Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you about 7 YouTube piano channels you should know about. It’s remarkable what a resource YouTube is. Did you know that YouTube is actually the second-most popular search engine after Google? Which is kind of scary when you consider that they’re both owned by the same company, Alphabet. I’m going to tell you about channels you may already know about and some you may not know about.

I’m going to start with a very popular channel by concert pianist Josh Wright.

Josh Wright Piano is the name of his channel. He’s here in the United States. He started on YouTube in 2009, the same year that Living Pianos started our YouTube channel. He has over 20 million views, 187,000 subscribers, and 711 videos! Josh is very professional in his delivery. He’s a fine pianist, and he’s got so much to offer. He’s a concert pianist and a teacher. He has everything from mastering sight-reading to tutorials on different repertoire, from Chopin waltzes to Scott Joplin rags. He also has performance videos of his playing. He has exercises. He even has videos about the psychology of playing and tips on piano technique. So it’s a really well-rounded channel that covers a lot of basic things that you’re probably interested in.

Tiffany Poon has a very different channel that I came upon years ago, and I’ve been following it ever since.

Tiffany Poon Pianist is the name of her YouTube channel. She’s a young, aspiring concert artist. She gives you a glimpse into what it’s like, from her days at Juilliard to the concert stage. She’s also in the United States. She started on YouTube back in 2007. She has 54 and a half million views, 323,000 subscribers, and 374 videos! From her Juilliard admissions to backstage at concerts, you get a real feeling for what it’s like for a young artist in this world and the psychology of it. She lets you into that world, so you feel like she’s talking just to you. It’s very personal. She reveals her inner emotions about all the things involved in the rigors of concertizing, traveling, and all of that. She’s proud to be releasing her Schumann album, which is just coming out now. This is really an achievement for this young concert pianist. She has tutorial videos on famous piano pieces like Clair de Lune and Chopin Fantaisie-Impromptu. She’s a delightful young woman and an emerging artist worth checking out.

Moving on to the other side of the world, we have Paul Barton.

Paul Barton Piano is located in Thailand. He started on YouTube in 2008. He has 199 million views, 700,000 subscribers, and over 2000 videos! He has involved his daughter in the videos since she was a baby sitting there by the piano. And now, he has four-hand videos playing along with his daughter. Sometimes he’s accompanying his daughter while she’s singing, and it’s really touching to see this development. He has tons of videos, playing famous piano pieces like Clair de Lune. But perhaps you’ve seen his most famous videos, where he plays piano for elephants! Pretty wild stuff. It’s definitely a different YouTube channel that covers many things and has a personal element with the family involvement.

Pianist Magazine is a tremendous resource, and they also have a YouTube channel.

Pianist Magazine is the name of the YouTube channel. One of their main artists is Graham Fitch. He’s in the United Kingdom. He started on YouTube in 2012. The channel has 9.7 million views, 100,000 subscribers, and 350 videos! This is a terrific channel! He gives in-depth tutorials of all different types, like How to Use Rubato and Understanding Meter and Rhythm. He has videos on scales and arpeggios and a masterclass series on different techniques like wrist and octaves, pedaling runs, and passage work. This channel is just a treasure trove of useful tips from a great pianist. Interestingly, Josh Wright, who I mentioned earlier, did an interview with Graham on his channel. So you can see them interacting together, which I think could be richly rewarding for you.

Another great channel you may have come upon is Pianote.

Pianote Official is the name of the YouTube channel, and it’s all the brainchild of Lisa Witt in Canada. The channel started on YouTube in 2008. It has 142 and a half million views, over a million and a half subscribers, and 834 videos! Lisa covers a wide range of styles, from worship music and rock piano to Chopin. She has videos like How to Play by Ear in Three Simple Steps, The Genius of Stevie Wonder and Piano Finger Speed Exercises. And she helps you to be able to match chords to melodies. So it’s not just about classical repertoire. It covers a wide range of styles in a very friendly, easy-to-follow format. It’s worth checking out if that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in.

Another great YouTube channel is Learn Piano with Jazer Lee.

