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.
Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com with a really fascinating show that I think you’re going to really appreciate, which is how to reach the last row in a concert hall.
If you’ve ever been to a performance of a world-class pianist, it’s an unforgettable experience. I had the opportunity to hear Vladimir Horowitz on several occasions. The first time was when he made one of his many comebacks, and every time he did this, it was a huge event. This was in 1974, and he was playing a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House. And if you have any idea of the scope of the size of that hall, you wonder how could you possibly play a concert in a hall that big?
I actually camped out at Lincoln Center, the tickets went on sale 6 AM and I got there at nine at night – I was number 311 in line already! Can you imagine? Interesting thing is that about 2:30 in the morning, Horowitz and his wife came by with coffee and donuts for the people waiting camped out there. It was really something. I get tickets and it was limited to only two. And my tickets were way, way up. The amazing thing was he was able to project a sound that came right through to the last row with beauty and singing quality. That was really something.
Well, here’s the interesting thing. Just a couple of months later, I was studying with Constance Keene at the Manhattan School of Music, and she was really good friends with the Horowitz’s. She actually was able to get tickets to a Carnegie Hall Concert he was giving. On this occasion, I was in one of the very front box seats and I could actually hear what he was doing that made it possible for me to enjoy his performance from the last row. Everything was punctuated much bigger.
Have you ever been to a museum and seen a great painting of one of the impressionists? You look from a distance and it’s just gorgeous colors and patterns, and you get up close and see all these angularities to the strokes. It was kind of like that hearing him so close in that front box seat. I could hear what he was doing in order to project to the back of the concert hall. In the video included with this article, I demonstrate this for you. I’ll show you what a delicate way of playing Mozart sounds like and then a way of playing Mozart that would go to the last row of the hall.
In the video above, you’ll hear a perfectly valid and wonderful way to play Mozart with a nice characteristic delicacy. The G major is a 283 Köchel.
Up until recently I’ve been playing it that way and I’ve been experimenting with a completely different way of playing it. Using a lot more arm weight, projecting a bigger sound, one that would carry through in a very large hall. When you listen to the video, compare these different styles.
So it’s not a right or wrong proposition here. And I would say to a great extent, it comes down to where you’re performing. In a big hall, approach a piece by playing bigger and with more arm weight, while punctuating the fast notes. Rather than playing everything in a fluid matter the way I did the first time, lighten up so that you can negotiate them. So that’s the secret. You have to play with more arm weight, more angularity, and punctuate fast passages by detaching the notes from one another so they carry through, even with the reverb of a large hall.
So these are some pointers for you. You’ve got to always listen to the piano and the room you’re playing in so that you can produce a sound that carries through to the last row.
Thanks so much for joining me again. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, your online piano store.
949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com
This might sound crazy and even a little depressing but it’s true and a topic worth discussing. You would think having a tuner come in and tune your piano would be enough, it should be in tune right? But is it really?
The short answer is no, your piano will never be perfectly in tune. If you look back in history and at other instruments this concept is easier to understand. When it comes to singing, pitches come completely from your head, just like when a violinist plays there are no frets for them to make the exact notes and the pitches are constantly changing; this is even true of guitars where a string can bend to affect the pitch of note.
There was a period in time in when keyboards were tuned to specific keys. So, if the keyboard was tuned to D major, it was perfectly in tune in D major. It would sound O.K. in A major and possibly G major, but would sound atrocious in A-flat major or D-flat major. Eventually tuners created a system in which all the half steps are equal so that all keys are equally out of tune!
When a piano tuner tunes your piano the first thing they do is set the temperament. The temperament is taking an octave and making all the half steps equal. This means that when you play any interval other than an octave on the piano, they are all equally out of tune. So if you play a perfect 4th, 3rd, or any other pair of notes, they will all be perfectly out of tune with each other. We have gotten so used to tempered tuning that we don’t even notice it’s out of tune. However, if a string player tries to match pitch with a piano they will have to make adjustments to play in tune.
Believe it or not this gets even more complex. Stretch octaves are something that goes beyond the idea of tempered tuning. Our ears actually hear flat in the high register so to compensate for this a tuner will stretch the tuning a bit higher in the high register so it sounds right to our ears even though it is not mathematically perfect.
To keep it simple, always remember that when your piano is tuned, the tuner is striving for the perfect compromise. It’s a crazy concept but it’s true. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
Believe it or not there have been a number of scams perpetrated in the new and used piano market over the years that have tricked both buyers and sellers into dishonest sales. There are probably way more than five scams out there but I thought I would share some of the most common ones we have come across in today’s market.
