Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is about what makes a pianist’s sound unique. This is a really tough question to answer, but I’m going to do my best!
My wife is a flutist. When she was very young, she studied with some great concert flutists. At one point she heard her teacher play her cheap student level flute. Sure enough, it no longer sounded like a cheap flute. It sounded like this great flutist! With wind instruments, it’s obvious. And it’s most obvious with singers. As soon as you hear a voice, you know who it is.

If you hear Frank Sinatra, there’s no doubt about who you’re listening to.

With piano, it’s much further removed from singing, certainly. It isn’t even like the distinctive sounds of wind and string players. But indeed, there are unique sounds different pianists produce. I grew up idolizing Horowitz and Rubinstein. The whole methodology of their pianistic approach was so drastically different from one another. So, this enters into it. Certainly, physiology has something to do with the sound of the piano as well. A massive man might have a bigger sound compared to a very slight man or woman. But not always. It goes much deeper. How you hear things will affect the way you approach the keyboard, and results in very different sound production.

What are some of those differences? Well, I was trained from a very young age by my father, Morton Estrin, to have the weight of the arms supported by the fingers instead of having limp fingers floating in midair and letting the fingers push down. Now, in very fast passages that’s exactly what you want to do, because you can’t support much weight when you’re going very quickly. But in a slow melody, you certainly want to have a sense of line. And the best way to get that is to use the weight of the arm. Using this method you can produce a fluid line on the piano like a singer. Playing just with the fingers, without supporting with the weight of the arm, results in a less fluid performance. Naturally, how the pedal comes into play also affects the tone tremendously.

There are some pianists who produce such unique sounds that you know who they are instantly!

I find this amazing. With the human voice, you’ve got the whole inside of the body and the vocal cords and the intonation of speech. On a wind instrument, you have the lips and you also have the throat and the vibrations within the chest cavity. There is so much more to identify sound. What do you have with the piano? The tone is produced by hammers hitting strings. How the heck do you achieve a distinct sound? Well, just like I have revealed previously, growing up I had very small, weak fingers, and yet I grew up hearing my father and some of his spectacular students. I always would strive to get that big beautiful sound. In fact, I contorted my body trying to make my spaghetti fingers produce anything close to the sound I heard from my father. But I made it happen in slow music particularly. Fast pieces were a little bit tougher for me having weak fingers, and I didn’t practice a great deal as a young child. But on slow music though, even from the youngest age, I was able to produce the sounds that I heard just from making it happen.

The sound of a pianist comes down to what they hear in their head and achieving that sound.

So that’s the lesson for today. It’s all about the connection of the hands to the ears. And that’s what you want to strive for in your playing so you can express your voice on the piano. I’d love to hear from any of you who have ideas about how to produce a beautiful sound on the piano! There’s a lot more to this subject, and I may produce a whole series about this on my Patreon channel. Thanks to all of you who have subscribed! I’ll see you next time. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource. Thanks again for joining me.

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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about how important it is to double check your work when practicing the piano. If you’ve ever seen any of my videos on how I practice, you know I break things down to the smallest parts. I take small sections and study the notes carefully, just in the right hand. I figure out the rhythm. Then I count to make sure everything is secure and figure out the best fingering. Then I study all the other details, the expression, the slurs, the staccatos. I look back and forth dozens of times until I have it securely memorized. Then I do the same long process just with this tiny phrase on the left-hand part until that is secure, going back and forth, double and triple checking. Finally I play both hands together. That’s the hardest part! Naturally, there’s a lot of back and forth in that process making sure it’s right. Then I go on phrase by phrase until I have the whole piece memorized connecting phrase by phrase as I go. After all of that, I go back and study the score agan! I take my foot off the pedal and play through really slowly to double-check my work. And yet, with all of this, I still discover things I didn’t catch in the score!

I recommend going back and forth a great deal, particularly in the formative phase of learning a piece.

As I’ve said so many times before, unlearning is much harder than learning. So you must constantly reference the score at every stage of your practice. Even when you think you have a piece beautifully memorized on performance level, go back to the music and play excruciatingly slowly. I bet you will find things you didn’t know were there. After all, there are tens of thousands of details in even a short piece of music. When you consider notes, rhythm, fingering, phrasing, and expression, it’s mind boggling that we can learn music at all! That’s why I recommend the method that I just described.

Try it for yourself!

