Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I will share some secrets to executing trills. When I was in music conservatory, I remember the really advanced students would spend an inordinate amount of time working on trills. And in fact, it’s one aspect of my playing that I have developed further in the past year or so. I’m always discovering new things.
The most intrinsically important thing about trills is that they must be measured.
I know that when you hear a trill, it just sounds like a whole bunch of random notes. But if you don’t know exactly how many notes you’re playing in a trill, good luck ending it! You may not end up on the right note. You have a 50/50 chance of being on the right or the wrong note. So you have to figure out exactly how many notes you’re playing. So even though it sounds like a flurry of notes, the number of notes is worked out precisely. There are different ways to execute trills with different numbers of notes, but each one should be measured.
Today I’m going to give you a hack for your trills!
I recently performed a concert in New York. I played the Mozart Sonata K. 457 in C minor. It’s loaded with trills! I wanted to execute those trills really cleanly, and I also wanted to play a good number of notes. You can always play an easier trill with fewer notes, but I didn’t want to do that. I started my program with this sonata, so I wanted to be rock solid on it. I figured out how to achieve very clean, faithful, and accurate trills. And it’s not just for trills like this, but virtually all ornamentation.
The secret is lifting up your fingers just a little bit instead of being right on the keys.
You want to lift up your finger just a little bit before you play the trill. That little bit of lifting articulates trills so wonderfully, you won’t believe it! Try it with your playing wherever you have trills. Lift your finger just before the trill, and you’ll get a clean trill. If your fingers don’t lift up, the notes may not play reliably. That’s the hardest part of a trill. The hardest part about piano playing and finger work isn’t so much the pushing down of the fingers, it’s the lifting up of previously played fingers. If you try to play a trill and the fingers don’t come up, the notes won’t play.
By lifting your fingers, you are certain that the fingers are up and out of the way, so the keys can replay.
The secret is to get the previously played fingers up and out of the way so the key is up and can go down again. It’s simple physics, really. So try lifting your fingers just before you play your trills and see how you get cleaner execution of ornamentation in your playing. I hope this works for you! Let us 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.
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about drummers who play the piano. Why do drummers love to play the piano? I want to hear from all of you drummers out there who tune in to this video. Tell us why you love to play the piano.
I have a lot of drummers in my life, and, almost categorically, they all love to play the piano!
My son is a drummer, and he loves to play the piano. And this video was inspired by my good friend Bob Friedman, the Steinway Hunter. If you haven’t checked out his book, by the way, it is absolutely the most enjoyable book to read if you love pianos. Bob said I should talk about why drummers love to play the piano, so here it is!
Drummers already have a really highly developed sense of rhythm.
Rhythm is one of the most intrinsically difficult aspects of playing the piano. Drummers are also used to playing with two hands as well as their feet, so they have a good sense of coordination. But what they don’t have is a pitched instrument. It’s all rhythm. Unless they happen to play mallet instruments, they don’t get melody. They play with other musicians, and they hear the melodies in their heads. They want to be able to enjoy that, so they go to the piano.
It’s interesting how drummers approach the keyboard.
Sometimes they’ll take solos in such an interesting fashion, playing like a drummer and coming up with patterns that you wouldn’t think of as a pianist because we’re used to using our fingers in a way that drummers are not. So they come up with interesting patterns and melodies that might not occur to other musicians. It also helps them understand the music they’re playing drums to by playing on the piano. Getting a sense of chord progressions and melodies helps them achieve a more sensitive rhythmic backdrop for the music they play. So there are many reasons why drummers love to play the piano.
The piano is a percussion instrument.
Instead of hitting drum heads with sticks, it’s hammers hitting strings. It’s activated with your fingers. But really, the piano is the ultimate percussion instrument. So, of course, drummers are going to love to play the piano because it’s a percussion instrument and arguably the quintessential percussion instrument. Let me know your thoughts on this 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
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Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to get your kids to practice the piano. This is a really important subject because you want your kids to enjoy the piano. But if they never practice, how can you justify the lessons you’re taking them to and spending money on? You feel really committed, and you want your kids to be committed. Sometimes it can really come to loggerheads. So I’m going to give you some tips today!