The interested buyer who never comes back – but takes something with them
I ran across this scam years ago and it was being perpetrated by a couple who would take advantage of private sellers. The scam goes like this:
One person in the couple would call on an ad someone placed about selling their piano. They would say they were interested and come over to see the piano right away. After a few minutes they would offer to buy the piano and give the seller a few hundred dollars as a “down payment” for the piano. Before they would leave though, they would make sure to take a part of the piano with them – perhaps the fallboard was scratched and they told the seller they wanted to start repairs on it. Days or weeks would pass and the “buyer” would never come back, but the seller was stuck with a piano that was now missing a crucial piece that couldn’t easily be replaced – which would de-value the piano by a significant amount.
Later on, the seller would get a call from the other person in the couple – making sure never to reference the original “buyer” – saying that they saw the ad for the piano a while ago and wanted to know if they were still selling the piano. By now you can see where this is headed. The scam would end with the seller offering the piano to the new buyer for much less because of the missing parts. The seller would never know they had been scammed and the devious couple would get a piano for much less than it’s worth.
The auction piano
Many people seek pianos from auction houses hoping for a bargain. Often at auction houses, you will not be able to inspect the piano closely – you won’t be able to look inside except from a distance. You will have to take their word on the condition of the piano. It’s a gamble with potentially big payoff.
The scam that has come up in today’s market is misrepresenting the piano. It’s not necessarily on the part of the auction house. But someone will use a popular name (Steinway is the most likely) to drive up the price of the piano. Just putting the Steinway decal on the front of a piano can potentially increase its value dramatically because people think they are buying a Steinway.
So you bid on a piano, you win, you’re very excited to own a Steinway for way less than what it’s typically worth, you get it delivered to your home and then first discover that it’s not a Steinway! Someone has put a Steinway decal on a lesser piano and you are stuck with this instrument.
The way to avoid this type of scam is to research the auction house, ask as many questions as you can about the piano being sold, and know the design differences to distinguish between piano brands.
This leads us to the next scam:
Changing the name (decal) on a piano
Replacing the decal on the piano is a necessity if you’re refinishing a fallboard. But did you know that anyone buy any decal for any piano brand online? This is a legitimate need for piano rebuilders and refinishers.
The scam here is buying a decal that’s either completely wrong or “technically” wrong and putting it on the front of a piano.
Completely wrong would be putting a name like Steinway on a piano that is clearly not a Steinway. Once you open it up it’s obvious it’s not the correct piano.
Technically wrong would be taking the name of a company that technically manufactured the piano and putting their higher line name on the front of it. I’ve seen this a number of times with Howard pianos. Howard pianos were bought by Baldwin in the middle of the 20th century. Baldwin offered these pianos as lower line instruments – selling for much less than their higher priced Baldwin artist series counterparts. They would say “Howard” on the fallboard and on the side in small letters would be, “From the House of Baldwin”. Unscrupulous business people will put the Baldwin name right in the front misrepresenting the instrument.
Technically the piano is manufactured by Baldwin but it is not a true Baldwin, it’s a Howard. The seller could easily sell the piano for much more money and trick an unsuspecting buyer into purchasing a lower line piano while they are thinking they are getting something worth much more.
A completely fake piano
This is a scam that is incredibly hard to spot but is rare to find in the piano world. The scam involves going to great lengths to hide the true manufacturer of a piano in order to sell something for much more money than it’s worth.
I ran into this scam only once and it nearly got me!
Someone contacted me about a Steinway concert grand they were looking at purchasing. They sent me pictures and I went over them and initially thought that they had come across a legitimately good deal. The piano looked to be in great shape, the scale design looked right, and the decals and plate had the correct logos on them. So where was the scam?
Steinert is a company that used to produce pianos in the United States and they produced pianos incredibly similar in scale design to Steinway pianos. They look almost identical to Steinway pianos from a distance. Steinert pianos – while good pianos – are not worth anything near the value of a true Steinway piano because of the power of the Steinway name since Steinert went out of business decades ago.
This particular seller had actually gone to extraordinary lengths and replaced the Steinert logo cast into the the plate of the concert grand with the Steinway logo! This is a very time consuming and complex process that would take expertise to accomplish since they had to smelt metal to make the plate appear to be a Steinway. The potential payoff though would be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
So how did I figure this scam out?