So, any of you who have pieces really solid, go through your score as I just mentioned. Go slowly, using no pedal, reading every detail, and see what you discover in the process. I think it will be richly rewarding. Better than that, be sure to double, triple, quadruple check your work as you learn so you don’t have to unlearn things later. It will save you vast amounts of time in the long run.

I hope this is helpful for you! If you enjoy exploring pianos and piano playing, joining my Patreon family www.patreon.com/robertestrin. It will offer you even more videos and the opportunity to be part of the creative process.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is from a viewer, and it’s kind of a long one, so I want to read it to you word for word, because it really brings up such an important point. Joseph asks, “Hi, thank you for the reply to my previous question. This doubt is about Moonlight Sonata, movement number one. I went through many videos on YouTube. These recordings were a little bit different from what is written. There are sustains, very slight tempo variations, and small pauses at some points of the recordings. But these are not indicated in the notation. And I can say the majority of the portions were not in perfect tempo. Could you please explain on what basis these dynamics are made, and how to know which place we should apply these dynamics? I have seen your Moonlight Sonata pedal usage video. A big thanks for that video.” A lot of people are really confused about this: the sanctity of the score, what the composer intended. Is this authoritative? Is that what the composer meant?

Composers aren’t always the best interpreters of their music.

How could this be? Beethoven must have played his music better than anyone else. Let’s think about this. The people, for example, who write screenplays aren’t necessarily the best ones to direct, or act in it, for that matter. Just because somebody can write a play doesn’t mean they can act. So what is the analog here? If somebody is reading the lines of a play, does it have all the inflections indicated? – where to go up and where to go down, where to pause, where to go a little faster, where to go a little slower? Of course not. There are general indications in the play about the direction and the moods, but the performer fleshes out and creates the character from the words, bringing the character to life. That’s exactly what we do on the piano! The score itself, you could literally program it into a machine. It’s pretty easy to do that. If you took the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata and programmed every note exactly as it was written, the rhythm, the dynamics, everything, it would be an abomination. It wouldn’t even sound like music.

The score is just a skeleton.

The score is not the Holy Grail. It’s just what you build upon. Does this mean that you don’t play what’s written? No. You are playing what’s written, just like a great actor is saying the words that are written, but how do they say the words? There are so many ways of saying them. The same is true with playing the piano or any instrument. You’ve got to make sense out of the musical lines. Just like you have to make sense out of the words in a play. You can’t just read them flat. The same thing is true with music. Composers couldn’t possibly write in every inflection of every note. Notation doesn’t work that way. It’s impossible. That’s why we have performers.

The musical score doesn’t come to life until it is performed.

It takes the performer to make the work of art alive, and that is why you hear these nuances. Of course, there’s a limit to how far you can go before you’re just playing an entirely different piece! You want to have integrity to the score, absolutely. Know that score, and know what to play. But that doesn’t mean that a musical line that doesn’t have any dynamics is going to be flat all the way across. No, it will have a rise and a fall, just like the words in a sentence have in a play. I hope this helps you understand the implications of what a score really means.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact us with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin and today’s question is, “How Do You Find the Serial Number on Your Piano?” There are a number of reasons why you might want to know your piano’s serial number. The piano’s age, along with its condition, and any repair work done to it will affect its value. You need to know this if you’re considering buying or selling your piano, or for an insurance claim or charitable tax deduction. You might also need to know the serial number for a bill of sale, insurance rider, warranty claim or moving or storage receipt. The serial number determines the age of your piano. Once you find it, you can reference the Pierce Piano Atlas, which has all the piano brands with the serial numbers, so you can determine when your Piano was built.

Where can you find the serial number on your piano?

If you look inside your piano at the plate, you may find a date and think your work is done. But it’s not so simple. In fact, the date of manufacture is never stamped on a piano. These dates usually refer to prizes that were won or patents that were awarded, but never the date of manufacture. So you’ve got to dig a little bit deeper. If you’re looking at a grand piano, the first place to look is under the music rack. You can simply slide the music rack out towards you. Underneath, usually on the left hand side on the plate, you’ll see a series of numbers. That can very well be the serial number of your piano. Reference the Pierce Atlas, and you’re done. But sometimes, you’ll see two sets of numbers or even more. It can be very confusing.

There are other numbers you may encounter.

