Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

Hi, this is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource. Today’s topic is emotion in music. Does Music Have to Have Emotion? There’s a lot to this subject, so let’s dive in!

Throughout the centuries, there have been period styles with varying degrees of obvious emotions. For example, listen to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet or Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. While there may be some people who are put off by the sentimentality of this music, it’s hard to not at least appreciate the rises and falls of phrasing in an attempt to elicit strong feelings of longing, desperation and passion in this music.

But is the emotion in the music?

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, art itself is subjective. Everyone has their own interpretation of what they see and hear. So, how universal emotions are felt in music is one question. But there’s more to this subject.

While there are certainly works of Johann Sebastian Bach which are extremely emotional in nature, such as his B minor Mass, or his Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, there are also works that are masterpieces of counterpoint which primarily hold great intellectual interest. Flash forward to the 20th century with composers who explored 12 tone serialized music which exhibited extreme ordered complexity in works of composers like Anton Webern and Karlheinz Stockhausen and the intellectual demands of listening to this music are predominant. Does this mean that people don’t feel emotion when listening to this music? Not at all! In fact, much atonal music can have a dark mood.

Another aspect to all of this is, how do we as performers address the implied emotions of the musical scores we play? Some people may play even the most blatantly emotional music with reserve so that listeners can take their own cues from the scores. Listen to Sergei Rachmaninoff play his 3rd piano concerto and you will be amazed at how straight he plays his music unlike so many obviously emotional interpretations out there. Performers succumb to emotions to one extent or another.

When I was at the Manhattan School of Music, I had the opportunity to study with a great pianist and teacher, Constance Keene. She described emotions in music like this:

You must play with the memory of the emotion.

She felt that it was self-indulgent to be gushing with emotion while performing music. There are other performers who completely let themselves go with total abandon. Keith Jarrett comes to mind. So, is one type of performance better than the other?

When listening to some of the greatest musicians of all time, there are those who are reserved in their playing allowing the music to speak for itself crafting jewel-like performances of pieces like the great pianist, Josef Lhévinne. Others allow the music to take them to new places every time they perform.

Listen to various recordings of Vladimir Horowitz in concert playing the same piece and you will be amazed at how unique each one of his performances were.

Each performer must find their own balance of emotion versus intellect. I sometimes describe it as the part of you looking down on yourself as you perform making sure you don’t go too far. While performers who let themselves go in performance may hit high points unimagined in practice, it can also lead to disaster!

You can listen to a musical example which demonstrates emotion in music. In the accompanying video, there is original music with unabashed emotions for you.

So, while emotion in music is subjective since music is a language and everyone has their own interpretation of what they see and hear, some composers and performers prioritize control and structure while others allow their emotions to inflict itself one way or another in music. How you feel when you listen to music is a personal thing. Ultimately, the most important thing is to be true to yourself when composing or performing music.

I hope this has been an interesting exploration for you. I welcome more questions and am happy to hear from each of you personally. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. Thanks for joining me.

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Does Music Have to Have Emotion

Hi, this is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource. Today’s topic is emotion in music. Does Music Have to Have Emotion? There’s a lot to this subject, so let’s dive in! Throughout the centuries, there have been perio

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I got a great question from a viewer, “How do You Approach Playing From A Score Compared to Playing From Memory?” They’re two completely different skill sets.

Let me tell you a little story. Years ago I would go to competitions to accompany performers. Sometimes at the last minute someone’s accompanist wouldn’t show up. Maybe it was a kid with some very simple accompaniment. They would ask some of the other accompanists to fill in. But some of them just couldn’t do it unless they practiced. They couldn’t sight read even easy student pieces! They would have to spend the time to learn the score first.

I’ve also seen people who could read very well, but even if they practiced a piece for months, they couldn’t gain security in memorization. They’re two completely different skill sets. So, why do you need both of them anyway? That’s the first question I’m going to answer for you. There are some types of music where reading the score is intrinsically important. There are other times when playing from memory is of tremendous benefit.

Why would you ever have to memorize music?

You’ve got a music rack right in front of you, so why not just read the music? I play solo music from memory all the time. But why? Am I just trying to show off? The secret is that once you have something memorized it’s much easier to play it without having to look up at the music. With solo music, there’s no reason not to have it all memorized. Put the work into the front end and enjoy a much easier performance not having to look up and down from the music to the keyboard.

Why wouldn’t you memorize all your music?

