Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about how much you should practice the piano. I hear this question all the time. Of course, parents always want to know that for their kids, and adults also want to know if they are practicing enough. This is a great question, but it really isn’t the right question, believe it or not. The most important aspect is not how much you are practicing, but how often you practice. Why is this so important?
Practicing on a daily basis is essential to maximize your productivity and progress at the piano.
When you practice every day, you reinforce what you’ve done the day before on a daily basis. Skipping days is like taking one step forward and two steps backwards. It’s very difficult and can become frustrating. It makes you not even want to practice because you forget what you did and you feel like you’re not getting anywhere. And maybe that’s true. So it becomes self-defeating. Practice every day and you’ll see your progress growing.
Your mind has only a certain amount of time when it can work with maximum effectiveness.
When your mind is fresh, it can be so productive! You can get so much done. So you want to take advantage of that every day. You can even practice more than once in the course of a day. Maybe you have a little bit of time before you start working when you can review what you did the day before. By keeping it present in your head, right from the moment you sit down to practice, you’re ready to go! So that is the most important thing.
Setting the clock to practice a certain amount of time every day isn’t necessarily productive.
Why? Because what is practicing? Sure, there’s a certain amount of physiology involved. You want to develop strength and independence of your fingers and wrists for technique. But that’s not the most important aspect of piano practice. Practicing is a thought process. You can’t just do it by the clock. I’ve seen kids do this when their parents make them practice and they just sit there thinking about anything other than the piano! They’re thinking about what they’re going to do later when they run out the clock. So you must maximize the productivity of your practice. And that takes a thought process that you can’t always force. If you practice for 30 minutes and you’re really focused, you can accomplish far more than practicing for hours while daydreaming or just going through the motions. You want to digest a chunk at a time and really have something to show for your work at the end of practicing. So make sure you get to the piano every day. At least refresh what you did the day before and try to learn something new. Even if it’s just one tiny phrase. And on good days when you’re fresh and you’ve got time, do as much as you can! That way you will really grow tremendously rather than trying to have an arbitrary time limit that you are going to practice.
I hope this is helpful for you and for your teachers. This is a great recommendation, particularly for parents of students, because a lot of parents don’t know how hard it is to practice if you’re doing it correctly. So give your kids a break! Just make sure they do some work at the piano every day. That’s the most important thing. Thanks again for joining me! I’m 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about how much you should practice the piano. I hear this question all the time. Of course, parents always want to know that for their kids, and adults also want to know i
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you two ways of solving technical problems on the piano. There are many different ways of solving technical problems. But I find that most pianists use these two methods, particularly the first method I’m going to show you. We’re going to use a very tiny excerpt from the first movement of the Mozart Sonata in C major K. 330. There’s a tricky passage in the development section early on. I’m going to play this for you on the accompanying video starting from the beginning of the development section through to this tricky passage. Then we’re going to go back and dissect what makes this passage difficult and how to solve it. This can translate to problems you have with finger work on almost anything you play. So this will be very valuable for you!
One of the primary ways of practicing is utilizing progressively faster metronome speeds.
I think all serious pianists practice this way. This is the lifeblood of serious piano practice. So if you’re having trouble with a passage, start at a speed in which you can play it with total security. Start very slow, 60 bpm, for example. Play through the passage as many times as it takes to be able to play fluidly and easily. You not only have to be able to play it reliably, you have to feel comfortable. You want to feel like you can do it without even thinking. You want to make it a total fluid line before ever raising the metronome at all. You have to be very critical at this stage because if you start increasing the speed before you have it absolutely perfect and repeatable, then you’re just going to be embedding those insecurities in your playing when you get it up to speed. This is the most important part. Take the time on the front end to really cement things and get it really comfortable before ever raising the metronome.
Take it one notch at a time.
Once the passage feels 100% solid at 60 bpm, raise the metronome speed by one notch. Why one notch? Because you can’t even feel it! That’s the secret. Gradually get the security in your playing, not just playing it perfectly, but feeling comfortable where you can repeat it again and again easily. If you have the patience to work through your music this way, you will be rewarded with a refinement and a security that is unparalleled. That’s the secret to developing security and confidence in your playing. I guarantee if you spend the 10 or 15 minutes it takes to get a passage up to speed this way you will be richly rewarded.
Work to the point of diminishing returns.
