Tag Archives: piano lessons

Are Musicians Antisocial?

Welcome to livingpianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is, “Are musicians antisocial?” I know that seems counterintuitive to what music is all about. After all, musicians often play together, whether it’s a symphony, orchestra, chamber music, or even a rock band. And it seems like being a musician is all about being social. When you play with other musicians, you have to sense each other and give and take. So how could music possibly be antisocial?

Practicing is a lonely endeavor.

In order to play at a high level on any instrument, whether it’s piano, violin, trumpet, etc., it requires countless hours of solitary practice. Some musicians practice upwards of 8 hours a day! So you have to strike a balance in your life as a musician because you’ll never develop the technique and the repertoire to be a virtuoso without spending a lot of time alone.

How do you bring the love of humanity and friendship to your music?

Do you care about your audience? All too often, people spend too much time practicing and don’t balance that out with personal relationships. When playing in a musical organization, whether it’s singing in a choir or playing in a band, you don’t get the same type of relationship that you have with close friends. So, as musicians, we have to remember to get out of our practice rooms and be social! After all, you have to care about people in order to be a great musician because you can have all the repertoire and technique in the world, but if you don’t care enough about your audience to share something meaningful, then what is it all for?

Find a balance between practice and relationships.

As a musician, remember to balance your intense practice with relationships and you’ll be richly rewarded. It’s okay to take time for yourself. Your instrument will still be there when you come back. And your playing will be inspired by your experiences. Remember why you are doing this. You have to care about your audience. So spend the time to nurture your relationships with friends and it will all come back to you in your music. Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at livingpianos.com, your online piano store.

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Can You Create Music Out of Thin Air?

This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com. There are so many times that I improvise on the piano and I have recorded quite a number of them for you. It is fun to do, I love to improvise! I have music going on in my head all the time. Sometimes it is music that I memorize like Beethoven, Chopin, Listz, or Debussy. Other times it is the equivalent of musically doodling. Mentally I am always creating something in my head. It can be hit or miss but is inspired by whatever is going on in my head at the moment. Sometimes I play without anything in particular on my mind, and the sounds of the piano inspire something new.

When you improvise on the piano, you may have no idea what will come out, but you might be surprised by what you can come up with. I encourage you to try improvisation and see where the music takes you. It is always fun bringing these to you, I hope you enjoy them. Be on the look-out for our live videos, we have many more coming your way in the future. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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Surfing on the Piano

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Today’s subject is surfing on the piano. You might be confused by the title, wondering what this is going to be about? I’m not talking about playing the piano while you are surfing, although that would be quite a trick! What I’m talking about are the implications of the mentality of surfing and the mentality of playing the piano.

Are there parallels between playing the piano and surfing?

Maybe it’s because I’ve been living in California for so long that this thought even occurred to me, but there are times when I am playing the piano and I feel that sense of going in and out of “the wave”. Or rather, “the zone”. I’ve never surfed, so I may get this wrong, but to be able to ride a wave there are times when you have to be able to make a snap decision as to how you are going to negotiate what is in front of you. You can either push the limits or try to play it safe. You have to be able to instantly make decisions. For example, if I’m playing a piece that has a lot of technical challenges in it, I might want to push the limits a bit while making sure I stay in control so I don’t wipe out.

Ride the musical wave!

Say you are playing the B-Flat Minor Scherzo by Chopin. Ask yourself, “How far can I take this?” You’ll want to try to push the envelope just a bit. You’ll tax yourself going for it, but also holding back just enough so you can ride the wave. A great piece of music like this has it’s own momentum. You have to challenge yourself or you might lose the musicality, but you have to hold back enough that you can keep it going.

Try it out for yourself

See if you can push the limits without wiping out. Practice playing it safe first, then go back and challenge yourself once you feel comfortable. You’ll find that there are aspects of each version that you’ll like, so you’ll want to aim for that balance between the two.

Sometimes playing it safe can be detrimental to a performance

You’ll find that there is nothing wrong with the safe version, though you may find that in some ways you are in less control. If you are trying to ride a wave safely, you might not keep going. You’ve got to take risks at the right moments so you’ll land in the right places. That is the parallel with surfing. Think instantaneously and strive to be in the zone.

I’d love to talk to any of you surfers out there, particularly those who also play the piano. You must be able to get into a certain zone where you aren’t even thinking in words, you are just in the moment controlling what is around you and trying to stay on top of everything. Be it a wave or Chopin, it is all the same mental state that you must achieve in your music and in life. Thanks so much for joining me. Again, this Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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Can Playing the Piano Ease Depression?

I’m Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is, “Can playing the piano ease depression?” Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and the information in this article is anecdotal. I would not suggest playing the piano as your only treatment if you have a serious mental or emotional condition. However, I will say this; I can’t even imagine living in this world if I didn’t have the piano to play!

How can playing the piano affect your emotional health?

What’s great about the piano in regards to emotional health is that you get a chance to completely occupy yourself. Playing music requires intense focus thereby quieting the mind. It’s almost like a form of meditation. Studies have shown meditation can reduce depression and anxiety, and even help people manage chronic pain. But there are other benefits to playing the piano in regard to how it makes you feel.

