Tag Archives: music theory

Should You Use Pedal in Bach?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Is pedal necessary in playing Bach? That’s a question I received from a viewer. Most of you probably know that the piano wasn’t invented during Bach’s lifetime. However, Bach did try the very earliest incarnation of what was ostensibly a piano. But he never wrote any music specifically for the piano.

Bach’s favorite keyboard instrument was the clavichord, because of how expressively it could play.

Because there wasn’t an escapement on the clavichord, you could actually impart vibrato on notes after you played them! Of course, the piano has escapement. That means the hammers escape the strings after striking them. This allows for a wide range of dynamics. But the sustain pedal didn’t exist during Bach’s lifetime.

What I’m going to do today is a really interesting experiment!

I’m counting on you to help me with this! I’m going to play the first section of the Bach French Suite No. 5. The first movement has a repeat. The first time I’m going to play it with no pedal at all. Then I’m going to play it with lots of pedal. But I’m going to be using little tiny bursts of pedal, just to enhance the tone. The questions are, can you hear the difference? And do you have a preference? Watch the video, then let me know your impression in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube.

Watch the video to take part in the experiment!

So I’ve shown you two examples of the same exact section. You probably wonder what I was doing with my foot there, fluttering up and down so quickly. Well, in this piece, as in so much Bach, there’s so much counterpoint going on that it’s difficult to really use much pedal. If you’re playing Chopin, for example, there is obviously so much you can do with pedaling. In fact, you need to use the pedal! If I were to play, for example, the Chopin G minor Ballade without the pedal, it would sound pretty thin. In music like that, the sustain pedal is absolutely essential to hold out notes for harmonies to blend together. But the music of Bach wasn’t written with the sustain or damper pedal in mind. So it works just fine without the pedal.

Why would you want to use pedal in Bach?

In Bach, you use short bursts of pedal to enhance longer notes to make them sustain longer. Because, as you know, when you play a note on the piano, it’s always dying away. As pianists, we’re always fighting that. We are trying to create a singing sustained line for the illusion of continuity, like in the human voice or the bow of a violin. The pedal helps to enrich the sound of key notes so that you get a sense of the line. Why just little flutters of pedal? Because to do any kind of substantial pedaling where the pedal stays down for any length of time, would blur the counterpoint together. And that’s not what you want. I’m really interested in reading your comments on this! Which way do you like better? Could you hear a difference at all? Let me know! 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 Slowly Should Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata Be Played?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how slowly the Moonlight Sonata should be played. I’m referring to the famous first movement that so many people love to play. There are some questions as to how slowly it should go. After all, it is written to be played Adagio Sostenuto, which is slow and sustained. More than that, it goes on to say “Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordini.” Now that’s a mouthful! That translates literally to, “The whole piece must be played very delicately and without deafness.” Sordini, we know, means mute, so, without the mute. And what is the mute on the piano? Well, perhaps he was talking about the soft pedal.

Why wouldn’t you want to use the soft pedal in the Moonlight Sonata?

Well, you have to remember that the instrument that Beethoven wrote this piece for is drastically different from a modern piano. In fact, pianos early in Beethoven’s life are quite different from what pianos had become later in his life. He worked closely with instrument builders to develop the piano. My guess is that on the instrument he wrote the Moonlight Sonata, the tone was not sufficient with the soft pedal. I do like to use the soft pedal in the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

The Moonlight Sonata is not in 4/4 time.

I was teaching a student the Moonlight Sonata the other day. They were playing at a very slow tempo. I took exception with it. Why? Because in an urtext edition of the score, this piece isn’t in 4/4 time. Look carefully and you will realize it’s in cut time, 2/2 or alla breve. The symbol looks like a C with a vertical line through it. So instead of having four quarter notes getting the beat, you have two half notes getting the beat. Playing faster sounds slower when the pulse is a longer note value. Beethoven intended it to be played with the half note as the slow beat, instead of the quarter note which makes you play it slower. If you try to slow down that quarter note, the whole piece bogs down. It’s a fairly long movement as it is. To play it with a quarter note ticking makes it ponderous. It’s not the way Beethoven intended the piece to be played.

Check out your score and see if you have the cut time!

If your edition is in 4/4 common time, that is not correct. The authoritative urtext editions are written in 2/2 time, not 4/4 time. So you may want to think about your tempo of the Moonlight Sonata. I hope this has been helpful for you! Leave your comments here at LivingPianos.com and on 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

Magical Practicing Tool: Extreme Repetition

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to discuss the incredible value of extreme repetition in your piano practice. This type of practicing can be really annoying to listen to, but it’s incredibly valuable. Anybody who’s lived with me knows that I do a lot of this kind of practice. I find it to be one of the most helpful ways of practicing. So I thought I’d share it with you!

Take a very small chunk of music and play it over and over again.

I practice this way much of the time. Focus on just a few notes. Sometimes even one or two notes! Try to play those notes with absolute security. Even more importantly, play them with total relaxation. Feel that your fingers are simply falling on the right keys with minimal effort. Play tiny note groups. Don’t push to articulate each finger. Instead, just play as relaxed as possible.

Don’t be afraid of taking very small chunks of music.

It could be just two notes! You want to be able to play them with security and relaxation. Don’t be afraid of repeating something again and again and again. This is a very effective way of working through your music. I spend an incredible amount of my practice time working this way. So play small groups of notes up to speed as relaxed as possible. Don’t be afraid to repeat something until, like I say, you feel like you’re just falling on the right notes.

Use the weight of the arms.

