Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. This is part two of the Chopin G minor Ballade complete tutorial here on LivingPianos.com. In this section, we explore some of the most powerful and technically demanding music in the work, along with practical strategies for practicing it effectively and musically.

From Poetic to Heroic

At this point in the piece, the main theme returns in a grand, heroic form. What’s remarkable here is how the same theme takes on a completely different character. Earlier it sounded poetic and reflective. Now it appears in massive chords with tremendous strength and breadth. Part of this transformation comes from the key change. Chopin moves from E-flat major to A major, a tritone away. That alone gives the music a strikingly different color. Combined with the powerful chordal writing and rich voicing, the familiar theme suddenly feels heroic rather than intimate.

Practicing the Massive Chord Section

One of the most important practice methods is to work without the pedal. Practicing without the pedal forces you to create legato with your hands instead of relying on the pedal to connect the sound.

The secret to producing powerful chords without harshness is to play from the surface of the keys. If you try to strike the chords from above, the sound becomes harsh and unpleasant. Instead, rest your fingers on the surface of the keys so they are not yet depressed, then release the weight of your arms into the chords. This approach produces a warm, full tone. Even without the pedal, you can achieve remarkable legato simply by using arm weight and careful control.

Creating the Illusion of Power

When learning this passage, play as legato as possible. You do not need to play every note at full volume. In fact, it can be helpful to sacrifice a little power in the inner chords while anchoring the octaves. By emphasizing the octaves and keeping the other notes lighter, you create the illusion of great strength without using excessive effort. When the pedal is added, the result sounds far bigger than what you are actually playing.

Listening for Inner Voices

Another detail that should not be ignored is the inner voice in the right hand. There is a beautiful countermelody hidden within the texture. Bringing out these inner notes adds richness and musical interest. Fingering is also important for achieving good legato. Whenever possible, use the fourth finger on black keys and sometimes even on white keys if it helps connect the notes smoothly. All of these small details contribute to a more beautiful sound.

Practicing the Massive Chord Section

As the music climbs toward its peak, it can help to practice the passage in small sections. One useful strategy is to isolate groups of notes and practice lifting between them. This allows the hand to reset and stay relaxed.

Slow practice remains the foundation. Working carefully with a metronome and gradually increasing the tempo is essential. But once the notes are secure, you can experiment with other approaches to improve fluency. For example, temporarily leaving out a note can help your hand feel the shape of the passage. Once the motion feels natural, add the missing note back in. Rhythmically, this section also features a hemiola effect, where the accents shift against the expected beat.

Turning Runs into Chords

Next comes a passage everyone recognizes, full of fast-moving notes. A great way to practice this kind of writing is to turn the runs into chords.

When you play the notes as chords, you immediately discover the most comfortable fingering. It also reveals the harmonic structure underlying the passage. Once the harmony and fingering are clear, returning to the original pattern becomes much easier. You can also reverse the patterns, practice in different directions, or apply rhythmic variations.

Choosing the Right Practice Technique

There are many practice techniques available, but the goal is not to try every single one. Instead, experiment until you find the method that reveals the solution for each specific passage. If metronome practice alone solves the problem, that is wonderful. But when progress stalls, that is the time to experiment with rhythms, accents, note groupings, or phrasing changes. Think of practice as having a toolbox. You only need the tool that solves the problem at hand.

Relaxation Through Note Groups

A key concept for difficult passages is practicing in small note groups with complete relaxation between them. Rather than pushing through a long string of notes, play a short group, release all tension, and then begin the next group as if starting fresh. It is almost like taking a brief rest in the middle of the passage. This approach prevents tension from building and allows you to maintain control even at high speeds.

Strength Versus Control

Some pianists develop enormous strength by practicing many hours a day. That strength can carry them through extremely demanding passages. But many legendary pianists relied more on relaxation and control than brute force. Their playing had a jewel-like clarity and refinement. Relaxation not only makes technical passages easier, it also produces a far more beautiful tone.

Working with the Metronome

When increasing tempo with the metronome, raise it one notch at a time. It may seem slow at first, but it is incredibly effective. Only raise the tempo when you can play the passage correctly and comfortably. If the notes are accurate but you feel tense, the tempo should remain where it is. At first the progress may feel slow. But once the passage becomes secure, the tempo can increase surprisingly quickly.

