Tag Archives: robert estrin

The Importance of Relaxation in Playing Music

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about the importance of relaxation in playing music. Now, this isn’t just about piano. This relates to all instruments. There are so many aspects to this. You hear about relaxation all the time. You’ve probably heard people say you should relax when you play. Of course, you want to avoid injury. It’s bad to do almost anything with tension. But there’s much more to it than that!

If you’re a weak player, sometimes you might contort just to make the notes come out!

If you have spaghetti fingers, like I did as a child, you may be contorting just to get the sound you want. This has to be avoided! It’s very difficult to avoid tension until you develop the fluency and strength to approach the keyboard in an ergonomic manner. It’s also vital to be as relaxed as possible. But it’s even deeper than that.

There are some obvious parallels to other instruments.

If a singer has tension, you can hear it in their voice. It’s a horrible sound! The tension adds ugliness to the tone. This is equally true on wind instruments. Listen to somebody who’s trying to play a trumpet or a clarinet with a closed throat. That tension is going to come through in the tone. The same thing is true for a violinist playing with tension. And it’s the same thing with the piano. That’s the remarkable thing. On the piano you can hear tension! And not just in a beautiful melody. If you play chords or melodies with tension, compared to playing them without tension, you can really hear the difference!

Make sure to play in a relaxed manner.

Whether you are playing a beautiful melody delicately, or big chords with power, you want your playing to be relaxed. You want to feel at one with the instrument. Experiment with your playing! When you sit at the piano, take that extra time to adjust the bench to the right distance from the keyboard. Make sure you’re sitting at the right height. Consciously take a breath and relax before you begin playing. Concentrate on relaxing your neck, shoulders, and arms. Play in a relaxed manner and listen to the difference of the sound. See what you notice in your playing. Let me know how this works for you 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

What Does It Mean to Be Musical?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today the subject is about what it means to be musical. Sometimes you hear people say an artist is so musical. What does that mean? Well, there’s a lot to unwrap here! 

The piano has so many different facets of abilities that are necessary in order to be able to play successfully. 

You might think that somebody who has really good technique must be musical. But technique is something I put under the umbrella of musical abilities or even musical intelligence. Good technique doesn’t necessarily equate to being musical. It does indicate talent for the instrument. Another aspect is security in performance. There are some people who just play their best in front of people. They are good performers, but are they musical? That is really something different, isn’t it?

If a performer doesn’t have security in their performance, it’s difficult to be musical. 

Just like if they don’t have technique, how are they going to be able to express anything? There are other aspects too. You need to be able to digest the score. It is crucial to be able to look at a piece of music and make sense of the structure of the piece. Once again, that’s musical intelligence. These are all important aspects of piano playing. All of these things are related. They really are important. How could you possibly be musical if you can’t digest the piece, if you can’t hold it together, or if you don’t have the fingers to be able to to execute the music? But assuming all of those things are there, what does it mean to be musical?

I believe being musical is being able to elicit emotions in the listener. 

There are some people who are astoundingly accomplished at the piano. They can play the most difficult music with fluency and security. And yet maybe they leave you cold. But sometimes there’s a student, maybe even a young student who doesn’t have much technique or experience, and they don’t even necessarily do all the things that should be done in a piece, but there’s a beauty to their playing. It makes you feel something! It brings a smile to your face, or maybe sadness. Their playing makes you feel emotions. This is something that is really elusive to describe. It’s even more difficult to teach. 

A certain amount of this is inborn. 

A certain amount cannot be learned. But like many other things in life, someone who is naturally musical can become more musical by exposure. With good training, and by listening to other musicians who are more accomplished than they are, they can grow musically. Somebody who just doesn’t have much sense of where the music should go, maybe they can learn a great deal. Their musicianship and their ability to elicit emotions and create excitement or sadness can be improved. But somebody who has very little of that natural ability will have a tougher time with musicality. 

Everybody can improve! 

