Tag Archives: bach

Why Do You Need Urtext Editions?

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.

Sheet Music

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.

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

Why Not Playing is Practicing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about repetition in your piano practice. Repetition is an essential part of piano practice, but did you know that the essential element of repetition is not the repetition itself? It’s the time between the repetitions. All too often, I’ve seen students fall into a trap. If you don’t take the essential time between each repetition, you can fall into an endless loop of missing things over and over again, essentially practicing playing badly. That’s what you want to avoid!

There are myriad ways you can practice.

I would suggest practicing slowly. You can turn the metronome on at a comfortable speed, and do progressively faster metronome speeds. You can work on note groups. You can do rhythms. You can do so many things! But that’s not what I’m showing you today. I’m showing you how to deal specifically with just repeating something until you get it right, which I’m sure all of you do on a regular basis in your practice. But you have to remember that the repetition is not where the value comes in.

The time between the repetitions is the practicing; the playing of the passage is not the practicing.

The playing is only a check of your work. The work happens in your head between each repetition. So if you play, and something isn’t clean, identifying the correction is number one. Find where the correction is. Focus your attention on the correction, and then you can come up with a strategy for cementing it. You want to find a spot to start just before it so you can repeat the correction. Once you get the correction solidified, go back and see if you can put it into context by starting at the beginning of the passage. Each time you play it, take a moment to think about what you just played. If it comes out absolutely perfectly, see if you can repeat it perfectly again. If there’s anything that isn’t quite right, identify the specific correction before you repeat it. This is essential. Each time you play it, stop and think about what you just heard.

Take the time between repetitions to mentally study what you just played.

Find the correction in the score, then implement the correction by starting strategically at the exact right spot before it at the beginning of the phrase. You don’t want to start right on the correction. However, initially, just to know what the correction is, you might play the notes you are having trouble with, but then find where you can start just before it. You have to be able to get into it in the context of the piece. You want to find the closest spot before the correction to start from. You can either land on that note or land right after that note, then cement it and go back. Initially, you may even want to stop just before the correction, then play the correction so you are sure to play it accurately from the get go. With each repetition, you must analyze your work and think about what you want to accomplish. If you fall into mindless repetition, where you are just repeating things without listening to what you did and coming up with a strategy to improve it, you are not practicing at that moment.

Remember, practicing is a thought process!

Playing is not practicing! It’s the analysis of what you’ve played that is going to improve your playing. That’s the lesson for today! If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. I hope this has been 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

Can You Make a Crescendo on a Chord on the Piano?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is: Can you make a crescendo on a chord on the piano? How many of you have seen a held chord with a crescendo on it in your score? How can you possibly do something like that? Did the composer not understand the physics of the piano, or were they just crazy?! Why would they ever write a crescendo on a held chord? Well, there are some very good compositional reasons for this, and I’m going to show you how you can achieve the effect of a crescendo on a chord on the piano!

Sometimes you will see a crescendo on a held chord in your score.

As an example of this, I’ve pulled up Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. In the third one, called Watchman’s Song, near the very end, there is a held chord with a crescendo on it. What is meant by that crescendo? Well, the composer is trying to show you that this phrase is not ending gently. It’s moving forward. There are some things you can do to achieve this effect; one way is with the use of the sustain pedal.

The sustain pedal can create the sense of a crescendo on a held chord.

When you use the pedal on a chord, you get a little bit of a sense of growth in the sound as all the other strings of the piano can resonate because the dampers are lifted. When you play it and gently move forward right at that point, you almost get the sense of a crescendo. You can play the chord a little bit louder in anticipation of the crescendo, pedaling very soon after the initial attack to get more of a booming sound. Whereas usually the way to pedal chords is to pedal just as the chord starts fading away to mitigate the dying away of the chord thereby increasing the sustain. But when you’re trying to get a downright crescendo, put the pedal down very soon after the initial attack. Your attack should be stronger than it would be without a crescendo. Keep things moving forward, almost anticipating the next chord to try to get the sense of a crescendo.

Indeed, you can get the effect of a crescendo on a chord!