In fast passages, the motion should come primarily from the fingers. Avoid relying on arm weight or large wrist movements, which are better suited for slower, lyrical playing. Light finger action close to the keys allows the passage to scale up to fast tempos.
Practicing Short Note Groups at Tempo

Another valuable technique is to practice very short groups of notes up to speed. This trains your hand to play the passage at tempo. Once the pattern feels natural, you begin linking the groups together while maintaining relaxation between them. This method helps solve the common problem of passages that feel easy slowly but fall apart when played quickly.

Clarifying the Left-Hand Rhythm

Later in the piece the left hand introduces a distinctive rhythmic pattern. When practicing slowly, it can help to exaggerate the rhythm.

nstead of treating it as a simple eighth rest followed by an eighth note, try lengthening the rest and making the following note extremely short. This exaggeration clarifies the rhythm so that it feels precise when played faster. Thinking of each measure as a fresh starting point also helps keep the hands relaxed.
Applying the Same Practice Tools

Throughout this section the same practice tools can be applied repeatedly:

Turn runs into chords.
Practice accents.
Use rhythmic variations.
Break passages into small groups.
Work without pedal to refine fingering and legato.
The most important idea is that practice should always involve discovery. If something is not improving, change the approach.

The Five Against Six Passage

One particularly challenging moment has five notes in one hand against six in the other.

When practicing slowly, exact alignment can be confusing. Instead, focus on understanding which notes fall between others. Practicing the alternation between hands helps clarify the relationship. The placement of the grace note also matters. If it is played before the beat, the rhythm can unintentionally become six against six. Placing it on the beat preserves the intended five-against-six relationship.

Building to the the Climax

As the music approaches the climax, make sure the low B-flat octave in the left hand really speaks. Even if the surrounding notes are not extremely loud, that single note can create a powerful sense of arrival. The high B-flat at the top of the texture reinforces this climactic moment as well.

Returning to the Main Theme

After the dramatic climax, the music gradually relaxes and melts back into the main theme. This passage can be surprisingly tricky because the fingering does not fall naturally under the hand. Finding the most comfortable fingering takes experimentation.

When the theme returns, it should not sound the same as it did at the beginning. At first the theme felt youthful and newly discovered. By this point it has experienced the turbulence and emotional extremes of the music. The final return has a different character, more somber, quieter, and more reserved.

The Final Technical Passage

Before the coda there is another demanding passage of sixths. When playing sixths, it’s not always possible to connect both notes smoothly. By ensuring at least one note is connected, you can maintain a legato line. Good fingering will make this easier. Practicing the passage in short segments allows the hand to learn each pattern comfortably before connecting them.

Approaching the Grand Coda

All of this leads to the famous coda, one of the most thrilling conclusions in Chopin’s music. It is a roaring, virtuosic ending that brings the Ballade to its dramatic finish. We will get into the blistering coda in part 3!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. What can you do with a piano that won’t stay in tune? There is a lot to this subject, and I want to share some tips that could really make a difference for your piano.

First, Determine the Cause

The first step is figuring out why the piano isn’t staying in tune. There can be many possible reasons. One of the biggest factors is the environment the piano lives in. Stability of temperature and, humidity can make a huge difference in how well a piano holds its tuning.

The Importance of Regular Tuning

Here is something many people don’t realize. If you go years without tuning your piano and then finally have it tuned, it probably won’t hold very long. In fact, the more often you tune a piano, the more stable it becomes over time. You never save money by putting off tuning. When a piano has drifted far from pitch, the technician may have to tune it twice in a row just to bring it back to the correct pitch level. Even then, that tuning may not hold very long. So two key principles are simple. Provide a stable environment and tune the piano regularly.

How Often Should You Tune Your Piano?

People ask this question all the time. The Piano Technicians Guild often recommends tuning four times a year. Many people are surprised by that number. At a minimum, tuning twice a year is very important because of seasonal changes. When you go from heating to air conditioning and back again, the pitch of the piano can shift. Sometimes the piano might still sound fine, but the entire instrument may have gone flat or even sharp. The secret to tuning stability is staying ahead of those changes. When a piano is tuned consistently, it becomes more stable.