The beauty of music can connect you to the beauty of life.

Imagine playing a transcendentally beautiful melody like the F-Sharp Major Nocturne by Chopin, and how that makes you feel. If you were depressed and you played that piece, it might make you feel some joy! When I play that melody it fills me with very warm feelings. So you have the benefit of taking your mind away from everything in the outer world, as with meditation, while also experiencing the soul and emotions of people who lived hundreds of years ago who had something special to say. So it fills you with the emotions that they were feeling during their lives.

It can be cathartic to play music that explores deeper emotions

The beginning of the B-minor Scherzo of Chopin has such anger and hostility, it might actually help you release some of your pent up feelings. So, there can be a cathartic quality to playing the piano since there is a soothing calmness you can experience with music of great beauty. All the while, you can become detached from the day-to-day issues and frustrations that we all face in life.

I want to know how any of you feel about playing music. Does it help to keep you emotionally stable? Does it help you to overcome sadness and even depression? I’d love to hear from any of you out there who knows more about this subject. Put it in the comments. Let us know here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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Why is a Slur Impossible on the Piano?

Hi, this is LivingPianos.com, and I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is, “Why is a slur impossible on the piano?” It seems like a ridiculous question because you know that you have slurs all over the place in your scores on the piano, and here I am telling you that slurs are impossible on the piano!

Well, as you probably know, the piano is an instrument of illusion. After all, you play a note and as soon as you play it, it’s dying away. So, every single note you play on the piano has a decrescendo to it, and yet you have music that’s written with crescendos. That’s a whole other issue, why crescendos are impossible on the piano, or are they? Obviously, if you play multiple notes, each successive note can form a crescendo. Correct. But what about a slur? Why is a slur impossible?

What does a slur mean?

Did you know that a slur on the human voice and many instruments have all the notes within the slur? In fact, it’s impossible to avoid it completely when singing. Try singing from one note to another note, and try to avoid getting the notes between. If you were to slow that down dramatically, you would hear all the notes sliding between the notes very quickly. I’m also a French horn player, and on the French horn, slurs also have all the notes between. If you listen to great string players, violinists and cellists for example, when they play slurs they won’t always have the notes between, but for expressiveness, depending upon the positions and which strings they choose, they will achieve a smooth slide between notes when slurring.

That’s impossible on the piano.

So what do we do as pianists? We fake slurs! We create the illusion of slurs by simply having the notes overlap slightly. In one case, you can play two notes and detach them. If you want to create a creamy, slurred effect between two notes, you would release the first note after you play the second note of the slur. You will hear a much smoother sound. If you want to avoid a slur, you can detach the notes. That’s how you achieve the effect of a slur on the piano. But you are not technically slurring on the piano. You’re just creating the illusion of a slur by judiciously overlapping the notes just enough so it doesn’t become ugly, particularly if you have a half step slur, you want to avoid dissonance. You can overlap the notes slightly in order to achieve a smooth connection from note to note.

Yes, slurs are impossible on the piano, but we try our darnedest to create the illusion of slurring by overlapping notes slightly. I hope this has been interesting for you, and I wonder how many of you realize what a slur actually means, and how to achieve the effect on the piano.

Thanks so much for joining me again. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store. We’ll see you next time.

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Do You Have to Keep Learning New Music on the Piano?

This is Robert Estrin of LivingPianos.com. The question today is “Do you have to keep learning new music on the piano?” If you know about piano repertoire, you know how vast it is. It is the most amazing thing. I have been playing the piano since I was a young child, and I’ve learned a great deal of music. Yet, people come up to me and say, “Do you know…” and whatever that piece is, before they even say the name, I think to myself, “Uh-oh, I hope I know it!”. It doesn’t matter who you are and how vast your repertoire is:

There is so much more music written for the piano that nobody knows it all.

Often I do know the requested piece, or at least know something similar by the same composer.

Do you have to keep learning music your whole life? My father was concertizing well into his eighties. He was in his eighties when he learned for the first time, Mussorgsky’s, “Pictures at an Exhibition”. You know this is a mammoth work. He was a firm believer in learning new music, always challenging himself, and always learning more music. I’ve got to say that I am very influenced by my father, Morton Estrin. He would lament that often times he would see some of his colleagues giving solo recitals. He would look at the program and say, “What? That’s the same thing program they performed at their graduate recital at Juilliard twenty years ago!” He used to scoff at that: the idea that someone could learn a certain amount of repertoire and keep playing the same things over and over again was anathema to his musical convictions. Is it really essential to keep learning music your whole life? Not necessarily, however, I think you’d be missing out on a great deal for two reasons. First of all:

You’d miss out on the beauty of the music and depth of expression that is possible by learning different pieces.

There is no substitution for that. For example, if you have seen some great movies, you still want to see new ones. If you’ve read great books, that doesn’t mean you aren’t ever going to read any new books in your life. It is the same thing with learning new pieces of music. More than that, by learning new pieces of music, you go back to pieces you’ve studied before and you will have gained new insights into the music. This isn’t just if you learn more compositions and genres of the same composer, but even unrelated works.

Pieces that demand techniques which expand your playing has benefits when revisiting other pieces taking them on a new level of performance.

Once again this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729