Tag Archives: living pianos

Living Pianos Tour: Now in Waterloo Arts District

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. Living Pianos is now located in the Waterloo Arts District. This is a unique neighborhood in Cleveland Ohio. About one-hundred years ago, Cleveland was the epicenter of culture and wealth in the United States. The Rockefellers and the Carnegies were here. There was Millionaire’s Row on Euclid Avenue. It was a vibrant place. It’s left a legacy of culture and diversity. There’s the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the world’s finest orchestras, about 15 minutes away from here at Severance Hall, which has spectacular acoustics. The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the great museums in the country. We also have the Cleveland Cultural Gardens that stretch from the lake all the way inland to University Circle, celebrating the diversity of cultures here in this city.

The Waterloo Arts District is about 10 minutes east of downtown a mile from Euclid Beach on Lake Erie. There are a lot of galleries, restaurants, coffee houses, venues, recording studios, you name it, it’s here. My wife and I really love the fact that we’re with like-minded people who appreciate art, music, and culture. It’s really quite an experience living here! Yet the pace is not as intense as Southern California where we lived for so long. You get on the freeway here and it actually moves! You don’t have to worry about rush hour. When we lived in Orange County, we used to love to go to Laguna Beach. The only problem was we couldn’t come home without hitting major traffic.

Take a tour of Living Pianos and the Waterloo Arts District Here

Check out the accompanying video to see the neighborhood and the spectacular new Living Pianos showroom! This area offers so much. One of the region’s noted music venues where national touring acts perform, Beachland Ballroom is right down the street. So there is a nice mix of musicians who come through. There are several vintage record stores, cool bars and restaurants, art galleries, and spectacular murals. It’s a unique part of the city! Last night was Art Walk, which happens the first Friday of every month and it was packed. There are three outdoor stages where bands play. It’s really a vibrant place to be, particularly on the first Friday of the month. There are all kinds of festivals. Next Saturday they’re blocking off the entire street and there will be artists, crafts, music and food. There’s so much to celebrate!

We bought a beautiful building here in the Waterloo Arts District.

There’s room for everything here in our new space. It’s four stories! On the top two floors we have a beautiful place to live. In our music room, we have a vintage, Chickering baby grand that blends right in with the vintage woodwork. My wife has her music studio on the third floor. Downstairs are our pianos in a beautiful showroom with great acoustics! The front part of the building is a Civil War era structure originally built in 1862. Of course we have done some work. Fortunately, the person who owned the building before us was a contractor. Thank goodness, because a lot of the restoration was already done including the plumbing, electrical, and all the important structural work. We just finally got air conditioning in the whole building. It was no easy task. It’s hard to find people to do that kind of work these days. On the lowest level we have our ping pong room. In the back we have a large warehouse that houses our piano shop. We are in the process of remodeling part of it to allow for even more showroom space. I also have a studio on the main level where I shoot a lot of my videos. I do a lot of my teaching there as well. I have students from all around the world!

It’s a new world we live in. It’s so easy to connect with people! That’s why I wanted to connect with you to let you know what’s going on here. If you’re ever in the area, you’re welcome to arrange a visit. We’d love to have you! In the meantime, you can watch videos which we continue producing.

We are celebrating Living Piano’s 15th year and hit 20 million views on YouTube with 95,000 subscribers!

 

Thanks so much for all your support, we couldn’t do it without you. It’s all for you! So thanks again to everyone. 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

The History of Living Pianos

Robert Estrin on the History of Living Pianos

Going way back, Living Piano, originally, was Living Piano: Journey Through Time: Historic Concert Experience. I was playing concerts, but I wanted to play more concerts. It’s always a struggle because, let’s face it, in 21st century America, piano has been in decline for a long time. I wanted to think of something that I could do that was more enriching for audiences. How do you set yourself apart from everybody else? There are so many accomplished pianists. I had this idea of creating a whole experience starting with the harpsichord and fortepiano, which are the predecessors to the piano. I would dress up in period costumes and not only play the harpsichord, but explain what it is and the technology behind it. I bought several historical keyboard instruments and learned how to play and service them. If you’re a harpsichordist or you play fortepiano, you’re also a technician because they need constant maintenance. I got a van and I traveled all through the state of California. I performed at dozens of universities, art centers, and conventions. There was even a Living Pianos cruise! I would play these concerts going from the harpsichord, to the fortepiano, to the modern piano, and beyond, to cutting edge 21st century keyboard technologies, showing the whole lineage, and dressing in various period costumes. I had some of my very talented proteges, prodigy students who would also come out as young Mozart. It was really fun!

I also have always sold pianos because I love pianos.

I wondered what to call the piano business. So, I called it Living Pianos! I had Living Piano, which was the concert experience, and then Living Pianos, where I sold classic restored pianos. So that’s how the name came about. It’s actually a really good fit because we specialize primarily in restored, top-tier American and European pianos, which are so rare today. And they are so expensive to buy new, that most people are shut out of that market. Of course, we always have Steinways, but there are so many other phenomenal brands that many people haven’t even heard of, like August Förster and Ibach. Some of these pianos are phenomenal instruments in their own right. Better than that, each one has its own personality, and I think it’s really enriching to be able to find your voice in music.

