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

7 YouTube Piano Channels You Should Know About

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 popu

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

Practicing Your Scales in Contrary Motion

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 a

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m asking: Are you killing the goose that lays the golden eggs in your practice? Boy, it’s horrible to think that this could be possible. What am I talking about here, anyway? Well, it’s important to cover the most vital subjects in your practice and to work out exercises and technique. Some things are fun to work on, and some things are drudgery. You must strike a balance, or you risk the possibility of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs!

The goose that lays the golden eggs is your passion for the instrument.

If you force yourself to do things that you know you need to do in your practice, but you feel like it’s drudgery to sit down at the piano because the stuff you need to do is so distasteful, then what do you have left? If you don’t love the instrument, then you’re not going to want to practice it anyway. In your practice, of course, you must do certain vital things. And there are some things that maybe you’d rather not do. Maybe you don’t want to work on scales or memorization.

Find time for the important things and balance it out with things that bring you great joy on the instrument.

You have to have some enjoyment, so it’s not all work and no play. You should do some things just because you love to do them instead of falling into a routine that you think you have to do because it’s important. Find the balance between what is productive and what is enriching! That will take you much further than beating yourself up and driving something into the ground until you don’t even want to do it anymore. Make time for what’s important. And if you make the time for playing and enjoying your instrument, then you’ll be able to balance the time spent on important things that may be very challenging. The challenging aspects of your practice can give you a bit of a sickness in the pit of your stomach if you do them too much. Let me know in the comments how many of you have faced this issue! I know it’s a tough thing, particularly for younger students.

Most kids hate to practice.

If they’re forced to practice and they hate every minute of it, they might just want to quit altogether. So they have to have some fun. Maybe they want to make up some music or play some popular songs. Some teachers don’t let them do that. You must strike a balance in your piano practice between hard work and the things you find enriching. With anything in life that you have a passion for, make sure you take time to enjoy it! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

Are You Killing the Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs in Your Practice?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m asking: Are you killing the goose that lays the golden eggs in your practice? Boy, it’s horrible to think that this could be possible. What am I talking about here, anyway? W

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about why you need a practicing checklist. What’s this all about? A lot of my students want to have a routine in their practice to do a certain number of things in a certain order on a daily basis. And while this is commendable in one sense, a routine can sometimes work against you because you want to take advantage of the discoveries in your practice. You might go off on a tangent and think you’re spending too much time on something because you need to get to other things. So you might not take advantage of an exploration that could lead to an epiphany in your playing.

Instead of a routine, a checklist offers something really valuable for you.

When you practice, you might get to a point where you’re thinking, “What am I supposed to do now?” If you don’t have a routine, you’re kind of lost. But if you have a checklist, you know you want to do certain things every day. I offered this idea to one of my students, Jancarlos, in the Dominican Republic. I asked him to come up with a practice checklist for himself. I said, “You should come up with a checklist that has things you really want to do on a daily basis and then things you do on a weekly basis, maybe not every single day, but something that you don’t want to go too long without visiting in your practice.” So this is what Jancarlos came up with. See how many of these things resonate with you! I’d love to get suggestions here in the comments on LivingPianos.com and YouTube.

Jancarlos starts his checklist with memorization of new material.

I stress this all the time. Why is it so important to memorize new material on a daily basis? Because cramming memorization doesn’t work! Let’s say you’ve gone four or five days without doing any memorization. You think you can just make up for it in a few hours, but it’s not so easy. When you first learn a phrase, it’s not that hard. You learn the second phrase, and it comes along okay. But by the third or fourth phrase, it starts to get really taxing. How much can you cram into your head in one sitting? It’s tough. So take advantage every day when your mind is fresh to learn something, even if it’s just one phrase. You’ll be rewarded! Take a look at the score of whatever music you’re working on and figure out the smallest phrase that you could learn; maybe it’s four measures, and then multiply that by seven and then deduct any measures that are the same. You’ll discover that you might get a page or a page and a half of music learned just by doing a phrase a day. So make that a priority in your practice. What else should be done every day?

Reinforce material from the previous day.

Obviously, you need to solidify what you learned the previous day. You might have to relearn it. The good news is that you’ll be able to learn it much faster. Not only that, but if you learned four measure phrases the previous day, you might be able to learn eight measure phrases when you relearn it because it’s already there.

Another thing you really should be doing on a regular basis is playing scales and arpeggios.

If you’re not up to scales and arpeggios, you should at least do simple Hanon exercises to strengthen your fingers. If you learn one new scale a week or one new arpeggio a week, you’ll have them all learned in a year. That is a good foundation for your playing. And if you already know them all, solidify them. Take them to the next level in speed, different articulations, or doing them in contrary motion or in intervals. You can keep working on scales and arpeggios your whole life. There’s always value in doing so!

Another thing you should do is review your old pieces.

Go through slowly solidifying pieces you can already play. This is a great way to keep them in shape and to check your work so things don’t degrade over time. By doing this, you always have music you can play on a high level. Also, make time for free playing. Play old repertoire or improvise, just to keep your fingers moving. You can keep pieces in shape just by playing them, and improvising develops your ear and your connection to the keyboard.

Another thing that you can do on a regular basis is sight-read.

Sight-reading is a vital aspect of strengthening your reading because you might learn more and more music and still have a beginning reading level. So make reading something you do on a regular basis. Finding sight-reading material on the right level for you is the most important part. If it’s something you struggle just to get through a line or two, it’s not going to be that valuable. It’ll be painstaking for you, and you’re not going to want to do it. And you’re not going to get the fluidity and sense of reading and maintaining a tempo. Finding easy enough music for sight-reading is a challenge for many people because many people do become somewhat accomplished, yet they still have the reading level of a beginner. I was in that category when I was a pretty advanced player in high school because I didn’t do enough sight-reading. So make that a part of your regular study.