You’re going to get to a certain point where you can’t play any faster. You might have a breakthrough and get two or three more notches. Then you hit that brick wall again. At that point, it’s time to stop and move on to another part of the piece to work on. There’s always tomorrow. When you get to a point when you really can’t get it any faster without spending an inordinate amount of time, leave it for the next day. You’ll be surprised the next day, maybe when you first start, you’ll have to do it at a slower speed. Maybe not all the way back down to 60. Maybe the first day you’ll get it up to 80 or 84. And maybe the next day you start around 72 and you work it up the same way and get it up to 90 or 92. Each day you will get metronome speeds progressively faster, starting a little faster than you ended up the previous day. Find a speed where you can play it with that same security and confidence and move up from there. Practicing this way is really rewarding because you might think you’ll never be able to get it, but it will only take 10 or 15 minutes to do this.
Very few passages in the sonata are this difficult.
You don’t have to necessarily work the entire piece one notch at a time. Although if you have the patience to do that, you’ll have an incredibly refined performance. But certainly key sections will require this kind of focused attention. And of course you’ll have to work on larger sections than just tiny snippets. You have to put things into context! So after this, you might go back a few measures or even go back to the beginning of the section.
There’s another way of practicing that’s diametrically opposed to this.
This second method is completely different. It’s sometimes a tremendous time saver, preventing you from having to go through the tedium of metronome speeds. Sometimes you can pinpoint the exact place where you can’t play up to speed. Maybe you can play almost all the notes up to speed, except there are two or three places where you can’t get from one note to the next fast enough. If you can isolate those two or three places, you can get the whole passage without having to go through the entire thing methodically. Let me show you how this works.
Of course if there is a scale passage as in this excerpt, that helps. If you can play a G major scale in one octave as occurs here, you’ve got it, right? Well, it’s more complex than that because normally when you play the G major scale you’re going to end with fingers over the next keys of the scale. But here, you want to end with the fourth finger over A, and the second finger over the F-sharp to be ready for the next section. So you need to practice that. Then you can play the next small note group and get it up to speed. Then you put the two small sections together. You might not be able to put them together right away. You can try, but chances are, if you’ve never played the note groups together, you’re going to have trouble with that at first. So instead, play just up to the second note group but don’t play it yet. First, get just those first few notes fluid and comfortable and up to tempo. Then stop just before the next group of notes with your fingers right over the next notes you are about to play, but don’t play them. After the pause, play the next note group. Do this again and again, shortening the break between these two small note groups little by little until you get to a point where the break is so short that it’s rhythmically imperceptible. So you know the break is there mentally, but it’s no longer aurally perceptible. It just gives you that moment to relax because you practice relaxing at that exact point by stopping on the last note of the previous group of notes while being over the next note group in a totally relaxed manner. You can work through small snippets one by one in this manner stopping just before the next note group while being right over the notes you are about to play.
Now you have two entirely different ways of solving technical problems!
The great thing is you can alternate between them. Sometimes one method will work just like magic. You’ll be able to move quickly through metronome speeds and in 10 minutes you’ve got an entire passage solved. Another time you may work this way and find that you can play almost all of it up to speed, so you find exactly where you can’t quite play up to speed and work on just those note groups. Then you can put the note groups together.
These are two incredibly valuable techniques for solving many technical problems you have in your piano practice. Remember when doing progressive metronome speeds, be totally secure at the slowest possible speed so you gain a high level of security and confidence and repeatability first. Then with each progressively master metronome speed, strive for that same level of comfort and speed. Take it to the point of diminishing returns. When you are working way too long just to get one notch, leave it for the next day. But it’s possible you can focus on just a couple of small note groups that you can master by stopping just before a problem spot, being relaxed with your fingers over the keys of the following passage.
I would love to hear how these methods work for you! I use these two techniques incessantly in my practice, and many other pianists do too. Thanks again for joining me! I’m 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you two ways of solving technical problems on the piano. There are many different ways of solving technical problems. But I find that most pianists use these tw
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. A viewer asked me, “How are piano competitions judged?” And it got me thinking. It’s such a subjective thing, isn’t it? Who’s better Who plays the piano better? Obviously it’s more art than science. So there’s a lot to this question. I’m going to dive right in for you! There are more fine concert pianists in the world today than ever before in history. Consider this:
In China alone there are over 40 million piano students!
Many of them are extraordinarily accomplished. And of course there are pianists all around the world. But there are a limited number of competitions. The international competitions, like the Cliburn, the Chopin, and the Tchaikovsky attract the greatest talent from the entire world.
What does it take to enter these competitions?
