Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m introducing you to the ultimate piano light. I’ve spent years looking for the ultimate piano lamp, and I’ve finally found it. Or, I should say, it found me. Several months ago, I was approached by someone who said they had a piano lamp they wanted me to check out. I looked at it, and it was for an upright piano. So I told them that most of the people who get pianos from us have grand pianos, so I really wasn’t interested. But I also said if they ever have a grand piano lamp to contact me again. I never expected to hear from them again.

People ask me all the time where to get a good piano lamp.

In this room, I have all kinds of exotic lighting to make videos I make here look good, so it’s not a huge issue. But even here, the music is not as bright as I’d like. The problem with piano lamps is that they usually don’t light the keys. You can get clip-on lamps, but they don’t come out far enough. So the keys are in shadow. He actually came through and sent me two lamps. I want to make no bones about it. I told him that unless I like these lights, I’m not even going to review them because I didn’t want to say anything bad about them. But I love these things! I’m using them now, and I want to show you what’s so great about them.

What should you look for in a piano light?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how speeding causes accidents. That’s a really interesting phrase that somebody brought to my attention recently. I thought maybe I could shed some light on what he’s talking about because he is a piano teacher who is in the piano industry and he has keen insights. When you play a performance, your heart goes a little faster. You may get a little bit nervous, and you will tend to go faster without realizing it. And what happens? Things fall apart, and it can become a disaster!

I always recommend taking a deep breath when you sit down to play for someone.

Before you start to play, think about your tempo, and then slow it down a notch in your mind. When you think of your piece, then just slow it down a little, you might be at exactly the right speed. What else can you do to avoid speeding and causing accidents in your playing? Well, one thing is to practice with a metronome. Try to have a little margin above your performance tempo. Practice playing faster than you need to play so that, in the inevitable situation where you play a little faster, you are prepared. Maybe you’re accompanying another musician and they take a faster tempo, so you have no choice. Be prepared by practicing faster.

Lighten up your playing.

Speed and power are inversely related. The faster you play, the lighter you must play in order to avoid fatigue. So if you find you have to go faster for whatever reason, lighten up your playing. Conversely, an incredibly valuable technique to avoid problems when playing fast is practicing slowly. You can develop security by playing very deliberately at a slow speed and playing very articulated notes with raised fingers. This trains your hands to know which fingers are down and which fingers are up. If I were playing the E-flat impromptu of Schubert, in order to play it up to speed, I would have to play extremely lightly with my fingers right on the surface of the keys. It would be really difficult to play that with raised fingers. It’s literally painful to do that! However, when playing slowly, that’s exactly what you want to do. Feeling each finger on each key is so satisfying. It trains your hands and really solidifies your musical performance.

You want to have the opportunity to find any weaknesses by playing slowly.

It’s like putting your playing under a microscope. It’s an analytical way of making sure everything is secure. If you play fast all the time, mistakes will creep in. You might not have absolute clarity. If you were to play fast all the time and then slow down what you were doing, you might find that instead of playing every note cleanly, you might actually be overlapping notes. If you only play fast, how do you know the releases are really true and precise? Slow playing allows you to analyze every finger that’s down and every finger that’s up.

Remember these tips!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m talking about modes. You may have heard of modes. It may even have been explained to you in some way that seemed incomprehensible. How can you possibly remember all of your modes? Well, you can’t! I’m going to show you the easiest way to figure out all your modes. You’re going to know all your modes, and you’ll be able to play them in all keys if you know your key signatures or your major scales.

Let me first show you a major scale.

A major scale is just a series of whole steps and half steps. It’s actually all whole steps, except between the third and fourth and seventh and eighth notes. The white keys on the piano represent a C major scale because you have whole steps except between three and four and seven and eight (E-F and B-C). That’s the way all major scales work. So that can be transposed for all major scales. So what the heck are modes?

Modes are simply starting on a different note of the major scale!

