Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to the final part of our four-part series – the eras of Classical music. First we covered the Baroque Era with its beautiful counterpoint and ornamentation. Then we moved on to the Classical Era with its wonderful structure. Last time we covered the Romantic Era and its freedom of expression and larger orchestration.

So what separates impressionist music from the other eras? If you’ve ever seen any of the impressionist artwork – such as Monet – you immediately notice the creative use of colors, dots, blurs and other techniques that form these dream-like images that often have a sense of motion to them. This amazing effect is recreated in the music of the era as well.

A lot of the great Impressionist composers (Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Messiaen, etc.) were from France – which is really the epicenter of Impressionism. There is a real beauty and complexity to the music of this era that almost conjures up images in the mind with its textures.

In the video provided with this article, I perform some of the different movements in the Children’s Corner Suite of Debussy. It’s remarkable to hear the complexity and depth of sound in each movement – the variety of compositional techniques is awe inspiring. Each of the movements evokes completely different images and thoughts in the listener. But how is this possible? It’s the writing.

If you look at the scores of Impressionist piano music you will notice that some of them even have three different staves to fit all the notes in! Hands are divided in creative ways, the middle pedal is used extensively to hold notes you can’t hold with just two hands. There is a great level of complexity and depth to this music that goes beyond Romantic era music. Impressionist music also has different tonalities and modes. It’s not just major and minor – there are whole tone scales that cover different clusters of sounds as well as a great variety of modes. All of these amazing sounds which color the music are attributes of Impressionist music.

Thanks so much for joining me on this four-part series of the Periods of Classical Music. I’m Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Thanks again for joining me for my four-part series on the periods of classical music. First we covered the Baroque Era, and then we covered the Classical Era. Today we will be covering the Romantic Era of Classical Music which was prevalent during much of the 19th century.

Something you might notice through this four-part series is that Classical music generally became more complex as time went on – then things break down to simplicity and the cycle starts again. This is something that is true for almost all art forms – whether it’s painting, architecture, music, etc. Someone will come along and create something incredibly influential and succeeding generations feel they have to “top” those previous efforts. But how do you top something? Typically adding more or bigger elements – in other words; making it more complex.

In the Romantic Era the size of the piano grew – so did the size of the orchestra. More instruments were introduced, forms were extended – there were four and five-movement works instead of the typical three. The Romantic Period is marked by the growing sense of bigger music – both written and performed.

The Romantic Era is also marked by its growth in personal expression. There is much more freedom to the music than past eras. What do I mean by freedoms? There are dozens of examples but I’m going to use a very specific one here. Rubato is a technique developed during the romantic period that really separated itself from Baroque and Classical music. In the past two eras, structure was incredibly important and you would not want to stray from the time or rhythm written on the score too much. This is not necessarily the case with much Romantic music.

Often times Romantic era music can sound much more improvised and the structure lends itself to much more freedom of expression. I give an example of the Chopin Nocturne in the video provided with this article. I have an entire video dedicated to playing and understanding Rubato. Rubato is basically a give and take in the pulse of music – never gaining or losing time. You can drag or speed up slightly as long as the time remains intact. It’s a complex idea and if you have the time to watch the video posted at the beginning of this paragraph you may enjoy it.

Romantic era music on the piano can also be characterized by a liberal use of the pedal. It can be used to add emotion and color the music much more than past eras. No matter what instrument you play in the Romantic period, there is much more freedom of expression. You should listen to numerous performances of the same piece of Romantic period music and see the vast differences in each of the interpretations – you might not even believe it’s the same piece of music!

Well, thanks again for joining me and I look forward to presenting the final part in the series of the Periods of Classical Music. Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Welcome to the 2nd part in my four-part series on the Periods of Classical Music. Last time we discussed The Baroque Era, known for its counterpoint and ornamentation. Today we will be talking about the Classical Era.

Not to be confused with the genre of classical music – which is a broad term for all four parts of these era’s – the classical era itself is well defined by artists like Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, and others.

The classical period came directly after the Baroque era; signaling a drastic change in the style of music. While the Baroque was known for its decadence and complexity of the music, tastes began to change. Towards the end of Bach’s career, he was composing music that was so complex, it was becoming too complicated for most people’s tastes. In fact, his sons would eventually become more famous composers than him.

Bach’s sons, like many composers of the classical era, were writing in new forms – called Sonatas. If you want a more thorough explanation of the Sonata format, watch this video. To be brief, the sonata is a structured form – like A B A B A (but a little bit more complex).

