Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “What are the audition requirements to become accepted at a music conservatory on the piano?” It is pretty standard. You’ll have to look in the catalog online to find for sure exactly their variations on a theme. Most conservatories for undergraduate studies require the following:

A Bach Prelude and Fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One or Book Two

Often times they will state the exception of the very first Prelude in C major and some may even have other exceptions. For example, Book One the C minor Prelude and Fugue might not be accepted either because they think it is too easy, even though there is nothing easy about any of the Preludes and Fugues of Bach. Regardless, many say you cannot use those compositions. These are kind of the staples. Some schools may allow you to substitute another piece of Bach or Handel. But, for the most part, a Prelude and Fugue of Bach from Book One or Book Two is a standard audition requirement for conservatories. Most conservatories will require you to play your audition from memory. It is important to be able to memorize music on the piano because with some pieces it’s extremely difficult to play from the score. So, memorization is considered to be an essential technique in solo piano playing.

A Classical-Era Sonata by Mozart, Haydn, or Beethoven

Most conservatories will require something from these seminal composers. Again, there are a couple of exceptions. They generally do not accept the famous C Major Mozart Sonata K 545. The idea is that it is too easy, when really to play it well is not easy. But it is usually the first Mozart sonata students learn. They want to hear pianists who are above that level. They also usually say you can’t play either of the Opus 49 Sonatas of Beethoven, Number 1 and Number 2. Any other Beethoven or Haydn sonata is usually permitted for auditions.

One or Two Contrasting Works of the Romantic-Era or Twentieth Century

Sometimes the requirements will be more specific. But usually, you can play any work of Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Bartók as well as many other composers. You have a lot of freedom in this choice. There is a big difference between playing Stravinsky’s Petrushka or playing one of Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words. This is where you can really show what you can do. You might have a piece to present that is much more difficult than anyone else can play. Sometimes an etude will be specified. In the Classical sonatas, there are some late Beethoven sonatas that are massively difficult as well. Even some Mozart sonatas, such as his last sonata in D major K576, are a handful. So, there is a wide range of difficulty among different classical sonatas as well as Romantic and twentieth century piano works.

All Major and Minor Scales and Arpeggios.

This should be at a fast clip like 144, four notes to the beat for scales, and 120, four notes to the beat for arpeggios playing four octaves up and down the keyboard. Both major as well as harmonic and melodic minor scales are expected. These are staples. This is a way to weed out people who have not had good training. Anyone who is properly trained should have all scales and arpeggios in their back pocket. It doesn’t make sense not to learn them because you depend upon mastering them for developing a solid technique on the piano (or any instrument).

Check catalogs

Fortunately, it is very easy these days to check online for audition requirements. There are always exceptions and slight deviations from what I’ve articulated above. This should still give you a pretty good overview of what it is required in a piano audition for undergraduate studies. As far as getting accepted, that is a completely different discussion. There are so many factors beyond your control that you should never feel bad if you don’t get into a school you auditioned for. Sometimes they don’t even have openings! Sometimes teachers at the school have private students they are trying to get in. If you auditioned and you thought you played great but still didn’t get in, don’t give up! That is not necessarily an affront to your abilities. You can never predict auditions no matter how good you are.

Thanks so much for joining me. Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com with a viewer question. “Can playing the piano cause hearing damage?” You may be concerned about this. You’ve got one pair of ears for your whole life and you don’t want to blow it, right? We all know that rock and roll musicians often suffer from ear damage. You might not know that symphony orchestra players suffer from ear damage as well. It’s a hazard of the trade. Just think what it’s like when you have sixty or so musicians on stage. You might have timpani behind you, or a trumpet section blaring in your ears. It’s a real problem. To mitigate this, there are acoustic baffles made of plexiglass to help with sound while maintaining visibility to the conductor. What about the piano?

Is playing the piano safe for your ears?

Not necessarily. Whenever we help people choosing pianos, one of the first things we ask is where the piano is going. It’s important to match the piano to the room. For example, think of a seven-foot semi-concert grand. It’s glorious to play in a large room with high ceilings. But what if you put a piano like this into a small bedroom? Would it be okay there? Possibly, if you have really thick carpeting, thick drapes, sofas, beds, and other materials that absorb sound. It might sound fine. But with all solid walls, hardwood floors, low ceiling, even a baby grand could be a problem. The voicing of your piano also makes a big difference. Pianos get brighter the more you play them, and some pianos naturally are brighter.

