Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The topic today is about how to motivate yourself to practice. Sometimes things are going well and you can’t wait to get to the piano. But I’m sure you also experience times when you just don’t feel the motivation to practice. You want to be able to learn music. Perhaps you have a lesson coming up, or a performance, or you just want to use the beautiful piano you have sitting at home. Somehow you just can’t muster up the energy to practice. Is there anything you can do about such a thing? The answer is yes!

You are not alone.

Don’t beat yourself up because you are unmotivated. It’s natural. If you practice correctly, it’s hard work. It may be rewarding to have musical scores you can play, but the process of learning music is hard. So of course there are going to be times when you don’t have the energy to practice because of work, health issues, or other conflicts. Just finding the time can be an arduous task! So forgive yourself for feeling this way. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s normal. There’s an ebb and flow in your energy and your expectations as to what you’re going to achieve. There are times when you can sit at the piano and accomplish amazing things, and other times you’re just hitting your head against the wall.

When you’re hitting a roadblock, you’ve got to change things up.

You don’t want to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That’s one definition of insanity! Sometimes the best thing to do is to just leave it completely. Go take a walk or a bike ride. Do something invigorating. Physical activity is often the best thing you can do when you’re feeling any kind of a funk. Getting your blood circulating and breathing fresh air really rejuvenates you. It’s important for your health as well as your psyche. You might take a walk around your neighborhood and come back to the piano with renewed energy. That might be all it takes.

What else can you do?

Well, there’s a lot you can do. You can shake up your practice. Maybe you have a routine where you spend some time with scales, you do some memorization, and you do some refinement. But maybe your routine has gotten stale. The whole thing feels like drudgery because you know what you’re going to do next. If that’s the case, that isn’t effective practice anyway. Practicing, as I’ve mentioned so many times before, is a mental activity. You must be engaged in the process or you aren’t really practicing. In fact, you can be away from the piano thinking through your music, and that can be more effective than sitting at the piano when your mind is not engaged!

How do you become engaged with your practice?

Sometimes simply playing through pieces can make you feel good and bring the joy back into the equation. You feel like you should work, so every time you go to the piano, you feel a sick feeling in your stomach. If you think you should be practicing, but all you want to do is play the piano, go ahead and play! What’s all that hard work for if you can’t enjoy playing your instrument? Play for a while! Just the physiological benefit to your fingers is good. It’ll keep you in shape. It’ll keep those review pieces in your memory and in your fingers. Maybe you want to take on some new music. Maybe you just want to read through some popular music that you never normally play because your teacher doesn’t assign it to you. Or maybe you just want to make stuff up. You can explore the sonorities of the piano just for fun too.

Do anything to break away from the rut you find yourself in.

There’s a host of things you can do. You can try practicing piano at a different time of day or night, just to make it feel fresh. Anything that changes the routine can help you. Perhaps just listen to music, whether it’s piano music or orchestral music or anything at all. Check out different styles of music, go to concerts, get together with friends who like music, and play with other musicians. If you have friends who play or sing, invite them over to accompany them. You could even have an informal jam session. Anything that gets your creative energy working again is going to be worthwhile for you.

The big point is, don’t beat yourself up!

If it’s your routine that isn’t working, change it up. You don’t have to be married to your routine. Keep it creative. Keep yourself engaged. If nothing’s working, go outside for a while. Do something different. Go to the gym, take a swim, anything to get your mind relaxed. You don’t want to beat yourself up for not practicing. That’s the worst thing you can do, because then you’ll feel guilty. Even if you practice, if you’re just going through the motions, you’re not really practicing, are you?

So that’s the lesson for today!

I’d love to hear comments from all of you about this! I’m sure all of you have suffered from this at some point. If you haven’t, what is your secret? Share that here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. 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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today the subject is about what it means to be musical. Sometimes you hear people say an artist is so musical. What does that mean? Well, there’s a lot to unwrap here! 

The piano has so many different facets of abilities that are necessary in order to be able to play successfully. 

You might think that somebody who has really good technique must be musical. But technique is something I put under the umbrella of musical abilities or even musical intelligence. Good technique doesn’t necessarily equate to being musical. It does indicate talent for the instrument. Another aspect is security in performance. There are some people who just play their best in front of people. They are good performers, but are they musical? That is really something different, isn’t it?

If a performer doesn’t have security in their performance, it’s difficult to be musical. 

