Tag Archives: piano lessons

Piano Lessons – The Burgmüller Studies – Part 1

Welcome to the first in our series on The Burgmüller Studies. Burgmüller was a wonderful composer who wrote pieces that are accessible to less advanced students, yet offer absolutely wonderful musical content. I always encourage students who have progressed beyond the most basic level to explore these pieces because they are beautiful compositions that can help you further your development as a pianist.

Today we are going to discuss the first piece in this series: La Candeur (or as it translates to English, “Frankness”).

What are the challenges in this piece? You might notice by listening to it that it has a very lyrical, sustained melody. This piece doesn’t require using the pedal but the challenge is getting a smooth line throughout which requires learning to play legato. This is a great skill for any pianist and particularly good for young students just getting into more advanced music. You’ll also want to support the line with the weight of your arms – VIDEO: Arms Equal Power and Depth.

The secret to getting a sustained and beautiful tone is to have the weight of your arms supported by the fingers. You’ll want to transfer the weight from finger to finger to create a long and beautiful legato. You don’t want to apply pressure just at the start of a note but during the entire phrase. If you were to play on someone else’s arm they would feel a constant pressure from the weight of your fingers and arms pressing down, not just at the start of the notes.

If you were to calculate the volume of each note louder and louder to the top of the phrase, then quieter and quieter, you would end up with calculated playing, not a smooth line. Using the weight of your arm – almost as if it were the breath in music – to get louder during the middle of a phrase and softer towards the end of a phrase, you will create a very dramatic and pleasing tone throughout. You want the piano to mimic a wind instrument or a singing voice in it’s tone.

In another part of the piece you have a section which almost sounds like it could be written for two different instruments in the right hand:

On the top you have these half notes:

And on the bottom you have a completely different voice:

It’s important to leave the top (half notes) down while you play the other notes. How can you achieve this? By practicing the long notes legato and the short notes staccato from the fingers. This creates independence of the fingers to assure delineation of the two lines. Without doing this you might end up holding down all the notes or not holding the half notes for their full value – which would be incorrect.

Thanks again for joining me, I look forward to our next lesson on Burgmuller. If you have any comments or questions for this topic or any topic at all please contact me directly: info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Piano Lesson – How to Breathe While Playing The Piano

No, you didn’t click the wrong link today, even though this might sound like a topic for The Flute Show! Learning to breathe properly while you are playing the piano is an essential skill for any pianist. We can all understand that breathing is required to live but it has a great deal to do with performing music as well. Today we are going to discuss a couple of components of how breathing can positively and negatively affect your performances.

Let’s say you are playing a technically demanding piece like the Military Polonaise of Chopin. It’s going to take a lot of energy and you’re going to have to remind yourself to take some deep breaths. If you don’t plan for this you might end some sections out of breath and winded. During a musical performance, you have so much on your mind that it’s common to forget something as essential as breathing! You don’t have to plan your breathing ahead of time but you should definitely remind yourself from time to time that you need to breathe. Before you enter a complicated section you should take the time to take a deep breath. This will enhance your performance and help to settle your nerves.

Beyond just breathing, you need to relax your mind and body enough so that it won’t be a problem in the first place. It’s difficult to tell someone to just get on stage and to be completely calm; of course, most people will be at least somewhat nervous. Over time and with experience you will learn to calm your nerves and become more comfortable while playing. Learning to direct your energy into your playing as opposed to succumbing to your nerves will make a big difference.

Breathing can also be incredibly important while you’re playing with other musicians. In chamber music, for example, the breath of the pianist can actually guide the other musicians; it can help cue them as to where to play and where a phrase ends. If you pay close attention you might notice that all the musicians breathe in unison in a fine chamber group – even though some might be playing string instruments which don’t require the breath to produce a tone.

Breathing is such an integral part of playing music that even on an instrument that doesn’t require breathing – like the piano – we as musicians still want to feel the breath in music. I cover this more in-depth in an earlier video about breath in music. I also have a topic that explains why singing your music is a great way to practice separate parts and get an idea for how the music should flow.

No matter what instrument you play you should definitely be aware of your breathing and how it affects your overall performance. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

How to use the pedal in Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata

Today we have a question from Umberto, who asks, “How do you approach pedaling in the Moonlight Sonata? Do you pedal throughout all of it?”

These are excellent questions. In fact, yes, you use pedal in some parts rather sparingly, other parts very generously, but you use it throughout the whole piece in different ways. Of course the different movements have different requirements, but we’re going to focus today on the first movement, the famous melodic first movement.

So first of all, just a little primer. Whenever you’re using the pedals on the piano you want to keep your your heels firmly on the floor. You never want to put your pedal like this because it’s noisy. So you keep the heel on the floor, and then the ball of the foot is how you control best. Always keep it in contact, because if you go from above, once again you get noise. All pedals are very different on pianos. You have to experiment to find how you could play it quietly and effectively, because they all release the dampers at different points. One of the first things you want to try out when you’re playing over a concert is how the pedal responds on the instrument.