In music conservatories, concert pianos may be tuned every day. The two Steinway pianos on stage at one of my conservatory were tuned daily for so long that technicians told me they almost never found a note out of tune. The instruments had become incredibly stable. At my father’s recording sessions, tuners were present during the entire sessions so when even one unison went out even slightly, they touch it up immediately. My father had his own pianos tuned monthly in his studio because of the heavy teaching and practice they received.

What If the Tuning Pins Are Loose?

Suppose you provide a stable environment and tune the piano regularly, but it still won’t hold. Sometimes the issue is loose tuning pins. There are two main possibilities, and this is where a bit of detective work comes in. If you notice several loose pins forming a straight line, that often indicates a crack in the pinblock. A technician might try installing oversize pins, but this can actually enlarge the crack. In that case, the real solution is rebuilding the piano.

Rebuilding involves removing the strings, lifting out the plate, and crafting a custom pinblock specifically for that piano. The holes for the 220 to 240 tuning pins must be drilled with extremely precise tolerances and angles. After restringing, the piano must be tuned repeatedly until it stabilizes. It is an involved and expensive process.

When the Pins Are Just Slightly Loose

Sometimes the situation is less severe. Instead of a line of loose pins, you may find that a general area of the keyboard has pins that are just a little loose. If there is space between the coils of the string and the plate, a technician may be able to tap the pins slightly deeper into the pinblock to gain more traction. This must be done very carefully. The bottom of the pinblock needs proper support, or the lower layers of wood can be damaged, which would create a serious problem. When done correctly, however, this small adjustment can sometimes solve the issue.

Another possibility involves chemical agents designed to increase the grip between the pin and the pinblock. These compounds are similar to super glue, but they are not actually gluing the pins in place. Instead, they increase the surface contact slightly. The feel of the tuning pins can become a little scratchy rather than smooth, but in some cases this treatment can help a piano hold tuning for years. It can be a practical option if the piano is not worth the expense of a full rebuild but you still want it to stay in tune.

Using Larger Tuning Pins

There is one more option if the pins are generally loose but not failing in a specific line. A technician can sometimes restring the piano using slightly larger tuning pins. Pianos typically start with what are called number two pins. Each step up in size increases the diameter by one thousandth of an inch. Moving from twos to threes or even fours can provide the extra grip needed. This approach allows the existing pinblock to remain in place. The plate does not have to be removed, and a new pinblock does not need to be built.

A Quick Recap

If your piano won’t stay in tune, start with the basics. Provide a stable environment with controlled temperature and humidity. Tune the piano regularly so it gradually becomes more stable. If certain pins are slipping in a straight line, a cracked pinblock may require rebuilding. If the looseness is more general, a technician might tap the pins deeper, use a chemical treatment, or install slightly larger tuning pins. These are all techniques that can sometimes bring a stubborn piano back to reliable tuning stability.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. Today I have a really provocative subject for you: Why You Must Learn to Fake at the Piano. Now, if you have ever had a teacher or studied seriously, you have probably been told that faking is the worst thing you can do. You want to play with integrity. You want to honor the score. So how could I possibly tell you that you absolutely must learn how to fake?

The Wall Between Practicing and Performing

I have talked before about the necessity of building a wall between practicing and performing. They are completely different experiences. If you are not clear which one you are doing, you are likely not accomplishing either one effectively.

When you are practicing and something goes wrong, you must stop immediately. Find the place in the score. Identify the correction. Cement the correction. Then go back a bit so you can pass that trouble spot successfully. Finally, return to the beginning of the piece or section and integrate the fix into the larger context. That is how you prevent mistakes from becoming ingrained. You nip them in the bud. But when you are performing, the situation is exactly the opposite. The last thing an audience wants to hear is you practicing while you are supposed to be playing for them.

Why You Must Keep Going in Performance

In performance, if something goes wrong, you must keep going no matter what. You might wonder how great concert pianists can play for hours and seem flawless. Of course, nobody is perfect. There are always finger slips or momentatry memory lapses. The difference is that seasoned artists know how to recover without disrupting the flow.