Just like if they don’t have technique, how are they going to be able to express anything? There are other aspects too. You need to be able to digest the score. It is crucial to be able to look at a piece of music and make sense of the structure of the piece. Once again, that’s musical intelligence. These are all important aspects of piano playing. All of these things are related. They really are important. How could you possibly be musical if you can’t digest the piece, if you can’t hold it together, or if you don’t have the fingers to be able to to execute the music? But assuming all of those things are there, what does it mean to be musical?

I believe being musical is being able to elicit emotions in the listener. 

There are some people who are astoundingly accomplished at the piano. They can play the most difficult music with fluency and security. And yet maybe they leave you cold. But sometimes there’s a student, maybe even a young student who doesn’t have much technique or experience, and they don’t even necessarily do all the things that should be done in a piece, but there’s a beauty to their playing. It makes you feel something! It brings a smile to your face, or maybe sadness. Their playing makes you feel emotions. This is something that is really elusive to describe. It’s even more difficult to teach. 

A certain amount of this is inborn. 

A certain amount cannot be learned. But like many other things in life, someone who is naturally musical can become more musical by exposure. With good training, and by listening to other musicians who are more accomplished than they are, they can grow musically. Somebody who just doesn’t have much sense of where the music should go, maybe they can learn a great deal. Their musicianship and their ability to elicit emotions and create excitement or sadness can be improved. But somebody who has very little of that natural ability will have a tougher time with musicality. 

Everybody can improve! 

This doesn’t just go for musicality, for lack of a better word, but all aspects of piano playing can grow. Technique can be improved. Security in performance can be improved. The ability to digest a score can be improved. All of these things can be improved along with that elusive musicality. So don’t fret if you are lacking in one or more of these skill sets. They all can be developed! Nobody has all of them in spades. Everybody has to mitigate their weaknesses and develop their strengths. 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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about the advantages of a weighted action on a keyboard or piano. You’ve heard these terms, of course. You might wonder, what is this all about? Can you get more expressiveness out of a weighted action just like you do on a grand piano?

All pianos have weighted actions because you’re moving a lot of mass.

Keyboards don’t have much mass. You don’t necessarily need a heavy action to get good control on a piano. Some pianos have heavy actions. Some have lighter actions. As long as the regulation is top notch, you can get tremendous control out of a lighter action, just as much as a heavier action.You might wonder why would you want to have a weighted action if you can get good control without it. The fundamental reason is that piano is different from most other instruments since other instrumentalists can carry their instrument wherever they go. If you’re a guitar player, a flute player, or trumpeter, you just take your instrument with you! No big problem. Well, obviously pianists can’t do that.

You must learn to adjust to any piano you encounter.

Whether it’s at lessons, school, church, recitals, friends’ houses, any piano you encounter, you have to be able to sit down and play whatever piano you encounter. If you’re practicing all the time on an action that isn’t weighted, you’re not going to have the strength to play an acoustic piano, because it takes more effort. You have to push down about 50, sometimes as much as 60 grams of down weight just to get the key down! So if you have a feather light action, you’re not going to be prepared physiologically to play other pianos. You’re not going to develop the muscles for it. So it’s really important to have a weighted action. I would recommend an 88 key weighted action.

You also hear the term weighted graded action. What does that mean?

If you look inside a piano, you’ll notice that the keys on the higher end are shorter and the hammers are thinner. In the bass, the keys are longer and the hammers are bigger and fatter, because they have to excite a much thicker, longer string. So indeed, pianos get lighter and easier to play as you get to the higher end compared to the lower end. On some pianos it’s a subtle difference. On other pianos it’s a dramatic difference. Is this important in your piano practice? Some people would say it is important. But to me it’s really not the most important aspect of a keyboard or digital piano action. The key travel is more important. When you have a keyboard that’s very small, the keys are short beyond the fall board. So when you’re playing black keys, or the white keys between black keys, the key travel is minimal. It’s just like being close to the center on a seesaw. It’s difficult to gain leverage. So to me, that’s more important than whether it’s graded or not. The action should have a substantial feel.

A real piano has what’s called escapement.

