Welcome back to our multi-part series on the Burgmüller Studies. These pieces are really great for piano students at a fairly elementary level yet provide some gorgeous music. In the first lesson we covered La Candeur (Frankness) and last time we covered L’Arabesque. Today we are going to talk about how to approach La Pastorale – which is a great piece to introduce using the pedal to students.

If you followed my past lessons on Burgmüller you might notice how different each of these pieces sound. It’s a great way to introduce students to many different types of music that are both easily accessible and unique from one another.

The key to mastering this particular piece is a lot like the first lesson we covered which is to use the weight of your arms to maintain a smooth legato with rises and falls of dynamics in each phrase. This piece has the added challenge of a degree of complexity in the left hand. As opposed to the whole notes in La Candeur, you have a pattern of repeated chords:

I always recommend practicing your music without the pedal first in order to achieve a smooth legato. The same principle remains true here. Once you feel confident, you should add the pedal to add to the smoothness.

After you’ve practiced both hands independently try putting them together but still practicing without the pedal. You want to achieve a smooth legato in both hands without using the pedal as a crutch. Once you can play smoothly with confidence, go back and add the pedal.

Why is it so important to play notes legato if you’re going to add the pedal anyway?

This is a likely question you hear from intelligent students. Wouldn’t the pedal make everything smooth anyway? Not necessarily. You must capture all the notes of the first chord in each group whenever engaging the pedal. If you miss any of the notes on the pedal, you will lose the legato. By playing the chords long, you will ensure that all the notes are down when you press the pedal.

In the next section you will not need to use the pedal but you will face a different set of challenges. You have repeated notes in the left hand and a different rhythm to deal with in the right hand:

Make sure you play these notes legato. Not just in the right hand but the left hand as well. Repeated notes present a unique challenge. How can you play these notes legato? The secret is changing the fingers you use for each note. This way you can have one finger coming going up while another finger is going down. This technique will create a sense of connectivity in the notes and create a beautiful line. Try this section with this technique and see if you can tell the difference:

Notice 4-3-2 on these B flats. You’ll notice the right hand has the same technique:

Notice the 2-3-4 listed on those notes.

You’ll see these numbers over repeated notes quite a bit in this piece. The secret is to change fingers for repeated notes so you can achieve a smooth sound.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin here at Living Pianos. I hope this has been helpful for you and make sure to stay tuned to our future episodes in the Burgmüller studies on piano. If you have any questions about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.

Welcome back to our multi-part series on the Burgmuller Studies. These pieces are really great for piano students at a fairly elementary level yet provide some gorgeous music. Last time we covered La Candeur (Frankness) and this time we are going to discuss L’Arabesque.

Where La Candeur provided beautiful lyricism, L’Arabesque provides excitement. This is a great piece to study because it presents quite a few technical challenges. It also provides a great opportunity to explore phrasing – staccatos and slurs as well as accents. If you were to play this piece without those elements of phrasing it would be incredibly lifeless and dull.

How do you get this piece to sing and more specifically, how do you get it to be snappy and fun? It all comes down to the wrist. I encourage you to watch my original lesson on how to utilize your wrists but to describe it quickly here: The wrists must be identified separately from the arms. The arms are big and heavy and can’t give you the same quick motion the wrists can.

Take your hand and place it over the first chord in the piece. Place your fingers on the keys but don’t push down. Then slowly raise your wrist so your fingers are a little less than an inch above the keys, drop them and play the notes and then snap your wrist back into place over the keys. Keep practicing this and make sure that you aren’t using your arm at all – all the motion in your playing should come from the wrist. The arms are great for strength but they will not give you the speed you will need to play this piece; the motion must come from the wrist.

In this first section you should practice these chords with the wrist until you feel absolutely comfortable playing them.

The right hand in this piece also contains phrasing and it’s very important that you don’t overlook it. As we can seen in the picture below, there are notes with slurs connecting them and they end in a final note that is played staccato. It might not always be written as staccato but they should be played as such because it’s at the end of a slur. Why is this? Staccato means “not connected” and the end of a slur is not connected. In this piece, which has a brisk tempo, you will want to play the end of your slurs as staccato.

The best way to play these note groups is by playing the slurs and then ending by having your hand come up for the last note. It creates a nice sound and helps to play that last note staccato. Practice these groups of notes in your right hand – make sure you come up for the last note in each group until you are comfortable playing them.

Now try practicing with the hands together.

In the next section the left hand will continue with staccato chords but the right hand has eighth notes and it’s extremely important that you phrase these correctly. You’ll need to pay attention to the staccatos and legatos so that you can bring life to this music.

You can do the same type of motion with your wrists for the staccatos in this section. Release the wrist upward on them to get a nice snappy sound. On the accents, let your wrist come down for emphasis. When you put this together with the left hand it you will achieve excellent clarity of voices – the contrast of staccato and legato elements.

In the next section the hands reverse techniques. The right hand becomes legato and the left hand has staccato with the down up motion with the wrist.

Now we will flash forward to the end of the piece where you must move your hands instantly in order to play the last chord. This can be a real challenge for students but it’s a great learning experience which I have a method that will help in any situation like this.

