Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you the two instruments all music majors at conservatories must study. You may be surprised to learn what these instruments are. One of them is the piano, which probably isn’t surprising. After all, the piano offers you the possibility of seeing the structure of music. On a piano you can play chords. If you’re a clarinetist, you can only play one note at a time. It’s hard to conceive of intervals, chords, and key signatures. So the piano is a natural choice. What is the other instrument that all music majors have to study? Aside from piano, the answer is voice!

The human voice is the most intrinsic instrument there is.

It’s the instrument we all have! We’ve all tried it out. We grew up with it from the time we were born and we have it with us all the time. Now, why is it so important to sing your music? Well, singing and sight-singing are so valuable for developing your ear. The piano is great because you can play such complex music. But you know what? You don’t really have to hear the pitches before you play them! You push the keys, and the notes comes out. It’s simple, right? Well, suppose you want to actually hear what you’re doing. If you want to sing that note, you have to know the pitch.

The best way to train your ear is by singing.

However, singers are at a great loss when actually conceptualizing or intellectualizing what they’re doing because it’s so intuitive. It’s literally coming out of them! But when you have to quantify the pitch on a piano, you have to make a decision which key to push and when to push it. You need to understand the relationship of the intervals. You can clearly see the half steps. It’s all very visual. So those are the two instruments everyone should study.

If you are a pianist, you might want to consider singing your music.

Do it when no one is around if you’re embarrassed. You will learn a lot. The other thing you can do is test yourself at the piano. For example, if you play a C, could you sing an E? Could you sing a G? Could you sing the different notes just from thinking of them? If you can’t, don’t despair. There is a secret! Think diatonically. If you want to think from the C to the E, you can think through the scale in your head. That is the secret to being able to hear intervals and hear chords. If you can think the notes between the notes, you’ll know where you are. So, if you want to sing E after hearing C, try singing C – D – E. That’s exactly what sight-singing accomplishes.

I was so fortunate to study with my father, Morton Estrin.

I not only took private piano lessons with my father, as my sister did, and countless other people over the years of his teaching career, but I also got to study in his weekly classes. In these classes he taught sight-singing, ear training, theory, harmony, dictation, harmony, all of it! Because of this, I can hear all music in solfeggio, do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. Everything goes into those syllables for me. So I can determine all the notes hear once I have one reference note.

I encourage you to sing your music!

If you are not a pianist, go ahead and study a little bit of piano. Whatever instrument you play, it will help you in the study of your instrument to have both piano and voice. So that’s the lesson for today! 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 why 99% is bad in piano playing. You might think I’m a very strict teacher or something like that. How can 99% be bad? Valedictorians would be very pleased to have a 99% average! Usually somebody is lauded if they’re at even 90%. How can 99% be bad in piano?

The incredible complexity of piano music requires more than 99%.

If you were to play even a relatively simple piece of music like Minuet in G of Bach, just the first section has well over 100 notes. But consider that each note has a rhythm. So that’s over 200 details. Each note has a fingering. So now we’re up to 300. Each note has a phrasing, either slurred or staccato. That’s 400. How about dynamics? So there are over 500 details just in that first section of this short piece! So if you are at 99%, you’re missing a handful of details just in that small section of this short piece. That’s why 99% is not a good average for playing classical music.

There are almost an infinite number of details that have to be present for the music to sound right.

There are more aspects of the music than I mentioned above, the elegance of the balance between the hands, the rise and the fall of the phrases dynamically, and more. That’s why you have to strive for something much greater than 99%. How do you do that? By being organized in your practice! That’s why you can’t just simply read through music over and over again and expect to assimilate the thousands of details, even in a short piece like this. You must be very meticulous in putting together small chunks of music, studying the score carefully, looking at tiny phrases at a time, and amassing this information into your head and into your hands. Put things together little by little. And beyond that, go back and check your work constantly! Nobody can remember that many details without constant review. When you think about what you’re accomplishing when you play a piece of music on the piano, if you’re playing it accurately, you’re not missing notes and rhythms, phrasing and fingering and expression all over the place, it is a remarkable feat!

You are playing at a level much higher than 99% accuracy if you’re getting through something without any obvious glitches.