I have vast experience with this subject.
I come from a family of teachers. Both my parents were music teachers. My sister is a piano teacher. I’ve taught piano pedagogy to many teachers. Getting kids to practice is a universal challenge for anyone who teaches kids or parents with kids studying the piano. I started teaching the piano when I was in high school, assisting my father with his teaching, as my sister did before me. And it’s been a continuum of my career since that time. I’ve pretty much always taught. Today, I have the great privilege of teaching students all over the world because of my popular YouTube channel and website, LivingPianos.com. I have students from Australia to Alaska and all points in between. For the most part, they’re serious students. I have some kids who are just wonderful to work with, as well as people decades older than me! However, when I was starting out making a living as a private piano teacher, I took all kinds of kids and adults as well. They didn’t all love the piano the way my students do today. I saw many different ways that parents dealt with their kids, some effective and some that were really counterproductive.
The first thing you have to understand about working at the piano is that practicing correctly is hard work.
So when you tell your kids they have to practice for 30 minutes or an hour, realize that, if they’re doing it correctly, it’s an incredibly intense experience. You must appreciate that. I remember my wife had a student, and the mother was always upset with her child for not practicing enough. Eventually, the mother started taking lessons, and then she finally realized how difficult it really was! So you have to appreciate that. To encourage your kids to practice, you have to think of it the way you think of so many other things in life.
Your kids, given a choice, probably wouldn’t clean their room, do their homework, or brush their teeth!
There are myriad things that your kids are kind of coaxed or trained to do, and piano practice must fit into that realm. So the techniques you’ve used to get your kids to do what they need to do are also appropriate for piano practice. But piano practice is not something that’s legally required, the way school is, or a matter of personal hygiene, the way brushing your teeth is, so they might feel there’s some wiggle room there. You must encourage your kids to practice by understanding and appreciating the hard work they do. Showcase their talents to your family and friends whenever possible. If they’ve been working really hard and they have a piece they can play well, when company comes over, let them shine. Give them a chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor!
You can encourage young students by bringing them to concerts and expanding their scope of music.
Bring them to classical concerts and other styles of music that maybe they haven’t been exposed to. I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me something like, “I hate opera.” And I say, “Have you ever been to an opera?” And they say, “No.” Well, how do you know? Seeing an opera performed by a great opera company, like the Metropolitan Opera, is just an astounding experience. You can’t get that experience by listening to music on a sound system. It’s not the same at all. That’s also true with classical music in general. Some types of music translate better to an electronic medium. For example, rock music is coming out of speakers, whether you’re going to a live event or not. But acoustic music sounds so much better when you’re listening to it live. It doesn’t sound the same coming through speakers. The sound of an acoustic performance in a great hall can’t be described or duplicated any other way. So take your kids to concerts! But you can also play them great recordings. Expose them to great music. They may just latch on to a few key pieces that could change their lives.
So remember to encourage your children!
Remember that it’s hard work to practice correctly. Expose your kids to great music, both live and recorded. Showcase their talents whenever possible so that they can feel appreciated for the hard work they do with the instrument. If nothing seems to work, condider finding a more inspiring teacheer. I hope this is helpful for you! Share your stories in the comments about what has worked for you or the challenges you have faced. 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about staccatos. Are staccatos accented? You see the little dots in your music, and you know to play short or detached, but does that mean you also articulate them with accents?
There are different markings for accents.
You have little sideways triangles, and you also have sforzandos, which are strong accents. For example, Ballad of Burgmüller starts off with staccatos, and then you have sforzandos. You have the nice, crisp staccatos and the accented sforzandos. But what about other instances where there are just staccatos? Should they be accented?
There are times when staccatos are an indication to play with some emphasis, but oftentimes it’s exactly the opposite!
