Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how dynamics are like orchestration in your music. The piano is an amazing instrument because you have all the parts of a whole orchestra right under your fingertips! You want to think of your playing as orchestrating the sound and getting the quality of different sections of an orchestra—the strings, the brass, the percussion, all of it.

Thinking of your playing as different sections of an orchestra will help you play more expressively.

It can be richly rewarding for your audience to hear these kinds of dramatic changes in dynamics and tonal colors. I’m going to demonstrate this by using the beginning of Mozart’s Sonata in C Minor, K 457. This is a really good example because of the stark changes in dynamics. You can imagine the opening statement as a full orchestra with big, booming strings and brass. The next part is much quieter, so maybe you just have woodwinds. Then again, a full orchestra, followed again by delicate winds. Think of your music as orchestrating each section. Get a different tonal color and a different balance in your playing.

Whenever you’re playing, think of orchestrating.

This goes for every composition you play! Some can be more subtle than others. Not all music is going to change this often from one texture, sound, or dynamic to another. However, this also holds true when you’re playing a texture. This isn’t changing orchestrations for each bar or measure, but having a different sound for each strata of music. The treble might be a clarinet; the lower notes could be cellos; and in the middle, it could be violas. So you try to get different sounds on all the different lines you’re playing.

There are two kinds of orchestration.

There’s orchestrating different sections dynamically, and there’s orchestrating which lines of music you’re bringing out. Think of your piano music as being orchestrated, because after all, that’s exactly what the piano offers! That’s what’s so great about the piano—you can play compositions that would take a whole orchestra. Take advantage of that and discover the sounds and sonorities you can achieve in your playing! I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how all beats are not created equal. This almost sounds like blasphemy, but it’s absolutely true! What am I talking about here? Well, it depends upon the nature of a piece of music, the time signature, the period style, and so many other things.

There are different types of emphasis within a time signature.

Even in 4/4 time, the beats are not always evenly emphasized. Instead of a monotonous sequence of one – two – three – four, the emphasis can shift and create rhythmic diversity. Oftentimes, the “1” is the strongest beat, the “3” is the second strongest beat, and the “4” is the weakest beat. By playing with emphasis on the “1” and “3,” you get a more elegant sound.

There are many dance forms in music, and they are a great way to demonstrate this concept.

What better way to show how beats are not equal than in a dance movement? When people are moving to music, they’re making different motions depending upon what beat is playing. A waltz, for example, Chopin’s B minor Waltz, is in 3/4 time as all waltzes are. The “1” is the strongest beat, and the “3” is the second strongest beat. Just imagine a ballroom filled with people dancing the waltz. The “1” is the big motion, and the “3” is the second biggest motion, bringing it back to the “1.” This can help you intrinsically understand the idea that not all beats are created equal watching the motion of dancers. Some beats involve more movement than others.

Interestingly, other pieces in 3/4 time have different emphasis.

For example, in the famous Mozart C Major Sonata K545, the second movement is in 3/4 time. There is a little bit of emphasis on the one, but not like a waltz. Another example of this is the last movement of Mozart’s C Minor Sonata K457. This one is faster, like the Chopin waltz, but with a completely different emphasis of beats. It’s really two-measure phrases with emphasis on the first beat of every two measures! So beats aren’t created equal, not just in emphasis, but even in the amount of time they get, to some extent.

There’s a certain style to dance movements in particular that creates energy and emotion.

This is true of just about all music. It’s very unusual to have a piece where all the beats are exactly the same. It’s a rare quality in music. It’s akin to your speech. When you’re speaking, your intonation isn’t the same for all words. You have natural emphasis for some words. It’s the same with music. So start thinking about where the strong beats are in your music. Usually “1” is the strongest beat in most music, but even that is not always true. You will discover this as you experiment with your music trying to feel where the strong beats are!

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, we are going to discuss how much music you should keep in shape. This is a really delicate subject because you want to learn new music, but you always want to have something you can play. The challenge is that the time it takes to keep your music in shape can take away from the time you have to learn more music, and vice versa. So you have to strike some kind of balance.

Any pieces that you’ve learned recently, you should absolutely keep in shape.

It’s a real mistake to get to the point where you can finally play a piece on a high level and then drop it. First of all, you might not realize that you could take that piece to a higher level if you lived with it a little longer. The other problem is that if you’ve just learned it and then you drop it, you’re going to forget it as quickly as you learned it. You need to live with it for a while to have it solidify so that it stays with you and you can still play it weeks or months after you’ve learned it. You can do this simply by playing it on a regular basis and solidifying it from time to time with slow practice. By doing this, you can bring it back without much effort later on. But how much music should you keep in shape?

I generally say you should keep the last three or four pieces you’ve learned in shape.

It’s good to keep the three or four most recent pieces you’ve learned in shape, depending on what the pieces are. If you have, for example, a sonata with three movements, that’s almost like three pieces in itself! So that and maybe one other piece, in addition to the piece you’re working on, may be plenty of repertoire to keep in shape.

You should always have music that you can play at a high level.

