Tag Archives: how to play piano

How To Solidify Your Musical Performance

Welcome to Living Pianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I have a special treat for you! Today’s video is about how you can solidify your musical performance. Sometimes you practice a piece and learn the whole thing, but when you perform it, you just can’t count on it coming out the way you want. Maybe sometimes it comes through in practice, but you’re afraid to play for anyone because it’s not dependable. Sometimes your performance comes out well, sometimes it doesn’t. What can you do about that? In this video I’m going to show you how to overcome those insecurities!

How do you approach a new piece of music?

A few years ago I made a video about how to practice a new piece on the piano. I chose a piece randomly. The first thing I did was to read through it. Then I started learning it from the beginning. I practiced in front of you, showing you exactly how I approach a new piece. You can reference that video here. In that video, and in my general practice, I start from the beginning of a piece. I start with a very small phrase, just a couple of measures. I look at just the right hand and figure out the notes, then the rhythm, the fingering, the phrasing, and finally the expression. In other words, looking at all the details to get that one little phrase memorized. Then I do the same thing with the left-hand. I learn that same little phrase, notes, rhythm, fingering, phrasing, and expression with the left hand. Once I get that memorized, I then put the hands together and get that memorized. Then I go on to the next section in the same way, connecting as I go.

What can you do after you’ve learned a piece of music and you have it memorized, but it’s still not really solid?

Let’s say you learn a piece of music, but you don’t feel 100% confident in your performance. Maybe it was solid at one point, but it’s kind of deteriorated over time. What can you do about that? Well, I have an answer for you! Today, once again, I’m going to show you how I practice. I’m going to practice the Liszt Sonata in B minor which I’ve been working on. We just moved here to the Waterloo Arts District in Cleveland. We finally have air conditioning here! It’s been tough making videos because it’s been very hot. So I decided that I would relearn this piece. I couldn’t find my scores, so I have my father’s old score. It’s tattered, but it has all the notes in it!

When you’re practicing, have the music handy, and of course your trusty metronome. Start from the beginning. In this case, I won’t start from the very beginning because the beginning is slow and there’s nothing technically oriented. I’m going to go ahead and start from where the fun begins! I will check with the metronome when necessary. I won’t necessarily use the metronome throughout, but any time there’s any insecurity with tempo or if I need to do metronome speeds, I want to have a metronome handy. This is a great way to practice. I’m going to play slowly and securely with no pedal. I’ll have the score handy. If anything isn’t right in the pocket, I will stop and reference the score.

You may notice how I don’t just work to the point of getting trouble spots to sound O.K., but to be able to play in a relaxed manner. Try stopping just before a place you miss to give yourself a moment to relax. Then, incorporate the memory of the relaxation right at that point, so when you’re playing up to speed:

It’s like having an infinite amount of relaxation in a speck of time.

Another essential technique is to practice in chords wherever possible to reveal the harmonies and discover the best fingering. Also:

Divide difficult passages into manageable chunks of music.

 

Then you can put the small sections of music together. But you can feel like you are starting over at each new chunk of music, again fostering playing in a relaxed manner. My father used to say:

Through strength comes relaxation.

 

There’s a lot of truth to that. Years ago when I first studied the Liszt B Minor Sonata, I didn’t have the strength I have now. I had to sometimes contort my body in order to negotiate some of the most difficult sections of the piece. But over the years, the combination of increased strength, along with practicing relaxing at strategic points has made playing the piano a much more fluid experience. I hope this demonstration of how I work will help you in your practicing!

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The Secret of the Thumbs in Arpeggios

Welcome to Living Pianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about achieving fast, smooth arpeggios by preparing your thumbs way in advance. You know what arpeggios are. But how do you play them fluently? Scales are hard enough with thumb and finger crossings. But with arpeggios, there is a secret to achieving smooth thumb crossings. In the left-hand you have fourth and third finger crossings. But going down in the left-hand or going up in the right hand, you have thumb crossings. I see so many students moving their whole arms for thumb crossings. They move their elbows in and out which disrupts the sound. It doesn’t allow for playing fast. Many people find it helpful to reach with their thumbs. But by the time they do that, it’s already too late!

The secret is to tuck your thumb under when you play the second finger.