The major scale is the Ionian mode. If you start on the second degree of a major scale, that’s called the Dorian mode. If you start on the third scale degree, you get the Phrygian mode. If you start on the fourth scale degree, you have the Lydian mode. If you start on the fifth note of the major scale, you have the Mixolydian mode. Starting on the sixth note, you have the Aeolian mode, which is also the natural minor scale. And finally, starting on the seventh scale degree, you have the Locrian mode, which is not used very often in music. Those are all the modes!

You can easily figure out all your modes, provided you know your major scales.

For example, if you were playing the Ionian mode in C, it’s the same as the C major scale. But if it’s the Dorian mode, it starts on two. Well, C is the second note of a B-flat major scale. So you just play the notes of a B-flat major scale, except starting on C. To play the Phrygian mode, you play all the notes of an A-flat major scale, except starting on the third note of the A-flat major scale which is C. For Lydian, you would start on the fourth note of the G major scale (also C). For Mixolydian, C is the fifth note of the F major scale. For Aeolian, C is the sixth note of an E-flat major scale. And finally, the Locrian is the seventh note of the D-flat major scale.

If you know your scales or your key signatures, you just start on any note of that scale.

Once again, if you start on the second note of the scale, it’s the Dorian mode. The third note of the scale is the Phrygian. The fourth note of the scale is the Lydian. The fifth note of the scale is the Mixolydian. The sixth note of the scale is the Aeolian. And the seventh note of the scale is the Locrian. You can start at any scale degree. That’s all there is to it! This is so much easier than memorizing seven different whole-step and half-step relationships. I couldn’t keep all of that in my head. And you don’t need to! Just think of key signatures and where you’re starting within that key signature, and you have all your modes.

What are modes for?

Modes are really useful in musical compositions from different periods. Before major and minor tonality were prevalent in Renaissance music, it was all based on modes. The Ionian mode (major scale), and the Aeolian mode (natural minor scale) came to dominate Western music in no small part because of the raised seventh. That’s why the minor scale has a raised seventh. The minor scale is usually in the harmonic form or the melodic form, both of which have raised sevenths. The melodic also has a raised sixth, giving that strong tonality of the raised seventh. Listen to the difference between a natural minor and the harmonic minor and how much more driven you are to resolve to the tonic note at the top of the scale with the harmonic minor with the raise seventh compared to the natural minor or Aeolian mode. The natural minor floats up there, but you don’t feel propelled to resolve to the last note of the sclae. It doesn’t really propel you the way the raised seventh does. These are the roots of tonality in a nutshell: the raised seventh that is brought about with the Ionian mode, which is your major scale, and the natural minor that has the harmonic and melodic versions that give you that strong sense of tonality. You may wonder about the Lydian Mode that has a raised seventh, but the two tri-tones in there give it a very austere quality and an ambiguity that you don’t get with major and minor tonalities.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to make your piano sound its best. This is a really important subject for any of you who own pianos. Many of you know that Living Pianos started in 2006 as the World’s First Online Piano Store. We have sold hundreds, if not thousands, of pianos over the years. With every single piano, it’s a project to get it to sound its best. So I thought I’d share some tips with you. I sometimes describe preparing a piano as one definition of infinity: going halfway to perfection again and again and again without ever reaching it. Of course, you can try to get as close as you can. Then maintaining it at that level is a challenge in itself.

What are the things that you can do to make your piano sound its best?

First of all, we must assume that your piano’s parts are not worn out. If you have a piano with rusty strings that are lifeless, you’re not going to get a great sound. If your hammers are worn out, there’s only so much you can do if you don’t have food felt to work with. So I want to make the assumption that your piano isn’t worn out and that there are no major problems with it. Obviously, it’s going to make your piano a heck of a lot better if you take care of any issues you have with it.

Even brand new pianos don’t come out of the box anywhere close to their potential.