This doesn’t just go for musicality, for lack of a better word, but all aspects of piano playing can grow. Technique can be improved. Security in performance can be improved. The ability to digest a score can be improved. All of these things can be improved along with that elusive musicality. So don’t fret if you are lacking in one or more of these skill sets. They all can be developed! Nobody has all of them in spades. Everybody has to mitigate their weaknesses and develop their strengths. 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

Why Middle C Isn’t Middle C (on the piano)

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about Middle C. But middle C isn’t middle C! What am I talking about? Have I gone off the deep end? No, and I’m going to prove it to you right now!

The exact middle of the keyboard actually falls on the E and F above middle C.

That is the middle of the piano. Did you ever realize that? Well, middle C is the middle C of the piano, right? Actually, no! There are 8 Cs on the piano. So, middle C and the C an octave above are technically both middle C’s, aren’t they? So what is going on here? Why do they call this middle C when it’s not the middle of the piano, and it’s not the middle C of the piano? While it’s not technically the middle of the piano, and it’s not technically the middle C on the piano, it is about the middle of the piano where the closest C occurs. So it kind of is middle C.

Modern pianos have 88 keys. But if you go back to the 1870s, the piano had only 85 keys.

Back then, the highest note on the piano was A below the highest C on modern pianos. On an 85 key piano, middle C would be in the middle of the keyboard! But if you ever thought that middle C is the middle of the modern piano, you might want to adjust where you sit. You should be sitting with the E and F centered in front of you. This doesn’t make a big difference. But it could make a little bit of a difference lining yourself up between E and F, because indeed, this is the middle of your piano!

How do you feel about this? Did you realize this before? I’m interested in your comments here 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

How Much Should You Stick To Routine in Your Practice?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how much you should stick to routine in your piano practice. Years ago, I made a video about how you can make practicing more enjoyable. It was a guide on how to organize your practice to make it as productive as possible. I described how you should have an appetizer of scales for warming up, then a main course of memorization and refinement, and then you can have a dessert of review pieces! You can see that video here. But what I’m going to talk about today is something quite different. And it’s the flip side of this!

Don’t get too attached to your practice routine.

All too often, students get married to their routines. They love their routines so much that they don’t realize they might be missing out on discovery. Truth be known, my practice is anything but organized! I don’t necessarily stick to a regimen in what I do. In fact, sometimes I find a specific area that needs work and I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time on one specific problem, maybe ten times more time than I spend with anything else in the practice session. It could be a very small section of music. Maybe there’s a certain technique that you’re working on. Or there’s a part of the music where you’re discovering new possibilities in the score. Maybe you’re finding a new way of approaching the keyboard. Maybe you are after a different sound out of the piano. You might think it’s important to stay on task and get to your scales or to your new piece. You might feel you need to get to all those regimented aspects of practice. But it’s more important to feel engaged in your practice.

Anything that engages your mind is ultimately the most productive practice you can do!

Don’t fall into the habit of routine for routine’s sake. You may find yourself doing the same thing almost to the point of mindlessness. Don’t just go through the motions because you think it’s important. You may be getting some physical benefits, strengthening your hands. It could even be productive to play over pieces so you don’t forget them. But the real practice is that of discovery.

Remember, practicing is a mental exercise.

Practicing is a thought process. So if you find yourself spending way too much time on something, but you’re getting somewhere with it, go for it! Because you’ll find, after spending a tremendous amount of time on something small, it will translate to other aspects of your playing. You can get great benefit from spending a tremendous amount of time on something that’s seemingly very small. It all relates to everything else you do on the instrument.

Routines are good, so you don’t forget important aspects.

Work on your sight reading every day, or at least every week. You don’t want to forget your review pieces by neglecting them for a week or two. So it is important to keep up with the basics. But ultimately, you should go off on tangents that engage your mind. You shouldn’t feel like that is wrong. So long as you’re accomplishing something, it is worth the time! Keep your practicing interesting to you and you will accomplish even more in the work you do at the piano! 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

Secrets of Balance on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to give you some secrets of balance on the piano. What am I referring to about balance? Piano is one of the few instruments where you can play many different notes at the same time, and you’re able to bring out different notes within a chord or within a musical texture. This is one of the great things about the piano! 

You can bring out different notes within a chord.

