Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you the top 5 myths about piano teaching.

Myth 1: Great Teachers Don’t Take Beginners

It’s a common belief that top-tier piano teachers only work with advanced students. While it’s true that many high-level instructors at conservatories focus on refining the skills of already proficient players, this doesn’t mean they don’t teach beginners. In fact, teaching beginners can be immensely rewarding and crucial for a student’s development. Many skilled teachers are adept at guiding students from their first notes to advanced techniques. The foundation laid by a dedicated beginner teacher can pave the way for future mastery.

Myth 2: Every Other Week Lessons Are Ineffective

I used to think that having piano lessons every other week could hinder progress due to a lack of consistency. However, my experience teaching online has shown that bi-weekly lessons can be highly effective. Students who are committed and manage their practice well can thrive with this schedule. The key is ensuring that students are motivated and make the most of the time between lessons.

Myth 3: Great Teachers Are Strict

Many parents seek out strict teachers, believing that rigid rules and discipline will lead to better outcomes. While some students may respond well to a strict approach, effective teaching generally involves understanding and communication. It’s important to tailor your approach to each student’s needs and personality. A successful teacher builds a relationship with their student to address any obstacles and support their growth.

Myth 4: Great Teachers Have A Well-Formed Lesson Plan

Another misconception is that exceptional teachers adhere to a fixed lesson plan. While it’s essential for teachers to have a structured approach that includes progressive repertoire, technique, and theory, flexibility is crucial. Each student is unique, and teaching should be adapted to fit their individual needs and goals. A good teacher listens to their students and adjusts their methods accordingly, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all plan.

Myth 5: Students Must Always Follow a Prescribed Path

Finally, the idea that there is a single correct path for all piano students is misleading. Effective teaching involves collaboration between teacher and student. Teachers must be adaptable and responsive, creating a learning experience that aligns with each student’s personal journey. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Thanks for joining me!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is: Is playing practicing? Many of you who have watched my videos know that I have drawn a red line that should not be crossed. You have to know whether you are playing or practicing. And yet here I have this question: Is playing practicing? There’s actually a nuanced answer to this question. While it is absolutely essential that you know whether you’re playing through your music or practicing your music, there are times when you want to practice performing, whether it’s a public performance that you’re preparing for or you just want to run through things for friends to see how they go. But what we’re going to talk about today is something entirely different.

Playing can be practicing!

For example, when you play a performance, whether it’s a formal recital or just playing for friends, particularly if you record the event, going back and listening to what you did while taking note of what went well, what things maybe you need to work on, and insights you may have gained during the performance that you’d like to explore further, can be an invaluable experience. In that case, playing is practicing.

What is practicing?

Aside from the physiological aspect of strengthening your hands and learning how to negotiate passages, finger work, and chords, practicing is really a mental activity. Anything that involves a thought process about playing is practicing. So that’s an example where playing is practicing. How could you use this to your advantage? There are actually many ways. I talked about practicing performing. How do you do this? In your practice, there are two complete extremes. During a performance, no matter what, the show must go on. You have to keep going! Nobody wants to hear you stop and correct something when you’re playing for them. In a live performance, this could be a disaster. But even when you’re playing informally for family or friends, it ruins the whole experience for them. But in practice, you want to stop whenever there is an error to correct it and solidify it.

When is playing practicing? How do you achieve this?

It’s just as I described before. You do a practice run-through of a piece, and you don’t stop. Make it like a performance. You can even record it. It doesn’t need to be a great recording. You just want to have something you can listen back to with the score. Maybe circle trouble spots in the score. Take notes as you listen. This can be an incredible experience for strengthening your performance. And indeed, this is an aspect where playing can be practicing. But normally, remember that red line. Practicing is on one side, and playing is on the other. And they are diametrically opposed. In playing, you want to keep going no matter what to maintain the continuity of the performance. In practice, you generally want to stop to make corrections and solidify. Double check the score, work through the passage, connecting it with the previous passage, getting that secure, then going back to the beginning and seeing if you can pass all of the trouble spots. So that’s the lesson for today! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to answer a really interesting question from a viewer: Does it take longer to become a concert pianist or a doctor? Both of these fields obviously require many years of study. So I’m going to break it down for you and give you an idea of what each of these career paths entails.

You have to spend many years in school to become a doctor.

To become a doctor, you will first need an undergraduate degree in some field, hopefully related to the medical field, perhaps biology or something. That’s followed by four years of medical school. So there is a big chunk right there. But is that it? Far from it! After that, there’s a residency, which can be anywhere from 3 to 7 years. Now, unless you’re becoming a general practitioner, there’s also a specialization with a fellowship that usually adds another 1 to 3 years. So you have anywhere between 11 and 14 years of studying before becoming a doctor.