I get to connect with so many people through Living Pianos.

Every single day, I get hundreds of emails and hundreds of comments on LivingPianos.com and YouTube. I connect with people all around the world, one-on-one, through lessons on Zoom and other streaming platforms. I also connect with people through the videos, where I get to discuss anything that is important to me. I get to share my passion for music with so many people. That is an unbelievable privilege! Anything that I care about, I find people who also care about those subjects. That is so enriching, because sometimes it’s easy to feel like nobody cares about classical music anymore in society. And yet, when your audience is the world, there are a lot of people out there who share these interests. I get to connect with so many people, and it is thrilling! If I play a live recital, maybe I’ll get a hundred people. That’s a decent size crowd. But I can put out a video and it will reach 1,500 people in 10 hours! It’s my forum. This is really where the crux of my energies go because I love to connect with people. I love the fact that people care about the piano as much as I do. It makes all of the work I put in really worthwhile! 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

The Importance of the Rotation of the Hands in Piano Playing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about the importance of the rotation of the hands in piano playing. There are so many applications for this. What do I mean by the rotation of the hands? I’ve talked about the weight of the arm, the importance of using the wrist for staccato, octaves, and chord technique. I’ve talked about how the arms are necessary for really massive chords. The fingers, of course, do so much on the piano. So what’s this about the rotation of the hands?

There are certain instances when the rotation of the hands is absolutely essential.

With broken octaves it’s absolutely essential to rotate the hands. For example, in the famous Alla Turca movement from Mozart’s Sonata in A-major K.331. The last movement is in A minor, incidentally. It has the octave sections earlier on, but at the end the octaves are broken. When you play this, your hand must rotate back and forth. That’s the technique you must use for passages like this. It’s not just in this piece, but this is an extreme example. How would you play this without rotating the hands? I have no idea. I don’t think it would be possible. It’s nearly impossible to do this with the fingers alone. But by rotating your hand back and forth, suddenly it comes to life! It’s actually quite easy when you rotate your hand back and forth.

Feeling the weight transfer from one side of the hand to the other is an essential component of piano playing.

Sometimes the weight has to shift from one side of the hand to the other when you’re playing large intervals. But this technique is useful even in something slow, like the famous E -flat Nocturne of Chopin. There’s a certain rotation you need to get the weight of the arm to transfer from the first finger to the fifth finger. You must rotate! So rotation is an essential part of piano playing. It’s not just with extreme intervals either, although they tend to be places where it’s essential.

I want you to try this in your piano playing!

Think about the weight of your arm and transferring that weight smoothly from one side of your hand to the other in your melodic playing. Certainly with broken octaves, you can see this is absolutely instrumental, no pun intended! I hope this is helpful for you.Try it out! If any of you play the Mozart Alla Turca movement, try rotating your hand, and you’ll appreciate the facility this technique achieves. It makes it so much easier to play. 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 Play Smoothly on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to play smoothly on the piano. The answer: Avoid the impossible! What am I talking about? Playing smoothly on the piano is something you hear great artists do. The way they play is just so pristinely smooth. You wish you could achieve that same smoothness in your playing. But your playing sometimes can sound choppy. You don’t know how to achieve that smooth sound that you hear other people doing. You want it so badly, and you wonder, what can you do about it?

One of the most important aspects of learning to play smoothly on the piano is to practice incessantly without the pedal.

When you practice without the pedal you learn how to connect things with your fingers. That’s the secret, in a nutshell, of how to play smoothly. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Oftentimes there are things that are just not possible to play smoothly. So, what can you do about that? Do you just smear it all with the pedal? No. It will sound awful if you do that. You will hear the beginning of the second movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Sonata as an example in the accompanying video. It’s really hard to connect those opening chords in the right hand. So how do you do it?

The secret is that you shouldn’t try to connect everything.

If you just try to connect everything, you can end up with a mess. There’s no way to bring out any lines. It comes out blocked and choppy. So sacrifice the things that are not as important to connect, for the things that are vitally important to connect, which is the melody! So, in your right hand, you sacrifice the lower notes so that you can connect the melody which is the top line. You can grab a certain amount of those chords on the pedal so it doesn’t sound quite so austere. You purposely let go of the bottom notes so you can connect the top notes. That’s what I mean when I say avoid the impossible. If you try to connect all the notes, you can’t do it. It’s impossible, so don’t even try. If you connect the melody really well, it sounds gorgeous.

Try this in your music!

Whatever you’re playing, when you want to really play smoothly, sacrifice what you can’t connect for what you must connect. That is the lesson for today! Let me know how it works for you in the comments here at LivingPianos.com, and on 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 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!

WATCH VIDEO

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

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