This is a live performance of one of Claude Debussy’s great piano works. The 3 movements were written at different times in Debussy’s life. So there is a great variety of sounds and textures.
Prélude: The first movement, Prélude, utilizes many interesting techniques on the piano including glissandi, as well as notes held with the sostenuto pedal (the middle pedal) creating a great variety of sounds.
Sarabande: The Sarabande middle movement is one of the most beautiful gems of piano writing which explores rich harmonies with haunting melodies
Toccata: The work ends with the virtuoso Toccata which is a tour de force of intricate undulating patterns of music which build to a spectacular climax!
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is, are pickups measures? Let’s say a piece is in 3/4 time, and it starts with a quarter note. Is that a measure? For example, in the Beethoven Sonata Opus 49 No. 2, the famous G major Sonata, the second movement starts with a dotted 8th and 16th. Then there’s a bar line right after that. Are those first two notes, the dotted 8th and 16th, a measure? They’re in a box. Well, the movement is in 3/4 time. 3/4 time tells you there are three beats in each measure and the quarter note gets one beat. Since you only have one beat total with a dotted 8th and 16th, this can’t possibly be a measure. This is a pickup, sometimes called an anacrusis.
A pickup is simply a beat (or beats) before the first measure (or other measures).
After the first bar line comes the first measure. The pickup notes are not a measure. When learning a piece in 3/4 time that starts with pickups, each phrase starts on the third beat and ends on the second beat. The whole piece is kind of juxtaposed starting with the third beat. An interesting thing that you may have noticed in most pieces that have pickups is that they almost always end on beat that make up the time from the beginning. So indeed, if you look at the end of the movement of this Beethoven Sonata, it only has only two beats in the last measure !And yes, that is considered a measure even though it only has two beats. This is because it starts with a pickup on the third beat and ends on the second beat. You could actually loop it back to the beginning. Now this doesn’t repeat. Although sometimes, you will have repeated sections with da capos or repeat signs that will repeat with pickup. You’ll have a partial measure at the end and the pickup at the beginning. It all works seamlessly! So that’s the way pickups work.
Remember, pickups are not measures.
The first measure comes after the bar line. If you don’t have a complete measure, even if it’s two beats out of four, those would be two beat pickups. If you don’t have a complete measure at the very beginning of a piece after the time signature, that is considered a pickup. Take a look at the last measure of a piece that starts off without enough beats, and nine times out of 10, it’s made up for in the last measure. That’s an interesting little fact for you! You count that note at the beginning backwards from the first measure. That’s why the first note of this movement would be counted as three, not one. You never have two first beats in a row. You know that after the bar line is the first beat. So the beat before the first beat of the measure must be the third beat.
That’s everything you need to know about pickups!
I hope that’s cleared things up for you! I’m sure a lot of you are already well aware of this, but I thought I’d make this video in case there’s any confusion for anybody. Thanks so much for joining me. I’m 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’s subject is about grace notes that aren’t grace notes. Sometimes students think that they’re looking at grace notes and they’re not grace notes. What am I talking about? Well, first of all, what are grace notes? Grace notes are the little tiny notes with diagonal lines going through them just before other notes. You typically play them very quickly. They can be played either on the beat or before the beat. It depends upon what works well. Sometimes it’s easier to play them on the beat. Sometimes it’s easier to play them slightly before the beat. The key is to play them quickly.
When are grace notes not grace notes? How do you know?
Sometimes you will see these little notes that look like grace notes, but they aren’t grace notes. For example, the beginning of Mozart’s Alla Turka movement from his famous Sonata k331. Those are not grace notes! Believe it or not. Look in your edition. They may be written as grace notes. But if you have an authoritative urtext edition, they’re written as appoggiaturas. Appoggiaturas look almost exactly like grace notes, but there’s one key difference. Grace notes always have little lines through them. They’re crossed out. Whereas, appoggiaturas are little tiny notes, but there are no lines through them. They are different in the way you play them. You don’t play them like grace notes. I mentioned two ways to play grace notes, either before the beat or on the beat playing very quickly. Both are wrong in this context, because these are appoggiaturas. Look in your edition. There should not be a line through them. If there are lines through them, this is not accurate.
What are appoggiaturas?
Appoggiaturas are long expressive non chord tones that resolve. They’re played on the beat with some time attached to them. In this case you play them as 16th notes followed by dotted 8th notes instead of grace notes, which are not appropriate for Mozart. It’s not what Mozart wrote! There are some editions out there that are just wrong in this regard. Listen to the beauty when you play them long, the way they’re supposed to be played. Look at all your music now for any places you think you have grace notes. Make sure they are grace notes. They might be appoggiaturas!