In the video attached to this article, I play Mozart’s K332 F Major Sonata to demonstrate the form and contrasting themes which lie beneath the Sonata format. The structure of this piece, in particular, is very regular – you have one theme in the key of the piece (F major) and then you have a contrasting theme (in this piece it’s the relative D minor).

When performing classic era music – specifically Sonata’s – you must delineate between your two themes and make sure that each stands on its own. And while clarity was an important part of Baroque music, it’s equally as important when it comes to classical period music. The difference is, instead of clarity between counterpoint (as with the Baroque), it’s more a clarity of structure – the different sections of the piece should be very well defined.

While the Baroque era had a tapestry of sound, the classical era has definite sections which are clearly delineated from one another. How these sections relate to one-another gives the piece it’s structure and it’s important to maintain this. If you start to stray from the structure the piece will lose its luster and sound incorrect.

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Welcome to my ongoing series on music theory. Last week we covered Major Scales and how they are simply a series of half-steps and whole-steps. This week I will explain Relative Minor Scales – which are a bit more complex than their major scale counterparts.

Minor scales share key signatures with major scales. If you’re not familiar with key signatures that’s ok – I will cover that in a future video. For this lesson, we will use the C major scale which has no sharps or flats and discuss the relative minor. Once you are familiar with major scales, finding the relative minor will be very simple.

So for the C major scale you have the following sequence of notes: C D E F G A B C. So this scale has no sharps or flats and the relative minor scale has no sharps or flats either. So what would be the difference between the two? Well the minor scale actually starts on the 6th note of the major scale (A). So an A natural minor scale has A B C D E F G A.

Now there are a couple of different minor scales. In the harmonic minor scale, the 7th note is raised by a half-step. So in the example of A minor scale, if you were playing an A harmonic minor scale, the seventh note would go from G to G#, or A B C D E F G# A.

Another form of the minor scale is the melodic, which has a raised 6th and 7th. Generally though, this scale only goes up and when it comes down it reverts to the natural minor scale with no altered tones. So for A minor it would be. A B C D E F# G# A And descending: A G F E D C B A.

Something you might notice is that if you take a melodic minor scale and raise the third note, it would actually become the a major scale! (This is the parallel minor since you are starting on the same note, not a 6th away as in the relative minor.)

This is pretty much everything you would need to know about minor scales. Please keep watching these videos as we will be covering other scales and modes used from music from antiquity through jazz. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me directly Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Welcome back to our ongoing series on technology and art. First we talked about Technology’s Impact on Music, next we discussed How Social Media and Technology Has Impacted Art and Music and today we are going to discuss the future of Music and Art in relation to advances in technology.

We can sit and wonder what music will sound like in the future but there is no definitive answer. All we can do is speculate based on past technological advances and how it impacted music through history. As instruments got louder, concert halls got bigger, ensembles got larger and music changed dramatically.

When recording and radio technologies were created, music continued to grow and expand. No longer would you have to be present for a performance – it could be re-created for you through recording and broadcast through radio signals into your home and eventually your car. Audiences could number in the millions – which was never possible before.

Multi-track recording would then change music again by offering new ways to record and collaborate. Now you didn’t even need musicians to be in the same room anymore for them to appear on a recording together – they could be in a different time and place and simply edit themselves into a track.

Despite all these advances, older music will never die. Throughout time there will still be people playing Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and all the music we know and love as Classical musicians. There will always be people honoring and immortalizing their works and it’s something that will probably stay true for every era of music – as long as someone keeps playing it the spirit, the sound, and the inspiration will never die.

So what does the future hold? As we’ve seen in the past, art is a form of expression that always seems to find a unique voice. One day someone will present something that you’ve never seen or heard before and they will find a unique voice within popular culture. What they will say and present is impossible to guess.

With the widespread adoption of social media and the prevalence of accessible art, I imagine the future of music will evolve around this concept where musicians can contribute to one another’s projects and inspiration and unique ideas will come to the surface and inspire others. We have seen this type of work with remixes – which is just another word for arrangements or transcriptions. Popular beats and rhythms have been used to create new music and in the future, it could be used to create something that no single person could ever conceive of.

As time goes on, new sounds will be created and in the hands of a master musician or composer, we can hear something truly unique and interesting that has never been heard before. There is a lot to look forward to when it comes to the future of music in relation to technology.

Music will never be universally loved. You probably have some genres of music that don’t appeal to you and your tastes don’t appeal to others. This is one of the reasons that art is so incredible – it can speak to you individually and reach you personally like nobody else. I would love to hear your opinions on this subject and how you think technology will continue to affect art in both positive and negative ways.

Thanks again for joining us at Living Pianos. If you have any comments about this subject or any subject at all please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com