That’s right. When the second finger plays, the thumb tucks under. That way, it’s already ready for the next note. The left-hand coming down does the same thing. You don’t want to wait! If you wait to move your thumb until the moment of the crossing, it’s already too late. So tuck the thumb right when you play the second finger. Then you don’t have to move your arm with your elbow going in and out. You are prepared way in advance.

Slow practice of stretching your thumb under right when you play the second finger is the secret for getting smooth thumb crossings in your arpeggios.

If you’ve never tried this before, try it! Work slowly at first. I suggest 60 beats per minute at one note to the beat because you have to train your hand to do this. It’s not going to do it automatically. But once it does become automatic, you’re going to get smoothness and speed out of your arpeggios like you’ve never had before! This is a really important tip. Let me know how it works for you in the comments on LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Thanks so much 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 to Make Corrections in Your Playing

Welcome to Living Pianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share a tip with you for making corrections in your playing. I’ve discussed so many different techniques, from taking things slowly, referencing the score, playing with the metronome, and playing hands separately. So what could I possibly be bringing to this video that I haven’t shared before? Today I have a tip for you that really helps to make corrections stick. Because that’s the hardest problem, isn’t it? You correct something, but then you make the same mistake again.

The answer is to articulate out loud what the correction is.

Say you’re playing through a piece and you miss something. Well, you have the score handy. You have the patience to find where you are in the score. You realize your mistake and find exactly what the correction is. Then you say the correction out loud, “It’s a fourth finger on F in the right hand. The first time it goes up. The second time, it goes down to the fourth finger on F.” Boom! You verbalized it. Now it’s not abstract. You don’t just say, “I’m going to get that right next time.” You really make the correction omnipresent in your mind. So when you get there, you go, “What was it? Oh, fourth figure F.” Boom! You have that extra bit of information floating in your head just when you need it.

If you’re not 100% sure of what you’re trying to achieve, you’re very unlikely to achieve it.

If you can’t put it into words, you might not really fully grasp what it is you want to do next time. It’s too abstract. You can’t just say, “I want to get that right.” It’s not black and white. It has to be quantifiable and precise. It’s not just the notes. You have to remember every articulation. For example, if you need to remember to play staccato on the repeat of the second section. You say, “Second section, make sure it’s staccato in the right hand.” So you think about where that second section is before you play. You see as you’re coming into it, “Oh yeah. When I get there, I’m going to play staccato in my right hand.”

Articulate it in words!

That’s the tip for today! Among all the other ways of solving problems, make sure you articulate with words specifically what you want to be different in your playing each time you repeat a phrase that you want to correct. Thanks so much 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

In the studio with Morton Estrin – What I Learned Watching My Father Practice the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I want to tell you about what I learned watching my father, Morton Estrin, practice the piano. It brings back such memories. We grew up in a house in the suburbs on Long Island, about an hour from Manhattan. When we first moved into that house, I was five years old. It was a very exciting time. My father had a studio built. We had a pretty big house to begin with, but the studio was enormous! We had a lot of concerts there, and a lot of fun.

Although my father taught music at Hofstra University, he did most of his teaching right in the back of our house.

He did an immense amount of teaching! But whenever my father had any time free from teaching, he would be practicing piano. I would often go down there to sit and listen to him. I always found it interesting. I want to share with you an extremely personal story about what I learned watching him practice. This was really an epiphany. And I’m going to share something that was kind of a sad mishap that I’ve never really shared with anybody.

My father had an illustrious recording career.

My father started making records in the 1950s. His first recording was the complete Chopin Ballades and the F Minor Fantasie, for Fantasy Records by coincidence. Then he did some recordings of the music of Meyer Kupferman. These were pieces written specifically for him. They were extremely difficult 12 tone pieces that he played all from memory! Then he started making a series of recordings for Connoisseur Society Records. Alan Silver, who was the producer and the owner of the company, was truly an artist. What he was able to achieve both sonically and musically in his recordings was truly astounding! I love those recordings to this day.

My father’s first record for Connoisseur Society was the Scriabin Opus 8 Etudes, which won record of the year.

It was the first LP of these magnificent works. Wonderful performances! Then he recorded the Rachmaninoff Opus 32 Preludes. He performed the complete Rachmaninoff preludes on several occasions, including in Lincoln Center. It’s a mind boggling task!