Jazer Lee Piano is the name of the YouTube channel. He’s located in Australia. He started on YouTube in 2017. His channel has 32 million views, over 600,000 subscribers, and 165 videos! He covers piano technique with videos like 5 Classical Pieces Beginners Shouldn’t Skip, 5 Common Pitfalls of Self-taught Pianists, and Learning Piano as an Adult. These are subjects that I’m sure many of you are interested in. His videos are definitely worthwhile!

Next, we have Nahre Sol.

Nahre Sol is the name of her channel. She started on YouTube in 2017. She has 695,000 subscribers, over 54 million views, and 227 videos! She does some spectacular things that you’ve got to check out. For example, she plays Happy Birthday in the style of ten classical composers. And she nails it! It is really fun to listen to things like this. But she also covers things like piano technique. Her videos have very intriguing titles, like Is Chopin Jazz. You really have to see her take on these things. She has a whole series on how to sound like different composers, like Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Chopin. It’s really interesting to get her insight into these composers. She really grasps the fundamentals, which is how she’s able to improvise and play in these styles. She also has great warm-up exercises. She has really keen insights into the great composers that could be really enriching for you!

That covers the seven great YouTube piano channels, but I have two bonus channels I’d like to share. The first one is Lord V.

Lord Vinheteiro is the name of his channel. You’ve probably already seen him because he’s so famous. He has over a billion views, over 7 million subscribers, and 671 videos! Can you believe it? How could he be that far ahead of everybody else in terms of views? The reason why is because this man is a comic genius! You’ve got to check him out. His videos have the goofiest titles sometimes, and yet, he never disappoints. He always takes you on an interesting journey. The funny thing is, he never talks in his videos! He plays, and he does little routines. He has videos like, Can You Hear The Difference Between a Cheap and Expensive Piano? 10 Songs You’ve Heard and Don’t Know The Name Of, and Can You Play Piano With Your Feet? Sometimes they get absurd, but they are so fun. They’re not usually that long. If you just want to have a blast and laugh your head off, tune in to Lord V, and you won’t be disappointed. Interestingly, Lisa Witt at Pianote has a collaborative video with him where he identifies pianos blindfolded. It’s unbelievable! You’ve got to check that video out! It’s a great introduction to both of these artists.

Lastly, my dear friend Zsolt Bognár.

Living The Classical Life is the name of his channel. This is such a rich resource. He travels the world with an absolutely exquisite video team from Germany and interviews some of the great artists of our time. He’s interviewed artists such as Yuja Wang, Daniil Trifonov, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Joshua Bell. Zsolt has a way of disarming people, so you feel like they’re talking just to you. It’s almost like you’re grabbing coffee with someone and they’re just pouring their heart out. There’s a personal element to it. He’s able to get these people to just relax and open up. And the production is absolutely stellar! In fact, many of these videos are seen the world over on television broadcast stations. So check out Living The Classical Life – The New Channel. You’ll love it!

Let me know how many of these channels you already watch! Which ones do you like, and why do you like them? 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.

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. I’ve made so many videos about scales, arpeggios, and exercises. But here’s one for you that I’ve never shared, and I think you’re going to enjoy it. The subject today is about practicing your scales in contrary motion. One of the biggest challenges when you’re playing scales is making sure your two hands are landing squarely together. When playing with both hands, it’s hard to hear the differentiation of each hand separately. Maybe one hand is louder than the other, or there could be unevenness.

When you play your scales in contrary motion, you hear everything clearly.

I learned all major and minor scales this way in conservatory. It’s a great way to practice scales! You play your scales with both hands going up. Then, once you get to the two-octave point, you come back down with your left hand while your right hand continues up. Then both hands come down two octaves at which point they go in opposite directions again. Then they come back together and when they reach the middle of the keyboard they go down again. You can watch the video to see how this is done.

Keep in mind that you should always practice your scales with a metronome.