This can be easily demonstrated by playing a simple C major chord. If you’re playing C, E, G, and C with your left hand, as well your right hand, there are many different ways of approaching the voicing. How is this possible? You can bring out every single note of the chord one by one playing exactly the same chord and bringing out different notes within the chord. This is how you can create whatever musical texture you are after. This is akin to a conductor creating a balance out of the orchestra getting just the sound they’re after. You can do the same thing at the piano. But there is one very important acoustical property you must be aware of on the piano. 

Balance is different playing loud compared to playing soft. 

Chopin’s C Minor Prelude starts off with massive chords that are marked fortissimo. Later it goes down to piano. At the very end it goes even softer to pianissimo. When playing the fortissimo part of this prelude, using all the energy equally on all the keys, the melody will come out loud and clear. But when playing the pianissimo section, which is almost the same chords, the melody will be lost when giving equal energy to all the notes. But by delineating the top notes by reaching with the 4th and 5th fingers, and leaning the weight of your hand to the right side, you can bring out the top notes creating a beautiful balance. So here’s the key: When playing loud, the top notes project well. But if you play the exact same chords quietly with equal balance, the melody is lost. So you want to bring out the melody notes when playing softly, delineating the melody compared to accompaniment. 

The softer you play, the more extreme the delineation of melody notes must be. That’s the secret!

So that is one secret of balancing on the piano. The softer the playing, the more extreme delineation you must have for melody compared to accompaniment. It’s just the acoustical property of the piano. I hope this helps 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

Why Playing Fast Is Easier Than Playing Slowly

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how playing fast is easier than playing slowly. You might think that’s crazy. Of course, it would take more work to be able to develop speed in your playing. There is some truth to that. But once you do have some speed and fluency in your playing, have you ever tried to go back and play slowly again? It can be really difficult! There are a lot of reasons for this. We’re going to discuss this and what you can do to help your playing.

Once you’ve played a piece many times, your fingers just know where to go.

Years ago I made a video about how playing your scales should be on autopilot. I likened it to learning how to walk. You see toddlers taking their first steps. The concentration on their faces is unbelievable! Of course, once you learn how to walk, you really don’t think about it. It’s almost involuntary. You can be thinking about other things while you’re walking once you learn how to do it. Well, the same thing is true of scales! It’s also true of all the music you play. You get to a point where your mind is wandering, but your fingers keep going. That’s actually a good thing in some respects. If you didn’t have that to rely upon, it would be hard to be focused 100% of the time. But naturally, you can’t depend upon that motor memory, finger memory, muscle memory, whatever you want to call it.

When you play slowly, it’s harder to think through everything.

When you slow things down, every single note becomes very obvious. But there’s another reason why playing fast is easier than playing slowly. I’m not even talking about the solidity of how well you know the score. I’m talking about musical considerations. When you’re playing slowly, it’s very difficult to even know where the line is. For example, Chopin’s E Minor Prelude. Playing that piece slowly and trying to get a sense of the rise and the fall of the line is all but impossible. It’s very difficult to maintain a line playing under tempo.

All music really is reflective of the human voice.

All instruments are an extension of the instrument we all carry with us. Naturally, wind instruments are a direct analog to the human voice, because the breath is involved. It’s a natural extension. Bowed instruments, like a violin or cello, have the continuum of the bow against the strings. On the piano, it’s a challenge to create that continuum of sound. But imagine a wind player or a singer trying to sing a song much slower than its normal speed. It would be hard to sustain the phrase. You would run out of air! It would be hard to get a sense of the line. That same Chopin prelude played at a faster tempo, with the pulse of the quarter note or even the half note, makes it much easier to feel the musical line.

Once you know a piece, it’s so much easier to play it faster, because you can get a sense of the line.

The challenge is gaining enough fluency that you can play up to speed. Sometimes it helps just trying to play something up to tempo. Even if it’s not totally polished, playing it up to tempo helps you know what you’re working for. Of course, you don’t want to repeat sloppy playing again and again. You may even want to play just the right hand, just to get the feel of the phrasing. Once you understand the intention of the music, your practice is so much more productive. You want to know what you’re aiming for. So think of your music up to tempo, even if you can’t quite play it yet. Try to play it up to speed so you get a sense of the music. Your practice is always in service of the music.

That’s the message for today! I hope this works well 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