Asian pianos tend to be brighter than American pianos.

If you have a really bright Asian piano in a room where the acoustics are very live, you could indeed inflict ear damage. A lot of it comes down to common sense. One telltale sign that you’ve gone too far is if you ever get ringing in your ears after playing your piano. That is a very strong danger sign. You should back off for a few days because if you experience ringing in your ears repeatedly, you can develop tinnitus. You can have a constant ringing in your ears that never goes away. You also must be careful how you place your piano as well as what room it goes into.

The voicing of your piano by your piano technician can make it louder or softer.

Naturally, whether your piano is open or closed will also make a big difference in volume. Years ago I had the experience of practicing in little tiny cubicles at school. Playing in a room like that makes you feel really powerful because it is easy to generate huge amounts of sound. Then playing in the concert hall even on a nine-foot concert grand piano in such a huge space, you’d feel like you weren’t making much sound at all. It was unnerving because in the practice rooms you could bang out anything. You could overplay the piano because they were played so much they became overly bright on top of playing in a confined space. It was easy to play loud and fast without any trouble articulating everything in that situation. Practicing in a room where things are too loud is not only bad for your ears, but it doesn’t prepare you to play other pianos in better situations.

I hope this is helpful for you and we appreciate the questions coming in! Again, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store. Thanks for joining me.

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This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com with a really interesting topic for you today: Secrets of Piano Voicing. Did you know that the voicing on the piano is intrinsically different depending upon what volume you are playing? The balance between the notes in your hands is different when playing loud compared to playing softly.

Here’s how it works. When you’re putting a lot of energy into playing loud on the piano, you can play everything strong and the melody will come right through for you. When you play softly though, you have to delineate the melody notes or they get lost. In the featured video, I demonstrate with the Chopin 20th prelude, which has fortissimo as well as pianissimo sections. When playing loudly, you can play with equal volume. Yet, you will easily be able to discern the top melody notes. On the accompanying video, I play everything equal volume of all the notes in the chords of both hands.

The next section is quiet. I play softly, but equal volume of all the notes as I did playing forte in the previous phrase. But at the softer volume, the melody gets lost.

While there is more than one way to bring out melodies in piano playing, typically they are found on the top line of music. If you reach with the top fingers, you can delineate the melody. For the sake of this presentation, I am bringing out the melody of the top line while playing quietly.

It creates a beautiful sound! On the next section which is even softer, you will hear the performance first playing all the notes with equal volume. Unlike when playing loud, the melody is lost when playing the notes equal volume at softer volumes. When playing softly and bringing out the top notes the balance is very pleasing.

Now, what’s great about this lesson is that you can try this with all your music and discover the more quietly you play, the more exaggerated the difference between melody and harmony must be because of the natural acoustics of the piano. When you play loud, you can hear everything clearly playing all notes at equal volume.

But the quieter you play, the more focus you must bring to the melody.

I hope this has been helpful to you. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Thanks so much for joining me.

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This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with a really big question. How do you compose music? This is a huge subject and it is interesting that there isn’t just one answer. I’m going to give you a lot of pointers today. While there are exceptions, there are those who find a certain formula. I hate to say that Mozart found a formula, but when you consider the massive quantity of music he wrote, you’ll notice that a great deal falls into Sonata Allegro form. He wrote works other than those based upon the Sonata Allegro form. There are some notable exceptions such as his operas and his Great Mass in C minor. However, there are a lot of commonalities in the structure of many of Mozart’s compositions.

The same is true in pop music. There are some popular composers who churn out somewhat formulaic compositions one after another that are great. But all too often there is a sameness to the work of most songwriters. There are very few people who can pull that off. Mozart was able to compose many sonatas and symphonies with each one offering unique musical statements despite being structurally similar to one another.

Many composers don’t have one way of composing.

Every single piece they compose is a different way of getting there. What are some of those ways? One way is to come up with a melody. Make something up off the top of your head. Play with it a little bit and add more and more. Then, you go back and add some accompaniment. Composing a melody and then harmonizing it is one great way of composing. If you try to put every last detail in at first, it can bog you down and you’ll lose the vision of where you are going with the music. If you have a melodically-oriented piece of music in mind, this can be a phenomenal way to knock out a piece of music. Write out the melody line on manuscript paper or sing it into a recorder. Make sure you get it down somehow. Then go back and flesh out the rest of it.

