Tag Archives: piano playing

The Best and Worst Pianos to Buy

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to talk about the best and worst pianos to buy. This is a big subject, so where do we begin? I’ll start with the worst pianos to buy, then I’ll go to the best pianos to buy so we can end on a happy note!

What are the worst pianos to buy?

Upright pianos have all different heights. Go back far enough, and they were really tall. They got shorter and shorter over time. There were a whole breed of pianos referred to as spinet pianos. Spinet pianos are no longer made, but they were popular because they were very small and inexpensive. In the 1970s, you could get a brand new Kimball Whitney spinet for a few hundred dollars! Can you imagine? So they were popular for that reason. This was before digital pianos existed. So if somebody wanted something really inexpensive, a spinet was an option.

What’s so bad about spinets?

Let’s break it down. Why is the sound so anemic on a spinet? The piano is so short, the strings don’t have much length. Everything in the low register is really lacking. There isn’t much richness even in the high register because the soundboard is so small. Worse than that, in order to fit the action into such a small case, it didn’t have a full length key to reach the back of the action. So the keys were very short, and there were connecting rods to the rest of the action. This is called an indirect blow action, or a drop action. If you open a spinet at the top you can see the keys end right at the end of the fallboard. There are rods connecting the keys to the rest of the action. So they’re not as responsive. They’re also easier to play, which may be a benefit to some people who have hand problems. But generally, it’s not going to prepare a serious pianist to play other pianos. The repetition is also really slow. There are some spinets that are better than others. The Baldwin Acrosonic was the best of that breed. So that’s one kind of piano that generally you want to avoid.

Sometimes a big old upright can be an absolutely glorious instrument.

In fact, you can get a bigger sound out of a tall upright than some smaller baby grands. Old uprights have long string length and big sound boards. They’re formidable, wonderful instruments. But the problem is, most of them were made over a hundred years ago! What you don’t want is to buy an old upright piano just because it looks pretty, because it might need $15,000 or $20,000 worth of work. This is no joke. These pianos get worn out. If the strings are old and rusty and the felt, hammers, and other action parts are worn out, you can get into hundreds of hours of work trying to restore one of these instruments. When you’re all done, you’d be lucky to sell it for a few thousand dollars, because they’re not as popular anymore.

Occasionally you’ll find an old upright that has already been restored. And if that’s the case, it can be a wonderful experience to have an instrument like this. But I wouldn’t buy one to restore. You can find free uprights, mostly the big, tall, old uprights, on websites like PianoAdoption.com. If you look at enough of them, maybe you’ll find one that doesn’t need everything. But generally, if you’re looking for a quality instrument and it seems like a good deal, check with your piano technician before you commit to it.

What are the best pianos to buy?

So now let’s get to some of the pianos that are worthwhile, and that would be restored American pianos or late model American pianos. Steinway and Mason and Hamlin are the only American piano brands left today. But if you go back to the 1970s, and even into the 1980’s, there were a number of piano manufacturers still making high quality pianos in the United States. Some of these instruments may still have good life left in them. More than that, the methodology of these instruments like Chickering, Knabe, and Baldwin was very similar to Steinway and Mason and Hamlin, which are priced astronomically high today. People are not aware of these other brands as much. Because of that they could represent phenomenal value. These pianos could be worth putting some money into if they’re structurally sound, because they are hand-built, top tier pianos. So it can be worthwhile checking out some of those instruments.

What about Asian pianos?

Older Asian pianos that need work should be avoided. These pianos are inexpensive to begin with, so you don’t want to put a bunch of money into them. Perhaps a late model Asian piano can offer good value if they have been well maintained.

So that’s the long and short of it. American pianos are of such high quality that looking for those in the used market can be worthwhile. Even if you have to put a little bit of work into them, they can be worthwhile to get an instrument of a really high caliber. I hope this has been helpful for you! 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 to Get Free Sheet Music

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to get free sheet music. On the Internet you can get almost everything for free, from movies and TV shows, to books, and yes, sheet music! Of course, there’s a price you pay for something that’s free, which is not knowing the validity of the score. You don’t know the integrity of anything you get for free. However, sometimes it’s nice to have a variety to choose from. If you just want to check out some sheet music, maybe a free music site is just what you’re looking for.

There are a lot of different websites that have a smattering of free music. But the best place is a website called IMSLP.org.

IMSLP is an incredible resource of not just sheet music but also recordings. When you first go to the site it may seem a bit confusing. As soon as you click on something, it tells you you can pay for a subscription, or you can wait 10 seconds for your download. Then you’ll see all the recordings first. But once you figure out how the site works, it’s a treasure trove.

Fair warning, a lot of it is junk.