When I was a child, I had the opportunity to hear the great Arthur Rubinstein in concert for his 80th birthday. I was enthralled. We even got to meet him afterward, and he was incredibly gracious. After the concert, my father mentioned that in the Beethoven sonata Rubinstein had improvised his way through a memory slip. I was shocked. I had no idea anything had gone wrong, and I would guess that the vast majority of the audience did not notice either. Only someone who knew the piece intimately could have detected it. That is the art of faking. It is not about being careless. It is about preserving the musical experience for the listener.

The Danger of Stopping

Think of watching a movie. You are absorbed in the story. If there is a sudden jump cut or the film skips backward even briefly, it is jarring. It takes you out of the magic. The same thing happens in music. The moment you lose time or stop to fix something, even listeners who know nothing about music can feel it. Suddenly they cannot follow the pulse. Instead of enjoying the music, they start worrying about you. That tension replaces enjoyment. As much as you may want to fix the mistake, you must resist that temptation in performance.

Practice Performing

There is practicing. There is performing. And then there is practicing performing. Whenever you sit down at the piano, you should know which one you are doing.

To practice performing, take a piece you feel reasonably secure with and play it through as though you are in concert. Do not stop. No matter what happens, keep going. If you lose your place, keep one hand moving while the other finds its way. Stay in time. Do not go back. Do not skip ahead. Stay where you are in the music and reestablish control. It is far better to simplify or approximate for a moment than to derail the entire performance. You can even record yourself and make a rule that once you start, you cannot stop. This is tremendously valuable training.

Develop Your Ear to Support Recovery

One of the best ways to strengthen this skill is to sing your music. The piano is unique in that you can produce a sound simply by pressing a key. You do not have to hear it internally first. But when you sing, you must hear the pitch before you produce it. As a French horn player, I can tell you that you absolutely have to hear the notes before you play them. Singing builds that connection between your ear and your fingers. If you can sing a melody and have even modest ability to play by ear, you can often find your way through a rough patch without anyone realizing it. Keep counting. Keep the fingers moving. Stay in the moment. Over time, this even enhances your musicianship. I have had occasions where I experienced a brief memory lapse and played by ear to get through it, only to discover afterward, listening to the recording, that I had actually played the correct notes! That comes from improvising and developing a strong connection between what you hear and what you play.

The Secret to Confident Performing

Prepare thoroughly before any performance. Then practice performing. Play for friends. Play for small groups, then larger ones. Use those opportunities to experiment with keeping the flow no matter what happens. When you know you can recover smoothly, much of the fear of performance disappears. And your audience will appreciate a seamless musical experience far more than a technically perfect one interrupted by stops and restarts.

So remember, build that solid wall between practicing and performing. Know which one you are doing. And yes, learn how to fake. If you cultivate your ear, practice performing, and stay committed to the musical flow, your faking can become so seamless that, just like that Rubinstein concert, nobody will be the wiser. That is the lesson for today. Embrace it, and it can be a true game changer in your piano playing.

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource. Thanks so much for joining me.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. If you are completely satisfied with your piano playing and are getting exactly the results you want from your practice, then this article may not be for you. But if you are striving for a higher level of refinement, if there is music you have always wanted to play that still feels out of reach, or if you struggle with reading, memorization, or other fundamental skills, then it is time to take a fresh look at how you practice.

Are You Getting the Results You Want?

I have met so many people who are deeply attached to their practice routines. And to be fair, some aspects of routine are beneficial. Simply practicing regularly has tremendous physiological and mental benefits. Just sitting down at the piano consistently is an accomplishment in itself!

But here is the real question. Are you getting the results you want? If not, how will continuing the same routine change that? There is an old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The same can be true of practicing. If you are repeating the same process every day without meaningful change, you may simply be maintaining your current level rather than growing beyond it.

What Practicing Really Is

Practicing is discovery. It is a learning process. By the end of a practice session, you should have assimilated something you did not have before. If nothing new has been learned or clarified, then it was not truly productive practice. If you are doing exactly the same things every day, it is unrealistic to expect to reach a new level. Growth requires exploration.

Keep What Works, Question What Does Not

Analyze your routine carefully. Some elements may be extremely valuable. For example, starting with slow scales or arpeggios can warm up your hands, help prevent injury, and give you time to listen to the piano’s tone. It allows you to settle into your seat and establish proper position. These are excellent habits. But beyond that, examine what you are doing. If you typically warm up, then play through all your pieces to maintain them, and perhaps do some sight reading, ask yourself honestly: is playing through your pieces actually making them better? Or are you just keeping them at the same level? If it is not improving them, what could you do differently?

