Piano and Music Videos

Today we have an answer to a viewer question about how to practice Chopin’s Ocean Etude. Chopin wrote two books of etudes, brilliant works. Incidentally, there are two types of etudes in this world, those that strictly exercise, and those that explore technical problems in great pieces of music. And the Chopin etudes are certainly in the latter category of monumental compositions that tackle different technical challenges.

The piano is a unique instrument. I recall my third grade general music class. On occasion my teacher would let me play the piano for for everyone at the end of class and it was something I looked forward to. On one particular day when we were learning about the families of musical instruments, string, brass, woodwind and percussion, I asked if I could play at the end of class. But my teacher had a stipulation because of limited time. If I could tell her the classification of the piano she would let me play. I knew by the look on her face that it couldn’t have been something obvious which would be the string family, so guessed that the piano was a percussion instrument (the only other group of instruments I deemed possible). She was shocked that I had guessed correctly and she had to let me play!

So yes, the piano is a percussion instrument.

When the hammers strike the strings the notes sound and immediately begin fading away.

All music emulates the human voice to one degree or another. On wind instruments the connection is obvious – they utilize the breath. Even bowed string instruments produce continuity of sound not unlike the breath of the voice. So how do you emulate this quality on the piano, an instrument where the notes immediately begin to fade away as soon as you play them?

This is what we are going to discuss in detail today using the Chopin F# Nocturne (in the video example). I am going to provide a collection of techniques to help you achieve the tone you desire on the piano. Ultimately you are the judge of the sound you produce and you’ll use your ears to achieve the sound you want. These are guidelines to help you explore different tonal possibilities.

The first way to produce a singing line on the piano is to get louder towards the middle of the phrase and softer towards the end of the phrase. This is achieved not by calculating note to note but by using the weight of your arms to produce the desired tone. Here is an article and video which describes this technique in some detail:

The second way to produce a singing tone on the piano is to play louder as you play higher notes and softer when playing descending musical lines. The reason why this works so well is that when you’re singing or playing most wind instruments it’s natural for the higher notes to be louder than lower notes. This technique will create a different sense of phrasing from the method described above, yet the outcome is very lyrical.

The last method I’m going to share is something intrinsic to the piano. This is something that a master pianist Vladimir Horowitz utilized a great deal. Obviously you can’t completely replicate his style or methods which encompass many aspects, but you can attempt to create a similar tone production in your music. The method he utilized was to play longer notes with more energy than shorter notes.

Why does this technique make sense? It comes back to the physics of piano sound and the fact that as a percussion instrument notes are always fading away. For notes to last longer you must play them with more energy so they last long enough to create a musical line. If you try this on the piano it creates a singing quality in your music.

We’ve had a lot of questions about this particular Mozart Sonata K 457 and today I’m going to address a very common question I receive about this piece. In the second movement, there is a section of very fast notes – some are 64th notes, some even go to 128th notes – and people are very interested in how to fit these notes in.

The simple answer is that you don’t need to fit these notes in perfectly as written – the final product should come out correctly but there is a certain level of freedom allowed. Here is an example of the section we are discussing:

That looks intimidating, doesn’t it? Well, there is a secret to playing this section and actually making it sound even better. Start the run a little bit early (just a hair before it’s supposed to actually start). Now is this going to affect the sound of the piece and make it lose its integrity? Not at all.

Mozart was known as a great improviser – as so many of the great composers of the past were – and they did their best to write down their music as accurately as they could. However, when it comes to cadenza-style passages, there is only so much you can do to write it down so that the music makes sense visually. So by experimenting with the timing, you can actually produce a better execution of the passage and not have to worry about having such a rapid string of notes. You are much better off not slowing down your tempo at all, but instead adjusting the timing to fit the notes in a musical way.

This is a great question and one that is becoming more and more relevant every day. Many of us simply search Google or YouTube to solve everyday problems; so why not do the same for piano lessons? Now it might seem like I have a vested interest in this subject, yet, you may be surprised at my perspective.

Someone came into the store recently and they were playing all sorts of repertoire – some of it extremely advanced. To my surprise, he had never taken any formal piano lessons; he couldn’t even read music at all. He had learned to play some complex pieces by simply watching his player piano at home and copying how it played!

I have also met people who have learned to play piano repertoire in a very similar way watching YouTube videos of people playing. They watch some videos where the player will film the keys as they play an entire piece. Some determined viewers will watch videos and simply copy what they see on the screen bit by bit. Surprisingly, this system can work. But is it really a substitute for piano lessons?

While this type of learning can help you learn a piece, it’s only one component in learning to play the piano. There is really no substitute for a great teacher and the wisdom they can impart. Learning to play the piano is a lot more than simply copying which keys are pushed down. More than that, being able to read and comprehend music can offer much greater efficiency in fully digesting a piece since you can access specific parts of the piece instantly instead of having to watch through sections finding what you need.

Even with private lessons, you won’t become a fine pianist by just taking lessons. You will need to practice, to listen to music, to see live performances, to live and breath it. It has to be an integral part of your life.

So can you learn to play the piano on Youtube? That’s really open to debate but you can certainly learn a lot by watching videos and practicing along with them. If you use YouTube videos in conjunction with other resources, you will benefit greatly.