Even though physically it’s not really possible, you can get the effect of a crescendo by utilizing the pedal, anticipating the crescendo a little bit early, and letting the music move along through the crescendo. That’s what the composer intended. They weren’t out of their minds. It wasn’t like they didn’t understand the physics of the sound of a piano. I’m sure Grieg understood! You can hear the effect that it creates when you follow the composer’s intentions. After all, the piano is an instrument of illusion. There’s so much we do with the piano that you wouldn’t think is possible. Just getting a singing line out of a percussion instrument, where every note is dying away, is a huge challenge. So this is what you must do. Think of what the composer intended and find a way to achieve it with the way you approach the music and how you apply the pedal. I hope this has been 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

2 Essential Tools for Musicians

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to talk about two essential tools that every musician should utilize. You practice hard to improve your playing. Is there any device that can help you with your practicing? There are two tools that are absolutely essential, and I’m sure you’re already familiar with them. But I’m going to tell you how you can make the best use of them.

The first tool is the Mighty Metronome!

Love it or hate it, the metronome really is essential in your practice. Why is the metronome so important? You might think that if you have a good sense of rhythm, you don’t need a metronome anymore. Maybe you even practice while tapping your foot, so you think you’ve got it covered. First of all, on the piano, you need to use your feet for the pedals. Not only that, but tapping your foot is distracting for the audience. Now, there are certain styles of music where tapping your foot is accepted and maybe even beneficial. In hard-driving jazz, you’ll see great players tapping their feet because it’s such highly energetic, rhythmically oriented music. But in classical music, this really takes away from the experience. Also, you want to have an internal clock. There are also nuances of tempo such as the use of rubato.

The metronome can help you get particularly difficult passages up to speed.

If you have a tough section and you want to get it up to speed, working with the metronome doing progressively faster metronome speeds is a great technique. You can also use the metronome to check your work to make sure you’re playing everything at the same speed. Maybe you worked really hard on a difficult passage that you never could get fast enough, but you don’t even realize that now you are overcompensating. Now you’re playing that section faster than the rest of the piece! None of us has a perfect clock in our heads. This is why the metronome is absolutely essential.

Is it better to use a physical metronome or an app on your phone?

Metronome apps are great in some respects, although there are some that default to having an accented beat. I have a pet peeve about these accented beats. Why? First of all, it’s completely unnecessary. If you don’t know where the first beat of the measure is, you better check your score! But worse than that, it wastes your practice time because you have to wait for the accented beat every time you start playing. So find an app that doesn’t have an accented beat, or one that can be turned off. A little hack you can use if your metronome doesn’t have that feature is to set your time signature with the top number being one. If you’re in 1/4 or 1/8, every beat will be accented because there is only one beat in each measure. Metronome apps can go slower and faster than an old-school metronome. But you generally never need to go below 42 or above 208. If you need it to be faster, you can just set the metronome at half the speed and achieve the same thing. There is one benefit to using a metronome app, which is that you can tap in the tempo. This is valuable for quickly setting the proper speed on your metronome.

When practicing using progressively faster metronome speeds, a physical metronome has a major advantage.

Digital metronomes always seem to have all the numbers. So if you’re at 60, the next number is 61, then 62, 63, etc. On physical metronomes, they go from 60, 63, 66, to 69, etc. And most importantly, if you’re at 120, it doesn’t go to 123; it goes to 126, which is double 63. So it’s progressive in a logical fashion. If anyone knows of a metronome app that has the real speeds of a physical metronome, let us know in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube!

The second tool that is essential for musicians is an audio or video recording device.

If you’ve never recorded yourself playing your instrument, you owe it to yourself. You will learn so much! Think about the first time you ever recorded yourself talking; it probably sounded strange when you listened back. Well, guess what? When you hear a recording of yourself playing the piano, you will learn so much about the way you sound. I was talking to one of my students the other day. I told him to exaggerate the dynamics because, when you are playing, you are only two feet from the piano. You don’t hear it the same way a listener in the room is going to hear it. So he played for his girlfriend and exaggerated the dynamics to the point that he thought it was grotesque, but she said it sounded absolutely beautiful. So you could put your recording device across the room to hear what your playing sounds like to somebody listening to you.