Experiment in Your Practice

Don’t be afraid to try things that may seem unusual. If you are accustomed to simply playing through your music, try practicing very slowly without pedal while carefully watching the score. Use a metronome. Change the tempo deliberately. Sometimes playing a piece slightly faster can reveal weak spots. You may find that most of it holds together, except for two or three key sections. Now you have identified exactly where to focus your time. Instead of practicing everything equally, you can zero in on the places that truly need attention. You could spend the same amount of time at the piano and accomplish exponentially more by targeting specific weaknesses.

Practice with Clear Intentions

Another common problem is practicing without a clear purpose. When you are playing through a piece, what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Are you refining details? Refreshing memory? Improving reading? Strengthening memorization? At every moment of practice, you should know the specific skill you are developing.

When learning a new piece, take very small sections and work phrase by phrase. Practice the right hand alone, mastering every detail. Then the left hand alone. Memorize each part. Put the hands together only after each is secure. Connect sections gradually as you go. This approach builds real security in your playing. For pieces you already know, reinforce them by slow practice, without pedal, with a metronome, and with the score. Slow practice is one of the greatest practice techniques you can use.

Listen with Fresh Ears

Listen for different lines in your music. If you always bring out the top melody, listen for a counter melody in the lower voices. Shift your attention to inner parts. Anything that helps you hear your music in a new way can deepen your interpretation.

If you have access to another piano, even a digital piano or a friend’s instrument, try playing your pieces there. A different sound can open new horizons. You may discover colors and balances you never noticed before, which will influence how you approach your own piano.

Play for Other People

One of the most powerful learning experiences is playing for others. When you think a piece is ready, invite friends to listen. Be brave enough to perform. The experience of playing for someone else is completely different from playing alone. Your mental focus changes. Your emotional response changes. You will learn things in that one performance that you could never learn by playing the piece a hundred times by yourself!

Make Practice a Process of Discovery

Do not become a prisoner of your routines. Keep the elements that truly serve you, but remain open to change. Try new approaches. Set clear intentions. Listen deeply. Make every practice session an opportunity for discovery. When you do that, growth becomes inevitable.

Let me know what routines work for you and share them with others here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Resource. – Robert Estrin

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to take you on a day by day journey of mastering a difficult piano piece. Maybe there’s a piece you’ve always wanted to learn, or perhaps you’re struggling with one right now. By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear idea of the process it takes to truly master challenging music.

First Step: Read Through, But Don’t Overdo It

The very first thing you want to do when studying a piece is to read through it to get an idea of what it’s about. If it’s a long and difficult work, you don’t have to read the whole thing at once. You might read the first section one day, the next section the following day, and so on.

However, once you’ve read through the entire piece a couple of times, no more than three times, you should stop simply reading it.

Why? Because every time you play through a piece, you risk reinforcing mistakes. Even small things that seem insignificant at the time can become deeply ingrained. Perhaps you overlooked a staccato marking. Maybe you used an awkward fingering you intend to change later. Possibly a dynamic is wrong. And of course, there may be wrong notes. Once your hands and ears get used to something, undoing it becomes arduous. It’s far better to avoid learning mistakes in the first place.

Memorize First, Then Build

Instead of practicing endlessly and memorizing later, flip the process. Memorize first. After your initial read through, go back to the beginning and take a tiny section. It doesn’t matter what the piece is. Choose something small enough that you can learn it very quickly. For example, if you’re working on the G minor Ballade of Chopin, you would not try to tackle a large passage at once. Take just a small phrase. Focus on a short segment and examine everything: notes, rhythm, fingering, phrasing, and expression. In other words, learn it correctly from the very first reading. Go very slowly and practice just the right hand. Because the section is small, you can usually memorize it fairly quickly. Get it comfortable and secure. Then do the same with the left hand. Once each hand is memorized and played exactly as you want to hear it, put them together slowly and memorize that as well. Then move on to the next small section, connecting phrases as you go.

Work to the Point of Diminishing Returns

Some passages, especially the most difficult ones, may not reach tempo right away. That’s fine. With each small phrase, work to the point of diminishing returns. Get the right hand secure, then the left hand, then hands together. Memorize each stage.