It’s best to always have music you can perform in case somebody wants to hear you play. Isn’t it sad if you’ve been playing the piano for years but don’t have anything you can play? You put in all that effort learning your pieces, so you want to be able to play them for people. Imagine someone finds out you play piano and asks you to play for them, but you haven’t finished learning your current piece and you’ve forgotten the previous ones! You want to always have something you can play. People will appreciate hearing you. If they visit your home and see a piano, they might want to hear you play something.

Always have a go-to piece.

You should have something that you can always play and that you’ve played a million times. Certainly, you want to be able to play a piece you love and that you’ve worked hard to learn. So keep the most recent pieces you’ve learned in shape, along with any piece that you really love. You may also want to have something you can play that other people will really enjoy hearing. Maybe the piece that you really want to keep in shape is not appropriate to play for most people because it’s too subtle or because it’s a musical style that is not as popular with the general public.

The most recent pieces, pieces that people will like, and music that you really love are the three areas of music you should keep in shape. But you don’t want to be overwhelmed with so many review pieces that you don’t have time to learn new repertoire for yourself. I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about why you need urtext editions. I received a question from Chris. Chris asks, “I find urtext editions online, but then they say ‘edited by.’ I thought urtext meant they weren’t edited. So how does a fully edited edition differ from an earlier text?” This is a great question!

The original manuscript scores of the great composers can be a nightmare in some cases.

For example, take a look at some of Beethoven’s scores. With all the crossing out and the quick way his calligraphy was executed, it’s all but impossible to tell what he really meant.

So there are scholars who go through early editions – not just the autograph copies, but early editions as well. They compare them to the autograph and try to figure out what is authentic. Another challenge is that many times composers rewrote their scores again and again. Chopin, for example, rewrote many of his compositions. So what is authentic? Is it the first one that he signed, or is it the last one? Is it something in between? So there’s a lot of scholarly work that goes into figuring out what is authentic.

Urtext editions strive to have exactly what the composer intended. However, there are also edited urtext editions.

It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Well, not exactly. Here’s how it works: either with footnotes giving alternatives to what is printed or, very often, in a different typeface like gray instead of black, the composer’s markings are augmented with suggestions. For example, in a sonata movement, if during the exposition there are certain phrase markings or dynamic markings, then later in the recapitulation the composer didn’t write those markings, it’s assumed that they should be there. So the editor of the urtext edition will put it in lighter type or some other way to distinguish it from what is in the original manuscript.

Do you really need all of that? Is it important to have an urtext?

If you’re a serious player, you really want to know what the composer wrote and what the editor added. Otherwise, you might not be faithful to the intentions of the composer. However, Bach, for example, rarely wrote any phrasing or dynamics in his keyboard music. But that doesn’t mean it should be played devoid of expression or phrasing. So having some suggestions from the editor can be a godsend. Even Mozart doesn’t have a lot of expression marks. Sometimes having those markings can be incredibly helpful if you’re a beginner or intermediate student. So the ideal, to sum it up, is to have a good scholarly edition that’s an urtext with editors markings and fingering.

Composers didn’t write in fingering!

If you’re a student, you want to have fingering suggestions. Even for a professional, having fingering suggestions can save you vast amounts of time. On websites like IMSLP.org, you can actually get two or three different editions for fingering suggestions. It’s such a wonderful thing. Before the internet, it would have been very costly to compare several editions. Maybe at the library you could do that, but buying several editions wouldn’t be in the cards for most students. This brings up the cost. Many urtexts are very expensive, like Henle Editions, which are really beautifully bound, scholarly editions of many works by Brahms, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, etc. But there are others, like Schenker Editions by Dover, which are very well bound, good scholarly editions that are not as expensive. Search out good, fingered, edited urtext editions for yourself! I think you’ll be rewarded with good suggestions and the knowledge of what the composers actually wrote. Great question, Chris! Keep them coming! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin
Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The topic today is about how to motivate yourself to practice. Sometimes things are going well and you can’t wait to get to the piano. But I’m sure you also experience times when you just don’t feel the motivation to practice. You want to be able to learn music. Perhaps you have a lesson coming up, or a performance, or you just want to use the beautiful piano you have sitting at home. Somehow you just can’t muster up the energy to practice. Is there anything you can do about such a thing? The answer is yes!

You are not alone.

Don’t beat yourself up because you are unmotivated. It’s natural. If you practice correctly, it’s hard work. It may be rewarding to have musical scores you can play, but the process of learning music is hard. So of course there are going to be times when you don’t have the energy to practice because of work, health issues, or other conflicts. Just finding the time can be an arduous task! So forgive yourself for feeling this way. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s normal. There’s an ebb and flow in your energy and your expectations as to what you’re going to achieve. There are times when you can sit at the piano and accomplish amazing things, and other times you’re just hitting your head against the wall.

When you’re hitting a roadblock, you’ve got to change things up.

