Piano Lessons- Music Theory Lessons

What is meant by the term Classical Music? This is not as simple a question as you might imagine. Some basic notions of Classical music are going to the symphony or recitals, but there are actually two distinct meanings of the term Classical music.

I get many questions from music teachers and people looking into becoming a private teachers about where to begin or how to improve their business. No matter if you’ve been teaching for years or just considering getting into it, here are some great tips and advice I can impart from spending a large portion of my life teaching private lessons.

The best thing you can do is find your niche. This isn’t just the type of instrument or music you can teach, it’s knowing your strengths and weaknesses beyond your own repertoire. For example, I know a couple of teachers who specifically advertise their ability to work with young children. This can be a very valuable asset because not all teachers are good with young children and advertising this specifically can be of great benefit to you.

The best thing you can do – for almost any occupation in this world – is find a way to set yourself apart from the competition. Whether it’s working with children, specializing in jazz or rock, or something that sets yourself apart from the label of just “music teacher”, finding your niche in this world can be an extremely valuable asset. You just must remember to play to your strengths – don’t advertise you can do something you can’t; stick with what you know.

Despite the declining industry in the United States, the piano is one of the most popular instruments in the world and nowhere is it more popular than in China. I was fortunate to attend the recent Music China convention in Shanghai and it was an eye-opening experience on just how vast the piano industry is there.

Many of you have seen Chinese manufactured pianos in local piano stores, but this is such a small portion of the industry and what is currently going on there. Consider these facts:

There are more companies making pianos in China than there are piano stores in the USA!

The largest piano manufacturer in China (Pearl River) has three factories in China, any one of which produces more pianos than all the new pianos sold in the USA each year. The difference in the size of the industry is staggering and the innovations are remarkable.

Pianos with touch screens on the fallboards, pianos with butterfly lids that open in both directions, pianos that are made out of plexiglass and even pianos with two keyboards, one on each end for a dueling piano!

The Chinese have taken to the piano like people did in this country over a hundred years ago. It’s an exploding market and it’s incredibly popular with younger generations. The Chinese purchase ten times the number of new pianos than Americans and that’s why the export market is only a small fraction of their output. Most of the pianos produced and sold are uprights like in the rest of the world because of smaller homes than in the United States. However, they produce plenty of grands and even concert grand pianos.

To put things into perspective, the biggest show in North America (The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show in Anaheim, California) has only one main room upstairs full of pianos easily covered in about 20 minutes. The Music China show has over three huge field houses full of pianos; I didn’t even have enough time to see all the instruments in the course of several days at the show!

So why is the piano so popular in China? Western culture wasn’t widely available to the Chinese until after the cultural revolution in the 1970’s. Today, the emerging consumer class in China are enriching children with piano lessons by parents who never had the opportunity to learn themselves. Every time I would sit down at a piano at the show, dozens of people crowded around me taking videos because it was a spectacle to see someone my age performing the piano!

I will be returning to China for performances, master classes as well as being an industry advisor. I hope to share the enthusiasm they have for the piano there to people in the U.S. and around the world.

If you’re a teacher you’ve undoubtedly been asked by students about how to get into a music conservatory. As we all know, there is no easy answer to this process and we all wish it could be something much simpler than it is. If you plan on attending a music school you really need to plan far ahead and be ready to dedicate years of hard work and study just to get into a good program.

For those students who dream big at a later age and decide they want to pursue music there is still plenty of hope. Your chances of getting into a top school might not be as good as those around you who have studied longer but there are options. Many community colleges have music programs and some of them don’t even require an audition – this is a great way to further your education even if you haven’t been accepted into a conservatory program.

Getting into a good music conservatory is still an incredible challenge and it really does require a tremendous amount of work. As a pianist you will need to have mastered at least one Prelude and Fugue from book one or two of Johann Sebastian Bach – excluding some of the easier preludes and fugues. You will need to have mastered a classical era sonata from either Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven – again some of the easier sonatas are not accepted. You will also need one or two contrasting works from the 19th or 20th century. You will also need to know all your major and minor scales and arpeggios.

As you can see, this is not something you can simply learn overnight! This is a lot of preparation that takes an incredibly long time to learn and prepare for. You could never prepare for an audition into a top school with only a year or two of studying.