Are there any other ways you can approach composing? Absolutely! You can also come up with an interesting chord progression first, then later come up with the melody. Maybe after that you come up with another chord progression. So, you can start with melody and add harmony, or you can start with a harmony and add a melody.

There are countless other ways to compose music. The more ways you can approach a piece of music, the more creative you can be. The last thing you want to do is to fall into a rut. You might come up with some sort of groove or rhythmic element that is captivating that you want to build upon. Maybe you can start with a groove, but then change the chords. You could even start with a motif.

Anything you start with that captures your interest is what you should go with.

You don’t want to compose something for the sake of doing it a certain way because you’ve been told to do it that way or you think it’s the right way to do it. That is the surest way to come up with something that isn’t engaging. You’ll know when you are on the right track when you feel a burning desire to keep on plugging away. Whether it’s a melody, a harmony, a riff, or a groove, if it fascinates you, you are on the right track!

Some last thoughts for you. Think about the structure. Some people like to consider the form first so they know where they are going in the piece in a macro sense. I mentioned Sonata Allegro form which is kind of like an A-B-A (themes, development, themes). Another type of form worth considering is theme and variations. Find a theme that you love and come up with multiple versions of it that take off in different ways. Pachelbel’s Canon is an example of that. It is essentially the same thing over and over again but you never get tired of it because each iteration is inventive. A rondo also has many repetitions with a prescribed form (A – B – A – C – A – B – A) You can try to carve out something with several recurring themes in this form.

You’ll find that ultimately it is what is genuine for you that is going to get the best results. I know that when you are composing sometimes you may hit a brick wall. Rather than going through the motions and trying to force something that isn’t there, sometimes it is better to just wait for inspiration to strike. One of the best ways to do that is to play around with notes freely until you come up with something you like and build from there.

I hope this has given you some ideas for any of you who have tried to compose. It is so easy today with modern technology to produce a large output. It used to be such an arduous task to write out scores and individual parts for an orchestral piece.

With programs now like Finale and Sibelius, you can have all of that done for you!

A lot of the great composers had their students doing copying work. Today there is technology that can do that for you.

Digital sequence programs are another great tool for composing. Plug in a digital piano and free programs like Audacity or GarageBand or professional programs like Logic and ProTools which allow you to play to your heart’s content saving anything you like. Snip, copy, paste just like a word processor except with music. It can be a tremendous time saver. You can work with an idea off the top of your head without having to write everything out, perform it, and record it. It is all instantaneous!

I hope this has been helpful for you. Again, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Is socialism good for music?” This is a very complex question and there’s a lot to think about. So, let’s start with the first thing that’s probably going to come to a lot of your minds, which is the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had quite a vibrant music scene and composers like Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and others, were funded by the government and had illustrious careers and wrote great music. Shostakovich, in particular, suffered under authoritarian rule. It was great that the artists were funded. There were phenomenal performers such as cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, pianist Sviatoslav Richter as well as many orchestral musicians who could make a decent living. But at the same time,

Authoritarian rule was a heavy hand telling people what they could play and what they could compose.

The music had to glorify the state. So it was really a double-edged sword. What about today? Is there socialized music today? Socialism is essentially something that is publicly funded.

Germany has 133 symphony orchestras that are publicly funded.

That’s in addition to private orchestras. They have a vibrant classical music scene! Now, not all of them have budgets as high as the Berlin Philharmonic. There are different tiers of orchestras just like there are here.

In the United States, orchestras are endowed with private donations

and are always struggling. Many go bankrupt and there are fewer and fewer of them as the years go on. So, Germany has something going that is vibrant for the classical music scene. Is there any socialized music in the United States? Can you believe there are 140 publicly funded bands?

There are 5,000 professional musicians paid for with our tax dollars right here in the United States.

