Chickering & Sons pianos are one of the oldest, American piano companies going back to 1823. In 1850, Henry Steinway attended a concert featuring performance on a Chickering grand piano. He was entranced by the experience and it provided inspira
Let’s say a piano is brand new in a store and needs to be prepped. A technician might spend an entire day doing full regulation, voicing and tuning as well as other refinements. After a full day of work, guess what? It’s halfway there. It’s hal
Last week we covered the different sizes of grand pianos, this week we will be talking about the different sizes of upright pianos. This is definitely one of the most common questions I receive and this article will break it down for you.
The shortest of all the upright pianos are called Spinet Pianos. These pianos are not only distinctive because of their short size but they actually have a completely different type of action. The pianos are so short they can’t fit the regular type of upright actions so it contains what’s called a drop action (also referred to as an indirect blow action). Basically, the piano has a shorter key length than a regular vertical piano.
When you get up to about 38” to 40” tall you have what are called console pianos. These pianos also have a direct blow action but are a little bit taller than a spinet piano.
A little bit taller than the console pianos (above 40”) you have what is called a studio upright piano.
A much rarer type of upright piano for today’s standards is anything above 50” – sometimes even around 56” or more – you have full-size upright pianos. These models are not as popular in our modern era but there are many of older instruments this size or larger.
As with grand pianos, size will matter in how the instrument sounds: the larger the upright piano; the louder the sound. Larger uprights also will have better actions than spinets but they will never replicate the feel of a grand style action.
Last week we covered the different sizes of grand pianos, this week we will be talking about the different sizes of upright pianos. This is definitely one of the most common questions I receive and this article will break it down for you. The shortes
Today I will be showing some tips for “Traumerei” which is a very classic piece of piano repertoire but also very elusive. This piece can really be overlooked by many students who don’t really understand the music in its full sense. There is a beautiful melody but it can be very difficult to know when to pedal. There is also a certain amount of freedom to how you can approach the piece as well.
Even though the piece requires the pedal, it’s always best to practice without the pedal. You should ideally be able to connect as much as possible together with only your hands before employing any pedaling. This is not an easy task and you will find it’s incredibly difficult to string much together with just your hands but this will help you understand where the pedal is actually needed.
The key to this piece is to bring out the singing melody – almost as if it were a vocal part. Every note should be smooth and distinct. By connecting as many notes as you can with your hands will allow you to get the desired effect – then adding the pedal will enhance the music.
The piece has a real ethereal quality to it. The piece has a very interesting composition and it really takes a mature student to grasp many of the finer aspects of the music. You should really do yourself a favor and watch various performances and listen to various recordings of this piece. It’s incredible to see how different performances can be for such a seemingly simple piece of music.
Welcome to another part in my ongoing series featuring tips for Schumann’s iconic “Scenes from Childhood”. In part 1 of the series I talked about how this collection of pieces is a perfect choice of repertoire for intermediate to advanced stude
Thanks again for joining me and I look forward to sharing our next era in this series of videos, the romantic period. Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
Welcome to the first of a four-part series on the eras of classical music. Today we will be discussing the Baroque era. The Baroque era pretty much extends from around 1600 to the mid-1700s. What distinguishes this era of music from others? Baroque m
How to Buy a Piano: – Check strings for rust particularly at the pins and hitch pins. – Play the keys going down to the low notes. If you notice a change of tone of the copper wound strings compared to the steel strings, this can indicate
So let’s get back to the topic at hand. Why is it a good idea to sometimes have E sharp instead of F or C flat instead of B written in your music?
Let’s say for example you had a piece in C-sharp major:
As you can see, it has all the same letters as a C major scale and we happen to have an E# in there as well instead of F. It would look pretty weird on paper if the notes were C# D# F F# G# A# B# C# wouldn’t it? In cases like the one above it is much easier to decipher the notes if they are written diatonically.
Let’s examine this same topic when it comes to chords. Chords are built on the interval of 3rds (for more information you can see our video: What is a Chord?). To put it in simple terms, chords are built upon the interval of a 3rd which are two letters apart – all lines or all spaces. So for example, here is a C major chord:
So if you had a C# major chord it would look like this:
And the same principle applies as the one above. It’s much easier to comprehend the chord written with an E# rather than an F. It makes more sense and is more digestible on the page. It is instantly recognizable as a chord.
Hopefully this clarifies the concept of why E sharps and C flats are (and other accidentals which are white keys) are easier to read than their enharmonic equivalent spellings.
Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact us directly: info@LivingPianos.com or (949) 244-3729.
This is a really interesting question. Sometimes you will see E sharps or C flats written in music and you might wonder why they just don’t write F or B instead – after all, an E sharp is an F and a C flat is a B on a piano. So why add
This is probably one of the most fiercely debated topics regarding Steinway pianos. There is a ton of misinformation online as well as varying degrees of opinions. Not everyone is going to agree on this topic, but I will share my perspective from a l
How To Practice the Piano 3 Part Series There are 3 separate skills in learning to play the piano: • Memorizing • Sight Reading • Improvising You can become quite proficient in one or two of these skills and be completely deficient in others. I