Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

This is a topic that is very important to anyone wanting to develop a refined technique on the piano. It is very important to practice the piano without using the pedal – the pedal should be something that enhances your music and not simply a crutch for making mediocre playing sound better.

Pedals on the piano are actually a modern development. When the piano was fist invented it didn’t have pedals, so connecting notes had to be accomplished with the fingers. Believe it or not, Johannes Brahms didn’t even have a sustain pedal on his practice piano!

The sustain pedal does just as its name implies – it holds (sustains) all the notes. When you hold the pedal down, the dampers stay hovering over the strings, when you release the pedal the dampers fall back onto the strings and dampen the sound.

The pedal is not just a tool for connecting notes; it’s capable of adding expressive elements to your music. The real challenge of the pedal is knowing when and how to use it. The only way to accomplish this is to practice your music without the pedal.

In the video included with this article I demonstrate how depending upon the pedal to connect notes instead of using your fingers can lead to sloppy playing and bad technique. But how can you avoid this?

The secret to connecting notes without the pedal is to develop a legato technique with both hands – not just with the melody but even repeated chords in the left hand. But why is this important?

If you can learn how to connect your notes just using your hands, you will be able to use the pedal to enhance your music tonally and make your melodies sing – you will find the best fingerings for passages, and rely on the pedal not as a crutch, and most of all, you will improve as a pianist.

Many people ask me, can you learn to play by ear or is it something you’re born with? I personally believe that everyone can improve their ability to play by ear. Some people just have an innate sense that allows them to play by ear without much effort, while others will have to work harder at it; the bottom line is, anyone can learn to do it.

Now there are limits to what you can achieve. If you’re tone deaf you probably won’t get to a level where you can transcribe Charlie Parker solos but you can definitely train your ear and improve.

Three pedals on a piano is the accepted norm on most pianos. Virtually all new grand pianos sold in the United States contain three pedals. Two pedal pianos are an increasingly rare breed but they do exist and we actually have some of them here in our showroom. The real question is, do you really need three pedals?

This is a loaded question and it’s a topic that may cause controversy – especially among some piano teachers. There are different perspectives on this important subject. As always, I welcome everyone’s comments and suggestions when it comes to every topic we cover so please feel free to voice your opinion.

I also understand that some students can become frustrated by having to practice tedious exercises for hours and hours when they would much rather be playing music. But are these exercises in vain or is there a purpose to them?

Exercises are an important part of developing as a pianist. In many cases utilizing Hanon and Czerny can be a great way to develop strength in your playing. These exercises can help you develop pure technique without having to deal with nuanced expression, complex rhythms, melodies and countermelodies. By using Hanon or Czerny, you can learn exercises with lots of notes much much quicker than many piano pieces which can have additional elements of complexity not found in these exercises.

What about the relative value of learning exercises instead of learning music? A lot of times musical etudes – advanced ones such as Chopin or Moszkowski or student level etudes of Heller or Burgmuller – can provide the same benefit of strength building you get from Czerny or Hanon with the added benefit of providing pieces of music you can add to your repertoire.

There really is a balance you must reach when it comes to learning exercises versus learning music. In the early levels of studying the piano learning exercises provides a great way to develop strength. Hanon exercises can help you develop finger strength very quickly. The early exercises in the book are great for beginning pianist because you don’t have to deal with finger crossings or cumbersome musical challenges. It’s an easy and simple way to start playing the piano immediately developing strength in your fingers. Younger students can quickly master these exercises and prepare themselves for learning music.

Once you master all of your scales and arpeggios you can continue building strength simply by playing music. You will challenge yourself much more and develop your technique along with continuing to work on scales and arpeggios.

So yes, there are benefits to exercises, but you shouldn’t be relying on them as your only source of technical development. They provide a great foundation for building your technique but they are something you should augment with scales and arpeggios and substantial musical repertoire.