You have to play at such a high level to even approach these competitions because the repertoire requirements are tremendous. These top tier competitions require several complete programs, concertos, chamber music, all from memory, and sometimes there will be a piece written just for the competition that nobody’s ever seen or heard before! Instead of being able to refresh all the music that’s percolating in their heads, competitors have to immerse themselves in a brand-new piece to learn on the spot! How’s that for a challenge? Yet, there are still so many people vying for these piano competitions. The truth is, just being able to get into the semi-finals in one of these competitions is a milestone.
What is it like to compete in a piano competition?
Just like the Olympics, people prepare for months or years in anticipation of this one day. These competitions only come around periodically. Competitors might have a good day, they might have a bad day. Maybe they got a cold just the night before. The piano used in the competition might have an action similar to what they are used to and they’re right at home. Conversely, somebody else might feel off-put by the piano if it doesn’t feel anything like what they’re used to. Many of these top tier competitions, like the Tchaikovsky, offer a choice of pianos. Making that choice can be a very tough decision as well.
What are some of the things that enter into how judges evaluate one pianist to the next?
There are many things involved, but I’ve got an interesting story for you. Years ago, the wonderful concert pianist, Ivo Pogorelich, entered the Chopin competition. At a certain point, he was eliminated. But one of the judges of that competition was the great pianist, Martha Argerich who was so incensed by this, that she walked out of the competition! This made news and actually propelled Pogorelich into a career from the sheer spectacle of it all! But why do you suppose that Ivo Pogorelich was the favorite of Martha Argerich, and yet the other judges dismissed him? Well, one of the factors of competitions is that a pianist who really makes a statement and has a personality that is different from anything people have heard before will be loved by some and detested by others. In competitions, there can be a race to the center. It may be beneficial to not be extreme in one direction or another. And that’s kind of sad really. But how else do you quantify?
Tempo can play a role in how a judge may perceive a performance.
Judges are sitting there hour after hour, listening to pianist after pianist. If somebody comes in there and gives a very energetic uptempo performance, it can be invigorating! Then if somebody comes and plays a very beautiful, elegant performance, it may not have the same energy. After you hear a piece at a faster tempo, going to a slower tempo can be a let down. It sounds a little bit lifeless by comparison. This makes it very difficult to appreciate the slower performance. Though if you didn’t hear them next to each other, you might actually prefer the elegance of the slower performance! This is why many times the faster, louder player wins competitions.
But how else can you quantify who’s better? Let’s say somebody comes in and plays a Mephisto Waltz of Liszt. They play it faster than anybody else. It’s clean and it’s convincing. It’s very difficult to fault that, isn’t it? Of course, that player could play it slower if they chose to. But could the other players play it as fast? That’s an unknown. So there’s a lot to the idea of playing faster, playing louder, and playing very straightforward the way everybody expects the music to sound. I hate to think that that’s the way competitions are run, and truly they aren’t always run that way. But there is the risk of them turning out that way because of human nature.
As a performer, should you toe the line, or play to your own convictions?
You wonder how performers entering these competitions think about this. Are they going to take a chance and play the way they want to, even if they know it’s radically different from anything anyone else has done? Or are they going to play it safe and try to play for the judges? In my opinion, you really have to go for it and play to your own convictions. And that really is the lesson for today. Sometimes the winner is the person who plays to their convictions, and they play in such a way that it makes it seem as if it’s the only way the music should be played! This is not an exact science. This is art. It’s so subjective. That’s why this is an excellent question!
Keep the questions coming in! I pay particular attention to my Patreon subscribers. Those of you who want to have more input on these videos, I suggest you join my Patreon channel. www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. A viewer asked me, “How are piano competitions judged?” And it got me thinking. It’s such a subjective thing, isn’t it? Who’s better Who plays the piano better? Obvio
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about movie music. What is the secret of movie music? It all comes down to thirds relations. I’m going to show you a little bit of music theory behind movie music. Once you know how it’s done, it will take the mystery out of it. I’m going to show you the trick! How does movie music bring out emotions to make you feel a certain way? It comes down to median or third relations. Typically, harmonies on the piano are based upon movement in fourths and fifths. Those are perfect intervals. For example, one chord to a four chord. That’s the movement of a fourth. Or one chord to a five chord. Those are your primary chords, One, four, five, one is a classic cadence in music.
You can sometimes move in the relationship of a third when you’re within the key.
You can go from one to six, from C to A. Then you go down to F which is four. And that has an interesting sound as well. But it’s when you go out of the key that you’re in that it starts to get interesting. If you do that with fourths or fifths it will sound quite familiar. Let’s say you’re in C major and you want to change keys to D. How do you get to D? Go to the five of the D. The five of D is A. So if you’re in C major and you play an A seventh chord, that’s going to bring you right to D. If you want to go back, you play the five chord of C which is the G seven. That is very typical sounding harmony. Even though we went outside of the key of C major, it doesn’t sound particularly unusual. But when you do it in thirds it’s a very different sound. If you go from C to A major you will instantly recognize a very familiar theme from the movie Star Wars.