You have a lot to be proud of in the work you’re doing! If you’re not breaking up all over the place, you are well above 99% in your playing. That is what it takes to be able to play a piece of music on the piano. So remember to be organized in your practice so you can achieve something that is astounding. You are learning thousands of details that you can perform just like that. What a pleasure! When you put the practice in and you learn it correctly, then playing can be such a joy. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Is playing the piano hard? You see some people playing and they make it look effortless. For example, I have played the Chopin Ballade in G minor hundreds if not thousands of times. Is that hard to do? Well, I’ve done that so many times, I wouldn’t say it’s particularly hard. It does take concentration. But for the average person, is playing the piano hard?

Playing the piano is a very complex task.

There was an article in The New York Times Magazine years ago. It was an article not about the piano. It was about the human brain. In this article, they cited piano playing as the single most complex activity of the human brain. It involves motor coordination with the fingers. You have to coordinate the sound with the visual, and it encompasses long term and short term memory. It really is complex! So in a nutshell, yes, piano playing has a lot of elements that make it difficult. However, it really depends upon what you’re after in your piano playing.

Not all piano playing is equal.

Somebody who hasn’t ever even touched a piano, if they have some degree of exposure and an appreciation of music, and a modicum of talent, they might be able to sit down the first time and just play different black keys and make it sound reasonably good. So depending on what you want to achieve at the piano, it may not be that hard. Now, having said that, playing classical compositions, learning them and being able to play them faithfully and accurately with security, is very difficult. I won’t kid you.

Practicing is a very difficult process if you’re doing it right.

If practicing is easy, you’re probably not accomplishing that much. I always feel that practicing should be hard so performing is easy! Make your practicing intense. Every minute you should be absorbing some little detail. Keep your concentration by not overwhelming yourself with too much at a time. By doing this you can sustain a long, productive practice. It takes immense concentration and focus to do that. The harder practicing is, assuming it’s productive, the easier performing is. So is piano hard? Yeah, it’s hard! But if you practice well, you can make playing enjoyable and much easier than your practice. I think that should be the goal, don’t you?

I want to hear from you!

Do you think piano playing is hard? Do you think practicing is hard? What kind of enjoyment do you get out of the instrument? Let me know in the comments here at Living Pianos.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. Today’s subject is about how to establish a slower tempo on the piano. It’s the funniest thing. I have students, and sometimes they have difficulty playing something. So I tell them to play more slowly. More often than not, they play exactly the same tempo! You might wonder, how do you establish a slower tempo?

The simplest way to establish a slower tempo is to figure out the tempo you’re playing and then slow it down.

This may not be the easiest thing in the world to achieve. Let’s say you’re playing a piece, like the Mozart Sonata in C major k 545. If you have insecurity, you may want to play it slower. The first thing you do is figure out the speed you were playing, then just slow that down. You may need to tap the beat along with your playing with your foot to find the speed you are playing first. Then slow down the tapping, and start playing at the new tempo. Now you can play at that slower tempo! That’s one way to achieve a slower tempo.

Another way to slow your tempo is to simply play the first note, wait a moment, and continue at that slower rate.

Play the first note, but linger a little longer. Then just continue playing at that slower tempo. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to play slower. But unless you establish a slower tempo intentionally, you may think you’re playing slower, but you probably aren’t. You can check this with a metronome.

You can use a metronome to find a slower tempo.

Find the speed at which you’re playing on the metronome. Many metronome applications on your phone have a tap tempo feature. If you have that feature, you can tap to establish the tempo, then slow it down. To slow it down, just turn the metronome to a slower speed. There are many metronome applications that give this feature. It can be really helpful. Sometimes just being able to find the speed at which you’re playing on the metronome can be difficult. The tap feature can be a real help. Traditional physical metronomes have their benefits. They have the notches that don’t contain every single number. Changing tempo by every number is too small a change for working with progressively faster metronome speeds. But for the purpose of finding the tempo you are playing, a metronome app with the tap feature is invaluable.

www.metronomerous.de

Those are the tips on how to establish a slower tempo!

One of the most important aspects of practicing the piano effectively, is slowing things down! Even pieces you can play comfortably at a fast speed will degrade over time if you don’t play them slower from time to time, intentionally looking at the music, playing with a metronome, without the pedal. That’s the way to gain security and to keep your pieces fresh and at a good performance level. I hope this is helpful for you! 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’s subject is about rubato. How do you know if you’re playing too much rubato? Rubato is a practice of expressive playing in romantic music. It involves speeding up to the top of the phrase, and slowing down coming away from it. This adds to the emotionalism. When it’s done well, it can have a very profound effect upon the feeling of the music.