Many times you can actually create your own exercises by taking sections of music you have great difficulty with. Take these sections and generate patterns, bring out different voices, or create rhythmic variations to challenge yourself. Exercises come in all forms and sizes and you shouldn’t be afraid to create your own!

When you think about the most impressive feats of human creation – from the great pyramids to an incredibly intricate piece of art-work – it all starts one piece at a time. Meticulously building something while often tedious – can lead to incredible results. The same principle applies when learning music and developing your skills as a musician.

Being able to play a piece of music up to speed and have it flow seamlessly and almost without effort is something you will have to build up to; this is not something that just comes naturally for most people. The best way to achieve this type of sound and skill in your playing – no matter what instrument – is to practice slowly and often with a metronome.

I’ve covered this topic when it comes specifically to piano but I thought I would create a new video and article for all instruments – as some of them present unique challenges. For example, sometimes on a wind instrument it’s not practical to practice slowly – because the breathing will be in all different places. However, when you get to a particularly fast passage it’s a good idea to slow things down, so you can get the finger movements and tonguing in-synch with one-another. If you just play fast all the time there will be a lack of precision.

I guarantee you that any great musician – no matter what instrument – has practiced slowly and continues to reinforce with slow practice throughout their musical career. It is simply something that every great musician does. They might not practice an entire piece slowly – and you don’t necessarily have to either – but you must practice faster and more difficult passage under tempo to develop security in your playing.

Now there is one huge caveat to practicing slowly: you must do it with a metronome and you must incrementally increase your speed. First of all, you will not want to increase the speed at all until you have complete control over the passage you are working on; it should come off completely smooth and almost effortlessly. Only then will you want to increase the speed on your metronome and make sure that you only move it up one notch at a time. Building speed and precision at this pace will allow you to conquer the most difficult passages with ease – they will become almost effortless when you are done with them.

If you have doubts about this method, I have an exercise for you to try. Take an old piece you have had at performance level – one you haven’t played in quite some time. You might have some trouble areas at first, and that’s fine. Take any parts where you are a bit rusty and try playing them slowly – you don’t even need the metronome for this at first. You will find that if you practice these parts slowly it’s the best way to get the piece back into a high performance level. Some key areas may require working one notch at a time increasing speed with the metronome. However, you may find instant results just from the slow practice!

Slow practice is something I recommend to all my students and it really is something you should do on any instrument. While there are some instruments where slow practice isn’t always a practical, all of them will benefit from slow practice in faster sections. If slow practice is something you haven’t tried or avoided until now I highly recommend adding it to your routine; you will love the outcome, I promise!

Years ago we made a video about Extraneous Movements During a Musical Performance – discussing how some musicians make extreme movements and gyrations during performances and how it can be distracting for the audience, but not necessarily something the performer can control.

Today we are going to discuss noises that musicians make while performing music. This is a surprisingly more common problem than you may think and can actually negatively affect many aspects of live performances and even studio recordings.

What types of noises are we talking about? Sometimes it can be vocal noises. Other times I’ve seen musicians kicking their legs and stamping on the piano pedals without regard for how much extraneous noise it’s causing to their performance.

Involuntary noises are not that uncommon when musicians perform. But there are some cases when it becomes a distraction. Some great performers such as Rudolf Serkin and Glenn Gould made an incredible amount of noise during their performances; so much so that it caused issues during recording sessions.

So, how do these sounds happen in the first place, and is there any way to stop them? In some cases people just get used to “singing” along with what they are playing – although it certainly doesn’t sound like singing when they are doing it. Sometimes it can become a deeply ingrained habit that’s incredible difficult to break. Other times emotion might take control of the musician and they find themselves making exaggerated motions that cause noise. When they are on the level of someone like Glenn Gould it can be forgiven even though it’s not ideal. If you find yourself doing this during your practice you must make a concerted effort to stop or else it can become something beyond your control; it can become a permanent part of your performances.