There’s never a good reason to practice scales without a metronome. You want to measure your work and strive for evenness. When you are practicing scales, it isn’t music; it’s strictly technique. Finger work is all about the evenness—the evenness of the attacks, the evenness of the releases, and the evenness of the volume. By playing your scales in contrary motion, you can hear things more clearly. Try this with your scales! Let me know how it works for you here in the comments on 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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you 20 skill sets you need at the piano. I tried to narrow it down to the absolute essentials for you. You can check to see how many of these skill sets you have. There are some things you might not have thought of that could be really important for you to take your piano playing to the next level. I’m going to start with the most important thing for classical players and something that’s great for anybody, which is…

Memorization

You may think you just have to be born with a great memory, but that’s not true. There’s a system for memorization that can be taught. Memorization makes playing the piano easier. It’s very encumbering to be watching the score. Sometimes it’s necessary, but when you have something memorized, it frees you to be expressive and just let the music come out of you naturally. What else is important? To learn more about memorization, click here!

Sight-reading

Reading music is essential because you can’t memorize everything. Plus, if you’re accompanying other musicians, you want to be able to see the score and their part. So you want to be able to read music to familiarize yourself with a wide array of music without necessarily committing it to memory. That’s another skill that can be developed. To learn more about sight-reading, click here!

Improvisation

Did you know that most styles of music are not dependent on reading every note in the score? Jazz, pop, rock, country, folk—you name it. Being able to improvise is so important. It’s also a great way to have fun with music. If you have a party and people want to sing some songs, being able to play by ear is great. Not to mention the fact that it can save your neck if you ever have a memory slip during a performance. You can get back on track if you can play a little bit by ear instead of starting over again. To learn more about improvisation, click here!

Scales and arpeggios

Learning all of your major and minor scales and arpeggios is one of the foundations of good technique on any instrument, and the piano is certainly no exception. It’s an essential toolbox of technique. The vast majority of Western music is built on scales and arpeggios. Having those literally at your fingertips is of tremendous value. Don’t be intimidated by it. You can just learn one a week, and it will take you about a year to learn all of them. There’s no hurry. If you haven’t done it yet, go for it! I’ve got a spreadsheet that you can check out that can keep track of all your scales and arpeggios. To learn more about scales and arpeggios, click here!

Octave technique

You hear people play rousing octaves, and you wonder, how is that done? Well, once again, a central technique of using the wrist. I have additional videos on that for you as well. And that brings us to the essential technique of the piano. To learn more about octave technique, click here!

Learn how to identify when to use the fingers, when to use the wrists, and when to use the arms.

They all come into play, but in different ways in different contexts of music. One of the most important things about learning technique on the piano is knowing which parts of the body to use. To learn more about finger techniques, click here! For more about the wrists, click here! For more about arms, click here!

Learn how to bring out different voices in your playing.

The piano is an instrument that can play many different parts at once. You, of course, have your left and right hands, but it’s much deeper than that. Sometimes, you have inner voices. You can even have different parts within one hand. Learning how to bring out different voices is such an essential technique. And once again, there are ways you can practice that. I have techniques for this. To learn more, click here!

Learn how to achieve a smooth melodic line.

Did you know that the piano is a percussion instrument? That’s right. When you play a note, the hammer is hitting the strings. You get a strong attack and rapid decay. So how do you get a smooth melodic line? Well, it’s the art of illusion. It’s a matter of using the weight of the arm to smoothly transfer the tone from note to note. The pedal can help with that as well. To learn more, click here!

Learn how to get a beautiful sound out of the piano.

Have you ever heard somebody play and everything just sounds harsh and ugly, and then somebody will play the exact same piano and everything sounds beautiful and warm? How is that possible? Singers have physiology that makes it so, and with other instruments, there’s such a connection with the throat, the breath, and the lips. But yes, on the piano, there are ways of achieving a beautiful sound. And there are ways you might get an ugly sound if you’re not careful. So this is a really important subject for you if you haven’t covered it before in your playing. You want to always get as gorgeous a sound as possible. To learn more, click here!

Interpretation

Interpretation is a wide open area. It’s very subjective, but it’s something important to understand and have a grasp of. You work so hard to learn a piece of music. How do you actually let it unfold? What do you have to say about it? Do you just play it the way your teacher told you to or the way you’ve heard it in a recording? Or do you have something unique you can say about the piece? How do you develop your own voice in music? That’s what interpretation is all about! It’s the reason we play—to express our love and our unique ideas about the music. The reason we work so hard is so we can bring our ideas into these pieces of music so others can enjoy our concepts of them. To learn more, click here!