You don’t want to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That’s one definition of insanity! Sometimes the best thing to do is to just leave it completely. Go take a walk or a bike ride. Do something invigorating. Physical activity is often the best thing you can do when you’re feeling any kind of a funk. Getting your blood circulating and breathing fresh air really rejuvenates you. It’s important for your health as well as your psyche. You might take a walk around your neighborhood and come back to the piano with renewed energy. That might be all it takes.

What else can you do?

Well, there’s a lot you can do. You can shake up your practice. Maybe you have a routine where you spend some time with scales, you do some memorization, and you do some refinement. But maybe your routine has gotten stale. The whole thing feels like drudgery because you know what you’re going to do next. If that’s the case, that isn’t effective practice anyway. Practicing, as I’ve mentioned so many times before, is a mental activity. You must be engaged in the process or you aren’t really practicing. In fact, you can be away from the piano thinking through your music, and that can be more effective than sitting at the piano when your mind is not engaged!

How do you become engaged with your practice?

Sometimes simply playing through pieces can make you feel good and bring the joy back into the equation. You feel like you should work, so every time you go to the piano, you feel a sick feeling in your stomach. If you think you should be practicing, but all you want to do is play the piano, go ahead and play! What’s all that hard work for if you can’t enjoy playing your instrument? Play for a while! Just the physiological benefit to your fingers is good. It’ll keep you in shape. It’ll keep those review pieces in your memory and in your fingers. Maybe you want to take on some new music. Maybe you just want to read through some popular music that you never normally play because your teacher doesn’t assign it to you. Or maybe you just want to make stuff up. You can explore the sonorities of the piano just for fun too.

Do anything to break away from the rut you find yourself in.

There’s a host of things you can do. You can try practicing piano at a different time of day or night, just to make it feel fresh. Anything that changes the routine can help you. Perhaps just listen to music, whether it’s piano music or orchestral music or anything at all. Check out different styles of music, go to concerts, get together with friends who like music, and play with other musicians. If you have friends who play or sing, invite them over to accompany them. You could even have an informal jam session. Anything that gets your creative energy working again is going to be worthwhile for you.

The big point is, don’t beat yourself up!

If it’s your routine that isn’t working, change it up. You don’t have to be married to your routine. Keep it creative. Keep yourself engaged. If nothing’s working, go outside for a while. Do something different. Go to the gym, take a swim, anything to get your mind relaxed. You don’t want to beat yourself up for not practicing. That’s the worst thing you can do, because then you’ll feel guilty. Even if you practice, if you’re just going through the motions, you’re not really practicing, are you?

So that’s the lesson for today!

I’d love to hear comments from all of you about this! I’m sure all of you have suffered from this at some point. If you haven’t, what is your secret? Share that here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today the subject is about what it means to be musical. Sometimes you hear people say an artist is so musical. What does that mean? Well, there’s a lot to unwrap here! 

The piano has so many different facets of abilities that are necessary in order to be able to play successfully. 

You might think that somebody who has really good technique must be musical. But technique is something I put under the umbrella of musical abilities or even musical intelligence. Good technique doesn’t necessarily equate to being musical. It does indicate talent for the instrument. Another aspect is security in performance. There are some people who just play their best in front of people. They are good performers, but are they musical? That is really something different, isn’t it?

If a performer doesn’t have security in their performance, it’s difficult to be musical. 

Just like if they don’t have technique, how are they going to be able to express anything? There are other aspects too. You need to be able to digest the score. It is crucial to be able to look at a piece of music and make sense of the structure of the piece. Once again, that’s musical intelligence. These are all important aspects of piano playing. All of these things are related. They really are important. How could you possibly be musical if you can’t digest the piece, if you can’t hold it together, or if you don’t have the fingers to be able to to execute the music? But assuming all of those things are there, what does it mean to be musical?

I believe being musical is being able to elicit emotions in the listener. 

There are some people who are astoundingly accomplished at the piano. They can play the most difficult music with fluency and security. And yet maybe they leave you cold. But sometimes there’s a student, maybe even a young student who doesn’t have much technique or experience, and they don’t even necessarily do all the things that should be done in a piece, but there’s a beauty to their playing. It makes you feel something! It brings a smile to your face, or maybe sadness. Their playing makes you feel emotions. This is something that is really elusive to describe. It’s even more difficult to teach. 

A certain amount of this is inborn. 

A certain amount cannot be learned. But like many other things in life, someone who is naturally musical can become more musical by exposure. With good training, and by listening to other musicians who are more accomplished than they are, they can grow musically. Somebody who just doesn’t have much sense of where the music should go, maybe they can learn a great deal. Their musicianship and their ability to elicit emotions and create excitement or sadness can be improved. But somebody who has very little of that natural ability will have a tougher time with musicality. 

Everybody can improve! 

This doesn’t just go for musicality, for lack of a better word, but all aspects of piano playing can grow. Technique can be improved. Security in performance can be improved. The ability to digest a score can be improved. All of these things can be improved along with that elusive musicality. So don’t fret if you are lacking in one or more of these skill sets. They all can be developed! Nobody has all of them in spades. Everybody has to mitigate their weaknesses and develop their strengths. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com