When rubato is done correctly, you should be able to tap along to the beat.

You might feel the music pulling you along and holding back. But you should be able to tap to it. How do you know when you’re doing too much rubato? If you try to tap along with the music, but you just can’t quite stay with it, the rubato is excessive. This is how you can check rubato to make sure it isn’t excessive.

Record yourself playing a piece, then go back and see if you can tap your foot to it.

If you can tap along with it, it might not be excessive. As long as you can feel where the beat is, you pull your listener along with you. But if you can’t tap to the music that you play, or somebody else plays, then it might be self-indulgent. Going too far with rubato loses the whole pulse of the music. So that’s the way you can check rubato in your playing. Record yourself and tap along! I hope this little tip is helpful for you. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you about the worst mistake you can make on the piano. There are a lot of different mistakes you can make that are terrible. I picked one particular mistake that I think is worse than any of them!

What kind of mistakes can you make on the piano?

You could hit wrong notes. Wrong notes are certainly bad. Of course you don’t want to play wrong notes! You could play the wrong rhythm. A lot of people play wrong rhythms. What about somebody who plays with an ugly sound? That’s a terrible mistake, isn’t it? Another mistake is smearing everything with the pedal. Some people think they’re playing really musically by using a lot of pedal. It can cover up a lot of inadequacies if the fingering is bad and things aren’t as connected as they should be. But of course you sacrifice the clarity of your playing. So what could possibly be worse than wrong notes, wrong rhythms, or an ugly sound?

The most insidious problem on the piano is…………..Hesitation!

Why is hesitation so bad? Well, have you ever seen a film where there’s a jump cut in the middle of the film? There’s a mistake in the editing where a scene jumps back or forward a little bit. It’s jarring! Even if you weren’t paying attention to the film, it draws you in. It’s the same in musical performance. If somebody is playing and then suddenly they make a mistake and hesitate for a moment and go back a little bit, it takes you out of the moment. It draws you in more than other mistakes.

When you make a mistake in your practice, you’re probably in the habit of stopping and correcting it.

That is the appropriate thing to do when you practice. But in performance, the show must go on! You have to keep moving. If you hesitate, everyone will be disturbed by it. It not only makes you look bad, it takes the joy out of the musical performance for the audience. They’re trying to just soak it in and enjoy it. They might be able to overlook little mistakes like cracked notes or slight rhythmic inaccuracies. But once you lose the continuity, it ruins the musical performance. So what can you do about it?

You must differentiate when you are practicing and when you are performing.

Not only that, you must practice performing! Most of the time when you’re practicing, if you make a mistake, you go back and correct it. As I’ve explained, this is a multi-pronged exercise. First, take out the score. Find exactly where the correction is and take note of it. Work out the correction until it is solidified and repeatable. Then go back to the beginning of that phrase and pass that point several times until smooth. Are you done? No, you’re not done yet! Believe it or not, you must go back to the beginning of the piece or the beginning of the whole section. Even though you’ve made the correction and you’ve even put the correction into a musical context by starting a little bit before, if you are used to missing it when starting from the beginning, you will probably miss it again unless you’re present at that moment. You’ve got to think it through. So it takes all of that work to make a correction.

How do you practice performing?

The easiest way is doing it by yourself. To have the discipline, take out your phone or other recording device and set it up. Get it into your head that this is a performance. No matter what, you’re not going to stop. You’re not going to correct anything. That’s not the appropriate time to make corrections. Nobody wants to hear you practice in the middle of a performance! Once you get comfortable performing by yourself or for a device that records you, then you can play for close friends or relatives. Take advantage of that opportunity to see how you will recover from mistakes.

You have to practice recovering from mishaps.

Everybody has mishaps! There isn’t a pianist alive who doesn’t have a finger slip or a memory insecurity at some point in a performance. You must learn how to deal with it. The only way to do that is by practicing performing. So those are the two lessons for today. One, avoid hesitations by practicing how to eradicate them with the three pronged approach of finding the place in the score and working out the correction, going back to the beginning of that phrase and being able to get through that point several times, and then going back to the beginning of the piece or the section and thinking through the correction. And the second thing is to practice performing so you can play from the beginning to the end of a piece without losing continuity, without hesitations. I hope this is helpful for you! 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