Appreciate different period styles.

To understand interpretation and many other aspects of technique, you really have to have an appreciation for the different period styles of music, from the Baroque to the Classical, the Romantic, the Impressionist, and the 20th century. They’re all different styles, and there are styles within those styles. Not to mention, the piano evolved over time. So the period the music was written in wasn’t for the same instrument as earlier or later pianos. When you’re playing Baroque music, it might not have been written for the piano at all. It was more likely written for the harpsichord! So understanding the period styles and the instruments the music was written for is very important for being able to play appropriately on the piano. To learn more about the Baroque period, click here! For Classical, click here! For Romantic, click here! For Impressionism, click here!

Another important aspect of piano technique is ornamentation.

There’s all kinds of ornamentation, such as trills. Sometimes in early music, you’ll see different squiggly lines that are representative of things that you do to embellish the music. How to translate those symbols is one challenge, but the other is simply knowing how to execute them cleanly. And there again, there are different aspects of knowing how to measure your trills and things of that nature. For more about executing trills, click here! For more about ornamentation, click here!

Music theory

A solid foundation in music theory can really enhance all aspects of your playing. Certainly, if you’re reading music, it’s helpful to know what key you’re in and to have some grasp of the chord progressions and modulations. When you’re learning a piece of music, a foundation of music theory will help you understand where you are in the structure and the harmonies. It’s going to help you learn it, remember it, and play it. For more about music theory, click here!

Harmony

Harmony is kind of a subcategory of theory. Having an understanding of the keys you’re in and the relationship of tones is what harmony is all about. To learn more about harmony, click here!

Dictation

One way to develop harmony is through dictation. Jazz players do dictation all the time. If you play popular music, sometimes the sheet music can be very drab and not really grasp what the original performance was about. So you listen to it and kind of copy it by ear. You can even write it down. This is a tremendous way to develop your ear and an affinity for different styles of music. To learn more about dictation, click here!

Music history

Having a grasp of music history is so important. I mentioned the period styles, but it goes so much deeper. You want to understand the culture and customs of the time and how the music fit into society. Was it something for the elite or the music of the people? The history of the time can be enlightening and might shed some light as to how the music should be approached. Is it folk music? Is it music for the Royal Courts? Having an understanding of music history can give you a depth to your playing that is really important. To learn more about music history, click here!

Accompanying

I talked about reading and sight-reading being important, but accompanying is an art unto itself. You want to be able to play with other musicians. All too often, pianists play by themselves so much that they lack the camaraderie that you develop playing with other musicians. You learn so much by doing this. You develop a better sense of timing, balance, and nuance. There’s nothing greater than playing with other musicians and learning from them. When you play with great musicians, it rubs off on you. You might feel squeamish about playing with people who are better than you, but take the opportunity. It will be enriching for you. For more about accompanying, click here!

Maintain a repertoire.

How many pieces can you keep in your repertoire? What pieces should you learn next? What is a well-balanced repertoire on the piano? These are really important questions for developing your piano playing and your musicianship. You need appropriate challenges in your repertoire—something that’s not going to take you an inordinate amount of time or something that you’re never going to be able to play at a high level without a foundation of learning other pieces first. You need to know what pieces to play, what pieces to study, and how many pieces you can keep in your current repertoire. It’s not limitless. But you can drop pieces and restudy them. If you try to keep everything at your fingertips and in your head, you won’t have time to learn new music! So maintaining a repertoire is a delicate balance. To learn more about maintaining a repertoire, click here!