Going with thirds to minor keys produces a very compelling sound.
If you start with C major, then go to E minor, then G minor it’s an ambiguous tonality with amazing colors. You can then go to B flat minor. And you can go to major chords also. You get the sound of something mysterious. Because you can’t really predict where it’s going.
So that’s a little bit about third relations. I hope knowing the secret it doesn’t take the pleasure out of movie music for you! This technique is used so much of the time. Now that you know what to listen for, you may notice when you hear it. When you’re listening to film scores I want you to listen for that sound. There are so many film scores with major and minor chords in thirds. It’s such an interesting and captivating sound!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this. All of you out there who play the piano should experiment with this. Play chords, particularly major chords to minor chords a third away, and then go another third higher or lower. It’s such a rich sound! You can create these sounds for yourself. It might be the impetus for a composition or an improvisation. Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
For premium videos and more 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 movie music. What is the secret of movie music? It all comes down to thirds relations. I’m going to show you a little bit of music theory behind movie music. O
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why you must be able to play your scales on auto-pilot. What does this mean? I’ve talked before about motor memory or tactile memory being a dangerous thing to rely upon in your piano playing. You can take a wrong turn here or there if your mind isn’t cognizant of where you are in a composition. With repeats, expositions, developments, changes of keys, you must have an intellectual awareness of your music. Otherwise, you can end up in the wrong place in the middle of a piece! But, you absolutely must be able to play your scales with just motor memory because of the fingering crossings.
All major and minor scales involve finger crossings.
Scales encompass thumb crossings in the right hand going up and in the left hand coming down. And you have third and fourth finger crossings in the left hand going up and in the right hand coming down. All major scales and minor scales have the same basic premise of third and fourth finger crossings in one hand going up, the other hand coming down, and thumb crossings in one hand going up and the other hand coming down. That’s a whole lot of stuff to remember! That’s why in the early years of study, rather than working on scales which have complicated fingering to learn, it’s better to develop the strength of your fingers first by playing early Hanon exercises which avoid finger crossings.. The whole idea of practicing scales is to develop fluid notes in a row so that you can play beautiful streams of notes with evenness and clarity.
What if you can’t get the fingering?
As I mentioned, I love to start students with the very first exercises in Hanon, which have myriad different patterns, but none of them involve finger crossings. So, you get to work out your fingers developing strength, fluidity, and speed, without worrying about the complexity of finger crossings. But why do they have to be on automatic pilot? When you’re playing a fast scale, there just isn’t time to think of all of those fingerings! You have to be able to just do it without thinking about the actual fingering. Then you can focus on the sound, the expression, the volume, the evenness, and the clarity without thinking about fingering.
I made a video a few weeks ago on how playing the piano is like learning how to walk. At the beginning, it’s a struggle. If you’ve ever watched a toddler taking their first steps, the concentration on their faces is unbelievable as they figure out how to traverse one step to the next. We don’t have to think about walking, because we walk on auto-pilot. Imagine if every time you took a step you had to think about everything involved, the coordination, the foot muscles, the leg muscles, and keeping your body upright. It would be almost impossible to do anything while walking! Yet, we walk and talk about all sorts of things all the time and don’t even think about it. That’s exactly what you must do with your scales. How do you get to that point? Well, first of all, you should only start scales when you have enough strength in your fingers. If you’re just starting out learning scales an octave or two octaves, it’s really not that valuable.
You want to play all your scales in four octaves right from the get-go.
Even though the fingering is the same, when you’re playing in the low register, the angle of your arms is quite different from playing in the high register. You must get used to playing the whole keyboard. If you’re not up for that challenge yet, you’re better off doing 5 or10 Hanon exercises first to prepare yourself for practicing scales. This is a great way to get your fingers strong and to develop fluidity. Start with one note to the beat at 60 to the metronome, so you can really see how your fingers are working, then two notes to the beat, and then finally, four notes to the beat. Work on these Hanon exercises until you can play them in a fluid manner with strength and evenness. Then you are ready to embark upon scales. You should work on your scales in exactly the same way. Work on them in four octaves, just like in Hanon: 60 Selected StudiesFor The Virtuoso Pianist. This book is like the Bible of scales and arpeggios because it has all the standard fingering that 99% of pianists utilize. I highly recommend getting a copy. Get to the point where you can play your scales without thinking about fingering. Then when you have scale passages in music, you don’t have to start practicing like it’s a fresh thing. It’s already there, literally at your fingertips!