In a large concert hall these things might not be much of an issue – it would be very difficult to hear any involuntary “singing” over the sound of the instruments and stamping of the feet or other motions that cause noise may not be noticed either. When it comes to performing in more intimate settings however, this can become a huge problem. Pay very close attention to some recordings and you might even notice a few “grunts” or other sounds coming from the artists that seep into the recording.

I remember many years ago I attended a solo piano concert with my father (for a pianist who will remain nameless) and there was so much sound from his vocalizations and foot stamping, that I remarked that the concert was more like a song and dance routine than a piano recital! As a child, it took great effort to stop myself from laughing! It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that no teacher ever stopped him as a child from developing these distracting habits.

If you find yourself doing this please make a concerted effort to reign it in and control yourself. If you have students who do this, call it to their attention whenever it happens so they stop making sounds that distract from the music. It might seem like a small problem, but it could potentially develop into something beyond your control and create a lot of distractions from the music.

Welcome to another part in a series of videos offering you tips for selected piano repertoire. Bach wrote many Minuets in beautiful Baroque style and this one in particular is a wonderful little piece for even elementary level players.

A minuet is a dance form in meter of three and because it’s a Baroque piece it has nice counterpoint. The goal of this piece is to showcase great clarity while retaining a bouncy and dance-like feel. The secret to achieving this is how you execute the phrasing – specifically, how you articulate the staccatos and how you negotiate the slurs.

Like in many other pieces, the technique is accomplished with the wrist. You will want to use certain wrist techniques to clarify the staccato notes contrasting with the slurred legato notes. This might sound simple but many times when first approaching this piece you may unwittingly use the arm in conjunction with the wrist producing a muddled sound.

For this piece, the first beat should have more emphasis than the second and third beats in keeping with the dance form. By coming down with the wrist for the first beat on the staccato notes, you can create a very dynamic sound. By using the arms you will produce a heavier tone that doesn’t sound nearly as bright and bouncy as it should.

The way I would recommend playing this is to bring your wrist down on the first note and then quickly lift it back up on the staccato notes. If you watch the video attached with this article you will see some great examples of this wrist movement. It’s very important to not rely upon the arm for the up and down motion; it must come from the wrist!

You should keep the same motion for each individual staccato note: down, up, down, up. And remember that it’s only the wrist being utilized in these notes; not the arm. If you have to, hold your arm still with your other hand at first and play the notes only using your wrist.

This is a very important topic that not only applies to school but applies to nearly every aspect of life. Learning to balance and manage your time is an absolute necessity to finding success and happiness in your life. I learned a long time ago through some personal struggles that sometimes it is necessary to give up things that are good for the pursuit of what is important. You can’t do everything.

As you get older you understand that there is a finite amount of time we all have on this earth and doing something meaningful with your life is vital. When it comes to school and planning your life at a younger age it can be difficult to determine what you really want. But if you have a general idea of where you want to go in life it can be much easier to enjoy an enriching life.

If you are in school now and you are interested in pursuing music as your main focus of study, you might not want to overload yourself with more advanced academic courses. On the surface it might seem important to have great grades in the hardest classes you can handle. But when it comes to studying music, particularly working towards a performance degree, practicing music is the most important thing in getting into a good music school. You will always need good grades but overloading yourself with advanced courses and neglecting your music studies will put you at a distinct disadvantage.

On the other hand, if you are pursuing music as a hobby and are pursuing another career, you probably should prioritize your academic studies ahead of your music practice. You can still enjoy musical activities no matter what career you choose.

You also have to look at yourself and understand the type of person you are and the personality traits you have. Do you like to be alone more and work by yourself? Maybe you enjoy scheduling yourself to the maximum diving into work and study without much social interactions. On the other hand, maybe you enjoy social activities, sports, being with family and other things that take you away from work or studying for large amounts of time. Don’t be afraid to balance your life according to your personality as opposed to forcing yourself into something you don’t enjoy. This will help you to find happiness in life.

The best thing you can do is be honest with yourself. Understand that you can’t do everything and having a focus in life is something that is very important to achieving a successful career and a happier life.