Performing

One of the important skill sets that has to be practiced is playing for people. Because if you play by yourself, it never really comes to fruition. The act of playing for people is where the music comes alive. When you’re playing by yourself, you know what you’re doing. When you’re playing for others, there’s a give-and-take. You’ll find that you will do things in your playing that you’ve never done before. Some of them may be unfortunate things, but you may find that, particularly if you have the wherewithal to play for people on a regular basis, it can become an inspiration for ideas because you get the feeling for what people are really paying attention to and the things that leave them flat. It’s just like a comedian working out material. They don’t really know what’s going to land and what’s going to fall flat until they do it in front of a crowd. The same is true with your piano playing. Playing for people is what it’s all about! You might think no one wants to hear you. That couldn’t be further from the truth! People will be impressed with your accomplishments. If they don’t play, everything will seem amazing to them. It’s all relative. There are different things that everybody can bring to the music. You don’t have to be the most virtuoso player in the world to be able to share emotions, feelings, and nuance about the music and taste that you have that’s unique to you. So play for people. People will enjoy it, and you will grow as a musician. To learn more about playing for people, click here!

Adjusting to different pianos and different rooms

When you play on different pianos, it feels completely different, and it can give you ideas about the piece you never had before. The rooms you play in also make a tremendous difference. Have you ever played in a room that’s completely acoustically dead, where there’s no reverberation at all? You end up working harder, and you may have to use the pedal more liberally in order to make up for the lack of acoustics in the room. You might go to a hall and try out the piano before a performance, and it sounds glorious in the beautiful echoey space. Then the audience comes in, and all those bodies with clothing absorb the sound, and it’s a completely different acoustic. So learning how to adjust instantly to a piano and to a room is an essential part of piano playing. And it’s enriching because you will learn more about the pieces you play, even if you’re not performing. Any time there’s a piano somewhere where you can play, play some of your pieces on it. I guarantee that you will learn something from the experience. To learn more about adjusting to different pianos and environments, click here!

I hope these are helpful for you!

But we have just scratched the surface! What about pedaling? Here is more on that subject for you:

HOW TO USE THE PEDAL ON THE PIANO – KEYBOARD KALEIDOSCOPE – ROBERT ESTRIN

And there is also independence of the hands at the piano:

HOW TO PLAY HANDS TOGETHER ON THE PIANO

These are just 20 tips and essential skills on the piano with two bonus tips! Any of you who can think of other skill sets that are important, leave them 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

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Did you know that it’s not important how much you practice? It’s not important how much you memorize. It’s not important how much you work on scales and arpeggios. Likewise, it’s not that important how much you exercise. None of these things are important.

What is important is how often you do these things!

What’s important is how often you practice, how often you memorize, and how often you work on scales and arpeggios. And indeed, in a recent study, they found that the most important component for health is not how intensely you exercise; it’s how often you exercise. The same is true with your piano practice. There are some really good reasons for this.

It’s the things you do every day that make a difference in your life.

You want to get to the important things every day. The blue zones around the world, where people live to be over 100 on a much more regular basis, are areas where exercise is just part of life. If you live in the mountains of Sardinia, Italy, walking up and down the hills is just a part of your life. You don’t have to make appointments to go to the gym three times a week. Just by going out and getting your food, you’re going to be getting exercise.

Make sure your piano is in a place where you’re going to pass by it.

You shouldn’t have to have a long ritual to get going with your practice. It’s good to close your piano for the health of the instrument, at least at night, but make it so that you can get to it easily. Make it a part of your regular routine. Make memorization part of your regular day, or at least learning new music. You want to always be expanding your repertoire. How often you practice is much more important than how much you practice. Cramming doesn’t work that well for a lot of aspects of piano practice, but the continuity of study is vitally important to build upon what you do each day.

With consistent practice, you will grow enormously.

So rethink your whole strategy for how you practice and live your life. If the things you do are important to you, do them on a very regular basis, and you will be rewarded. It will be of far greater benefit to you than just the sheer amount of time you spend with activities. Take that to heart with your piano practice and your health! Let me know how it works for you. Leave your 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

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.

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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. Today I’m going to show you four ways to develop speed in your piano playing. You hear people who play dazzlingly fast, but maybe you’re just struggling to get a piece up to speed. Is there anything that you can do to develop more speed? Absolutely! There are a number of things you can do. Of course, working generally on different repertoire, scales, and arpeggios is helpful. These are essential building blocks of technique on the piano. But what I’m going to show you today are specific things you can incorporate in your practice to help develop speed.