In fact, the government spent 1.5 billion dollars in a recent four year period on military bands. There are 140 military bands in the U.S. The Air Force, Marines, the Army, and the Navy all have music programs. They spent over $155 million just on instruments and equipment in that same recent four year period. So, there’s a tremendous amount of money going into music in this country, and that’s basically a social program for music and musicians. It’s all about how money is spent and how it’s delegated along with the rules that come with it. The Soviet Union was very harsh, glorifying music for the Communist Party. And in Germany, it’s glorifying the great traditions of Western music. And here it’s about the military. So, there are different ways that public money can be utilized in music. I’d love to get your opinions about the different ways public funding can help music and what your thoughts are about what I’ve outlined here today. I’d love to hear from you. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store.

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Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store, with a great question. When do you use the soft pedal on the piano? The una corda pedal is the left pedal on grand and baby grand pianos. It is an amazing device for expressive playing because it changes the tone. Those of you who practice on upright pianos, the left pedal does not do what it is supposed to do.

What does “una corda” mean?

Una corda translates from Italian as “one string”. What does this mean? Originally, pianos had two strings for each key. By depressing the una corda pedal, the hammers would only strike one of the two strings giving a softer, delicate tone. Modern pianos have three strings for each note through most of the piano. So, depressing the una corda pedal makes two of the strings hit directly. Depending on how the piano is voiced, it may even hit all three strings with softer parts of the felt of the hammer.

The fundamental thing about soft pedals is that every piano is different.

Think about this: on one piano the hammers may strike two of the strings. On another piano, the hammers may strike all three strings, but a little off-axis. The grooved part of the hammer with the hardened felt does not hit the strings. So, you get a more delicate tone. I’m telling you all this so that you understand how different the impact is on depressing the soft pedal on different pianos.

The answer to the question is: it depends not just upon the music, the performance you are after, or the acoustics of the room, but on the specific piano and the way its soft pedal affects the tone. Naturally, a great deal has to do with how you approach the piano with your hands. In some pianos I’ve played, every time you put the soft pedal down it creates a drastic tonal change.

On other pianos, you depress the una corda pedal and you don’t even notice any difference at all!

On this type of piano, you might use the pedal very liberally. On such a piano, if you want a little change of color, you might as well push the soft pedal just to make it easier to play softly.

Perhaps you’ve worked out all of the places you want to use the soft pedal. Then, as soon as you start playing with the soft pedal, the tone gets swallowed up completely. You may find that you are not going to use the soft pedal except very sparingly, in the most delicate sections on a piano like this.

That’s the long and short of it:

When playing a performance, it’s so important to have an opportunity to try the piano beforehand. Not just for the soft pedal, but all the pedals. It is remarkable how different the pedals respond on various pianos! I would go so far as to say that in trying out a piano for a recital, an audition, or just to play for someone, checking out the pedals is probably the most important thing because they vary more than any other aspect of each piano.

I hope this has been helpful for you. Again, I’m Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. The question today is “How do you play hands together on the piano?” This is a big subject. After all, playing hands together is what the piano is all about! You might wonder, particularly if you are a wind player or if you play almost any other instrument that plays one note at a time, how piano players play different parts in each of their hands. This is something that makes the piano unique. It’s what the instrument is all about. In fact, all keyboard instruments have this in common. So what is the secret? How do people do this? Even doing something like tapping your head and rubbing your tummy can be confusing for most people! The intricacy of the parts for each hand in piano music can present enormous challenges. You might wonder, how do you approach such a thing? There is an answer!

Of course, the more you practice, spending months or even years at the piano, it becomes more natural for you to be able to play independent parts at the same time. You may even develop the ability to read at sight new music that requires independence of the hands. But that usually takes a very long time to develop for most people. How can you do it right from the get-go?

I’ve been teaching piano for many years and I always introduce playing hands together from lesson one.

Otherwise, it would be like learning to ride a bike with one leg. It misses the whole point! How do you teach how to play the hands together? Even though it seems counter-intuitive, it’s by practicing hands separately. I don’t mean practicing incessantly hands separately. I mean that each phrase you work on, you practice each hand separately first. If you want to learn a new piece, rather than putting the hands together from the start, you break things down. Initially, you may read through the piece hands together a couple times just to get acquainted. Then, you should get to work and and start learning the piece. You should learn a very small section of each hand first while observing all the details.

Anytime you have music that can be broken down into chords, learn it in chords first.

