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. Today I’m going to answer a question from a viewer: What is the most common note in music? In the English language, E is the most prevalent letter. Is there a note that is the most common note in music?

There are two things to consider.

First, we need to ask: what kind of note? It could be the pitch of the note or the type of note rhythmically. The first one I’m going to cover is the type of note because it’s so simple. There’s whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, 8th notes, 16th notes, 32nd notes, 64th notes, and it goes all the way up to 128th notes. Each of these can be triplets as well. This is so easy because the most popular time signature is 4/4 time. It’s so common that it’s referred to as common time! What does it mean? It means there are four beats in a measure, and the quarter note gets one beat. So yes, the quarter note is the most popular and most common note in music.

Pitch is a little bit more complicated.

Let’s consider a few aspects. First of all, of course, A is not only the first letter of the alphabet, it’s also the note that an orchestra tunes to. So there’s a great significance to that note, naturally. And then we can talk about different groups of instruments and what notes are really intrinsic to them. On stringed instruments, E is a very popular note. Think about the guitar. I don’t play guitar, but there are two chords I can play on a guitar: E major and E minor. In fact, the highest and lowest strings on a guitar are both E’s, so E is really common. The lowest note on a bass is also an E. All string instruments have E’s on them, as well as A’s. So there’s a case to be made for E.

For wind instruments, flat keys are really common.

For example, the trumpet is pitched in B-flat. So is clarinet, generally. Of course, there is earlier period music where the pitches of the instruments were not set yet. Saxophones are usually E-flat or B-flat, and trombones are B-flat. So flat keys are very common as well. So where does that leave us with all of this?

There’s one note that, as a pianist, you look at all the time.

That note is C. Middle C is right in the middle of your keyboard. It’s all over the place! C is the highest note and one of the lowest notes on the piano. And when you play all white keys, you’re playing a C-major scale. So C is really common. But there’s more to it than that.

I mentioned all these transposing instruments. That is, when a trumpet plays C, a B-flat comes out. So even though the instrument is pitched to B-flat, their score, written in C, comes out in B-flat. So it presupposes C as the standard, from which all the other transpositions are derived. It’s the same with a clarinet in B-flat. It plays in C, but it comes out in B-flat. For the French horn, all the repertoire before the horn had valves was written in C. The horns themselves would be tuned with a series of extra pipes called crooks. That is what would change the pitch of the instrument. The modern French horn is pitched in F, yet the parts may be written in many different keys like, E-flat, D, or others, but the part’s are always written in C. So C is the standard pitch. When a conductor looks at a score, all the transposing instruments are in C for the conductor, and they must figure out the absolute pitch relative to the transposition of the various instruments.

I’ve got to say that C is the most common note in music!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to talk about the difference between playing Bach and Mozart. They are two great composers. You hear their music all the time. Many pianists play both composers. There are some fundamental differences in the approach to playing Bach versus Mozart, which we’re going to discuss today.

The fundamentals come down to two criteria: the period styles and the instrument that they wrote for.

Bach lived from 1685 to 1750. Interestingly, he never wrote for the piano. Did he ever play the piano? Well, yes, there are records of him having played a very early incarnation of what was a piano. What distinguished the piano from other keyboard instruments of the age was the fact that the piano could play loud and soft, which is how it derived its name, the fortepiano or pianoforte which was later shortened to, the piano. Bach never specifically wrote for the piano. In fact, he never wrote for any particular keyboard instrument other than the organ. All of his keyboard music, other than his organ music, was written simply for clavier, which means, “keyboard”.

What instrument did Bach play?

Bach played the clavichord. It was his favorite keyboard instrument because of its expressiveness. On the clavichord, the key mechanism would be in contact with the string to impart vibrato and other expressive elements that the harpsichord could not do. Yet the harpsichord was the most popular keyboard instrument in performance because of its robust tone. The clavichord was so quiet that it really wasn’t a performance instrument. So we can presume that most of Bach’s music was performed primarily on the harpsichord. And the harpsichord, as I said, didn’t have dynamics. You could push the keys with great energy or push them lightly, and you would get the same volume. And this is key to the type of music written for the instrument: contrapuntal music, music with intertwining melodies. The harpsichord had a strident sound that cut through, which worked very well with chamber music. The clarity of tone allowed the counterpoint to come through.

Mozart was born in 1756 and lived only 35 years.

During Mozart’s life, the fortepiano had developed somewhat and gained popularity. So Mozart did write for the piano, although he played both the harpsichord and the piano. But his music took advantage of the fact that you could play loud and soft, so different parts could be played dynamically with the two hands.

Let’s talk a bit about the stylistic differences between Bach and Mozart.