A good example of that is when you have two-note slurs. The first note is articulated with some energy, particularly when it’s on the beat, and then the offbeats are light. For example, in the Allegro k.3 of Mozart, you want to articulate the two-note slurs by playing the second note of each slur staccato. By doing this, you end up with a light staccato. Imagine if those staccatos were articulated with energy. It would give a syncopated feel to the rhythm like in Debussy’s Golliwog’s Cakewalk, which is not at all what a 2/4 time usually is. Generally, the strong beats are on the beats and the off beats are lighter, except in instances where syncopation is happening. There are times when accents are on staccato notes and off the beat, but most often staccatos are light, particularly when there are two note slurs. Remember to accentuate the beat. The offbeats, the second notes of two note slurs, should be light.
The way to achieve light staccatos is by using a down-up motion.
Staccato is simply an down-up motion of the wrist. Well, a two-note slur is the same thing, except it’s delayed. For example, at the beginning of the Mozart Allegro, the first note is staccato. So it involves just a simple down and up motion of the wrist. Nothing could be simpler. Then, when you have two-note slurs, go down on the slurred notes and up on the staccato notes, which is also a down-up motion. This naturally gives you the energy on the slurred notes and makes the staccato notes light. That’s how you achieve a light staccato, even when playing quickly. That is something you should consider in your music. It’s all about context. Weak beats should be de-emphasized, and you can do this with the wrist with two note slurs. Try it in your music and see how it works 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about playing by ear. Will playing by ear hurt your classical playing? There are many teachers who tell their students they must not play by ear because it will mess up the precision of their classical playing. The only ounce of truth to this is if somebody is learning classical repertoire by ear and not studying the score. You’re never going to be able to play Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, or Bach as intended if you do it all by ear.
Is playing by ear intrinsically bad for you?
Not only does playing by ear not hurt your classical playing, but I’ll go so far as to say that all playing is by ear! You may take it from the sheet music initially, but ultimately, with all the music you play, you’re playing by ear. You first learn it from the visual representations on the page. But then you hear it and create it on the piano. So playing by ear is essential for piano playing. Not only that, but for most styles of music, it’s absolutely necessary to play by ear because the written score is not how that music was conceived to begin with. You’ll never be able to play blues faithfully from a score. You have to be able to play by ear.
What about playing classical music by ear?
Ultimately, when you play your classical music, even though you’re playing the notes faithfully to what the composer wrote, you should be essentially playing by ear. In fact, one of the biggest fears when playing a memorized piece or program is having a memory slip. But if you can play your classical music by ear, how can you possibly have a memory slip? It’s virtually impossible to have a memory slip because even if you forget where your hands go for a moment, you’ll know where you are and you can keep going. You can get back on track instantly because you know what it’s supposed to sound like.
I encourage all of you to play by ear!
Play your classical music by ear. Even though you’ve digested the score from the sheet music, you must transcend the visual and turn it into an aural experience that you can share with your audience. I wonder if any of you disagree with this assessment about playing by ear and how it affects your classical playing. Be sure to let me know how you feel about this in the comments!
Will playing swing rhythms in jazz or blues affect the integrity of your classical playing?
The difference between how you approach 19th-century music compared to 18th-century music is stylistically extremely different. If you can play those styles, which are different from one another, why shouldn’t you be able to expand to other styles of music that have different rhythmic feels? My personal feeling is: the more, the merrier! If you can play more styles of music, you will enjoy music more, and you will be a more well-rounded musician. 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about why you need a practicing checklist. What’s this all about? A lot of my students want to have a routine in their practice to do a certain number of things in a certain order on a daily basis. And while this is commendable in one sense, a routine can sometimes work against you because you want to take advantage of the discoveries in your practice. You might go off on a tangent and think you’re spending too much time on something because you need to get to other things. So you might not take advantage of an exploration that could lead to an epiphany in your playing.
Instead of a routine, a checklist offers something really valuable for you.
When you practice, you might get to a point where you’re thinking, “What am I supposed to do now?” If you don’t have a routine, you’re kind of lost. But if you have a checklist, you know you want to do certain things every day. I offered this idea to one of my students, Jancarlos, in the Dominican Republic. I asked him to come up with a practice checklist for himself. I said, “You should come up with a checklist that has things you really want to do on a daily basis and then things you do on a weekly basis, maybe not every single day, but something that you don’t want to go too long without visiting in your practice.” So this is what Jancarlos came up with. See how many of these things resonate with you! I’d love to get suggestions here in the comments on LivingPianos.com and YouTube.