What about pianists?

Pianists typically start at a younger age than doctors. In fact, most concert pianists on the scene today started as children between the ages of 4 and 7. There are some outliers outside of that range, but the vast majority are going to be somewhere in there. From the time they’re very young children, they’ve been practicing every day for at least an hour or two a day. As they get older, they’re probably practicing 3 to 5 hours a day. Most of them will go to a conservatory or a university program specializing in piano performance in order to study with the best teachers. If they’re expanding their repertoire, it’s likely that they’re practicing for at least 3 to 5 hours, more likely 6 to 8 hours if they’re entering competitions and things of that nature, because the repertoire requirements are so immense. So altogether, they’re probably going to spend easily 15 to 20 years of private instruction; that’s even more than the 11 to 14 years typical for doctors. It’s a long haul!

What about the continuing studies in each of these fields?

Doctors are always learning from experience. They need to keep abreast of the latest technologies and procedures by reading journals and possibly attending conventions. Pianists, on the other hand, are constantly learning new repertoire. They can’t keep playing the same solo recitals again and again. They have to have new music so people keep wanting to hear their performances. If they’re collaborating with other musicians in chamber music or accompanying, they have to learn the music that people want to collaborate with them on.

Concert pianists are constantly learning new music.

If they have the opportunity to perform concertos, they have to learn new concertos. A lot of pianists will also have original contemporary works commissioned for them, which they have to learn. For example, concert pianist Jeffrey Biegel, who was one of my father, Morton Estrin’s students. He’s carved out a whole career getting works commissioned for him, and he collaborates with orchestras all around the world. He has been doing it for years. This entails a tremendous amount of work, and you don’t even have the benefit of listening to recordings to hear what the pieces that you’re going to be performing sound like first! My sister, Coren Estrin Mino, performs a lot of new works here in the Cleveland area, helping out composers so they can have their works performed.

There are many avenues for both doctors and concert pianists, but concert pianists have a longer haul, starting younger and working longer in order to carve out a career.

Even going through everything I outlined for becoming a concert pianist is no guarantee that you’ll be a touring artist. There are just so many people who are highly skilled at the instrument, and a very limited number of people ever get to do it. Whereas for a doctor, if they go through all those different courses, degrees, and residencies, then chances are they’re going to find some place where they can practice. However, no matter how nerve-wracking performing the piano is, nobody dies. So we have a deep respect for doctors as well as pianists for the rigorous training that’s necessary in both of these fields. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to tell you how three plus three equals five. You probably clicked on this because you thought it was either a mistake or that I’d lost my mind. Well, believe it or not, it’s neither of those things! I’m going to show you how three plus three equals five in certain circumstances.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is: What happens to old pianos? I’m going to tell you right now that what I’m going to share with you today is very disturbing. For those of you who love piano like I do, seeing what I’m going to show you is really heartbreaking.

There are some companies, like Living Pianos, that restore old pianos.

Most companies that restore pianos specialize in Steinway and maybe a couple of other brands. Used Steinways command more money than other brands because everybody sees them on the concert stage. Everyone knows they are high-quality pianos. But most people don’t know about other high-quality piano brands that were around in the United States when there were hundreds of companies making pianos in this country. And many of them were great instruments.

The problem is that restoring a piano is extremely expensive.

Many top piano restorers get between $30,000 and $40,000 to completely rebuild a piano to make it like new again. As a matter of fact, I took a personal tour of Steinway. The CEO and all the people treated me like royalty there. They gave me a grand tour of the entire facility. And when we passed their rebuilding shop, they said, “It’s a lot easier to build pianos than to rebuild them.” Pianos that have never had any work done to them are actually easier to rebuild than pianos where some work has been done along the way because you don’t know the specifications of the matching parts.

There are resources for old pianos, such as PianoAdoption.com.

PianoAdoption.com is a great place to go if you have a piano you just want to get rid of and you don’t have the heart to see it go to the dump, which is what happens to many old pianos, unfortunately. This is something that happens on a regular basis all around the country. It’s heartbreaking to see what happens when pianos need more work than they’re worth. I have a friend who has a piano business. He revealed to me that this past year, believe it or not, he had to trash 170 pianos of his that he had in storage because there was no way he was going to be able to restore them.

You actually have to pay money when you have an old piano that you can’t get rid of.