There was a time when he was preparing a Liszt record. I remember attending the sessions. Somehow things just didn’t gel. And even though everything was set up and the piano was chosen and the technician was there, they had to abandon the session. It was a really tenuous moment, but that’s what happened. So some time went by and then the next recording my father decided to do with Connoisseur Society Records was a Brahms album. They also had a plan for a series of albums entitled, Great Hits You Played When You Were Young, which sounds kind of corny. But these ended up being really popular. The performances were so magnificent and the recording quality was exquisite. Radio stations just loved these records! They were played constantly all over the world!

In preparation for those sessions, he worked so hard that he ended up recording three records in one series of sessions! It was just a few days. They thought it was going to be the Brahms and maybe one of these discs. He just had so much repertoire at such a high level that he slammed through three complete albums in the one session!

I’m going to reveal to you what I learned from listening to his preparation for those recording sessions.

I remember listening to him practice. He got to a point where he would just be going through everything with no pedal, taking everything a little bit under tempo. Every single finger just fell in place. It was exciting for me to hear him play like that because there was such unbelievable refinement and security in his playing. He prepared so unbelievably for those sessions. It was astounding! There were so many of those recordings that were just the first take. He was that well-prepared. He just went through all of this music. And by the way, you must listen! I’ll have links below for these discs.

You want to get to the point where you have ultimate security in your playing.

I knew from listening to my father practice that the recordings were going to be great. He was so completely prepared, he could play everything accurately in a completely relaxed manner. Most classical recordings have a lot of editing because it saves time. If you have a work that’s 20 minutes long, to get one perfect performance is very difficult. On recordings, if you have just a little cracked note that you might not notice in a live performance, it’s really annoying when you listen over and over again. But he was so well prepared for this that a minimum amount of editing was necessary.

So that’s my personal story for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this! Thanks so much 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

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Supplemental Links:

Rachmaninoff Opus 32 Preludes
Scriabin Opus 8 Etudes
Chopin Ballades and the F Minor Fantasie
The Music of Meyer Kupferman: II
Great Hits You Played When You Were Young

The 3 Most Important Practice Techniques

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you about the 3 most important practice techniques. There are hundreds of practice techniques. But the things I’m going to tell you today are quintessentially important. They’re points that I keep making again and again. They need to be cemented in your mind if you want to be productive in your practice. So listen to all three, because they’re all vitally important for taking your piano playing to the next level.

1. When something goes wrong, resist the temptation to go back and start again.

When you’re practicing, sometimes you don’t even have the score. You’re just practicing without the music. But you really should have the score in front of you for reference when you’re practicing. Not that you should play all the time with music. You might want to test your memory to see how things are coming along. But here’s the critical thing: when something does go wrong, resist the temptation to just go back and start again. Maybe it will come out well the next time around, but take the opportunity to check the score! Find your place no matter how painstaking it is.

You may think you could just start back four measures, because it’ll take longer to even find where you are in the music. It will take you longer, but it’s important. Whatever needs to be clarified, you’re not going to be able to understand from just playing the section again. Maybe you will get it, maybe you won’t, but you haven’t really figured out what the issue is. You need to find the solution to that weakness. So when there’s a mistake, study the score! Don’t just try again and hope for the best. By using this technique, whatever confusion you had can be clarified once and for all!

2. Practice slowly.

Any accomplished pianist knows about the importance of slowing down. You must practice slowly, incessantly! Eventually you can get the same level of comfort and security playing at a faster tempo. Playing over and over again just a little bit past your comfort zone only breeds insecurity in your playing. You still want to try things faster to see what they sound like and to isolate the weak parts. It’s very valuable to zero in on the parts that need work. But fundamentally, a great deal of practice is slow playing with the score, reinforcing the memory, and always looking at the score carefully in any place you have insecurities. So read slowly with the music, with the metronome, and without the pedal to cement the performance. This will give you clarity of thought and physiology about what you’re doing at the keyboard.

3. Expand your repertoire!

This is vital! No matter how long you play, if you are just going through review pieces, eventually you’re going to plateau in your playing. There is a vast amount of piano music. Some of the greatest pianists of all time, who learned more music than anyone else, still only scratched the surface. The amount of music that people like Alfred Brendel and Claudio Arrau have amassed is mind-boggling. And yet, it’s only a small fraction of what’s out there. There’s so much great music written for the piano, by composers you’ve heard of and composers you haven’t heard of. So expand your repertoire! You really need to be learning something new every day. You may be bogged down with trying to perfect what you’ve already learned, and that is certainly an essential part of your practice. But take at least a few minutes just to learn something new each day, because you’ll have so much more to show for it.