There are times when grace notes are not grace notes at all, but they are appoggiaturas to be played long and on the beat. That’s the lesson for today! I’m sure all of you are going to check your scores now. Let me know what you discover! Tell me in the comments here at LivingPianos.com, as well as YouTube. Thanks so much for joining me. I’m 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
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin and this is LivingPianos.com. Today I’m going to show you fingering tips for the piano. Fingering on the piano is as much art as it is science. It is a complex subject. There isn’t one right fingering for everyone. But there are a lot of fingerings that are definitely better than other fingerings. I’m going to give you some general guidelines. Keep in mind that this is a deep subject. These are guidelines that you can take to heart, but finding fingering solutions is something that involves a lifetime of discovery.
To find appropriate fingering, try to cover as many notes in a passage as possible.
Avoid unnecessary finger crossings. If you can be over a whole chord and have your fingers play those notes, it is far easier than having to cross over unnecessarily. There are some exceptions to this. Sometimes you might find that by playing over a chord, it’s hard to get enough power and speed. You might find you want to do finger crossings. But generally you can just get over as many notes as possible in a hand position because it’s easy to play once you’re over the notes. Thumb crossings and third and fourth finger crossings can be difficult to achieve. So get over as many notes as possible.
Unless you’re playing octaves or chords, generally you avoid the thumb on black keys.
Every single rule I’m going to tell you has exceptions. If you’re playing a Bach fugue for example, where counterpoint is very complex, you’ll have the craziest fingering you could ever imagine that breaks every single rule I’m going to tell you here today. So these are only guidelines that you try first. If you can accomplish fingering without using the thumb on black keys, do so. Now of course, if they’re in chords or octaves, that rule does not apply.
On repeated notes you must change fingers.
Obviously, for fast repeated notes it’s essential to change fingers. There’s no way anybody could play fast repeated notes with one finger. But what about repeated notes that are slow? In order to get a true legato out of repeated notes you must change fingers, so one finger is going down while the other finger is going up. For example, the beginning of the second movement of the K 330 C Major Sonata of Mozart. It starts off with three C’s. Without changing fingers, you end up with breaks between the notes. Changing the fingers on those notes makes it possible to achieve a smooth legato sound. You can add the pedal to enhance it. But you can achieve that beautiful legato just with your fingers by changing fingers for each note.
There isn’t just one fingering for all players.
People’s hands are built differently. Not just the size, but the angle of the thumb, as well as the length of different fingers. For some people, the thumb is at a greater angle offering a wider reach. The thickness of fingers can also determine what fingering works best. So every player has to discover what fingerings work for them.
Find the fingerings that work for you!
You must experiment with different fingerings in order to find what works for you. In fact, I will go so far as to say that whenever you have a technical problem, you should search for a fingering solution.
Reference different scores that are edited with different fingering suggestions.
You’ll find if you have more than one edition of a piece, the fingerings are not the same. Different editors have different ideas about what fingerings are going to work best. Sometimes you’re tearing your hair out, not able to play a passage, and then you find another book that has a different fingering and it instantly solves the problem for you!
Those are some tips for fingering for you!
I’m sure there are other valuable tips out there. If anybody has any more tips, leave them in the comments here at LivingPianos.com or on YouTube. I’m 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 I’m going to discuss a musical stress test. What am I talking about? You practice, and practice, and practice, but you wonder if you really know the score. How do you know if you have security with the music? Are you ready for a performance? Are you ready for a lesson? Are you ready to accompany someone? How do you know when you’re ready? You don’t want to wait until the moment of truth comes to find out you weren’t prepared! How can you know? Because as you well know, you can play something by yourself in your home perfectly, and then when you try to play it for somebody else, it goes haywire. What can you do to test things out?
Try playing faster.
There are a lot of things you can do to test yourself. You can try playing things faster to see if you can still hold it together. Because when you get nervous, one of the first things that happens is your physiology speeds up a little bit. Your heart rate, your breathing, all of that speeds up. So guess what happens to your playing? You go faster! You don’t even think you’re going faster. I’ll never forget many, many, years ago, listening to recordings of myself as a child, playing in my dad’s student recitals. I couldn’t believe how fast I was going! I was playing faster than I ever played those pieces! It could be a disaster if you’ve never tried your pieces faster, and the first time it happens is during a performance. I’ve had times where I would keep my fingers crossed hearing my students perform in recitals taking outrageously fast tempos they had never tried before, hoping they had some reserve in their playing.
Another great thing you can do is record yourself.
Psych yourself up like it’s an actual performance. Set up a device, and go through your music and make yourself a little bit nervous. Make yourself feel like you are performing. The key is not to stop! Even if you mess up right at the beginning, keep going. Because that can happen in a performance, and you don’t want to start over. Nobody wants to hear you start over. First of all, it’s as much as announcing to everybody that you’ve messed up. But more than that, it destroys the continuity of the performance for the audience. Speaking of which, there’s no better way to create stress than to play for an audience. If you regularly play for people, play for more people. The more people you play for, the more nervous you’re likely to get. That’s the ultimate stress test. And if you c witanhstand that, then you’re ready for anything.
What I recommend is ratcheting up little by little.