If you ever go to a piano store and they offer you a new piano in the box, run! You don’t want that. It’s up to the dealers to do the prep. You can actually do days of work on a piano, depending on how far you want to go with it. Most dealers are not going to spend that kind of time. It’s very expensive and time-consuming. They’re not going to do that with the vast majority of their pianos. Maybe only the really special ones. Here at Living Pianos, we’re different. We’re more of a boutique store. We have primarily top-tier pianos, and we go the extra mile on all of them. But that’s not the norm. So I’m going to tell you what you can do with your piano to make it sound its best.

Tuning your piano on a regular basis is the first step.

The more you tune your piano, the less you need to tune it. That sounds crazy, right? Well, it’s true. If you tune your piano a lot, it becomes so stable that it almost doesn’t go out of tune. But if you neglect the tuning for a number of years, then the next tuning won’t hold very long. So you want to get ahead of the curve. There are many other techniques that can enhance the tone and the playing of your piano.

Regulation has to do with the several adjustments that are made on each key.

One aspect of regulation is key height. If the keys of your piano are not all the same height, obviously you’re not going to be able to play smooth melodic lines. Another aspect is key dip. When you push your keys down, they should all go down the same amount. If they don’t, then how could you possibly get a consistent sound? Another aspect is let-off. If you look inside the piano, you’ll see that the hammers let off the strings after striking them. They should all let off at the same distance, so you get a consistent performance. And there are other things. There are about half a dozen adjustments on each key of a piano. So regulation is a pretty involved process.

There’s also the voicing of your piano.

One of the most important aspects of voicing is the shape of the hammer and the hardness of each hammer. You want to adjust the hammers to the right hardness to produce a warm or bright sound, or the amount of brightness that you like in all registers. This is an arduous task that few piano technicians know how to do. When we first moved from California to Cleveland, it took a while for us to find top-notch skilled technicians who are on a master level to perform that kind of work. I would recommend seeking out somebody who tunes for your local symphony or concert hall, because very few piano technicians really know how to do that kind of meticulous work. But it can really make a big difference in the sound of your piano. Even if you buy a brand new Steinway or Mason & Hamlin, that piano can be improved dramatically from the way it comes out of the factory.

What else can you do to improve the sound of your piano?

Another thing you can look at is string leveling. If the hammer hits the strings, and some strings are slightly higher than others, then the hammer is not going to make contact with all the strings equally, and you’re not going to get the same attack and sustain. Each string could be leveled, or the hammer could be shaped to impact all three strings at exactly the same time. There’s also damper regulation. When you play a chord on the piano and then release it slowly with the damper pedal, you want a smooth release. Sometimes you’ll hear funny noises if your damper felt is too hard. You may need new damper felt in order to get clean releases. At the end of a beautiful, slow movement, you may want to fade out the sound of a chord. The only way to do that is to release the pedal gradually. If the dampers are hard or they’re not regulated properly, you’re not going to get a consistent sound.

There are many other things that can be done to enhance the sound of your piano. One of them is string termination.

The strings have to terminate on either end of the speaking length of the string. At that point where the string meets metal, you want it to be a clean place. When you play your piano, the hammers are hitting the strings, and they might elevate just a fraction of an inch over time. If there’s not a clean termination at the points where they meet the bridge, how can it possibly transfer the sound appropriately to the soundboard? It can’t. Tapping the strings down at all the points of termination on the bridges can really enhance the sound. Now, keep in mind that if you do that, you’ll have to tune your piano. But if you’ve never done this on your piano and you are a strong player, it probably will make a big difference in getting a longer tone life. Because if you don’t get good, solid, clean termination of the strings, how can you possibly get consistency from note to note? Some notes will sustain longer than others.

There’s also the pedals.

I talked about the damper regulation, but what about the una corda pedal, also known as the soft pedal? When you depress the soft pedal, the action moves from side to side. It’s a different part of the hammer that impacts the strings. You can actually voice that part of the hammer that comes in contact with the strings when you depress the una corda pedal. There’s also the middle pedal, the sostenuto pedal. You have to make sure that it’s adjusted properly so it only holds the notes you want it to hold.