As the days go by, you’ll notice something interesting. Each time you sit down, you’ll need to refresh what you learned the previous day. But material you learned two or three days ago will start to feel more fluent and secure. Gradually, everything rises in level.

Start With the Hardest Sections

In large works such as the G minor Ballade, it can be extremely helpful to zero in on the most difficult sections first, such as the massive coda. If you leave the hardest part for last, you may learn the entire piece only to find yourself spending weeks trying to solidify and bring the ending up to tempo. By addressing the most challenging passages early, you avoid that frustration.

Daily Reinforcement: The Secret to Polish

One of the most powerful ways to strengthen what you’ve learned is very slow practice. Each day, refresh your memory with the score. Play slowly, without pedal, and use a metronome. Deliberately exaggerate clarity and precision. Slow practice reinforces memory and builds security in your hands.

Even when preparing for a public performance, after the music is at concert level, it can become stale if you don’t continually refresh and reinforce it. The best way to maintain a high polish is slow, deliberate practice without pedal, often referencing the score.

When you can play the piece at or near concert tempo, without pedal, with or without the score, check your work with the metronome and use progressively faster metronome speeds in particularly difficult passages until everything feels easy and controlled. Then you know you’re ready to perform.

Additional Practice Techniques

Beyond slow practice, there are many other techniques you can use. You can practice with different rhythmic groupings. You can accent certain notes to clarify where the hands play together. This is especially valuable for achieving a clean technique, ensuring that both hands strike precisely together where required. You can practice passages in varied rhythms or isolate small note groups. Hands separate practice is always valuable for polishing and refining difficult sections.

There are countless ways to strengthen and refine your playing. But the most important principle is this: learn it correctly from the very beginning.

Putting It All Together

To recap:

First, read through the piece to become acquainted with it, but don’t keep rereading it and reinforcing mistakes. Then start from the beginning and memorize in very small sections. Learn the right hand, then the left hand, then put them together slowly and memorize. Pay attention to notes, rhythm, fingering, phrasing, and expression.

Each day, refresh what you’ve already learned. Use slow practice without the pedal, and use a metronome and the score to reinforce your memory. Think of it like an assembly line. The newest sections are raw material that you’re shaping and forming. The sections you learned days or weeks ago are finished products that you continue to polish and refine. If you learn music carefully and correctly from the start, you will save yourself enormous amounts of time and frustration.

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource. Thanks so much for joining me.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. Today I have something a little different and a lot of fun for you. In this video, I put your ears to the test with a musical guessing game. I play short excerpts from some of the most famous classical piano works ever written, and your challenge is to identify each piece as quickly as possible. Some may be instantly recognizable from just a handful of notes, while others might take a few more seconds before everything clicks into place.

This is more than just a trivia game. It is a wonderful way to sharpen your listening skills and discover how deeply these great works are etched into your musical memory. You might surprise yourself by recognizing a piece from its harmony, rhythm, or even just its texture before the main theme appears. See how many you can name within ten seconds, keep score if you like, and share your results in the comments. I would love to hear which ones you knew right away and which ones kept you guessing.

Let us know how you did on this listening test!

Leave comments about pieces you would like full tutorials on.

Here are the pieces heard in the recording:

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. If you are considering putting a piano into storage, this is something you absolutely need to think through carefully. I have seen this scenario play out time and time again, and it can end in a way most people never expect.

Climate Control Is Not Optional

People are downsizing, they cannot sell their piano, or they think they may be moving. So what do you do? You find a place to store your piano. If you ever have to do this, make absolutely certain that it is climate controlled storage. I remember having pianos at a storage facility and only later being told that winter was coming and we had better get the pianos out of there. So double check. Make sure the facility is truly climate controlled. This is critical for the health and longevity of your instrument.

The Hidden Costs of Storage

Here is what often happens. You pay month after month to store the piano. Eventually, you have paid so much that you start to wonder what to do next. If you decide to try to sell the piano, good luck. In many storage facilities, pianos are stored on their sides to maximize space. Just to have someone come and look at the piano, you may have to pay hundreds of dollars to have it set up properly. And of course, it will not be tuned because it has been sitting in storage. It can become a nightmare situation for so many people.

