Tag Archives: piano playing

Should You Look at Your Hands When You Play Piano?

This topic will certainly have varying degrees of opinions. Some teachers will tell you that you should never look at your hands and others will say you must always look at your hands. I think there is an ideal situation for looking at your hands or not looking at your hands depending upon what type of music you are performing.

There are two distinctly different types of piano playing when it comes to classical music. There is solo music and chamber music. When it comes to solo music, generally you play from memory. With chamber music you will typically be reading a score since there are other musical parts of the other musicians you must be aware of.

When it comes to solo music, there can be leaps that will require you to memorize your scores so you can watch your hands as they make those leaps around the keyboard. It’s extremely difficult to do this without looking at your hands. There are also page turns to deal with which can be a real pain!

Chamber music is a little different because it involves more instruments then just the piano. The piano score actually contains the parts of the other instruments so when you’re playing it’s very important to see what is going on. If you are playing chamber music with other musicians you really should never have to take your eyes off the score except for quick glances – you should be following along the whole time. There might be sections you want to memorize because they have large leaps but typically you don’t want to take your focus off of the score in front of you.

With enough training you can learn how to play piano without having to look at your hands. It might seem impossible but it can be done and there are many fine blind pianists out there who prove it’s possible. You can learn to negotiate large leaps in your music through your peripheral vision as well.

When it comes to solo music, if you have your music memorized I don’t really see any reason why you wouldn’t want to look at your hands. It gives you the opportunity to keep your eyes on the keyboard and make sure that you are hitting the correct notes and have your hands in the right positions.

Generally if you have sheet music you will want to keep your eyes on the music and when you are performing solo piano music you will want to focus on your hands. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

How to Play Loud on the Piano! Piano Lessons

How do you get a good sound when you’re playing the piano loudly? This really is much tougher than you might think. If you have ever been around someone who is banging on the keys of a piano you know the sound can be incredibly harsh. Even the most glorious of instruments can sound horrible when played incorrectly. So what’s the secret?

The first thing is learning what not to do. You must be aware the piano is incredibly sensitive to how you approach the keys. If you merely slap the keys, you’re going to get a harsh sound. A piano is not like most instruments. Most instruments have a direct access to the production of sound – especially when it comes to woodwind or brass instruments as well as string instruments. The tone you get out of a piano relies on how you approach the keys.

The proper method is to caress the keys; like a masseuse (with deep energy) it will create a beautiful and warm sound. How do you achieve this? The secret to getting a good tone is to always strike from the surface of the keys. If you strike from above, you will get a harsh sound.

A lot of times you will see pianist throwing their hands up and down and it looks like they are banging on the keys; it’s all an illusion. This is purely for show. If you look at a great pianist, like Arthur Rubinstein playing the Ritual Fire Dance, he would throw his hands up and down as part of the performance but when it came to actually playing the piano, he would strike from the surface of the keys.

The best method is to simply place your hands on the keys and then drop all the arm weight and pressure directly to the bottom of the keyboard all at once. Try this at home. Put your hands over the keys, don’t press them down at all, and then drop all the pressure and weight at the same time – you will produce a clear and beautiful sound no matter how much energy you exert on the piano.

The exception to this is rapid staccato chords or octaves in which the wrists are called into play for a combination of speed and power.

I hope this technique is helpful for creating rich, fortissimo piano playing for you!
Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin. Please feel free to contact me about any piano questions at all:

Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Tips for Improving Your Sightreading – Sightreading Part 2

Last week we discussed the importance of sightreading and why it’s a required skill for many musician. This week I will offer some helpful tips and tricks to improve your sightreading!

As a personal note, as a child I progressed to a fairly high level on the piano. By high school I was playing Beethoven Sonatas, Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies, Chopin Ballades; overall very advanced music. However, even though I progressed to a high level, I always had something holding me back as a musician; I was not a very good sightreader.

My sightreading was on such a low level in high school that when the choir director came to me with a stack of music to accompany his choir when his pianist was unavailable, I had to decline. He probably thought I was being rude. But I simply didn’t possess the skills to get this done – I would have had to memorize all the scores and there simply wasn’t enough time!

So how did I change this? It really came to me in an “Aha!” moment. My father, Morton Estrin was set to perform the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor piano concerto at Carnegie hall and he needed to play the concerto with someone playing the orchestra part at the second piano. He handed me the score – which if you’ve ever seen, is a very thick book. I told him I couldn’t read it and I would end up missing half the notes.

I opened up the score to face a swarm of black notes splattered all over the pages; it was going to be a challenge for sure. I realized immediately that if I looked away from the page I would definitely get lost. So I decided to put my fingers at the starting keys and simply play what I could but never look away from the score. I counted like crazy staying with the party as best I could. We went through the entire concerto, all three movements, and I never got lost! Although I missed tons of notes, to my surprise it didn’t seem to matter. All my father needed was to run the concerto and that we did.

I learned something incredibly valuable that day. Keeping your eyes on the music and keeping the music flowing in time is critical to your sightreading success. But even more important is playing with other musicians and sight reading with them is essential for developing your reading. It will greatly improve your sightreading capabilities to perform as a group. Sure, you can practice every day by yourself (and you should) but it’s not until you actually start playing with other musicians that you will be forced to keep the music flowing.

With complex music sometimes it’s necessary to approach the score like a skeleton and flesh out the music. As your sightreading develops, you will realize more substantial elements of the score over time.