You’ll need to get from here:

The here:

That’s not going to be easy! However, there is a relatively simple way to overcome this problem. You’ll need to find out the perfect hand position for that last series of notes. Go ahead and place your hands there and remember that position. Now, play the series of notes before it and right when you end, place your hands and arms over the last chord instantly. Don’t play any of the notes yet – just get your hands over the chord. Keep doing this until you consistently get in the right position. When you feel confident go ahead and play the last chord. Keep doing this until you can play it over and over again without any issues. This is an extremely helpful technique for all your music that requires large leaps. Here is an article and video on this subject:

I hope this lesson has been helpful for you. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions for future videos please contact us directly: info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Welcome to the first in our series on The Burgmüller Studies. Burgmüller was a wonderful composer who wrote pieces that are accessible to less advanced students, yet offer absolutely wonderful musical content. I always encourage students who have progressed beyond the most basic level to explore these pieces because they are beautiful compositions that can help you further your development as a pianist.

Today we are going to discuss the first piece in this series: La Candeur (or as it translates to English, “Frankness”).

What are the challenges in this piece? You might notice by listening to it that it has a very lyrical, sustained melody. This piece doesn’t require using the pedal but the challenge is getting a smooth line throughout which requires learning to play legato. This is a great skill for any pianist and particularly good for young students just getting into more advanced music. You’ll also want to support the line with the weight of your arms – VIDEO: Arms Equal Power and Depth.

The secret to getting a sustained and beautiful tone is to have the weight of your arms supported by the fingers. You’ll want to transfer the weight from finger to finger to create a long and beautiful legato. You don’t want to apply pressure just at the start of a note but during the entire phrase. If you were to play on someone else’s arm they would feel a constant pressure from the weight of your fingers and arms pressing down, not just at the start of the notes.

If you were to calculate the volume of each note louder and louder to the top of the phrase, then quieter and quieter, you would end up with calculated playing, not a smooth line. Using the weight of your arm – almost as if it were the breath in music – to get louder during the middle of a phrase and softer towards the end of a phrase, you will create a very dramatic and pleasing tone throughout. You want the piano to mimic a wind instrument or a singing voice in it’s tone.

In another part of the piece you have a section which almost sounds like it could be written for two different instruments in the right hand:

On the top you have these half notes:

And on the bottom you have a completely different voice:

It’s important to leave the top (half notes) down while you play the other notes. How can you achieve this? By practicing the long notes legato and the short notes staccato from the fingers. This creates independence of the fingers to assure delineation of the two lines. Without doing this you might end up holding down all the notes or not holding the half notes for their full value – which would be incorrect.

Thanks again for joining me, I look forward to our next lesson on Burgmuller. If you have any comments or questions for this topic or any topic at all please contact me directly: info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Welcome to the 4th part in our ongoing series on the Burgmuller Studies for piano. If you want to catch up on the past lessons here they are: Part 1 (La Candeur), Part 2 (L’Arabesque), and Part 3 (La Pastorale). Today we are going to be covering “Ballade” which is a wonderful piece for intermediate students that provides impressive music to perform.

The biggest challenge with this piece is going past just playing the right notes rhythm and fingering and putting some life into this music! The secret to making this piece come alive is in how you approach the phrasing and expression – particularly the dynamics. It’s not just about which notes are played, but how they are played.

This piece is in an A B A form, meaning there is a section at the beginning that repeats at the end with a middle contrasting section.

It’s important to articulate the staccatos in the right hand while maintaining a smooth legato in the left hand. These are essential principles that we’ve have talked about before: How to Play Staccato on the Piano, How to Play Piano: It’s all in the Wrist and How to Play Piano: Arm’s Equal Power and depth.

You need to learn when to play from the arm, when to utilize the fingers, and when to play from the wrist; these are fundamental skills for developing a first-class technique on the piano. It’s important to keep your fingers close to the keys when playing fast, and utilizing the wrist for short staccato notes.

As always, I recommend that you practice your music slowly and build up notch by notch on the metronome developing security in your playing. This will help keep your rhythm precise. As you progress faster, you will find it necessary to play with a lighter touch in order to accommodate more speed. When playing faster, keep your fingers closer to the keys and utilize the wrist for staccato notes.

The middle section of this piece has a slow lyrical line in the right hand with staccato 8th note chords in the left hand that is played lightly from the wrist.

In the left hand you make sure to keep your fingers close to the keys (less than an inch above) and play from the wrist – otherwise, it will be too heavy and will overtake the delicate right-hand melody.

In the right hand, you will utilize the weight of your arms to create a fluid line. You will need to play with substantial arm weight even though these notes are played piano. Ask any wind player and they will tell you that playing a quiet line takes as much energy, sometimes, even more, to play quietly; the same applies to the piano. Let your arms sink into the bottom of the keys and you will notice the lovely singing legato this produces as you transfer the weight smoothly from note to note.

The most challenging part of this piece is the ending. There is no shortcut to mastering this section. You must practice slowly at first and work your way up with the metronome. This section takes a commitment of time to master.

When you’re practicing with the metronome at slower speeds you will want to raise your fingers to delineate the notes. Play at a comfortably slow metronome speed until you feel secure and can play numerous times without problems. Move the metronome up one notch and start again. Keep doing this until you reach the desired speed. It is a great way to perfect your performance.

If you are having trouble, try practicing hands individually (WATCH: The Right Way to Practice Your Music). This will enable you to hear each hand separately listening for the evenness of the notes. Another great technique is playing the hands 2 octaves apart so you can hear things more clearly.

This is a really great piece for students and the music is rewarding. I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions about this piece or any other please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.