First of all, it’s time consuming. But more importantly, when you play with other musicians, chamber music or accompanying, you absolutely must get a grasp of the entire score. You have to know what everybody is playing. The score shows not just your part, but it has the other musicians’ parts as well. It’s really important when playing with other musicians to have the score so you’re aware of everything going on.

Practicing pieces to be memorized compared to pieces to be played from the score requires completely different methodology.

When approaching a piece of music you want to memorize, you want to read through it just two or three times and then get to work one little section at a time starting with the right hand, learning absolutely everything: the notes, rhythm, fingering, phrasing and expression. You can master a small phrase in a couple of minutes. You do the same thing with the left hand part. Get the left hand memorized, just a small phrase. As each phrase is learned, you put the hands together and then connect from the beginning. Eventually you have the whole piece learned and you continue solidifying the memory with and without the score. You get to a point where the music is part of you. It’s a great feeling of liberation!

When accompanying pieces of music, you don’t practice that way.

There might be certain key sections you work on that way, but generally speaking, you go through the piece slowly reading. Any parts that you can’t play satisfactorily, use the band-aid approach. Focus your attention on the parts that you can’t play up to speed and I work on those sections until you can. Try to play so you don’t have to look down at your hands at all so you can keep your eyes on the score and play totally by feel. It seems impossible! There will be quick glances for leaps and things like that. But in your practice, try to make it so you don’t have to look down at your hands at all. You get to the point of total comfort, being completely absorbed with the score. That’s a great feeling because then if you need a quick glance here or there, you’re okay. But never move your head, only your eyes.

How is it possible to play a piece without looking at your hands?

There are some incredibly great blind pianists who could play anything, even music with large leaps So, it is possible. Think about what violinists and cellists do with no frets making big leaps without always being able to look at their hands. So, you can learn to play without looking at the score. These are two completely different ways of practicing. With solo music it is worth memorizing, but when you’re playing with other musicians, seeing the score is of benefit. There are two completely different approaches to practicing. I’m interested in how others have dealt with these issues.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Playing From the Score Versus Playing from Memory

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I got a great question from a viewer, “How do You Approach Playing From A Score Compared to Playing From Memory?” They’re two completely different skill sets. Let me tell you a l

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I want to talk about something that is very dear to my heart. I’ve done quite a number of videos about how to play piano with small hands. My hands are not particularly large, unlike my father Morton Estrin, a phenomenal concert pianist who had immense hands. I had to learn how to get a big sound with smaller hands. Today’s question is, “Can You Stretch Your Hands for the Piano?”

When I was a teenager, my father thought that maybe it would be helpful for me to stretch my hands. So I started doing stretching exercises. Nothing that would possibly injure, of course. I tried to get more of a straight line from the thumb to the pinky instead of arching out the hands. And I learned that you can’t do it by going straight, but if you arch up a little bit, you can get a bigger reach. So on the outside of the keys I could just barely hit a 10th.

Strength is the answer!

I’m not sure that those stretches did any good. I’d work on them in various ways, but ultimately I found that when I developed more strength at the piano, I was able to negotiate bigger leaps. And, as I’ve talked about before, you can play broken chords very quickly with the pedal in order to play chords way beyond your reach with security. You can work on arpeggios, scales, and repertoire, and through practice you will strengthen your hands to be able to achieve the sound you are after. So, strength is the answer more so than stretching.

I’m very curious to hear from all of you out there. Is there anybody who has any experience with this or has tried stretching and it’s worked? I’m not saying stretching is a bad idea, I’m just saying that it didn’t increase my reach. There are other possible benefits to stretching.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Can You Stretch Your Hands For the Piano?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I want to talk about something that is very dear to my heart. I’ve done quite a number of videos about how to play piano with small hands. My hands are not particularly large, unlike m

Hi, and welcome to LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource, I’m Robert Estrin. I am very pleased to announce that I am offering online video chat piano lessons. This is available to anyone in the world as long as you have a stable internet connection, a piano, as well as a modern smartphone, iPad or computer with a camera and microphone. For those of you who are unfamiliar with video chat, we offer technical support to get you up and running. You can email me at Robert@LivingPianos.com to get more information.

I started teaching the piano assisting my father, concert pianist, Morton Estrin while I was still in high school as my sister, Coren Estrin Mino did before me.

Teaching the piano has been an important continuum in my life and I am making the time to help musicians around the world who may not have great teachers available in their area.

When I attended the Manhattan School of Music in New York City after high school, I was surprised that many of my fellow classmates asked to study with me. There were such great pianists teaching there, however, not all performers are effective teachers.