With some stuff you’re immediately going to see tattered, old, unauthoritative editions. But if you spend the time, there are nuggets of gold in there. If you just want to see two or three different editions of the same piece, it’s a great resource. You’re not going to buy two or three different copies of sheet music, but this allows you to have a reference.

Another option is VirtualSheetMusic.com.

Many of you may have noticed that I co-brand many of my videos with the VirtualSheetMusic.com logo. VirtualSheetMusic.com is not all free, but for a very small subscription fee you get the benefit of integrity of the scores. It’s also very convenient. You can download music right to your iPad or print out the music There are all kinds of technologies to make it easy with automated page turning, and all sorts of cool stuff. So if you’re looking for just free music, check out IMSLP.org, but if you want something more trustworthy and convenient, check out VirtualSheetMusic.com. 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 Much Should You Mark Up Your Score?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is about how much you should mark up your piano music. There are a lot of reasons to write on your score. Maybe you missed something in your music and you want to circle it, or you need to put fingering in. After a while your whole score could be marked up making it difficult to see the notes!

I have an interesting story about this.

Years ago, when I was at the Manhattan School of Music, I had a friend who was a piano major. She had the Henle edition of the Beethoven sonatas, which are very authoritative and expensive. I was helping her with a particular Beethoven sonata. She opened up the score of this incredibly expensive, thick volume of Beethoven. She turned to the sonata she was working on with her teacher, and it was marked up with several different colors of ink! There were so many markings, you absolutely could not see the score anymore! Things were circled, and there were big blotches of red, green, and blue ink on the score. Can you imagine the injustice of this? Her teacher destroyed her score! There’s no way you could possibly see the notes and Beethoven’s markings anymore. That’s an extreme example of what to avoid.

Only use pencil in your scores.

When I tell my students to mark something on the score I first ask, “Do you have a pencil handy?” That’s rule number one. My father used to have this really cool mechanical pencil. I haven’t seen anything like it that exists anymore. It was a pencil that had four different colored leads in it. He could mark scores with red, green, blue and black. It was such a great way for him to mark scores in a coherent fashion. Yet because it was pencil, the markings could be erased. Why is this so important? Let’s say early on you didn’t see a flat in the key signature, so you put the flat in front of the note. Then maybe later there was something else in that same measure, like a fingering or a phrase marking you missed. You can start making so many circles and marks that before you know it, it doesn’t get your attention anymore.

You want to be able to erase marks you no longer need, and only have the ones that are pertinent.

At a later stage of learning a piece of music, you might want to record it to see what kind of shape it’s in. In doing so, when listening back to the recording, you might want to gently circle the places you want to review. But maybe the mistakes were just one-offs. Maybe you just wanted to reference them after listening to the recording. Your markings are not always something you want to call to attention every single time you’re looking at the score. Fingering is a really critical example. You may work out a fingering and think it’s good. But later, when you’re playing the piece up to tempo, you realize that fingering isn’t going to work at all. As long as it’s in pencil, you can erase it and put new fingerings in. So that’s the most important thing.

Retain the clarity of your score.

Use a pencil! Don’t obliterate your score with too many markings. Erase the markings you no longer need so you have clarity of the actual score. After all, the score is what you need to see and digest. You don’t want to obscure it with too many markings. I’m interested in how you deal with markings in your scores. What do you find helpful? Let me know 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

How to Avoid Commercials on YouTube

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin and this is LivingPianos.com. The subject today is about a way to not have commercials on YouTube. You just want to watch a video and you have to endure these commercials all the time. This week one of my fans contacted me and said they love watching my videos, but the commercials are driving them nuts!

There is a way to not have any commercials on YouTube. It’s called, “YouTube Premium”.

YouTube Premium is a paid program which also includes YouTube Music. YouTube music has a comprehensive library of almost any music that has ever been recorded which you can listen to anytime, anywhere on any device. I have subscribed for years. I think the $11.99/month is worth it just for YouTube Music! I haven’t seen a commercial on YouTube for years either. You can try it out for a month for free here to see how you like it: https://www.youtube.com/premium

The best part is by subscribing to YouTube premium, you also get YouTube music.

YouTube Music is a treasure trove of almost every recording you could imagine which you can listen to it anywhere, any time from your computer to your phone, to your iPad. I’m not paid for this. This is not a sponsored commercial. but my time is valuable as I’m sure yours is. So try it out for a week and see how you like it! If you like it, you’ll never have to watch a commercial on YouTube again! 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 to Take Your Piano Playing to the Next Level

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to take your piano playing to the next level. This is a really fascinating subject. This transcends piano. It even transcends other musical instruments! With almost anything anyone wants to master, it really comes down to a critical mass of practicing. What do I mean by this? The term critical mass is typically associated in physics with radioactive material. You put enough of it together and it starts a chain reaction. But you could have plutonium and it would never start a chain reaction, no matter how much you have, unless you put enough of it in one space at one time. That’s what causes the chain reaction. It’s the same thing with your piano practice or any other endeavor you want to master.