There are unique challenges with different pianos that you have to take into account.

These are just some of the common things that we do to pianos, which you can consider doing to your piano if you can find a high-level piano technician. It can make a world of difference to the sound of a piano. I work closely with our technicians, going back again and again. Sometimes, in the highest octave, you get to a certain note, and they will sound like a tapping sound instead of a pitched sound. That’s because of what’s called strike point. The hammer has so little string space up there that it might not be hitting the string precisely. It can be hitting where the string meets the bridge. To remedy this, the hammers have to be adjusted ever so slightly. Or sometimes, the entire action can be adjusted to move in or out just slightly, so the hammers are hitting exactly the point of the strings that they should be hitting.

There are so many techniques to make your piano sound its best!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I’m here today with an interesting question. What are there 2, 3, and 4 of in music? Those of you who are music theory aficionados might want to stop right now and see if you can figure out what the heck I’m talking about. I could actually start with what there is only one of!

What is there 1 of?

There is only one chromatic scale. It doesn’t matter where you start or stop. It’s all the same because you are just moving up by half-steps.

What are there 2 of?

There are, believe it or not, only two different whole-tone scales. Play a whole-tone scale starting on C. Then, go up a half-step, and you have another one. But go up one more half-step, and you’re back to the first one again! So I think you see where I’m going with this.

What are there 3 of?

There are only three different diminished seventh chords. What’s a diminished seventh chord? A diminished seventh chord is a chord built all with minor thirds. That is three half-steps apart. So we build the first one, starting on C. Three half-steps up is D-sharp, then F-sharp, then A. That’s your diminished seventh chord. Move that chord up a half-step, and you have another one. That’s the second one. Move another half-step, that’s the third one. But if you move up another half-step, you’re back to that first one again. So there’s one chromatic scale, two whole-tone scales, and three diminished seventh chords. You probably see the pattern here.

What are there 4 of?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to learn the piano. For me, it’s hard to imagine any other way because, from the youngest age, I started private lessons with my father, Morton Estrin, who was not only an incredible concert pianist, but also one of the most amazing teachers. I was very fortunate to have that opportunity.

Private lessons are a great way to learn to play the piano if you can find the right teacher.

I can’t tell you how many horror stories I’ve heard from people. Some teachers are just mean. Some will even hit their students’ hands with rulers! Many times, people study for years and years and discover they really haven’t learned how to play anything with solidity and confidence, because teaching any subject is an art that very few people possess, sadly. But I’ve known many people who have picked up piano on their own just by playing and listening. And they have managed to figure out how to play things to their own satisfaction. Formal piano instruction isn’t one size fits all. Some people can just pick it up on their own.

There are other ways of learning the piano.

Online resources are tremendous these days. I’ve seen people who have had great success just from watching YouTube videos with the notes going down, almost like Guitar Hero. To me, that seems much harder than reading the notation. But some people just want to learn which keys to push down. And you know, some people do very well just with that. But there are many other online resources. Here at LivingPianos.com, we have thousands of articles and videos on just about every subject you can imagine. What other possible avenues are there for learning the piano?

Piano classes are a great way to get introduced to the piano.

With piano classes, you have the social element, which can make it fun and enriching. However, I have taught piano classes, and the problem is that everybody has drastically different abilities on the piano. So private lessons are much better for really getting to any sophisticated level on the instrument. It’s not like some people are better and some people are worse. It’s the types of abilities. There are so many different skill sets that are necessary to play the piano. There’s the actual physiology and what type of hands you have, the connection from reading the score to the hands, the sense of rhythm, the sense of pitch, the sense of sound and tone. There are so many different aspects! People have talents in some areas and weaknesses in others. In a class situation, it’s very difficult for a teacher to really cater to everybody, and so it brings down the median level because the teacher can’t possibly be sensitive to everybody’s needs. But if you just want to get your feet wet, see how you like it, and meet other people who are interested in the piano, a piano class can be a good choice.

However you choose to learn the piano, it can be greatly rewarding!