Try pushing a key down very slowly on your piano and you will notice at a certain point there’s a little bit of resistance that you have to push to overcome. This is normal. Pianos have what’s called a double escapement mechanism. It was a harpsichord builder named Cristofori, around the year 1700, who came up with the first harpsichord that could play soft and loud. He called his instrument, “Gravicembalo col piano e forte”, which translates to, “Harpsichord with soft and loud”. It could play soft and loud from the touch, and it had the essential escapement mechanism. What does that mean? Well, before then, there were no keyboards where a hammer or other implement could hit a string and escape it. On a clavichord, for example, the strings kept in contact with the blades that struck the strings. With a piano, as soon as the hammer hits the strings, it escapes the string!

Modern pianos have what’s called a double escapement.

When you play slowly, the hammer travels its full distance. But when you play quickly, there’s a back check that catches the back of the hammer, so the hammer doesn’t have to travel so far allowing for more speed. It’s an ingenious invention that came about thanks to generations of keyboard builders, as well as composers working hand in hand with piano builders. During Beethoven’s lifetime, the piano evolved substantially with the demands of the music being written for the instrument.

These are the important things to look for in your digital piano or keyboard.

Look for an 88 key weighted action. If it’s graded, great! But more importantly, is the feel and the key travel. And if you’re serious about playing the piano, you’ll want a weighted action even if you’re not playing other pianos that much. Your hands will develop more strength. You will accomplish more by doing the same amount of practice. If you’re like most people, it’s hard to find enough time to practice. So you might as well get as much done as you can for the time you spend!

I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube! 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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about minor scales. What are minor scales? When you have a piece of music, how do you know if it’s in the major or in the minor? You’re going to learn that today! I have another video on key signatures and also on major scales, which would be very helpful for you in preparation for this video if you don’t already have a solid grasp of that.

Major scales are a series of whole steps and half steps with all whole steps, except between the
3rd & 4th and the 7th & 8th notes.

On the piano, the C major scale is obvious because it is all white keys. You have half steps between the 3rd & 4th, and the 7th & 8th notes which are E & F, and B & C which have no black keys between them. So I’m going to use C major first as an example. If you have a piece with no sharps or flats in the key signature, it may be in C major. But suppose it was in a minor key. What key would that be? How would you know it’s in a minor key if it has the same key signature?

The sixth note of the major scale is the tonic, or the root, of the minor scale.

You take that C major scale and count up to the sixth note, which is A. Play all the notes of a C major scale starting on A and you’ll end up with the A natural minor scale. So when you see a piece of music without any sharps or flats, it may be in C major, but it may be in A minor. How do you know? Well, the minor is rarely found in its natural or pure form, unless you go really far back before major/minor tonality was really entrenched in Western music, starting in the Baroque era in the 1700s. Before that, modal music was very popular in Renaissance music and such.

In post-modal music, there are two forms of the minor that are prevalent:
The harmonic minor and the melodic minor.

This is how it works. The piece might be written with no sharps or flats, but accidentals are written in the score wherever they occur. The harmonic minor has a raised seventh. The seventh note is raised by a half step. So you go back to what we started with. Go to the sixth note of the major scale. Play the minor scale, but when you get to the seventh note of that minor scale, raise it by a half step. You can hear the strength of the raised seventh propelling you up a half step to the tonic. It begs for resolution! So if you have a piece of music with no sharps or flats, and you have G sharps all over the place, it could very well be in A minor, the relative minor of C major.

Another form of the minor that’s also very common in Western music is the melodic minor.

The melodic minor has a raised sixth and seventh. However, it descends using the natural minor. So if you have a piece with no sharps or flats, you would be looking for G sharps in particular, and possibly F sharps. If there are a lot of them, and you look at the harmonies, and there are a lot of A minor chords, and the piece ends on an A minor chord, it is undoubtedly in A minor, not C major.

How does this help you with other key signatures?

If you have two sharps, you might know that two sharps would be F sharp and C sharp. Go up a half step from the C sharp. That could be D major. But if it’s in the relative minor, you go to the sixth note of that major scale, and form the relative minor. So if you have two sharps in your key signature, it might be in B minor. The B minor scale would have a raised seventh. Instead of playing A natural, the harmonic minor would have A sharp. If it was in the melodic form, it would have a raised sixth and seventh, and it would descend in the natural minor.

Any time you have a key signature, figure out the major key first.