Why is it so important to learn new music everyday?

Let’s say you want to learn a new piece. But you wait until your current repertoire is perfected before you start, even if it takes weeks. And then all you’re doing is studying a new piece. Do you know how hard it is to learn and memorize something new? There’s only so much you can do at a time before it gets really hard. You get to that point of diminishing returns in how much you can learn in a 10 or 20 minute period. But if you were to do some work each day, when your mind is fresh, you take advantage of that time. Even if it’s only 10 or 20 minutes a day, it’s time that your mind is fresh. You can learn something relatively easily if you’re only learning a phrase or two at a time.

These are the 3 things to remember!

Always have your score handy. When something falters, reference the score. Don’t just try to play it again, study it. Figure out what’s going on. Clarify in your mind and your hands what the correction is.

Slow down. You should be practicing slowly, even with pieces you can play up to speed. From time to time, you must go back and recement the notes, rhythm, fingerings, phrasing, and expression by referencing the score, playing slowly without the pedal, and using the metronome as much as possible.

Be sure to expand your repertoire on a daily basis. You’ll have so much more to show for your work over time if you use these three techniques! I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks so much 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

www.LivingPianos.com
www.Facebook.com/LivingPianos
949-244-3729

How to Find Weak Points in Your Piano Playing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to find the weak points in your playing. You want your practice to be productive. You don’t want to use a shotgun approach, working on all the parts of your music equally. Some parts will already be in good shape while other parts might need work. But sometimes it’s hard to know which parts need work.

How do you isolate the parts of your music that are likely to fall apart?

Obviously, if something completely falls apart, it needs work. But suppose you play through a piece and everything is pretty good. You’ve done various types of practicing. You’ve gone through meticulously with the score. You’ve worked with a metronome. You’ve practiced without the pedal. You’ve played under tempo. Yet when you perform, sometimes things fall apart and it seems to be in random places. I have a tip for you: Play the music faster than your normal tempo! You’ll find that you can play perhaps 90% of the piece at a faster tempo. The parts you can’t play at that faster tempo are the weak sections. You can isolate those sections and work on them in innumerable ways. A great way is to find a tempo at which you can play them cleanly, accurately and comfortably, and play the sections with the metronome at progressively faster speeds.

It’s good to have a reserve of tempo in your playing.

When you’re playing a piece of music, knowing that you can play it a little bit faster and still hold it together is incredibly valuable for a couple of reasons. First of all, in the heat of the moment in a musical performance, a lot of times when you’re nervous, you don’t realize that your whole physiology speeds up. Your heart’s beating a little faster. You’re breathing a little faster. That’s from the extra energy you get in performance. And you may just take your music a little faster than you even realize. If there are parts that you’ve never played at that faster tempo, you could run into trouble. So play your music a little bit over tempo and see what happens.

Romantic period music has a certain amount of tempo freedom.

In some styles of music, you may use a certain amount of rubato, the give and take of the tempo, where you rush forward in certain places, then hold back to make up the time. This adds an element of excitement to your music. That’s totally appropriate for some styles of music. But maybe during a performance you decide to use rubato in a place you’ve never thought of using it before. If you’ve never played the piece faster, you can’t pull it off very well if you haven’t practiced that one little part of a phrase faster before. So play your music a little bit over tempo to prepare yourself to allow for some spontaneity in your performance.

Sometimes you can play a piece dramatically faster and get a whole different feel for the music!

Let’s say you’ve been playing a piece and you’ve always felt the quarter note as the beat. For example, in the first movement of the Mozart K 545, C major Sonata, you’re thinking in four. But if you play it faster you might feel the half note as the pulse and give a whole different rhythmic feel. So there are a lot of benefits to playing your music faster as an experiment. First of all, you’ll find the weak points in your playing. You can zero in on the parts you can’t play at that faster tempo. You also have more freedom in a romantic period piece where you can give a little nuance of tempo. And lastly, you might feel the pulse of music differently, a slower pulse at a faster tempo which can open up a different rhythm and feel, even if you don’t end up playing faster. There are many benefits to taking a faster tempo.

Experiment with your pieces!

See what happens when you play your music faster. You may find that some pieces work at a faster tempo. There are innumerable benefits to this. So try it out! Let me know how it works for you. Thanks so much 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

www.LivingPianos.com
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949-244-3729