What’s more important than actually playing all the notes when sightreading is to keep the general character of the music going, keep the nuances of expression and timing; all of this is much more important than just playing all the notes. Especially when you are in a group setting, it’s more important to have a coherent, unified sound.

Practicing this way will enable you to become a much better sightreader over time. Practicing every day, playing with other musicians, and especially staying in time with the music will enable you to develop your sightreading. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin at VirtualSheetMusic.com

Can You Start Playing Piano without a Teacher?

The short answer is sure; why not? However, you really need to ask yourself what your intentions and expectations are. You should also be aware of the style of music that you would primarily want to play.

For example: if you want to play some blues or honky-tonk piano or maybe you want to play some pieces you make up or sing too, you might be just fine on your own. You might be able to find some good online resources and develop as a pianist and musician on your own.

When it comes to classical music, however, you will be at a severe disadvantage without the help of a teacher. The complexities of reading a score, the traditions developed over hundreds of years, advanced techniques, there are a number of roadblocks that would be incredibly difficult to overcome on your own. Even if you are a genius, you will progress at a much slower rate than someone who has assistance from an experienced teacher.

If you are interested in other genres of music – jazz, rock, country, etc. – you can try and sit down with other musicians who are better than you and gain a lot of knowledge and experience from these types of “informal lessons”. Some of the greatest musicians in these other styles of music are not traditionally trained.

If you are serious about becoming a musician – really in any style of music – you will greatly benefit from one on one instruction a great teacher can provide.

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Why is slow piano practice so important? Piano Lessons

Practicing slowly is essential in order to develop and maintain a high level of piano playing. There are actually several different components I’m going to discuss when it comes to the magic of slow practice. Even pieces that you have polished and are on performance level will benefit from the reinforcement of going through slowly. This means playing the piece slowly and definitely looking at the musical score, using no pedal and most often using the metronome. Practicing like this will help solidify your memorization and your fingers. I find this is the best thing to do in the final practice for a performance you are well prepared for.

There is another form of slow practice that you might not have heard about before. I find this to be incredibly important; in fact, I discussed this with my wife www.FlorenceFlutist.com and she had the same exact perception of this concept. Let’s say you sit down to practice and have a whole piece to work out. Perhaps it is partially learned but the piece is not up to performance level yet. You could try to power through and keep working trying to improve it. However, a much better approach is to not worry about the whole piece at all at this point. Simply start at the beginning of the piece; the first phrase. Play it slowly – slower than you are used to – until you have complete comfort and satisfaction with that section.

If you do this you will undoubtedly spend a lot of time working out that first section. You will probably wonder how you will even get through the whole piece learning so slowly! You will be very tempted to move ahead to the next section before you should. However, if you stay with it, the results will be remarkable.

Continue working slowly on the first section of the piece until it is absolutely perfect and it feels very comfortable. Then begin working up the tempo with the metronome one notch at a time. The good news is that most sections of the piece will not require such intense practice and you will get them on a high level without spending much time at all. However, there will be a few sections that will definitely benefit from this slow practice routine. It comes down to the 80/20 rule:

You should spend 80% of your time on the hardest 20% of the music!

Most pieces are not written with equal difficulty throughout. By taking sections that are difficult and practicing them slowly until they become comfortable (and then increasing the speed), your practice sessions will become much more productive. Slow practice is an incredible tool to advance your piano playing. Just practicing a piece slowly and definitely without incrementally speeding it up will be tremendously beneficial. Try these techniques out and see how it works for you. I would love to hear your comments.

Piano Questions: Why You Play Piano Better At Home

Hi Mr. Estrin,

I love to watch your videos. My question might be difficult to answer.

At my piano school, I play on a Remington grand and at home, I have a Yamaha upright p22.

When I play my pieces at home, I don’t have any problem, but at school, I am unable to play softly and the action is not very responsive.

Also, the weight of the keys on the two pianos is almost the same. Is the source of this problem the Remington, my Yamaha or me?

Thanks for your answer to my question.

– Youtube Viewer

Thank you for contacting me with this very good question. It is typical for pianists to feel much more comfortable on the instrument you practice on daily since you become so familiar with the response. One of the biggest challenges facing pianists is the fact that unlike other musicians, we can’t take our instrument with us. So, being able to adjust to many different pianos is part of being a pianist. It is important to have a practice instrument that provides a baseline for other pianos you play on. For any reasonably advanced player, a grand piano or baby grand is essential to continue progressing. There are many reasons for this, but primarily, even the best upright pianos have sluggish actions because the hammers travel sideways instead of up and down as in a grand piano. As a result, they don’t have gravity working for them and they are slower in response. You can watch my video on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD1QxoxabMQ

While upright and grand pianos have fundamentally different actions, this may not be the only issue facing you in trying to adjust to the piano at school. Remington is a lower line, Chinese made piano. These instruments are difficult to keep in a high state of regulation. That coupled with the intensive institutional use of the piano undoubtedly gets at school, and there is the possibility that the piano is not performing on a high level.

So there are 2 issues here: the adjustment from an upright piano to a grand piano, and the possibility that the school piano isn’t up to par. I suggest you experiment playing on as many different pianos as possible, both uprights and grands so you can get a feel for what different pianos are like. This can be an invaluable experience and may solve the mystery as to why you have such ease at home and difficulty playing at school.