Start with recording for a device. Then play for a family member or a trusted friend. Then play for larger and larger numbers of people until you’re ready for an audience. If you can withstand that and you can withstand playing faster than you usually play, you should be ready for a performance. You can also try playing on different pianos as a musical stress test. Play on a piano you’ve never played and see what happens! Right from the get go, without even trying the piano first, just jump right in. Play on as many pianos as you can. It’s a great way to improve your preparedness, because you can’t take your piano with you. Usually, you have to play whatever piano is wherever you are performing. So playing on as many different instruments as possible is another great way to get ready for your performance. Make sure you’re in the best shape possible to withstand anything in your playing. I hope this is interesting for you! I’m 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 I’m going to tell you the top five piano lesson fails. Now I just want to say right from the get-go that I love teaching and I appreciate the hard work all my students put in. I have students all around the world. I counted it up on my schedule yesterday. I have students in 12 different countries! It’s mind-boggling, the world we live in, that such a thing is even possible! I appreciate the time everybody makes to practice and diligently attend lessons. So with all due respect, I’m going to give the top five piano lesson fails.
1. Stopping to ask if you should take a repeat
You’re playing a piece and as soon as you get to a repeat sign, you turn and say, “Do you want me to go on? Or do you want me to repeat it?” I always kind of chuckle inside. It’s better to just make a decision. I’m happy with either one, frankly. But it’s better to go on when you get to the repeat sign or take the repeat so that you have the continuity of the repeat or the continuity of going to the next section. But that’s a heck of a time to ask whether you should go on or not. Make a decision and go with it, or ask beforehand if you’re really not sure.
2. Waiting until the lesson is over to ask questions
You go through an entire lesson and you’re getting some good things done. Then later in the day when checking my email, there’s an email with a bunch of questions from the student. We just got done with this whole piano lesson and now after the lesson, when there’s not going to be another lesson for a week, all of these questions come in. Now I am always happy to answer questions by email. I’m always available for that. I encourage it! But obviously, during the course of the lesson, these questions could be answered much more thoroughly with a back and forth communication that emails don’t allow for. So if you have questions during the course of a lesson, ask your teacher. That’s what they’re there for, to answer all your questions. So make sure that you take the opportunity to ask your teacher at the lesson anything at all that is important to you.
3. Cramming in all your practice just before a lesson
This is something that students are sometimes guilty of. You get busy during the course of the week and you only have a few days left before your lesson. So you just start cramming through everything, trying to get as far as you can. Then you come into the lesson and right from the beginning, nothing is solid. From the very first phrase, everything is muddy and sloppy. This is a real problem for you as a student. Why? Because now you’ve just spent all this time solidifying sloppy playing. Undoing the damage of bad practice is much harder than just learning a smaller part really well. Your teacher will appreciate the thorough work you do, even if it’s a small section, rather than have a whole bunch of music that isn’t on a high level. So don’t worry. Your teacher understands! Believe me, my life gets so busy, it’s hard for me to find time to practice! So I understand. I get it. I’m sure your teachers are understanding in that respect also. Cramming doesn’t work on the piano.
4. Starting a piece at a tempo you can’t maintain
You’re starting to play a piece for your teacher, and you’re gung ho. So you start at a nice fast tempo. But almost immediately you start slowing down. You get a little further and slow down more and more. This isn’t very helpful for you. You must find a tempo that you can maintain throughout the piece. If you can’t play measure 12 at the tempo that you’re starting, you’re in trouble. Now, if it’s a long piece and there’s a section you don’t know as well, you might want to stop at a certain point and say, “I don’t know this part as well, so I’m going to take it slower”. That’s perfectly understandable. You don’t want to necessarily take the whole piece drastically under tempo if you have a large chunk of it at a good clip. But if you’re going to keep slowing down the whole time, this does not really help you. You want to get used to playing at one tempo.
5. Stopping after a couple of measures when your teacher asks you to play from a specific section
Your teacher asks you to start on measure 47, so you start at measure 47. You get one or two measures in and you stop and say, “Do you want me to go on?” This is similar to the repeat thing, but in this case, there’s no repeat or anything. It’s just that they asked you to start at a certain place. For some reason, you think they didn’t want you to play more than that one measure or two. Now, often I will have students play one specific section. I will say, “Only play up to the first note of measure 50 and that’s it.” Then of course, it’s very hard for students to stop on that note because they’re not necessarily aware of where that note is in the score. But sometimes it’s really important to stop on a specific note to gain security with it. But if your teacher asks you to start at a certain place, you can assume they want you to keep playing unless they stop you or instruct you to play a smaller section.
If you avoid these piano lesson fails, you’ll have more productive lessons. I promise you!
So take it to heart. It’s meant in a positive spirit! I hope I’m not hurting anybody’s feelings with these. That’s not my intention. Hopefully, you find it helpful. Anybody who knows of other lesson fails, share them in the comments here on LivingPianos.com or YouTube. Thanks to all you subscribers and Patreon subscribers! You are what keep me motivated! I’m 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