So getting to the Moonlight Sonata. As with any music, the pedal changes wherever the harmonies change. So if you were to play this piece in chords, each time the chord changes . . . and notice the pedal always comes up exactly on the beat but goes down right after the beat. So that’s the secret of pedaling. The pedal always comes up exactly on the change of harmony and goes right back down again. So if I play it now not in chords, but as it’s written, and with the soft pedal, the una corda pedal, depressed the entire time, you get this.

The reason for changing the pedal, coming up on the pedal exactly on the beat, is otherwise harmonies blur. If you were to play the pedal and put it down on the beat instead of up on the beat, you’d end up with this.

I can’t even do it. It’s so hard. I’m so trained. I’m gonna try it again. I’m gonna try to play the pedal wrong for you.

Yeah, that’s also not connected. I haven’t experimented with playing pedal wrong. It’s a hard thing to do. Any of you who are a pianist accustomed to using the pedal, try it how hard it is to play it wrong. So get in the habit of always coming up at the change of harmonies and right back down again so you get that smooth transition, and if you’re not sure where the harmonies change, break the music down to chords and it becomes very obvious for you.

Thanks for the wonderful question Umberto, and all the questions coming in and the great comments. Thank you everyone at virtualsheetmusic.com I’m Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com. Thanks for joining me.

What is meant by playing piano with a “Quiet Hand”?

You may or may not have heard this term before. In studying with my father, Morton Estrin, he stressed the concept of playing with a quiet hand years before I left for conservatory and it’s something I’ve incorporated into my playing ever since. This is a great technique for creating expressive playing on the piano and today we are going to learn about what it is and how you can incorporate it into your playing.

When playing the piano there are many different parts of the body that are utilized. For strength you will need to use your arms, for power and speed you’ll need to utilize your wrists but for melodies you will need to utilize your fingers to create a smooth line.

The concept of a quiet hand is about avoiding unnecessary motion in order to achieve control in smooth melodic playing. The most important aspect to playing with a quiet hand is to have as little extraneous motion as possible and to utilize the weight of the arms transferring smoothly from key to key. So how do you achieve this?

You’ll want to practice getting your hands over the correct keys and transferring the weight between your fingers creating an almost seamless musical line. For more information on this topic check out my past video on finger techniques for the piano.

Thanks again for joining me here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Can Practicing Your Music Too Fast be Good?

I know this is a topic that might have some piano teachers in a panic at the suggestion of having students play their music too fast. Generally in performance and even in practice, playing your music too fast can be destructive. What I’m suggesting in this video is just one method of practicing your music – and something you would never use in a performance setting. It is a technique which used sparingly may provide insights into approaching your music.

You may have a piece you’ve learned and can’t get beyond a fundamental level of performance. I’ve found that sometimes playing a piece faster than written can open up new approaches and even new techniques you never thought to try. For example, if you’re playing a fast piece, playing it even faster will force you to lighten up your technique in order to accommodate the speed. Then when you come back to the normal tempo, you will find that you have more facility and comfort than before.

Even in slow movements this can be a beneficial technique. For example, in the Mozart K332 Sonata, the second movement is gorgeous and lyrical. Playing faster can provide insights into the direction of the musical line which you may not realize playing at the appropriate tempo. Sometimes you might find yourself getting bogged down and the music sounds choppy and lacking a fluid line. By practicing this movement faster than written, you’re almost guaranteed to approach it with a more fluid line. Try this and then go back to the written tempo and incorporate what you experienced playing at the faster tempo. You can sense the larger note values instead of each sixteenth note. You may be pleased with the results!

This is certainly not a technique I would recommend on a regular basis. However, it is something to try when you hit a wall with the progress of a new piece. I also have a video about the benefits of practicing your music slowly that is intrinsic to effective piano practice and something virtually all great pianists do on a regular basis.

Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this topic or any others, please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

How to Play Extreme Rubato

We’ve covered the basics of rubato before. But to summarize: Rubato is a give and take of the tempo; a speeding up and a slowing down without ever gaining or losing time. This is a technique used mostly in Romantic period music – like Schumann, Liszt, Chopin and others – which adds emotion and character to music. It’s only appropriate for some music and many compositions written in the Romantic era can benefit from the expressive use of rubato.

The idea of practicing with extreme rubato is to see how far you can push your music before it becomes grotesque. It’s hard to tell if you’re doing too much unless you can create a distinction between too much and just right. We recently discussed the benefits of practicing your music too fast to gain insights that you wouldn’t necessarily discover otherwise. This method of extreme rubato is very similar in helping you uncover expressive possibilities in your performance.

With many Romantic period pieces, rubato can add a great amount of emotion to your playing. Much like going up and down hills quickly in a car can create feelings of excitement as you crest over the peak and relief while descending, rubato can provide similar emotions in your music.

I encourage you to take rubato to its limits and beyond to discover how far you can go. Once you get a good idea of where the peaks and valleys are in the music, you can scale back the rubato to a tasteful level. If you never experiment, you may have trouble even discovering where rubato is possible!

One essential element of rubato is keeping the beat of the music. Listeners should be able to tap along never losing the pulse of the music.

It’s also important that you never gain or lose time when utilizing rubato. No matter how far off you go, you must maintain time. My father would demonstrate this technique by playing with the metronome using rubato. Sometimes he would get ahead of the metronome – sometimes behind – but he would always end with the correct number of beats.

Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this topic or any others, please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729