When choosing the school, it’s most important to find a specific person for your specialty. For example, if you are a singer you will want to make sure the school you’re interested in has a singing instructor or professor you respect. The private teacher really is the most important aspect of any school you go to – even beyond the name of the institution or any of the orchestras associated with it. Better schools will also offer opportunities to perform in groups with more advanced players which can be extremely valuable as well.

There are pianos out there – not just keyboards – that have less than the standard 88 keys. You might wonder whether or not a piano from an era with 85 keys would be a good choice for you or if you should avoid pianos with less than 88 keys. I know some people are hesitant to even contemplate getting a piano with less than 88 keys. Are they right?

If you look into the history of the piano you will quickly realize that the instrument didn’t always have 88 keys. In fact, for most of the piano’s history, it had far fewer than 88 keys. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that 88 keys became the standard on pianos. For most of the 1800s the standard for pianos was 85 keys or less. This is why the vast majority of Classical repertoire on the piano only requires between 61-85 keys.

When you get to 20th century composers like Debussy or Ravel and beyond, are the full 88 keys called upon. For the vast majority of piano music, 85 keys will actually be fine. For music of Mozart and Haydn, pianos had only around 61 keys! During Beethoven’s lifetime, the piano underwent substantial development including accommodating more keys. So, early compositions of Beethoven require far less keys than late Beethoven’s piano music.

Some people might shy away from a piano without those three extra keys but they really could be losing out on a great instrument. Sometimes you might find a piano that is an absolute gem and it might only have 85 keys. Should you just discount this instrument and find another? That depends.

If you find yourself playing a great deal of 20th century music, then you will probably be better off with a piano that has 88 keys. If you play mostly Classical and Baroque period music, 85 keys will not be a limitation at all. Should you worry about losing out on those few remaining keys? It depends on how much you love the piano you are looking at and if it’s worth forgoing in favor of three extra notes.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the last three notes on the piano do not register a substantial sound. They are extremely short-lived and not having them will not really affect the mood of the piece very much. For the vast majority of pianists 85 keys will not present a serious limitation. I personally would not have a issues playing on or owning an 85 key piano – I simply don’t use those extra three keys that much and can play pieces utilizing those keys without compromising the piece substantially.

This might sound like a crazy question but it’s surprisingly important and if you own a piano there are a quite a few things you should know about the various types of finishes. Refinishing a piano is an enormous expense and something that can be avoided with proper care and maintenance.

The classic American finish of a piano is a satin hand-rubbed lacquer finish. It’s an extremely popular type of finish but it’s also very important to know how to maintain properly. You might notice that when you place your hands on your piano you may leave fingerprints. If you use light cleaning products you can wipe these off but you’re leaving yourself open to a larger problem down the road. These types of finishes are porous and if you use cleaning products, they will eventually soak into the finish and will have to be professionally removed later on.

So how do you clean a classic satin finish to avoid additional costs later on? The best thing to do is to use a soft cotton cloth rubbing in the direction of the hand-rubbed lines. If you have fingerprints that have gotten deeply ingrained into the finish, then you should use a slightly damp (not wet) cotton cloth and again, rub in the direction of the hand-rubbed lines. This is the best way to clean a finish like this to avoid damage. And it’s all you need to do to maintain the finish in most cases.

The newer type of finish popularized a few decades ago is the high-gloss polyester finish. When these finishes were first introduced, people thought they would be fragile. To demonstrate their stability, companies at trade shows years ago lit them on fire to show their strength! So, can you destroy this type of finish with your hands? While they might show more fingerprints than a satin type of finish, you can’t easily damage this type of finish with your hands because they are plastic! They are sealed so they aren’t porous so the oils in your hands don’t seep in.

That’s not to say that high gloss finishes aren’t without their problems. If you were to take a music book and toss it onto a high gloss lid of a piano when it’s closed, it can cause scratches and lines in the finish that are impossible to remove except by an expert refinisher. So each of these two types of finishes can be damaged in different ways.

Cleaning a high-gloss finish is rather simple. You can actually use a damp cloth or even Windex to clean any fingerprints or dirt off the piano.

This might seem like a crazy question to ask. Upright pianos are extremely common and popular and for many people with limited space are the only option they might have for a piano. In fact, in many parts of the world such as Europe and Asia, upright pianos are the standard type of piano because of smaller homes and limited space. Today we are going to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of buying an upright piano and you can decide if it’s a good fit for you.