The most important thing teachers offer students is showing exactly how to practice on a daily basis.

Because, no matter how much you get out of lessons, it is what you do the other 6 days of the week that’s going to make the biggest difference in your progress at the piano. When you have a lesson with a great teacher, you finish the lesson with a clear path of work ahead of you that will consume your time productively for the days that follow. So you accomplish exponentially more at the piano than just the time at the lesson.

I believe that you don’t teach at the student, you teach with the student.

There isn’t one curriculum that works for everybody. You must connect with each individual student with their unique strengths and weaknesses. Not only that, but each student has their own goals at the piano.

So, if you’re interested in finding out more about how to set up private video lessons with me online, please email Robert@LivingPianos.com and I’ll send you more information. Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Resource.

You Can Take Private Piano Lessons With Robert Estrin!

Hi, and welcome to LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource, I’m Robert Estrin. I am very pleased to announce that I am offering online video chat piano lessons. This is available to anyone in the world as long as you have a stable internet con

Today’s subject seems somber. Yet, it can transcend into something much greater. You may be wondering what death has to do with music – a lot! Just look at some of the most magnificent pieces of music ever created, from Mozart’s Requiem, to Chopin’s Funeral March Sonata. In fact:

You can trace death in music back to Gregorian chant.

The Dies Irae dates back to at least the 13the century, and it may be much older than that perhaps going back to St. Gregory the Great in the year 604. This Medieval Latin poem, “The Day of Wrath”, describes the Last Judgement summoning souls before the throne of God. You may know this theme from Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.

You may want to read this quote from Carlos Castaneda:

“Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you’re about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you’re wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.”

You may wonder what Castaneda meant by this.

Ideally, there would be a word that means both life and death since it’s all two sides of a coin.

You may wonder why composers have been so entranced with projecting death in their music, from Schubert to Schostokovich. I want you to be the judge of how expressing incredibly dark emotions can make great music.

I have chosen to play for you a movement from a relatively early sonata of Beethoven, his opus 10 no. 3 which was his 7th piano sonata out of 32 sonatas Beethoven composed between 1795 and 1822. In the second movement of his Opus 10 no. 3 sonata, Beethoven explored dark emotions in a profound way, although he didn’t specifically reference death in the title of the piece. But I believe this is a great way to demonstrate for you the power of expression of tragedy in music which certainly evokes death. You may notice that even in this dark movement, Beethoven couldn’t help but have glimmers of beauty and even hope.

We must all tackle these weighty subjects with some perspective. Death is universal. It’s something that we can share in a personal way with our music.

I hope this presentation has provided something meaningful for you today. Thank you for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store.

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

The Importance of Death in Music

Today’s subject seems somber. Yet, it can transcend into something much greater. You may be wondering what death has to do with music – a lot! Just look at some of the most magnificent pieces of music ever created, from Mozart’s Requiem, to

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you three tips for practicing scales. I’ve made quite a few videos about scales. But, Truth be known, I spend a minimal amount of time practicing scales to achieve the desired results, which is to have clean finger work, and to have mastered all the fingering of all major and minor scales and arpeggios. However, no matter how far you go with scales you can always go further. It’s endless what you can do with scales! Today I’m going to give you three tips to improve your scales. Maybe you’ve gotten in a rut. You’ve practiced your scales and you don’t know where to go next. Maybe you’re not totally happy with your finger work and you’re wondering, is there any other way to practice scales that will help to clean up your technique? Here are three techniques you can try. First of all, most of us practice scales just going up and down the piano in four octaves, an octave apart, as referenced in Hanon’s 60 Selected Exercises for the Virtuoso Pianist. That is a prerequisite for developing a good technique on the piano, particularly for playing classical styles or anything that’s technically oriented. It’s kind of like having a bag of tricks in your back pocket that’s always there when you need it, because you have scales in music pretty much all the time, in one way or another. So, what about practicing with different articulations or phrasings?

Instead of playing all legato, you could play with detached fingers in a staccato manner.

The reason this practice technique is so incredibly important is that the evenness from note to note isn’t just about the down strike of the key, but the release of each key as well. If you were to slow down a sloppy scale performance, you might hear that notes are striking together, but some notes are holding longer than others. You’ll hear haphazard lengths of notes, most likely where the thumb or finger crossings happen. By playing in a staccato manner you can hear things more clearly. You can play with staccato fingers, or the notes can have a little bit more length than that, and still be detached. Not really staccato fingers, but not smooth and connected the way you might think of playing scales usually.