Once you know the major key, go to the sixth note of that major scale. Play all the notes of that major scale starting from the sixth note to that same note an octave higher. When you get to the seventh note of that minor scale, raise it a half step to figure out the accidental to look for. It won’t always be a sharp. It could be a natural that would raise the note. If the seventh note was already a flat, then you would raise it a half step by making it a natural. I hope this makes sense to you! If you have questions you can address them here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube in the comments section. I will try to answer as much as I can for you and make future videos based on your questions! 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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’ll be doing a piano test drive! I have two of the great American semi-concert grand pianos, Steinway and Baldwin. In the past, concert artists had a choice. Baldwin supported concert pianists around the world with their concert instruments. Of course, Steinway won the marketing war. They became the only de facto choice for touring artists, because putting concert grands in every major city in the world is a very daunting task.

In their heyday, Baldwin was making amazing pianos!

I’m going to play a brief excerpt of the Chopin G Minor Ballade. First I will play it on the Steinway Model B from 1981. Then I will play the same excerpt on the Baldwin SF seven foot semi-concert grand from 1967. I’m really interested in your opinions! Leave your comments here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. I want to know your impressions of these two magnificent American semi-concert grand pianos!

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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about major scales. What is a major scale? I’m sure most of you probably already kind of know what it is. But for those of you who know what a major scale is, you might want to stop right now and see if you can put it into words. You might find that you’ll be stumbling a bit if you’ve never asked yourself this question. You kind of intuitively know what it is, but how do you define it succinctly?

A major scale is a series of whole-steps and half-steps.

I want to define whole-steps and half-steps for any of you who are searching for this because you don’t know anything about what a major scale is at all. A half-step is any two keys next to each other with no keys between. That’s black or white keys. It can be two white keys, or it can be a black and white key. Two keys together with one key between is a whole-step. A major scale is a series of whole steps and half
steps.

Major scales contain eight notes.

The first and eighth notes are the same. They are spelled diatonically. What does that mean? It means it has all the letters in order without skipping or repeating any. For example, an A major scale would contain some form of A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. It has to have all the letters in order without skipping or repeating. Spelling counts, and there’s a good reason for it. When you look at the music, you see the notes on consecutive lines and spaces. All major scales will go from line to space to line to space, or from space to line to space to line. That’s essentially what a major scale is.

Where are the half-steps?

As I mentioned, there are eight notes. They are all whole-steps except between the 3rd & 4th and the 7th & 8th notes. That’s why on the piano, because you have some white keys that are a half-step apart, the C major scale contains all white keys. All other major scales contain either sharps or flats, but never both.

How can you figure out scales?

You can take any note on the piano, and remember that the notes are going to be in the order of the alphabet. So if you have a D major scale, it’s going to have some form of D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D. It must be spelled diatonically with all the letters in order. But those notes don’t form a major scale because the half-steps are not in the right place. So you use accidentals, either sharps or flats, never both. It just happens to work out that way! You can count the numbers of the notes. Remember to move by whole-steps except between the 3rd & 4th and the 7th & 8th notes. Of course you can hear when a major scale is correct, because you know what it’s supposed to sound like. So that is how you can figure out all your major scales, simply by spelling them diatonically and arranging them with all whole steps, except between the 3rd & 4th and the 7th & 8th notes. You can start on any key on the piano and you can spell a major scale.

It’s not always quite so simple.

I’m going to do a G-flat major scale. We start with G-flat. Then we move up by whole-steps to A-flat, then B-flat. Now we move up by a half-step. You may be tempted to say “B”, but I already said it can’t be B, because you have to have all the letters in order without skipping or repeating any. So the fourth note has to be called C-flat! You might think that’s crazy, but if you saw it in the music it would be much more logical to have all the letters on consecutive lines and spaces. So indeed the spelling makes it more logical visually because a scale will always go alternating between lines and spaces. This is why a C-flat makes much more sense than a B-natural in this case. Having that C-flat keeps it diatonic, makes it easier to read, and it’s more logical. If you enjoy this little tutorial, I can offer you more! If any of you wonder about key signatures, let me know in the comments below here on LivingPianos.com and YouTube.

With music theory the fundamentals must be solid for you to be able to understand more advanced concepts.

This is akin to mathematics. Imagine trying to do algebra if you were rusty on your multiplication tables. Everything builds on everything else. It’s the same with music theory. If you have the fundamentals down, you can get to really advanced harmonic analysis and structural analysis of compositions. It will be as easy as reading notes became for you early on. Everything builds on everything else with such beautiful logic. It also makes your music easier to learn, to digest and to read. 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

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