Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

Beethoven’s Fur Elise is one of the most recognizable pieces of music in history. Many people play this piece and certain mistakes are very common. I will give you some pointers how to approach this little gem of Beethoven.

The beginning is not the problem for most people; it’s the middle section. Most people will tend to slow down dramatically when they reach the middle section because there are much faster notes. So how do you fix this problem?

Beethoven actually marked the piece with a Con Moto tempo (which means in motion). It’s not marked Allegro (or fast). The best thing to do is approach the piece with a more relaxed tempo, so that the change in the middle section will not be so daunting.

In the video presentation above I provide an excellent tempo to start with so that the middle section will be much more manageable. If you have an opportunity to watch the video it may be helpful for you.

Another common mistake for a lot of people is the timing. The piece is written in 3/8 time but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people playing the wrong number of notes! You absolutely have to count when it comes to performing this piece.

While you may encounter other problems when it comes to Fur Elise these suggestions should put you on the right track.

Console and Spinet Pianos can look almost identical from the outside case but what lies beneath separates them a great deal from one another.

Both spinets and consoles are upright-style pianos that are typically very short The fundamental difference between the two types of pianos are the actions.

Spinet Pianos

Spinet pianos have what’s called an indirect blow action (or drop action). The instruments are so small that they have to change the way the action works in order to fit them into the piano.

Compared to a typical piano action, spinet pianos have shorter keys and they have rods that connect each key to the rest of the action. This is why they are called indirect blow actions, because you don’t have a full length key that interacts directly with the action. Instead it drops down to the other part of the action.

Console Pianos

Whether it is short or tall, a console pianos have a regular style upright action where the key is much longer and connects directly to the action:

Pianos Today

Nobody makes spinet pianos anymore. At some point they lost favorability with consumers and have since been replaced by less expensive consoles that don’t have to sacrifice the quality of the actions.

Despite spinets having different actions, there were some higher quality models – the Baldwin Acrosonic being a classic example – that were decent pianos. The inherent limitations in console and spinet pianos lies more in the size of the pianos more than anything else. With a smaller soundboard and shorter strings, the pianos are limited in the amount of sound they can produce.

Generally console pianos are superior to spinet pianos because of the regular style actions and the slightly taller size of the instruments which offers a more rewarding sound.

The question today is, “Is Silence Music?” Naturally you may think, “How can silence be music?” Interestingly, there’s a pivotal piece of music that was composed in 1952 by John Cage called “Four Minutes, Thirty-three Seconds“. You may have heard of it.

“4’33” was written for piano in three movements and all three movements are nothing but rests. The artist comes on stage, opens the fallboard of the piano, and looks at his or her watch and waits the appropriate time for each of the three movements and that is the whole piece! What was he trying to prove? It’s actually a very interesting point that is made.

When you think about the whole universe, you cannot have matter without having space. Indeed, the space between things is as much of a reality as the objects in it. One cannot exist without the other. When I was attending the Manhattan School of Music, we studied the literary works of Carlos Castaneda in one of my classes. Castaneda conducted many different experiments to come to the realization of the meaning of life.

One of the teachings of Don Juan was when you look at a tree most people just look at the leaves of the tree, identify it and stop thinking about it because that is what we are programmed to do as human beings. He was trying to get the young man to understand that you can look at the tree and try not to classify it and indeed you can look at the space between the leaves and appreciate the beauty of that reality as well.

This is a very overlooked topic for many pianists. Ending a piece correctly is extremely important and is crucial to a great performance. While there is no one solution to the challenge, I will provide some tips on how to make your endings memorable.

For the example in the video above I use the Chopin Prelude in E Minor. The ending of this piece has three chords. It’s a simple ending but it can be a very powerful one with the right technique. You’ll want the music to linger in the air even after the sound has stopped.

The trick is to release the hands and pedals very slowly at the same time. This way if you have any issues with damper regulation on the piano the effects are minimized. You don’t want certain notes sticking out and being louder than others and you certainly don’t want an abrupt ending.

Many students will end a piece very abruptly and then take their hands and slap them down on their lap and act like it’s a relief to be done playing! Nothing sucks the mood out a room more than someone displaying negative emotions onstage.

When you hear great performances in concert halls there might be a few seconds of absolute silence after a piece. It’s a powerful tool to let the music and the emotion seep into your music. Sometimes music will actually end with fermata on the double bar even when there is no music. What is the composer telling you in a situation like this? They are visually representing what we have discussed here – letting you know that even though the music has stopped, the mood should linger in the air for a few moments. In this case it’s an actual part of the piece.

Another mistake that some people make is to rely completely on the pedal at the end of a piece. On a well regulated piano it might sound OK but taking your hands off the keyboard early will make the audience think the piece has ended – even if it technically hasn’t. This is true for changing movements as well. If you keep your hands on the keyboard it will let the audience know that there is more to come.

This is a very interesting topic that has been talked about and debated for years. Can music lessons really improve your thinking and comprehension? Can it really make you a better student?

A groundbreaking study from the University of California, Irvine a couple of decades ago by Dr. Gordon Shaw and Dr. Frances Rauscher seems to support this theory. They took a group of young students and divided them into three different groups. One group took computer lessons, one group took piano lessons, and one group was the control group who did neither. They administered these lessons for a few months. Before the instruction began, they administered standardized testing for math and English. After the instruction period ended, they had them take standardized tests again. Surprisingly, the students who took piano lessons scored higher on their math and English exams. The students in the other two groups saw no change in their test scores.

Interestingly, it has been discovered that students who just listen to Classical music during tests score higher than students who don’t listen to music. This is referred to as, “The Mozart Effect”.

There has been some debate about the overall effect of listening to classical music to boost intelligence but in the end, if you’re just getting to listen to Mozart and other Classical music, that’s good in of itself!

There have been a number of studies in recent years that have continued to support the theory that music lessons can help young people achieve better scores on their tests and increase their overall skills in critical thinking and comprehension.

You would think there would be a standard height of keyboards on pianos. After all, you rarely take your piano with you when you perform, so having a normal height would seem like something you should expect. Sadly, this is not the case when it comes to the height of keyboards on pianos.

Most upright pianos have keyboards that are lower than grand pianos, yet some of large uprights from decades ago actually have higher keyboards than grand pianos!

The height of keyboards on pianos also differs by region. For example, most Asian pianos, piano manufactured in Japan, China, Korea and Indonesia, usually have higher keyboards than American made pianos.