in your fingers. Now, if that persists after a few minutes of rest, then there’s something wrong. But to feel a little bit of fatigue bordering on pain in your hands after a workout on the piano, as long as it’s akin to what you feel when you’re exercising, is a normal part of building strength. Knowing that distinction is important so you make sure you don’t cross the line!

At times I’ve practiced some really treacherous sections of Liszt. I alternate between doing the really virtuosic sections and the more poetic parts of the piece, going back and forth to make sure I don’t put too much strain on my hands. This is what you must do in your practice. If you feel pain or major fatigue, that achy feeling you get when your muscles are being worked out, give it a little break and come back to it a bit later. And make sure that it’s nothing that persists!

Be sure to stretch and take rest when you need it!

Generally, you never want to experience pain in your piano playing. But when you’re doing a major workout, you may feel a sense of relief when you stop for a little bit. So give yourself rest! I like to do stretching throughout the day. It’s really helpful. Because your neck, your shoulders, all need to function properly. Your nerves are part of a system that goes all the way to your brain. If at any point the nerves become infringed upon it can cause problems in your hands, neck, or back. So you must be limber. Doing yoga or other stretching is vitally important. I highly recommend it! I don’t know what I would do without my stretching. I may make a video about the stretching I do because it’s stuff that I’ve come up with that’s based upon yoga, but it’s my own personal routine that I can do anywhere. You might enjoy that as well. Let me know in the comments! 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

You can contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you!

www.LivingPianos.com
www.Facebook.com/LivingPianos
949-244-3729

How to Avoid Injury in Piano Playing: Is Pain OK?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about avoiding injury in your piano playing. Is pain ever OK? You know they say, “No pain, no gain,” but I’m going to come right out and say no, pain is not

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about the difference between performing and practicing. These are two entirely different experiences and all too often students will confuse which one they’re doing! You want to know whether you are performing or practicing. There is a drastic difference! They are polar opposites in regards to approaches. So what is the fundamental difference between performing and practicing?

If you’re practicing, don’t you want to play through your music?

Well, sure you do. But when you’re practicing you want to fix any mistakes. So if you’re playing through a piece and something goes wrong or it just feels insecure, that’s a signal to stop, take out the score, figure out what’s wrong and spend time securing the music in your head and your hands. So the lesson for practicing is, whenever there’s a problem, you must stop and take the time to fix it. It’s vitally important to do that. You don’t want to gloss over mistakes.

With performing it’s exactly the opposite!

It doesn’t matter how devastating a mistake you make during a performance, the show must go on! You have to just keep moving forward. Nobody wants to hear you practice during a performance. You might think that you want to show the audience that you know you made a mistake. So you want to go back and correct it to show them you can play it accurately. They don’t want to hear it! Believe me. They’d rather you let mistakes go by the wayside. They’re already anticipating the next part of the piece. They don’t want to hear a repeat of what they just heard. Losing the continuity of the performance is actually the worst thing you can do. Keep moving forward no matter what. That’s the lesson. Do not stop. Do not correct mistakes in performance. Why is it so difficult to continue a performance after a mistake?
In your practice, you must always stop when you have a problem and correct it. So how do you alleviate that tendency in your performance?

You must practice performing!

You can practice performing in a number of ways. In the earliest stages before you’re comfortable playing for anyone, you can just sit down at the piano and say, “Okay, this is a practice performance and I’m not going to stop no matter what.” You just want to see what level you’re at and if you can get through the piece without stopping. No matter what happens, go through it without stopping, and you’ll learn a lot from the experience. First of all, you’re going to know where to zero in on your practice. It will be very obvious the parts that need work. It’s better to discover that in your practice than when you’re in an actual performance. Secondly, you’ll get in the habit of moving forward no matter what, even if things do inevitably go wrong, which they do for everyone at some point or another no matter what level you’re on. Later, you can practice performing by setting up a device and recording yourself. Then go through your performance and even if the beginning is a disaster, just keep going. This gives you an opportunity to try out recovering when you don’t have an audience in front of you. Then you can always record a second time to have the gratification of doing a better performance.

You can also play for friends or family.

Playing for friends or family is a great way to practice performing. And even though they’re going to be a forgiving audience, don’t start over! Even if you start off and something messes up right away, just keep going. Use them as guinea pigs and explain to them what you’re doing. They’ll forgive your mistakes! Explain that you are going to play through the entire performance for better or worse, and then stick to it. Don’t miss the opportunity to utilize them as a resource to practice your performing. Eventually, you can play for other groups of people. If you’re at a party and there’s a piano there, you can ask if anyone wants to hear the music you’ve been working on. And a lot of times people will be more than happy to hear you play! Once again, even though they might be a supportive, wonderful crowd, keep going so you get comfortable playing from the beginning to the end of a piece without stopping. So eventually when you’re playing a public performance, you will feel more comfortable. You’ll know you can get through it for better or for worse and have a performance, not just somebody watching you practice.

Generally in your piano practice you stop when there’s something that is not accurate or something that doesn’t feel comfortable. You check the score and you work things out using innumerable practice techniques until you can pass that point with assurance. But in performance, you keep going no matter what. And that is the answer. They require completely different approaches! Make sure you’re clear as to which one you’re doing in your practice so you don’t fall into the trap of doing something that’s kind of in between performing and practicing, sort of a performance, sort of practicing. When you do that, you’re actually not developing good performance habits or practice habits. So you want to eliminate that ambiguity entirely. 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

www.LivingPianos.com
www.Facebook.com/LivingPianos
949-244-3729

Performing VS Practicing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about the difference between performing and practicing. These are two entirely different experiences and all too often students will confuse which one they’re doing! You