Recording yourself is a great way to practice performing, because the first time you play for people, you may get nervous.

Recording yourself gives you a little try out before performing for an audience. You can listen back, and with a pencil, you can mark places on the score the sections you need to work on. You will be amazed at how much perspective this gives you!

So these are the two indispensable devices for musicians: the recorder and the metronome. I hope this has been helpful for you! Let me know your thoughts about these tools in the comments 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

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

Rule of Thumb: 3 Important Tips for the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s topic is about the rule of thumb on the piano. Actually, you are going to get three important tips! What is it about the thumb? The thumb is obviously a completely different finger from all the others on your hand. Therefore, there is a different approach you must have for the thumb in piano playing. Let’s explore this together.

The first thing is the position of the thumb.

The position of your fingers on the piano is pretty obvious. You place your fingers right on the keys! You don’t want to play with flat fingers, because your fingers are all different lengths. You want to curl them a bit bringing them forward to make them all the same length. This is very helpful for piano playing. As for your thumb, you don’t want your whole thumb flat on the keys. Instead, you want to play with the tip of your thumb, like the other fingers. You can’t get much control when you’re playing with the whole thumb.

The thumb is the strongest finger on your hand by far. This presents enormous challenges on the instrument. The melody is usually on top, and the second most important voice, oftentimes, is the bass. So you want to hear the top and the bottom. So how is this achieved?

In order to equalize the force between your thumb, and your fourth and fifth fingers, you arch your hand.

The power of the arch is tremendous! When you play with your thumbs flat on the keys, it gets too heavy. By going into the right position, you have control. The arch position is especially beneficial when you’re playing octaves. Without the arch, you get an uneven sound, because the thumb is naturally so much stronger than the other fingers. By arching, you can equalize the force from each side of the hand. You want the other fingers to be curved and up and out of the way, particularly your second finger.

The last tip is to prepare thumb crossings in advance.

You have thumb crossings when you’re ascending in the right hand or descending in the left hand. So if you’re playing an ascending scale in your right hand, for example, you want to have the thumb tucked under right after the second finger plays. Otherwise, your hand will have to pivot at the last minute. You won’t be able to go fast doing that. There is just too much movement in the hand. You can achieve smooth thumb crossings by practicing slowly and having the thumb crossing in advance. By practicing preparing your thumb in advance, you are able to develop fluency.

So those are the three tips for today!

Play with the tip of the thumb, arch the hand to equalize the force of the thumb, and prepare the thumb early by tucking it under when ascending in the right hand and descending in the left hand. I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know how this works for you in the comments 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

How Do You Get Back in Shape on the Piano?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is: How do you get back in shape on the piano? If you have ever gone on vacation and returned to find your fingers out of shape, you may have wondered how to get them back into shape without hurting yourself. I personally have experienced pain in the joint of my right thumb when I play big chords and octaves after taking a break from playing the piano. However, I have found that building up the muscles in my hand helps me overcome this issue.

If you take a break from playing the piano, it is important to be cautious when getting back into it.

The most taxing pieces to play on the piano are those that involve big chords and octaves. Music like this puts a lot of stress on your fingers. Pieces that are right under your fingers and do not require reaching far are much less taxing on your hands. The ideal music for getting back into shape on the piano are Bach’s two-part Inventions. These pieces have clarity, musical lines, and rarely have more than one note at a time in each hand. This makes them perfect for gradually building up your finger strength. I will demonstrate this with the very first Bach invention in C Major in the accompanying video. It is ergonomic and falls right under the fingers.

Bach’s music is great for getting back into shape because it rarely involves massive chords.

Even the Italian concerto, which does have a number of chords, never exceeds an octave. By playing pieces that have no more than one note in each hand, you can gradually build up your finger strength so that you can handle more taxing music. Playing slow movements of Mozart Sonatas is another great option since the music lies under the hands very nicely. This is the best way I have found to get back into shape on the piano! Share your ideas on how to build back strength here on 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