Piano and Music Videos

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin and this is LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is, “Should You Lock Your Piano?” You might notice that some pianos have little keyholes on them. Oftentimes, when we sell restored vintage pianos, people ask if we have the key. I’m not talking about the 88 keys you play, but they want the key for the lock! So the question is, should you lock your piano?

Will locking your piano protect it against vandals?

You might think that there are some times when it would be really important to lock your piano. For example, let’s say you have a piano in a school or a church and you’re worried that people will abuse the instrument, so you want to lock it to prevent any damage. Well, the fact of the matter is, the locks that are built into pianos are not very robust and they’re easily jimmied open. So it doesn’t adequately protect your piano in a situation like that. What about at home?

Will children damage a piano left unlocked?

Maybe you have kids banging on your piano and you think they’re going to damage the instrument. But kids, even if they use their fists, are not going to damage a piano! When a concert pianist is playing, the energy they exert is much greater than a child is capable of even with their fists. Children are not going to damage your piano by doing that. (Just make sure they don’t approach your piano with any metal objects.) So locking your piano for that reason is pointless. Now there might be one good reason to lock your piano.

Locking your piano keeps people from playing it.

If the sound of your kids banging on your piano is driving you nuts and you can’t get them to use their fingers on the piano appropriately, then maybe there’s a good reason to lock it. Otherwise, I think pianos should be open for people to play. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is for me if I find a piano somewhere and it’s locked. I am always heartbroken. I think pianos are meant to be played!

How do all of you feel about this. Do you lock your piano? You can leave your comments and we can discuss further about this.

Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with a question for you: “Is Classical Music Relaxing?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked somebody if they listen to classical music and they respond, “I love classical music. It’s so relaxing.” There certainly are pieces that are relaxing, such as Clair de Lune by Debussy. But you know what? That is just one side of the spectrum of emotions that classical music explores. You certainly wouldn’t consider the Scriabin Etude in D-sharp minor from the Opus eight to be relaxing. That’s anything but relaxing!

Classical music explores the entire spectrum of emotions

Classical music can be humorous or angry or melancholy. There’s a tremendous range of emotions in classical music, and if you think that it’s just relaxing, you’re missing the whole point. Just like literature isn’t all relaxing, some of it is agitating, some of it can be profound, enlightening. There’s a whole range of emotions that classical music and other styles of music explore.

Not all classical music is meant to be relaxing

So is classical music relaxing? The real answer is yes, sometimes. Certainly some classical music is relaxing, like the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. But music is not always meant to be relaxing. Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com. Today’s subject is augmented reality in concert halls. It sounds futuristic and a little bit scary! What are we talking about here?

Designing a concert hall is very difficult.

If you build a concert hall that has beautiful acoustics for an orchestra, will it have the right acoustics for solo piano? If you bring in a jazz ensemble, will it have the right acoustics for that? What about rock bands with amplifiers and digital reverb? It is impossible to have one concert hall that will serve all of those purposes. With depleting budgets for classical music, having a hall dedicated to just classical music is rare. But the fact is, the acoustics in a hall designed for an orchestra might not be right for other performances.

There are new technologies that can customize acoustics in concert halls.

For example, the symphony hall in Indianapolis, Hilbert Circle Theater, has technology where the hall itself is acoustically somewhat dead. But they have built into the hall a microphone and speaker system that creates the ambiance artificially. You might think this sounds like a terrible idea until you actually hear it. They do an absolutely splendid job of creating beautiful acoustics electronically!

You can have a hall where the ideal acoustics can be dialed in for whatever ensemble is performing there.

For example, if you have a group that is playing amplified music, there is nothing worse than having a hall with rich reverberation that creates a wash of sound, making everything muddy. Worse yet, if there is a speaking engagement in the acoustically live hall, it can be impossible to understand speech. Just imagine being able to dial in the reverb at your will. For example, you could have a dry sound for speaking, and a reverberant hall for classical music ensembles.

There are new types of reverbs that use impulses of samples from actual halls.

These convolution reverbs allow you to take the acoustics of Carnegie Hall, for example, and create that space acoustically on recordings or possibly even live. You can make a small hall sound like a medium or large hall. You can dial in whatever hall you want! This isn’t the future, it is happening right now.

Many halls now utilize digital technologies in order to create ideal sound in spaces with acoustic compromises.

Even with the best intentions and all of the best scientific data available, some concert halls are built, but once completed, it becomes apparent that they didn’t get the acoustics quite right. To remedy this they would have to rip everything out and put in new panels with different reflecting patterns and baffles to get the hall’s acoustics dialed in. Some halls actually have mechanical panels that can be moved to alter the acoustics of the hall. Segerstrom Hall in Orange County has this sort of technology. That’s a great situation! It is also very expensive. Once a hall has digital acoustics installed, it is just the beginning. You can experiment with an unlimited number of acoustic possibilities all at the push of a button!

Augmented reality in concert halls, what a fascinating subject! I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Once again, this is Robert Estrin of LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store

info@LivingPianos.com

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This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with the question, “Can you learn to tune a piano online?” The whole world has moved online and people seem to be able to learn just about anything on the internet. Does this mean you can learn to tune a piano online too?

Actually, there are online resources for learning how to tune a piano!