Play one hand legato and one hand staccato.

In a recent video, I talked about how playing the hands two octaves apart when practicing scales can help you to hear things better. Well, here’s another tip for you. Play one hand legato and one hand staccato. This technique really allows you to hear what’s happening. Try playing the right hand legato and the left hand staccato. This can be reversed, playing the left hand legato and right hand staccato. This is just the tip of the iceberg! You can try this technique with two-note slurs or four-note slurs as well. And you could start on the second note of the scale and do the same thing. The whole idea is that it helps you to identify where the hands play together. It solidifies your scales in a way that just playing them the same way over and over again will never achieve for you. It could be a tremendous time-saver. So, what are some other ideas? That’s just one of three tips I’m giving you today. This can keep you busy for the next six months!

Do what solves problems.

The trick is not necessarily to do every articulation on every scale. If you find you have an unevenness in an F major scale descending scale, focus on that and start working on various techniques that solve that problem on that scale. Then you’ll find that this technique will translate from one scale to other scales.

Put your scales into a musical context.

We’re all used to playing scales loud, soft, medium. What about playing scales very, very loud? Or perhaps very delicately. You can play one hand loud and one hand soft, but it doesn’t just have to be that. You could make a crescendo up, a crescendo down, or you could start at the bottom loud and make a decrescendo all the way up and all the way down. The key is not to look at scales as an abstraction completely, but to put it into a musical context. After all, when you play music you’re not playing everything straight. So, you can explore this with your scales and make them more interesting and more musical. Always strive for a beautiful sound at the piano. This is really important in your music, anyway. You can also do all these techniques or many of these techniques with your arpeggios.

Play your scales at different speeds.

I am a firm believer in playing scales to a metronome. It’s very important that you practice your scales slowly and get progressively faster, increasing the speed of the metronome one or two notches at a time. This is what assures really clean, even scales. This is an incredibly useful technique. There’s no substitute for that sort of practice!

These are some musical things you can do with scales at home to enhance your technique on the piano. I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know how these tips work out for you and feel free to contact me with suggestions for future videos! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

3 Tips For Practicing Scales

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you three tips for practicing scales. I’ve made quite a few videos about scales. But, Truth be known, I spend a minimal amount of time practicing scales t

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is from a viewer, and it’s kind of a long one, so I want to read it to you word for word, because it really brings up such an important point. Joseph asks, “Hi, thank you for the reply to my previous question. This doubt is about Moonlight Sonata, movement number one. I went through many videos on YouTube. These recordings were a little bit different from what is written. There are sustains, very slight tempo variations, and small pauses at some points of the recordings. But these are not indicated in the notation. And I can say the majority of the portions were not in perfect tempo. Could you please explain on what basis these dynamics are made, and how to know which place we should apply these dynamics? I have seen your Moonlight Sonata pedal usage video. A big thanks for that video.” A lot of people are really confused about this: the sanctity of the score, what the composer intended. Is this authoritative? Is that what the composer meant?

Composers aren’t always the best interpreters of their music.

How could this be? Beethoven must have played his music better than anyone else. Let’s think about this. The people, for example, who write screenplays aren’t necessarily the best ones to direct, or act in it, for that matter. Just because somebody can write a play doesn’t mean they can act. So what is the analog here? If somebody is reading the lines of a play, does it have all the inflections indicated? – where to go up and where to go down, where to pause, where to go a little faster, where to go a little slower? Of course not. There are general indications in the play about the direction and the moods, but the performer fleshes out and creates the character from the words, bringing the character to life. That’s exactly what we do on the piano! The score itself, you could literally program it into a machine. It’s pretty easy to do that. If you took the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata and programmed every note exactly as it was written, the rhythm, the dynamics, everything, it would be an abomination. It wouldn’t even sound like music.

The score is just a skeleton.

The score is not the Holy Grail. It’s just what you build upon. Does this mean that you don’t play what’s written? No. You are playing what’s written, just like a great actor is saying the words that are written, but how do they say the words? There are so many ways of saying them. The same is true with playing the piano or any instrument. You’ve got to make sense out of the musical lines. Just like you have to make sense out of the words in a play. You can’t just read them flat. The same thing is true with music. Composers couldn’t possibly write in every inflection of every note. Notation doesn’t work that way. It’s impossible. That’s why we have performers.

The musical score doesn’t come to life until it is performed.