I’m going to use Ballade of Burgmüller as an example. The part I’m going to focus on is the end, where you have a fast pattern of notes in both hands. What better place than this to demonstrate the myriad ways you can practice? Today I’m just going to cover four specific ways of developing speed, to not overwhelm you.

1. METRONOME SPEEDS

One of the most fundamental ways of working with the metronome is to do progressively faster metronome speeds. You find the speed at which you can play the passage absolutely faithfully, and then work up the speed one notch at a time. Why one notch? Because you won’t even notice the difference in speed! You find the speed at which you can play it perfectly, comfortably and securely, repeatedly. Then you put it up a notch and do it again. I would never suggest trying to get a whole piece up to speed by going one notch at a time, but when you have just a few measures like this, it’s an ideal opportunity to do metronome speeds.

The key is to make sure you don’t raise the metronome at all until you have absolute security.

That’s the important thing. Now, you may think it’s going to take you forever, because it takes you so long to really get it solid. But spend the time at the front end to get it absolutely secure! You may have to go hands separately at first and pick a much slower speed than you think is necessary. But don’t even think about raising the metronome speed until you can play it ten times in a row, not only where it’s perfect, but where it feels comfortable. You want to play every note with absolute security and definition. Once you get that, then raise it up a notch. Then once again, keep playing it until it not only sounds perfect, but it feels comfortable.

As you get faster, remember to lighten up and stay close to the keys with rounded fingers.

When you play with flat fingers, you don’t get the benefit of all the joints of your fingers like you do when you’re playing with rounded fingers. Your fingers will naturally go into this position if you just allow them to. And that position gives you much more ease because you have the benefit of all the joints of the fingers. Plus, the thumb is in alignment with the rest of the fingers.

2. NOTE GROUPS

Practice small groups of notes, repeatedly. You can work on a few select notes at a time, even just two note groups! And the secret is to play up to speed. Take different groups of notes and find the ones that allow you to land on notes that are insecure. Ultimately this is training your fingers where the hands play together. Listen strategically to where the hands are playing together and when they aren’t. You can get a lot done just by finding the right notes to land on. When you land on notes, avoid tension. You want to land on them with total relaxation. Practice relaxation in your playing, even if you have to play just two notes! Find groups of notes that help you land securely with hands precisely together, and you can accomplish a tremendous amount.

3. ACCENTED NOTES

Playing with accented notes can be really valuable. You can accent different notes within a phrase. This can be done in innumerable ways. You can do different numbers of notes or any type of accents that help you feel relaxed. You don’t want to be pushing with the arms, just use your fingers. By doing this, you train yourself where the fingers play together and where the hands play together. You’ll discover tremendous things. You might come upon certains accents and realize you don’t know where your hands play together! Those are the places to focus on.

4. RHYTHMS

Rhythms are another great tool. Depending upon the passage, there are many different rhythms that can aid in developing speed. You want to find whatever rhythms solve your issue. Try playing passages of even eighth notes as dotted rhythms, dotted eighths followed by sixteenth notes. Then you can reverse the rhythm playing sixteenths followed by dotted eighth notes. You want to discover where the hands need to be together. If you don’t know where the hands play together, you might be able to play your right hand fast or your left hand fast, but you really don’t know where they land together. So this is what trains your hands to play precisely together.

These are four techniques that can help you develop speed in your playing!

Remember, working on scales and arpeggios is incredibly valuable. That gives you an opportunity to just focus on your fingerwork. You can work on pure technique, devoid of music. It’s a great thing to have all your major and minor scales and arpeggios under your fingers. That will be incredibly valuable for you. Remember, the faster you play, the lighter and closer to the keys you must be in order to facilitate speed, because it takes a lot of work to raise fingers when practicing slowly. Raising the fingers can be valuable, so you can feel which fingers are down and which fingers are up initially. As you get faster, lighten up and stay closer to the keys with rounded fingers. Remember these four methods of developing speed: metronome speeds, note groups, accents, and rhythms. Let me know how this works for you! For those of you who have other techniques, share them 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