First, let’s go back in time a bit. In the olden days (not so long ago!), most piano technicians learned their craft through apprenticeships. An established tuner would take somebody under their wing who had a desire and passion for tuning and piano repair. They would get to practice with some side work, and little by little be trained so that they could start to service some of their clients. Indeed, one of the best ways to learn the craft of piano tuning is through an apprenticeship if you are lucky enough to be able to hook up with someone. You might think that piano technicians would love to have the help from somebody who is eager to learn the craft. But, the amount of time it takes to train somebody can far outweigh the benefit a technician is going to get from the work of someone who is a relative newbie to piano tuning. Piano technicians’ schools are available online. You might consider looking at Piano Technician Academy:

https://www.pianotechnicianacademy.com/

They are a wonderful resource online where you can actually be certified as a Registered Piano Technician (RPT) through the Piano Technicians Guild (PTG). This enables you to prove to people that you have passed a certain level of proficiency in servicing pianos. There are other schools online, but I happen to know this one personally, and it’s a great place to learn. The North Bennet School https://www.nbss.edu/ allows you to physically attend to study the craft of piano tuning. But if you want to learn right in your own home, the Piano Technician Academy is a great resource. Having said that:

You obviously still have to work on actual pianos.

You can’t do it all online and be ready to go. You’ll need to have some pianos to work on, and in a perfect world, you’ll also have some kind of experienced piano technician who you can mentor with to some extent. An ideal situation would be the ability to take the best of the old world and the best of technologies and marry them together to learn the craft of piano tuning right at your own home with the help of somebody to guide you through to make sure you are on the right track. Thanks for the great questions I know there are a lot of people out there wanting to learn piano technician skills. If you are willing to travel:

There are areas of the country that have a dearth of piano technicians and the work opportunities are plentiful.

I happen to know this because Living Pianos sells pianos all over the country and we engage piano technicians from the Piano Technicians’ Guild. There are some areas with weeks of waiting lists of clients! I encourage any of you who want to get into this. It is a great skill to learn. You get to be around pianos, and you set your own hours which is why it is something that appeals to a great number of people. Once again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. Today’s subject is playing the piano to the room. What is meant by that? The room you’re playing in can be as important to the sound and the approach to the keyboard as the piano you’re playing! I remember, for example, in high school there was a seven-foot Baldwin semi-concert grand piano that was kept to the side of the stage in an incredibly echoey room. It was almost deafening playing in there! I practiced there whenever I had a chance. Then it would come on stage with the curtains closed. It was a completely different sound and I had to approach the keyboard differently in order to project the sound properly. Then when the curtains were open, I could hear the sound project into the hall. It was a fairly live hall. So, it was important not to use too much pedal. Otherwise, the sound could get muddy. In fact, you may have to adjust the tempo you play your music to suit the acoustics of the hall. A hall that is very reverberant can get muddy and you may have to take more time in order for the audience to hear things clearly.

Playing to the room is something that all instrumentalists have to deal with.

So, as pianists, we have a double whammy. We have to adjust to the piano, and we have to adjust to the room! But any other musician, whether they play violin, flute, trumpet, clarinet as well as singers have to figure out how to play to the room, to project a sound, and to reach the last row in the audience.

It is necessary to create the appropriate sound for each specific space.

Certainly, if you’re playing in a living room, you don’t want to blow people out of there with too much volume! So you want to temper your sound to match the room, always using your ears. Practicing isn’t about just molding one performance. It’s about being in excellent shape on your instrument so you can instantly create the right sound for that specific piano and room at that moment.

Thanks so much for the great questions! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store

949-244-3729
info@LivingPianos.com

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “How Long Does it Take to Rebuild a Piano?”

There’s a very wide range of time, and there are many aspects to this question. Let’s say you have a piano you want to have rebuilt. Perhaps you have a Steinway, you want to have restored and you decide to send it to Steinway to rebuild. You’re probably going to wait over a year to get your piano back. It can take that long! Now, does that mean they’re taking the entire year to rebuild it? Well, yes and no. They might do parts of different pianos simultaneously. However:

It takes at least months to rebuild a piano.

Now, the other aspect of this question is, what does it mean to rebuild a piano? There are different parts of a piano that can be rebuilt. For example, are you replacing the sound board or repairing the old one? Are you creating a new key set, or are you staying with the original keys? There are different parts of a piano that can be utilized in rebuilding in most instances. Unless you have a piano that’s a complete disaster, you’re going to utilize a lot of the existing parts, so it can take different amounts of time depending upon how much work is required.

Let’s say, for example, you have an unusual piano from the late 1800s with a pre-modern action and it’s an art-case with beautiful scroll work, and some of the scroll work is missing. Perhaps other parts of the piano are destroyed as well, such as the music rack or one of the legs. It could take a very long time to match the woods, to hand-carve the beautiful intricate parts to make the piano match the way it was originally manufactured.

It could take longer than a year.

But I would say that any kind of even the most basic rebuilding that keeps the original action and replaces only some action parts, replaces strings, perhaps pin block, refinish the case, re-guild the plate, has got to take an absolute minimum of two to three months, if that’s all they’re working on. It is a big job. Not only that, you don’t want to rush through it because a piano needs to settle in, and a great part of the work of rebuilding a piano comes after the rebuilding in adjusting everything to play on a high level. On top of that, it’s important to make sure everything is stable.

If a piano has just been rebuilt and hasn’t had fine work performed, it will sound horrendous!

It takes tremendous refinement to get a rebuilt piano to play on a high level. It’s best to let the piano sit, play it, and have technicians work on it, and, of course, even over the next year or two, a rebuilt piano, just like a brand-new piano, is not going to be really settled in and stable for at least a year or two. You must play the piano and have it serviced on a very regular basis until it becomes stable.

So it’s all part of the process. I hope this has been helpful for you. If you have a piano you’re thinking of rebuilding and you want any advice, you’re welcome to contact us here at info@livingpianos.com. Thanks again. I’m Robert Estrin. We’ll see you next time.

949-244-3729