What Happens When Payments Stop

Now here is the part that may really shock you. After paying month after month, sometimes for years, people reach a point where they simply stop paying. They do not know what to do with the piano. Often they have already moved, which is why the piano went into storage in the first place. Storage companies will make a good faith effort to contact the owner. But if they cannot reach them, they sell the piano. So after spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars in storage fees, the piano may ultimately be sold by the storage company. I know this for a fact from at least two companies I am intimately familiar with, and this is something that happens on a regular basis.

Think Long Term Before You Store

The lesson for today is simple. Before putting a piano into storage, think long term about your end goal. You do not want to be stuck spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a piano you may never get out of storage again.

If I can be of any help to you, please reach out to me at Robert@LivingPianos.com. We have many resources available for you here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

Working My Way Up to Something Special

Over the years, I gradually worked my way up through different pianos. At one point I had a Young Chang 6’1″, and from there I upgraded to a Baldwin L. Each instrument was a step forward, both musically and personally.

Then something unexpected happened. My top piano technician, who was a concert technician, owned an older Mason & Hamlin BB. For those of you who may not know, the BB is a 7-foot grand known for its massive construction and rich tone. Mason & Hamlin pianos have a distinctive depth of sound, and this one was particularly special.

What made it extraordinary was not just the design, but the care it had received. It belonged to a master technician. The regulation and voicing were superb. Everything about the instrument felt refined and responsive. When he decided to move away, he asked me to sell the piano for him. The moment I played it, I knew I wanted it myself. So I sold my piano and bought the Mason & Hamlin. I truly believed I had found the ultimate instrument.

An Offer I Did Not Expect

Not long after that, a concert pianist came in looking for a piano for a friend. At the time, I had a Baldwin L for sale. He tried it and liked it. Then he sat down at my Mason & Hamlin. I told him it was not for sale. He understood, but he kept playing it anyway.

A few days later, he returned and played both pianos again. This time, he made me an offer to purchase both instruments. It was not an easy decision. The Mason & Hamlin was supposed to be my piano. But the offer was significant, and I reluctantly agreed.

Almost immediately, I felt what you might call “seller’s remorse.” I realized that if I ever wanted something equal or better, I would have to look for a 9-foot concert grand. So that is exactly what I did.

Searching for the Ultimate Concert Grand

I brought my technician with me as we searched far and wide for the right instrument. At one point, I even purchased a 9-foot Baldwin in San Francisco. We brought it back and worked on it extensively. It was a fine piano, but it was not quite the extraordinary instrument I was hoping to find.

Then we discovered a Baldwin SD-10 concert grand in the San Fernando Valley. This is a 9-foot concert grand and one of the great American pianos. From the first notes, it was clear this was something very special. My technician told me it was one of the two or three finest pianos he had ever encountered, and he had worked on countless concert instruments. I absolutely loved that piano.

A Piano That Inspired Pianists

We used that Baldwin SD-10 for a concert series, and pianists who performed on it consistently praised it. Many told me it was the best piano they had ever played. It had power, warmth, and remarkable control across the entire range of the keyboard. It was everything I had hoped to find.

A Change of Circumstances

At the time, we were in a loft with 19-foot ceilings, and the piano filled the space beautifully. However, when we moved to a smaller location, it became clear that the instrument was simply too powerful for the room. It was more piano than the space could comfortably handle.

After much thought, I decided to put it up for sale. There was strong interest from around the country. Two different concert organizations were seriously considering purchasing it, and we even discussed the possibility of my performing a dedication recital when the piano was installed. It seemed like the perfect way to pass along such a remarkable instrument.

An Unexpected Buyer

Because those organizations needed board approvals, the process took time. Meanwhile, one Sunday afternoon, an elderly couple came in from the desert. They had seen the piano listed online and wanted to see it in person.

The gentleman sat down at the piano and played just one thing. He stood up and said, “I’ll take it.”

The one piece he played on that piano was Chopsticks!

Where It Ended Up

After all the performances, all the praise from accomplished pianists, and all the discussion of concert halls and dedication recitals, the greatest piano I ever owned ended up in a private home in the desert… For Chopsticks. So I have some mixed feelings about the sale of that piano.