There has to be an extended period of time where you’re spending just about every waking moment at the piano.

Anyone who’s really mastered an instrument has gone through this process. Once you go through that process, you will be forever changed. You will be on another level. You can depend upon what you have given yourself with that experience. Another example of this, since I’m into physics, is something called escape velocity. For example, if you were to go into a rocket, and just keep going and going and going straight up, you will never go into orbit. In fact, the way to go into orbit is not by how far you go, but how fast you go. You have to reach a certain speed to escape the force of Earth’s gravitational pull. There has to be enough speed generated. You have to have enough energy to be able to get your piano playing on that level.

You can practice for your whole life one or two hours a day and never reach that pinnacle of achievement of a true virtuoso technique.

To be a really accomplished concert level player, you have to go through this process. There is no substitute for that. Now that I’ve made this bold statement, since a lot of people watch my videos, I’m interested in your feelings about this. It doesn’t have to be just piano, any field of endeavor. Are there any of you who feel you’ve mastered painting, or physics, or anything, and you haven’t gone through that process of total absorption for an extended amount of time? I want to hear from you! I want to know if it’s possible, because my feeling is that it’s not possible. I believe that’s what it takes, and there is no shortcut to that. You can grow. You can become better. But you’re never going to be on that top echelon level without going through this process. Talk to any friends you have who have mastered their instrument or their craft, and ask them if they’ve gone through this process. I’m really interested in the comments on this one here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

Why You Play Too Fast

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is, “Why do you play too fast?”. Most people try to play faster than they’re comfortable. Sometimes you will have a piece you can play just fine, but when you try to play it slower, you can’t even figure out where you are! There’s a great deal of motor memory or muscle memory that is involved in piano playing. Your fingers just seem to know where to go. So you want to go fast enough that you won’t forget where to go next. The problem with this is, unless the music is really secure, your tempo will fluctuate. You’ll make accommodations to the parts you don’t know quite as well, going a little slower. Then you’ll speed up again so you don’t forget where you are.

Motor memory on the piano is akin to touch typing.

I took a typing class in high school. I learned how to touch-type, so I don’t have to look at the keys. Little did I know, that would be probably the most important course I had in high school! In the computer age, it’s so great to be able to type without looking at your hands. But the funny thing is, if I stop and think where a letter is on the keyboard, for example, the letter “W”, I don’t even know! I have to look at the keyboard. If I have to type on a screen, where the keyboard is smaller, and you have to just touch the letters on the screen with your finger, I can’t even find them! Yet on a keyboard, I can type almost as fast as I can speak. I’m a really fast typist. I was the fastest in my class in high school. I guess all those years of piano paid off in my typing class!

Playing the piano too fast is a rampant problem among many piano students.

What you must do is take the time to slow down your playing and figure out what is there. This can be a painstaking process. I’ve talked a little bit about how sometimes when you want to start in the middle of a piece, you may have to speed up just to figure out what fingers to start with. When you’re playing slowly, you might want to play faster just a little bit at first, just to see where you are, and what fingers are on which notes as a starting point of a section.

Every fine pianist I have ever met practices slowly, incessantly.

There are three things that every accomplished pianist does: practice slowly, practice with a metronome, and practice without the pedal. I’ll also add to that, practice with the music! When you memorize a piece, that doesn’t mean you don’t use the score anymore. As a matter of fact, it’s the opposite. I like to memorize a piece first and then do all my practicing with the score, reinforcing the memory, practicing slowly with the metronome with no pedal and really solidifying.

The reason why you play too fast is because you’re not really cognizant of the score.

You play too fast because you don’t really have an intellectual understanding of the score. You’re just going through the motions. Your fingers kind of remember on their own without knowing what they’re supposed to be doing. But that’s extremely dangerous. It doesn’t have a solid foundation. Things can fall apart if you depend upon that type of playing. Thank goodness we do have motor memory! Piano would be so much more difficult if you couldn’t depend upon it at all. But you want to minimize your reliance upon the feeling of the keys and where your fingers naturally go. Slow, deliberate playing is the way to do it. Refer back to the score.

Try slow, deliberate practicing for yourself!

Take a piece that you can play fast, but you can’t play slowly with security. Take out the score and play slowly. You’re going to discover so many things! You will always find more details than you initially remembered. Your music has so many details in it! Let me know how it works for you here in the comments 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