After some time, your fingers just know where to go. Don’t push your fingers into the right keys. Let the weight of your arms allow your fingers to just fall into the right keys, keeping everything relaxed, instead of punctuating each note with your fingers more than necessary. You can get so much accomplished if you’re not afraid to spend an inordinate amount of time on very small groups of notes. Try it in your practice! Let me know how it works for you. Leave your 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

Why Corrections Are So Hard on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why corrections are so hard on the piano. You may have had this experience where you have something in your music you learned wrong or something doesn’t quite come out right. So you correct the mistake. You cement the correction. You do it over and over again until you get it perfect. You can play it ten times perfectly, no problem at all. Then you play for your teacher or at a performance and the same mistake comes back! You corrected that mistake, so how could it possibly come back to haunt you?

Why do old mistakes come back?

I’m going to give you a parallel here. Imagine there is a job you drive to every day for months, maybe years. Every day you get in your car and you go the same way. You’re so used to that route you don’t even have to think about it. That’s the problem! Because then let’s say you get a new job. You have to take a different way. But you’re so used to the old way that you end up making a wrong turn. You know which way you’re supposed to go, but it’s early in the morning and your mind is on other things. You end up reverting to the old way. The same thing happens in your piano playing! Just because you can play a correction ten times in a row, as an abstraction by itself in your practice with nobody there, doesn’t mean it is 100% solidified. The way you played it hundreds of times before, or that route you drove 100 times before, is still back there in your brain. It’s there, and it can come out at any time.

Correcting mistakes involves more than just correcting the mistakes.

You have to learn to be aware of the correction at the time it comes. During a musical performance in particular, when there are many distractions and perhaps a little extra nervous energy, you might revert back to something that you can’t even believe you would do. So what’s the answer to this? Of course, practicing incessantly on the correction until it’s ironed out is crucial. But there is more to it than that. You need to be aware when you get to the correction, just like being aware when you’re driving so you don’t make a wrong turn. Make a mental note so you’re aware of it when you get there. By doing this, you are present at that moment to incorporate the correction. You already know you can do it. You just need to keep the presence of mind to execute it when it comes.

I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know how you feel about this in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on 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

What Does It Mean to Be Musical?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today the subject is about what it means to be musical. Sometimes you hear people say an artist is so musical. What does that mean? Well, there’s a lot to unwrap here! 

The piano has so many different facets of abilities that are necessary in order to be able to play successfully. 

You might think that somebody who has really good technique must be musical. But technique is something I put under the umbrella of musical abilities or even musical intelligence. Good technique doesn’t necessarily equate to being musical. It does indicate talent for the instrument. Another aspect is security in performance. There are some people who just play their best in front of people. They are good performers, but are they musical? That is really something different, isn’t it?

If a performer doesn’t have security in their performance, it’s difficult to be musical. 

Just like if they don’t have technique, how are they going to be able to express anything? There are other aspects too. You need to be able to digest the score. It is crucial to be able to look at a piece of music and make sense of the structure of the piece. Once again, that’s musical intelligence. These are all important aspects of piano playing. All of these things are related. They really are important. How could you possibly be musical if you can’t digest the piece, if you can’t hold it together, or if you don’t have the fingers to be able to to execute the music? But assuming all of those things are there, what does it mean to be musical?

I believe being musical is being able to elicit emotions in the listener. 

There are some people who are astoundingly accomplished at the piano. They can play the most difficult music with fluency and security. And yet maybe they leave you cold. But sometimes there’s a student, maybe even a young student who doesn’t have much technique or experience, and they don’t even necessarily do all the things that should be done in a piece, but there’s a beauty to their playing. It makes you feel something! It brings a smile to your face, or maybe sadness. Their playing makes you feel emotions. This is something that is really elusive to describe. It’s even more difficult to teach. 

A certain amount of this is inborn. 

A certain amount cannot be learned. But like many other things in life, someone who is naturally musical can become more musical by exposure. With good training, and by listening to other musicians who are more accomplished than they are, they can grow musically. Somebody who just doesn’t have much sense of where the music should go, maybe they can learn a great deal. Their musicianship and their ability to elicit emotions and create excitement or sadness can be improved. But somebody who has very little of that natural ability will have a tougher time with musicality. 

Everybody can improve! 

This doesn’t just go for musicality, for lack of a better word, but all aspects of piano playing can grow. Technique can be improved. Security in performance can be improved. The ability to digest a score can be improved. All of these things can be improved along with that elusive musicality. So don’t fret if you are lacking in one or more of these skill sets. They all can be developed! Nobody has all of them in spades. Everybody has to mitigate their weaknesses and develop their strengths. 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

Why Middle C Isn’t Middle C (on the piano)

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about Middle C. But middle C isn’t middle C! What am I talking about? Have I gone off the deep end? No, and I’m going to prove it to you right now!

The exact middle of the keyboard actually falls on the E and F above middle C.

That is the middle of the piano. Did you ever realize that? Well, middle C is the middle C of the piano, right? Actually, no! There are 8 Cs on the piano. So, middle C and the C an octave above are technically both middle C’s, aren’t they? So what is going on here? Why do they call this middle C when it’s not the middle of the piano, and it’s not the middle C of the piano? While it’s not technically the middle of the piano, and it’s not technically the middle C on the piano, it is about the middle of the piano where the closest C occurs. So it kind of is middle C.

Modern pianos have 88 keys. But if you go back to the 1870s, the piano had only 85 keys.

Back then, the highest note on the piano was A below the highest C on modern pianos. On an 85 key piano, middle C would be in the middle of the keyboard! But if you ever thought that middle C is the middle of the modern piano, you might want to adjust where you sit. You should be sitting with the E and F centered in front of you. This doesn’t make a big difference. But it could make a little bit of a difference lining yourself up between E and F, because indeed, this is the middle of your piano!

How do you feel about this? Did you realize this before? I’m interested in your comments 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