Well a lot of text is put onto plates and it would be nearly impossible to replace all of it. After closer inspection I found that the text along the plate didn’t exactly match that of a true Steinway. Steinway pianos have specific patents cast into the plate at various places. Steinert pianos have different text cast into their plates that are unique to them. I realized that the information engraved in the plate was from a Steinert piano, not a Steinway.
A very clever scam and a very good one but still able to be solved with a little detective work.
Misrepresenting the county of origin for a piano
This is one of the most common things I run into in the piano market today and it’s something that all buyers need to be aware of. This is especially common in new pianos.
The “scam” is not so much a scam as a way to coerce a potential buyer to think their piano was manufactured in a different country than it actually is.
For example: You see a piano in a store with a European or American name, the salesperson tells you that the piano was “designed” in Europe or America and has connections to major European or American brands but cleverly avoids the topic of where the piano was actually manufactured – which in most cases is China or Indonesia. Sometimes they will claim that the piano is an American piano assembled in China or that it’s a German piano assembled in Asia. This is more than stretching the truth – it is false information.
This is something that can be avoided by simply asking where the piano was manufactured. Any reputable seller should tell you the truth. There is nothing wrong with a piano manufactured in China or Indonesia but you should be aware of this when buying the piano. You should not be under the assumption that you are buying something you aren’t.
Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any comments about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
So, are pianos from California really better? Often times, yes! The reason that used pianos from parts of California are generally in better condition is because of the stable climate.
You might hear about companies that climatize their pianos for certain regions and while this might sound like a good idea, this is not always possible. Let’s take California for example. There are a multitude of climates within different geographical areas. No two places are exactly the same. Right here, 10 miles from the beach, the climate is moderate year round. But there are dramatically different climates not far from here.
So what weather is best for pianos? Moderate humidity and a consistent temperature create the best environment for a piano. You don’t want them to go through drastic swings of cold and hot and you certainly don’t want your piano to have to endure extremely humid or dry environments.
California generally provides a gentle environment for pianos, but not everywhere. For example, I live about 10 miles from the beach and the weather is semi-arid and the temperature remains fairly consistent year round. Down by the beach the salt air can damage pianos in just a few years. Likewise, travel inland to the high desert not far away, and the dry climate can play havoc with soundboards and other wood parts of your piano.
In a gentle California climate a piano can reside in a home for decades without experiencing any damage to the soundboard, case or action particularly if it is kept closed most of the time and maintained on a regular basis. I have personally run across countless pianos from this region which can be well preserved gems. This is not possible in most other places in the United States – in New York a vintage piano can suffer soundboard and other damage from the wild swings from the humid summers to the dry heat of the winter – particularly pianos manufactured before the advent of air conditioning.
But beyond whether or not California is a good place for pianos the care you provide for your instrument is critical. You may be able to provide a suitable environment for a piano in any region as long as you keep it in a consistent environment. For example, you may live in a high rise in Chicago with climate control of temperate and humidity and have a great environment for your piano. People at the beach can try to mitigate the moist air by simply closing the piano at night and possibly installing a Dampp-Chaser System. This applies to pianos in the desert as well. Ideally you treat the room. When this isn’t possible, there are technologies that can help to stabilize your piano.
If you have any more questions about how to care for your piano please contact me directly Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
Like most things when it comes to the piano, this question does not have a simple answer. There is no absolute standard for how many strings are on a piano but there are some general guidelines that can shed some light on this question.
Some people might assume that since there are 88 keys on a piano, there would be 88 strings; but this isn’t the case. Most keys on the piano actually strike 3 strings when depressed. They are steel strings that run from the highest treble all the way to the bass section. Once you hit the bass section of the piano, the strings become copper wound and there are less of them per note (2 and eventually 1 on the lowest notes).
Now the problem in figuring out how many strings are on a piano depends on something called scale design. Scale design is a complex topic which I’ve covered in the past:
But basically what you need to know is that all pianos have unique scale designs with different numbers of strings in each section. Each piano switches from the triple steel strings to copper strings with different numbers of dual and single copper bass strings!
So the simple answer is you can’t say how many strings are on a piano exactly, but it ranges generally from about 220 to 240 strings.
Now this really should give you a renewed respect for your piano tuner if it hasn’t already! They have to tune every single one of those strings making sure they are all in proper pitch with each other. The octaves and intervals have to sound as pure as possible; their are also overtones to deal with – the process is actually quite complex.
Thanks again for watching and reading; there is plenty more on the way. Robert Estrin: Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