By learning the chords, you are going to find the best fingering. It’s also easier since you only have a few chords to learn instead of so many separate notes. Once you have that learned, then you learn the other hand. Then you put the hands together and get it learned. Finally, you break up the chords and play the music as written.

When learning, you should also avoid using the pedal most of the time. The last step is adding the pedal. By working hands separately, each little phrase at a time and then putting them together, you have the benefit of breaking things down to size so you can master each section. You also can really digest a score and have all of the details learned because you focus on one phrase of music at a time. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of details in each phrase of music. How can this be? Each note has a duration and rhythm. Each note has a fingering. Each note has a phrasing and an expression. So, there are five aspects to each note. There’s only so much you can assimilate at a time!

That’s why learning small chunks of music a phrase at a time hands separately is such a powerful practice technique.

That’s the secret. You hear people playing intricate pieces of music that you want to play, and you wonder how it is possible to learn so much music with your hands doing dramatically different things. The accompanying video shows you how to achieve this with music that is relatively simple. But the same principle applies to learning any piece of music. That’s the secret to playing hands together on the piano. I hope you’ve enjoyed this here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. I’m Robert Estrin.

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This is LivingPianos.com and I am Robert Estrin with a great subject today, Unique Problems with Steinway Pianos.

Steinway pianos are the de facto standard in the concert world.

In fact, it’s the only company left that still supports the concert market with concert grands in virtually all major cities in the world. This is an arduous task when you consider the cost of each one is in the six figures! Steinway in different periods of time had problems and I’m going to bring up two of them today.

Fortunately, Steinway pianos being manufactured today do not suffer from either of these problems.

I want to let you know that right out of the gate. But early in the 20th century, Steinway had an idea of a way that they could make actions last longer and be less susceptible to corrosion. They used a solution containing paraffin on their actions. If you ever looked at old Steinway pianos or sat down at an old Steinway that’s been neglected, it may have played like a truck. You can look inside and the hammers go up and down very gradually. There’s no speed. Everything’s gummed up. You can actually see green in all the little felt bushings of all the hundreds of action parts on each key. That is an example of vertebrae.

Verdigris is a condition in which a piano action becomes corroded.

This paraffin solution had exactly the opposite effect of the intention that Steinway had in avoiding corrosion. Unfortunately, in certain environments, the actions would gum up like crazy! Sometimes it’s possible to get things moving by treating the action parts with different chemicals. However, with really severe verdigris, all you can do is rebuild the action with all new parts.
Sometimes you can replace center pins if it’s not a really bad problem. You can also try lubricating. But oftentimes problems will recur. With humidity, the air gets inside the piano. You might think you’ve got the problem solved and everything’s moving nicely. Then, a month later, it starts gumming up again. So that’s one problem of early 20th-century Steinways.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about vertigris on newer Steinway pianos.

The second problem was in Steinway’s CBS era when they experimented with something else that sounded like a great idea. The thousands of felt parts in actions wear out and are susceptible to humidity. So, Steinway engineers thought about utilizing Teflon.

From around 1968 to 1982 Steinway used Teflon in their piano actions.

What’s wrong with this? I’m a believer that oftentimes there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. However, the problems that plagued them is that some pianos that went to extreme environments the wood would swell and contract with the weather. Of course, Teflon is hard. This created space between the Teflon and the wood creating noise in the actions. Sometimes, rebuilding the actions are necessary for these circumstances. However, I will say this:

The vast majority of the time, the biggest problem with Teflon actions, is finding technicians who know how to service them properly.

Oftentimes Teflon itself isn’t the problem. Using slightly larger center pins can sometimes solve the problem if the Teflon is worn. However, Teflon is very robust and can last many, many years. Teflon is not necessarily a problem. In fact, if I was buying a Steinway piano from that era and it had Teflon and there were no problems, I wouldn’t be concerned. Now, it doesn’t mean there would never be problems. But you know what? It doesn’t matter what piano you have, things will require servicing eventually and parts will wear out if you play a good deal.

That’s the long and short of Teflon. It was something they tried and they eventually gave up the practice. The idea of piano actions that don’t wear out so quickly is a very appealing idea and I applaud them for trying something. If you have a piano with Teflon, if it isn’t giving you problems, you should be fine. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. As long as it’s functioning well, you’re in good shape.

Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store. Keep the questions coming in! info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729