Jancarlos starts his checklist with memorization of new material.
I stress this all the time. Why is it so important to memorize new material on a daily basis? Because cramming memorization doesn’t work! Let’s say you’ve gone four or five days without doing any memorization. You think you can just make up for it in a few hours, but it’s not so easy. When you first learn a phrase, it’s not that hard. You learn the second phrase, and it comes along okay. But by the third or fourth phrase, it starts to get really taxing. How much can you cram into your head in one sitting? It’s tough. So take advantage every day when your mind is fresh to learn something, even if it’s just one phrase. You’ll be rewarded! Take a look at the score of whatever music you’re working on and figure out the smallest phrase that you could learn; maybe it’s four measures, and then multiply that by seven and then deduct any measures that are the same. You’ll discover that you might get a page or a page and a half of music learned just by doing a phrase a day. So make that a priority in your practice. What else should be done every day?
Reinforce material from the previous day.
Obviously, you need to solidify what you learned the previous day. You might have to relearn it. The good news is that you’ll be able to learn it much faster. Not only that, but if you learned four measure phrases the previous day, you might be able to learn eight measure phrases when you relearn it because it’s already there.
Another thing you really should be doing on a regular basis is playing scales and arpeggios.
If you’re not up to scales and arpeggios, you should at least do simple Hanon exercises to strengthen your fingers. If you learn one new scale a week or one new arpeggio a week, you’ll have them all learned in a year. That is a good foundation for your playing. And if you already know them all, solidify them. Take them to the next level in speed, different articulations, or doing them in contrary motion or in intervals. You can keep working on scales and arpeggios your whole life. There’s always value in doing so!
Another thing you should do is review your old pieces.
Go through slowly solidifying pieces you can already play. This is a great way to keep them in shape and to check your work so things don’t degrade over time. By doing this, you always have music you can play on a high level. Also, make time for free playing. Play old repertoire or improvise, just to keep your fingers moving. You can keep pieces in shape just by playing them, and improvising develops your ear and your connection to the keyboard.
Another thing that you can do on a regular basis is sight-read.
Sight-reading is a vital aspect of strengthening your reading because you might learn more and more music and still have a beginning reading level. So make reading something you do on a regular basis. Finding sight-reading material on the right level for you is the most important part. If it’s something you struggle just to get through a line or two, it’s not going to be that valuable. It’ll be painstaking for you, and you’re not going to want to do it. And you’re not going to get the fluidity and sense of reading and maintaining a tempo. Finding easy enough music for sight-reading is a challenge for many people because many people do become somewhat accomplished, yet they still have the reading level of a beginner. I was in that category when I was a pretty advanced player in high school because I didn’t do enough sight-reading. So make that a part of your regular study.
Go through theory on a regular basis.
It can be something as simple as just going through your sharps and your flats. You don’t want to just memorize by rote. That’s not that valuable. Frankly, it’s better than nothing. But you’re better off figuring out the intervals you’re playing. Why is this so important? Imagine trying to solve quadratic equations in algebra while not being fluent with your multiplication tables. That’s not going to work very well. You have to be pretty fluent with all your tables before you can approach higher mathematics. The same thing is true with music theory. You better be really solid with your key signatures and all your major scales before doing chords, intervals, and all of that. So spend some time with that on a regular basis.
Explore other styles of music.
It can be incredibly valuable to explore other genres, whether it’s jazz, salsa, pop, blues, etc. You’ll make discoveries, and you’ll understand the structure of music better. It ties in with music theory. All of these skill sets relate to each other. That’s why the more of them you do on a regular basis, the more productive your practice is.
Make a checklist for yourself!
Make a checklist so you never get stuck in your practice. If you’re not getting anywhere, change it up and do something different. You can come back to what you were doing the next day, and maybe it will resonate more genuinely with you at that time. Have your checklist on hand, either on your phone or on a piece of paper, so you can make sure you practice all these fundamental skill sets on a regular basis. Thank you, Jancarlos, for sharing this with everybody! Share your musical checklist 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