That’s the lesson for today. Get your scales on automatic pilot, on motor memory, on tactile feel, so you don’t have to think about the fingering. If any of you touch type as I do, you know that you don’t even have to think about where your fingers are going. Those of you who have to hunt and peck, you know it’s a little slower, a little bit harder, but you can get pretty fluid at it. But when you know where the keys are without even thinking about it, it makes it so much easier. You want your scales to be that easy as well!
Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why you must be able to play your scales on auto-pilot. What does this mean? I’ve talked before about motor memory or tactile memory being a dangerous thing to
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about the two different kinds of encores. There are fundamentally two different types of moods you want to create in encores, and I’m going to get into that. But first I want to start with a personal reflection for you.
My father, Morton Estrin, had such a profound effect upon me.
I want to talk a little bit about my father’s experiences as a performer. As much as he performed, he got extremely nervous for performances. And when he would walk out on stage, it was a terrifying experience for him! He would get so nervous, his pedal foot would shake. I remember watching him perform and feeling so badly for him. There he was, trying to control things, and his foot was going up and down like crazy! It was once kind of funny, in retrospect. In one of his New York recitals, the reviewer commented on his beautiful performance and his “fluttering pedal technique.” Little did he know it was nothing intentional. It was something my father fought with his whole career. And the way he overcame it was very interesting. For him, the easiest thing to start a program with was something really heroic. He could go out there and play the most bombastic virtuosic music right from the get go. With that, he didn’t have any trouble. But to go out and start a program with a delicate piece, like something of Mozart, or a Schubert Impromptu, was extremely challenging for him. With that very delicate music, any little motion of any part of the body has such profound effects. He worked really hard to overcome this and was proud of himself that he could go out on stage and play something delicate as an opener for a program. Because programmatically, he wanted to be able to have architecture and not just start with the most heroic piece. Usually you want a big finish at the end of your program.
What was interesting about my father’s performances, we would always go backstage at intermission and hug him and tell him how beautiful it sounded. He couldn’t even believe it because he was so terrorized up there for the first half! But in the second half, he would relax. By the time he got to the end of the program, he was in his element. He would play encore after encore and the audience would cheer for more! He would play five, six encores, as many as the audience wanted. And at that point he could do anything. He had no nerves left whatsoever. It was a thrilling experience for everyone who heard him!
There are two different types of encores.
When a program ends and you come out for an encore, the audience has been through a whole program. You want to charge them up! So you play something like a Chopin etude, something virtuosic and energetic. But what if the program ended with something big and dynamic and it’s already a blockbuster at the end of the program? That’s when you want to flip it and come out with a poetic encore, maybe a Chopin Nocturne or Prelude. That could be just the mood you’re looking for.
My father recorded the Scriabin Etudes Opus 8.
It was the first modern recording of the complete Opus 8, and it won record of the year. You can find them on YouTube. His performances don’t sound like etudes. They are rich musical experiences. He didn’t play them as just technical exercises. He played them for the gorgeous music that this early Scriabin is. The Opus 8 was very different from later Scriabin where he explored very sophisticated harmonies that bordered on atonality. Early Scriabin is sometimes compared to Chopin. It really has a voice all its own, but it’s quite chromatic, beautiful romantic music that is extremely emotional. I got to hear my father play them in New York at Lincoln Center. It holds a very special meaning for me.
I’m going to play the D-sharp minor Etude from Opus 8 which is the last of the set. Then, just as if the program ended heroically, because that is an incredible blockbuster piece, I’m going to go right into a movement of Debussy from the Children’s Corner Suite, The Little Shepherd, which was my mother’s favorite piece. I would play it for her as an encore. So this is very special and a personal performance for you. You can listen to the accompanying video. I hope you enjoy it.
Those are two completely different types of encores. What is appropriate depends upon your programming. So remember, if you’ve already pulled out all the stops, and you’ve ended really big, then bring it down and show poetry and express intimate feelings. Show what you can do to the soul! On the other hand, if the program ends with something long and melodic like a Schubert Sonata with beautiful architecture, then you’ll want to charge people up with your encore so they leave the hall with energy. Judging your encores is very important. Sometimes you can even have two or three encores prepared. Or maybe you’re brave enough and you have an audience that’s enthusiastic enough so you can play a bunch of encores like my father used to do!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Thanks again for joining me! I’m 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about the two different kinds of encores. There are fundamentally two different types of moods you want to create in encores, and I’m going to get into that. But fir