Bach lived during the Baroque era, which is noted for its counterpoint. I keep using that word. What does it mean? It means that you have separate lines of music intertwining with one another, so you get music where everything has equal importance between the hands and the different lines. All of the lines have equal prominence. Bach wrote using counterpoint. Contrast that with Mozart, where you clearly have melody and harmony. For example, in his famous C major, K 545 Sonata, you have a melody in the right hand and broken chords in the left hand. There’s not much going on in the left hand, but you have a beautiful melody in the right hand. So you have a clear melody against harmony. This is in no small part because the instrument itself was capable of playing different dynamics in different registers.

As the instrument became more capable, the musical form evolved.

The form had evolved from counterpoint, the interweaving of different lines, like a tapestry of music, to more structured music with different sections. The sonata allegro form, with its exposition, development and recapitulation, was very structured formal music where different sections were clearly delineated, rather than the intertwining of different lines in the Baroque era. That’s why the performance practices are so dramatically different. In a fugue, you want to clearly show the counterpoint and the important lines of subjects, the opening motif of a fugue. For example, you want to hear a clear delineation whenever the opening statement of a fugue returns. Whereas in a sonata movement, you want to show the themes that come back at strategic places within the movement. The structure is of paramount importance. You can hear the melody clearly in one hand and the accompaniment in the other hand. It’s the delineation of the structure of the work that makes the performance alive and digestible for an audience. Where, in the case of Bach, it’s the counterpoint and bringing out subjects strategically in fugues or inventions so the listener can make sense of the cacophony that could result if those subjects were not delineated clearly. Whenever the subject recurs, you bring it out so that the listener can make sense of the complex score, and you can bring clarity to the counterpoint. Whereas in Mozart, it’s the delineation of each macro section within the work that must be clear to the listener so the overall structure of the music can be appreciated.

While Mozart did write for the piano, it wasn’t like a modern piano.

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I have a really interesting story for you about how a Pinto blew up my teaching. This is not only an interesting story, but for any of you people out there who have ever thought about having a career or even a side hustle teaching the piano, there will be useful information for you. I’m going to give you a lot of pointers because I have a background in teaching going back literally generations.

My father, Morton Estrin, was a great concert pianist and teacher.

He taught my sister and me until we both went off to conservatory after high school. And in fact, both of us got our teaching career started by learning how to teach the piano from our father and assisting him in his teaching when we were still in high school. All throughout my college years in conservatory, my side hustle was teaching the piano as well as accompanying. So I was no stranger to teaching.

Have Pinto, will travel!

When I graduated from the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, I very quickly amassed many students. I did this by offering to travel to people’s homes for lessons and advertising wherever I could to get students. Back then, it was classified ads because it was before the internet offered that possibility. No matter where people were located, I would go there .I would figure out how much more I’d have to charge for the amount of time it would take me to drive there.

I went all over the county.

No place was off-limits. I would just charge accordingly. My schedule back then was crazy because I would figure out the exact amount of time it would take to go from one student to the next. So one student might have a lesson starting at 3:15, and the next one might start at 3:55. It was all these odd times. Now, if a student was not able to make the lesson, it would be a disaster because I’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere! Sometimes it was really cold, and that car didn’t have the best heat. The other thing was that back then there were no smartphones with GPS. In some areas, there were no street signs! When it was dark, it was almost impossible to figure out where you were going. Worse yet, if for some reason I had to call a student, I’d have to find a payphone!

My mission was to figure out how to get students to come to me.

I figured the best way to do that was to have a really good piano to entice them. It also added a lot of validity when people walked into my studio and saw a beautiful, brand new Baldwin baby grand piano. We also always looked for houses with a separate entrance to a room so that students didn’t have to march through the whole house and there’d be some privacy. My wife Florence is also a musician, a flutist, so we always looked for houses with two rooms with separate entrances to each one. This was always a huge challenge! But you would be surprised at how many places we found that had two separate entrances that didn’t go through the whole house where she could do her teaching and I could do my teaching without disturbing each other.

If you want to get into teaching, you might consider driving to people’s homes.

Why is this so advantageous? Can’t you just teach at a music store or studio? The problem with that is that many studios now, at least in Southern California, get 50% or more of the money in studio fees! So you go to teach lessons, and the people who own the business that you’re teaching at are making more than you are for the actual teaching! You can make far more money if you’re willing to travel. Plus, people really appreciate the convenience of having you come to their homes. Once you develop enough students and have a following, seek out a place where you can make your own teaching studio. If you have a good instrument, and perhaps recording capabilities, it could be a viable place for people to come to for the benefits they get from studying with you.

I hope this is helpful for any of you who are interested in teaching!

By the way, I teach piano pedagogy. I have a deep background in teaching teachers. I was so lucky to have been taught how to teach by my father from the time I was in high school, and I’m happy to help any of you out there who would like to teach piano. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.