It takes the performer to make the work of art alive, and that is why you hear these nuances. Of course, there’s a limit to how far you can go before you’re just playing an entirely different piece! You want to have integrity to the score, absolutely. Know that score, and know what to play. But that doesn’t mean that a musical line that doesn’t have any dynamics is going to be flat all the way across. No, it will have a rise and a fall, just like the words in a sentence have in a play. I hope this helps you understand the implications of what a score really means.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Do You Have to Follow Dynamics in Musical Scores?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is from a viewer, and it’s kind of a long one, so I want to read it to you word for word, because it really brings up such an important point. Joseph asks, “Hi,

Hi, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. The subject today is, “Finding the Vehicle for Your Music”. There are some points in history when there were excellent vehicles for musical expression. Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven had the sonata form to exploit. The piano also was just coming into its own as was the symphony orchestra. This provided incredible opportunities for creative expression.

There are whole eras of history where the arts flourished such as the Renaissance.

Conversely, times like the Dark Ages offered scant opportunity for creative expression. There is another side to this aside from historical context. If you are a musician or artist, you must find your unique system of creative expression if you are going to be prolific. If you look at some of the most successful composers today, they each find a niche in which to flourish. This can be combining styles of music that have never been fused before, such as Eastern and Western styles. Or, it can involve utilizing technology in ways that haven’t been done before.

One thing that I have done incessantly since childhood, is improvisation. Since I have done this for so long, I almost always have fresh, new musical ideas percolating in my mind. When I sit down at the piano, oftentimes, things come together in ways that seem inexplicable. While I have captured some of them on recording, at this time I am developing a system of recording these musical creations to share with you.

Last night, I set up the recording gear for a test.

While I had nothing specific in mind when recording, the music seemed to come together well enough to share with you. I hope you enjoy the performance on the accompanying video. Finding the vehicle for your musical expression is half the battle of becoming productive and effective in sharing your musical ideas. I am interested in your opinion of what I am creating with technology to share my musical ideas with you, and welcome your insights into how to create a vehicle for musical and artistic expression. Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com – Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Finding the Vehicle for Your Music

Hi, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. The subject today is, “Finding the Vehicle for Your Music”. There are some points in history when there were excellent vehicles for musical expression. Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven had the sonata form

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is, “How to Solve Your Piano Fingering Problems.” Fingering on the piano is one of the most important aspects of developing a secure technique. So what I’m going to do is tell you my personal story of how I solved my fingering problem.

Did I have fingering problems on the piano?

When I was a child studying piano with my father, my fingering was atrocious! First of all, I had weak fingers. And truth be known, I didn’t practice nearly as much as many of my father’s other students. I had little hands, I didn’t practice a lot, my hands were weak and I had terrible fingering. My father struggled with me to correct all the fingerings. I took a look at some of my scores from my early teen years, and this is where the solution came in for me. I’m thinking this might be helpful for some of you as well. I got to a point where I though, “I want to solve this problem.” I had fingering problems for years, and it was always a nightmare at lessons.

I didn’t know how to solve the fingering problem, so I just wrote in the fingerings for almost every single note!

That was the only way I could know that I was going to play the right fingering. Looking at some scores from that period of time, it looks ridiculous. There are fingerings all over the place! Fortunately, my father was smart enough to always have his students use pencil, so the scores are not destroyed. That is what I went through! But after doing this for a period of time, I got to a point where I stopped writing in fingering. I almost never write in fingering anymore. It sounds like a total contradiction, but I transcended fingering such that I understood fingering in a way that I didn’t have to write them in. Now it’s not to say that I never write in fingering, but it’s really rare that I need to write in fingering anymore. I will certainly try fingering that’s printed in the score, with the editor suggestions. But if I have a fingering problem, I will try many different solutions. The vast majority of the time, I just develop a sense of fingerings that work. Truth be known, I don’t always use the same fingering in pieces I play. Because I got to a point of understanding fingering in such an intrinsic way, I don’t need to write them in anymore.

How many of you have gone through this same process?

I’ve never talked to anybody about this. I’m wondering how pianists out there who’ve had fingering problems overcame them. Has anybody gone through what I went through? It worked for me, but I don’t know if it’s working for anybody else. That is a real key. Writing all the fingerings in, being meticulous, and then getting to the point where you just understand it on such a level that you understand what fingering should be. I hope this is helpful! I would love to hear from all of you about your experiences!

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

How to Solve Your Piano Fingering Problems

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is, “How to Solve Your Piano Fingering Problems.” Fingering on the piano is one of the most important aspects of developing a secure technique. So what I’