Tag Archives: piano playing

Why You Must Underestimate Yourself When Practicing the Piano

I’m Robert Estrin and this is LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Today’s topic is, “Why You Must Underestimate Yourself When Practicing the Piano”. Why would you ever want to think less of yourself? You might be thinking it would be harder to figure anything out if you underestimate your intelligence. It’s actually quite the opposite, particularly with adult beginners. It can feel as though things are harder than they should be sometimes. Why is that? The fact of the matter is, people who play at a high level have figured out how much they have to break things down in order to achieve desired results. It’s really important that you don’t overwhelm yourself.

If you accept your limitations, that’s when you can be truly productive!

You’re always better off taking smaller sections, or taking a slower tempo and really perfecting something. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, because that’s the surest way to get discouraged. If you’re learning a piece of music and you focus on a section that’s just a bit more than you can absorb, you’ll keep working at it, but you may leave the piano feeling dejected. So, instead, you might try going to the piano and focusing on sections half as long. You may slow down the tempo and learn just one hand at a time. Then, you can really nail things down. It is extremely satisfying to get something perfected, even if it’s just a small part. By taking small sections and building them up and taking slow tempos and gradually getting faster, you will develop tremendous security in your playing you won’t achieve by overestimating what you can do.

How do I practice?

I have a video on how to approach a new piece on the piano in which I take Chopin Mazurka at random. I literally flipped through the book and started memorizing a piece.

Here is the link:

HOW TO LEARN A NEW PIECE OF MUSIC ON THE PIANO

You’ll see how many times I go over even the smallest sections to learn them. I treat myself very gently in my practice. I don’t over exert my mind. I try to just give myself something I know I can accomplish in a short amount of time and repeat that process again and again. This is how to sustain a long, productive practice.

Know your abilities.

So remember, when you sit down at the piano and think, “Why can’t I do this?” Try something simpler. Try a smaller section, maybe even a simpler piece. Maybe you’re working on the last movement of the Moonlight Sonata when you should be working on a Bach minuet! You’re much better off learning a piece suited to your skill level and being able to play it on a high level than butchering a harder piece of music.

Keep yourself humble.

That’s the secret, not just to piano playing, but in life itself. Don’t overestimate your abilities. Give yourself a break. We’re all human. You have certain things that you’re going to excel at and some things that will take longer for you than other people. If you can accept that one basic fact, you can be very productive. Just give yourself what you can master at that moment, and you can sustain a long practice. This method is much more satisfying.

I hope this is helpful for you. Any of you who are beginners or just feel your practice isn’t going well and you think something’s wrong with you, there is nothing wrong with you. It’s just hard! You’ve got to realize that. So break things down and put things together. You will be rewarded with much better performances and the satisfaction of doing something really well.

I’m Robert Estrin, thanks for joining me here at LivingPianos.com.

Submit your own questions to:
info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

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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Can Playing the Piano Make You Smarter?

This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store with a question. “Does playing the piano make you smarter?” I hope so. I’ve been playing a long time and wonder what I would be like if I didn’t play the piano! This is a serious question. Indeed there have been studies, like famous Gordon Shaw – Frances Rauscher studies at UC Irvine. These studies showed:

With a control group of children studying the piano, compared to other groups studying computers, as well as a control group studying nothing, the children who studied piano showed an increase of math and science scores and even increase in English skills!

That is exciting to think about! Later on, they even discovered the “Mozart Effect”, which had some controversy. They simply played recordings of Mozart while kids were taking tests and found that there was a temporary increase in IQ scores just from listening to the music! Temporary is the keyword here. Later on their findings were diminished when they found it was just a temporary boost, but that is exciting enough!

Why should playing the piano increase your intelligence? Did you know?

Playing the piano uses more parts of your brain than any other human activity.

This is according to the New York Times in article years ago about the human brain that showed piano playing as the single most complex endeavor of the human mind. How can this be? Think about it. You have short-term memory, long-term memory, tactile memory as well as visual and aural cues.

You have just about every part of your brain firing when playing the piano.

It is a fantastic opportunity to develop your mind. Of course if you play with other musicians you also develop social skills. It is endless. Just playing music is a great way to expand your mind. The discipline of practicing and the organization it takes to digest a piece of music make for an incredible opportunity to explore aspects of your own mind in ways that are richly rewarding. At the end of the line, you have something to show for it. You can play a piece of music or many pieces of music!

As if that isn’t enough of a reason to play the piano, being able to increase your intelligence is a benefit too! Everyone should study the piano, don’t you think? Let me know how you feel about this. I wonder how many of you are on board. I suppose if you are reading this there could be skewed results because many of my readers might already feel this way!

There are studies that prove an increase in intelligence just from playing the piano.

Spend more time with the piano and your brain will thank you! Once again, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

3 Secrets to Playing Slow Music

3 SECRETS TO PLAYING SLOW MUSIC

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Today, I have three secrets to playing slow music. When you hear instrumentalists, such as pianists, you notice that many have a lot of technical achievement. But when you hear a great artist play a slow movement, magic can happen. It can reach the inner depths of your soul. This is the sign of a great musician. How do you approach slow movements in order to get that quality, to get that beauty and be able to reach people on an emotional level? These are the secrets I’m going to give to you today.