Model numbers generally are letters and sometimes they have numbers in them. So, if you see a letter followed by a bunch of numbers, the first letter might just be the model, followed by the serial number. Over on the right hand side, you might see less digits. This could be an in house numbering system they used when they were manufacturing the piano, or sometimes it’s an artist number for concert grand pianos. Suppose the piano has been regilded, that is, the plate has been painted over. Does that mean you can’t figure out the serial number? Well, the good news is, pianos almost always have the serial number in more than one place. And the serial number isn’t always found on the plate.

There are several other places a serial number can be found.

Sometimes the serial number is stamped into the soundboard, usually towards the front of the piano. Look at the soundboard and you might see numbers. I’ve seen it on the back of the soundboard or even in the rim of the piano, under where the lid lifts up. Like I say, sometimes it takes a lot of detective work to find the serial number on your piano! Now, suppose you look all over the place inside the piano, but you still don’t see it. Well, then you have to go a little bit further.

Something you can do on your own that’s not that hard, is to take the key slip off in front of the keys. Some pianos, it just lifts out. Others might have several screws underneath you take out. Carefully lift up the key slip. You’ll may see the serial number on the key slip itself stamped into the wood. Or it could possibly be on the key frame of the action of the piano. No luck? You still have some possibilities. You can check underneath the piano. Take a flashlight under the piano and look around. Typically, it will be behind the pedal lyre on the piece of wood behind the pedal assembly. But I’ve seen it in other places down there. Sometimes, even on the bottom of the soundboard!

You might want help from a piano technician.

If you haven’t found the serial number yet, you may want to have your piano technician look for it, because you can potentially damage the piano taking it apart yourself. Your piano technician can possibly find the serial number by removing the action and taking out the cheek block screws on the ends of the piano. Once the key slip has been removed, the fallboard can sometimes lift out. But with older pianos, the fallboard is attached to the cheek blocks and this can be tricky to take out because they can fall off. This is why you should use a piano technician. The serial number is oftentimes stamped on the cheek blocks. If you still can’t find the serial number, then you can have your piano technician pull the whole action out a bit. The serial number might be stamped somewhere else on the action. If not, have your piano technician pull the action out completely, put it safely on a piano bench or a table, and hunt inside the piano with a flashlight to find the serial number.

You didn’t think this was going to be so complicated, did you? Well, the good news is, most of the time it’s not. Generally the serial number is on the plate, but now you have some resources just in case it’s not there.

Are there pianos with no serial number at all?

Yes, this can happen when a manufacturer puts the serial number on the plate or another part of the piano that has been replaced. If the plate was regilded or the soundboard was replaced, you might have no way of determining the serial number, or even the manufacturer of a piano! On some stencil pianos, that is OEM pianos that are produced by third party manufactures, it’s all but impossible to figure out not just a serial number, but even the make of a piano!

Where is the serial number found on upright pianos?

Most often the serial number on upright pianos will be right in the front. Open up the top and look inside. If you don’t see it there, you can look around back and sometimes you’ll see the serial number stamped in the back of the piano.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time.

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This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. Today’s subject is playing the piano to the room. What is meant by that? The room you’re playing in can be as important to the sound and the approach to the keyboard as the piano you’re playing! I remember, for example, in high school there was a seven-foot Baldwin semi-concert grand piano that was kept to the side of the stage in an incredibly echoey room. It was almost deafening playing in there! I practiced there whenever I had a chance. Then it would come on stage with the curtains closed. It was a completely different sound and I had to approach the keyboard differently in order to project the sound properly. Then when the curtains were open, I could hear the sound project into the hall. It was a fairly live hall. So, it was important not to use too much pedal. Otherwise, the sound could get muddy. In fact, you may have to adjust the tempo you play your music to suit the acoustics of the hall. A hall that is very reverberant can get muddy and you may have to take more time in order for the audience to hear things clearly.

Playing to the room is something that all instrumentalists have to deal with.

So, as pianists, we have a double whammy. We have to adjust to the piano, and we have to adjust to the room! But any other musician, whether they play violin, flute, trumpet, clarinet as well as singers have to figure out how to play to the room, to project a sound, and to reach the last row in the audience.

It is necessary to create the appropriate sound for each specific space.

Certainly, if you’re playing in a living room, you don’t want to blow people out of there with too much volume! So you want to temper your sound to match the room, always using your ears. Practicing isn’t about just molding one performance. It’s about being in excellent shape on your instrument so you can instantly create the right sound for that specific piano and room at that moment.

Thanks so much for the great questions! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store

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