Number one is: Make sure you take the right tempo.

A lot of people play slow movements too slowly. For example, if someone were to perform Debussy, Clair de Lune, you may hear it played very slowly. Now, it might be okay at the beginning, but by the time you get to the middle and compare the tempo they’re playing in the middle of the piece, often, they’re going faster because it gets ponderous after awhile at such a slow tempo.

Another clue for you when you’re taking a tempo that is too slow is that you will find that if there are repeats, you won’t want to take them. They don’t seem to work. So, if you have a piece of music and think, “Mozart didn’t mean all those repeats”. Yes, he did! And if they don’t work, it’s a clue that you are playing too slow a tempo. Another thing related to this is to:

Hold long notes long enough.

There’s nothing worse than robbing long notes. But it’s so easy to rob long notes because you’re just sitting there doing nothing! It’s easy to count to yourself and accelerate your counting in your head. You can lose the pulse.

A lot of performers play very slowly and rob the long notes, such as again, the beginning of Clair de Lune. To me, that is simply playing out of rhythm. But you’d be surprised how many performances you’ll find online of very renowned concert pianists playing this piece and robbing the long notes. Holding all the long notes for their full written value gives the music soul, doesn’t it? You’ve got to take the right tempo and you must hold the long notes long enough. What else is there? The other thing is to:

Think of the long note as the pulse.

This enables you to have a slow pulse with a faster tempo. An example is the second movement of the K. 332 Mozart Sonata in F major. First, you could play it thinking of each sixteenth note as the beat. The left hand has sixteenth notes, and each one of those can be punctuated as the beat. Then, instead of thinking each sixteenth note as the beat, try thinking each eighth note as the beat. It’s already going to be better. Rachmaninoff said,

“The bigger the phrase, the bigger the musician.”

Well, related to this is, the longer note that you feel as the pulse, the more freedom you have with your music. Now try feeling the quarter note as the pulse. This also gives you the benefit of being able to take a faster tempo but still having a relaxed feel to your music. Even with a slightly faster tempo, but with the quarter note as the pulse, it doesn’t feel hurried! Those are three secrets to being able to play slow music.

Make sure to hold long notes long enough, feel the long note as the beat, and choose the right tempo.

Don’t take slow pieces too slowly. If you do those three tips, it will enhance the performance of your slow music. I’d love to hear from all of you and give me your perspective. And if you haven’t subscribed to LivingPianosVideos’ YouTube channel, go for it! You’ll get all the fresh videos. We produce them for you every week.

Thanks for joining me again,  Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store.   info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

How to Turn Pages While Playing Piano

The question today is, “How do you deal with page turns on the piano?” This can be a real problem. One solution that works great is simply to memorize your music! When this isn’t the case, in some pieces, you might be lucky enough to have rests in just the right places giving you time to turn the page. Or, perhaps there’s a place where the left-hand doesn’t do anything and you have a moment to grab the page. But most of the time, this isn’t the case.

That’s why in a lot of concerts of chamber music, when you have a pianist playing with other musicians which is generally done with the score, you’ll see a page-turner on stage. If you don’t have that luxury? Is there anything you can do?

I’ve got some pointers for you! First of all:

You must practice your page turns!

Make sure to fold over the bottom of the pages so you can easily grab them. Then you want to really work on those sections so you can get through them. You may have to take your left hand up just for a moment and leave out a note or two. If you learn the part well enough, you might know a little bit past the page turns or you might have parts memorized just a bit before the page turns so you can get through the piece without disrupting the music.

Another trick that I have done is to copy parts of the score and put them above the pages or on the side of the pages. I have had some scores that I will copy all the pages and put them all the way across in one long sheet taped together. If the piece is too long, at a certain point with perhaps four or five pages taped together, I’ll (somewhat violently) rip off the top set of pages, revealing another set of pages underneath! So you have one disruption instead of several every time there’s a page turn.

For solo repertoire, there are so many benefits to memorization, aside from the issues of page turning. I recommend it really highly. But when you’re in a pinch and you don’t have a page turner, these are some solutions.

What about technology? Well, fortunately,

You can use on iPad or other tablet

and you can turn the pages very quickly, or even use a pedal to turn the pages for you! If the music you’re looking for isn’t available online, you can scan it and turn it into a PDF to have on your device.

A great product is a pedal by AirTurn for turning pages.

VirtualSheetMusic.com also has great technology. You not only can use AirTurn pedals to turn the pages, you can actually use your head! You set how much range of motion it takes to turn the pages, so you don’t accidentally set it off, and whenever you want the pages to turn, you simply move your head to the side and your page turns for you!

So there are solutions for you when memorization isn’t in the cards for you. I hope this has been helpful. Thanks for the great questions. Again, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

How Does Your Mood Affect Your Music?

Music expresses emotions. So, you may wonder how your mood affects your musical performance. In this video, you will hear a freeform, Classical improvisation with a dark mood. Just prior to recording, I experienced frustration getting the camera to cooperate when all I wanted to do was play music for you! Perhaps the emotions inspired the character of the music.