Go through theory on a regular basis.

It can be something as simple as just going through your sharps and your flats. You don’t want to just memorize by rote. That’s not that valuable. Frankly, it’s better than nothing. But you’re better off figuring out the intervals you’re playing. Why is this so important? Imagine trying to solve quadratic equations in algebra while not being fluent with your multiplication tables. That’s not going to work very well. You have to be pretty fluent with all your tables before you can approach higher mathematics. The same thing is true with music theory. You better be really solid with your key signatures and all your major scales before doing chords, intervals, and all of that. So spend some time with that on a regular basis.

Explore other styles of music.

It can be incredibly valuable to explore other genres, whether it’s jazz, salsa, pop, blues, etc. You’ll make discoveries, and you’ll understand the structure of music better. It ties in with music theory. All of these skill sets relate to each other. That’s why the more of them you do on a regular basis, the more productive your practice is.

Make a checklist for yourself!

Make a checklist so you never get stuck in your practice. If you’re not getting anywhere, change it up and do something different. You can come back to what you were doing the next day, and maybe it will resonate more genuinely with you at that time. Have your checklist on hand, either on your phone or on a piece of paper, so you can make sure you practice all these fundamental skill sets on a regular basis. Thank you, Jancarlos, for sharing this with everybody! Share your musical checklist in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Do You Need a Practice Checklist?

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 cer

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about memorizing piano music. I’m going to give you strategies and techniques for long-term retention. This is a really important subject. Have you ever learned a piece and gotten it to a high level, but after some time you don’t remember it? You put in all that work, and now you can’t remember how to play the piece! Now what do you do? You can go back to the score and play it slowly. That might help you rekindle the music. But today, we’re talking about how to keep pieces in shape.

How many pieces can you keep in shape?

There are only so many pieces you can keep in shape. If you spend too much time with your review pieces, you don’t have time to learn new music. So you have to prioritize which pieces you’re going to keep in shape.

How do you keep pieces in shape after you learn them?

The most obvious thing of all is to simply play them on a regular basis. If you don’t play the pieces you learned before, they’re going to elude you after a while. So play them on a regular basis. If they’re short pieces, play them every day! People do all kinds of exercises just to keep their fingers in shape. Instead, you can use the pieces you’ve learned as good physical exercise for your hands. That way, you get the added benefit of keeping them in your memory.

Is playing through your pieces regularly enough to keep them in shape?

Sadly, just playing through your pieces regularly is not enough to keep them in shape. Did you ever play the game Telephone as a kid? You whisper a message to somebody next to you; they whisper to the person next to them, and it goes on and on. By the end of the class, you end up with a whole different message! The same thing could happen with your music. If every time you play it, it’s slightly different and you don’t realize it, you can end up with a whole new piece!

You have to refer back to the score.

The best thing you can do is get out the score, take your foot off the pedal, and play slowly, delineating everything in a very deliberate manner. You may also want to work with the metronome. For example, let’s say you’re working on the third movement of Mozart’s K. 545 C Major Sonata. You want to practice that piece slowly, exaggerating the staccatos from the wrist and using raised fingers so that the fingers that are up are up, and the fingers that are down are down. By doing this, you’re not just using motor memory. You’re deliberately playing each finger in a relaxed manner. You shouldn’t have any tension playing with raised fingers. It’s just like the stretching of an athlete. If you stretch to warm up before exercising or dancing, it doesn’t add tension. Quite the contrary, it’s a relaxation technique if you do it correctly. Playing very deliberately and slowly, absorbing the score, and solidifying the fingers and the sound is a fantastic way to solidify your review pieces.

You can also just think through your scores!

If you ever have time when you’re waiting in line somewhere or taking a shower, you can play the music in your head! Keep the sound of it, even just the sound of the melody, in your head so that you don’t forget it. Ultimately, the sound is the most important part of your music! Listening to recordings is a great way to keep a piece familiar while expanding your interpretive possibilities. Keep your music fresh by playing it on a regular basis, practicing it, listening to it, and thinking it through. You will be rewarded by having music you can play! What is it all about if you don’t have music you can sit down and play? If you do this enough, and take pieces that you have dropped and re-learn them again and again, then you really will have pieces in your permanent memory! I hope this is helpful 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

How to Keep Pieces in Your Memory

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about memorizing piano music. I’m going to give you strategies and techniques for long-term retention. This is a really important subject. Have you ever learned a piece

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to give you an important wrist technique. I’ve talked so much about how to utilize the wrist in many of my videos, as well as with my students. The wrists are almost as important as the fingers in piano playing! There’s so much the wrists allow for in phrasing, the way in which notes are connected or detached. Generally speaking, I’ve talked about how the wrists have to be independent from the arms.

If you play with your arms, there’s a limitation to the speed you can achieve compared to playing with your wrists.

The wrist also has a crisper sound. So, for example, in a Bach Minuet, you would use your wrists to articulate the staccatos. The way to practice that is with various exercises where you just use your wrists without using your arms to achieve staccatos. And one simple exercise for this is to utilize thirds, just using your second and fourth fingers. You set the metronome on 60, and play using just your wrists, not going up and down with your arms.

The arms are important in keeping your fingers exactly over the right keys.

You want to move your arms to put your fingers over the correct keys. It seems so simple, and really it is! But playing in a simple manner might be hard if you’ve never done it before. But this enables you to achieve great speed. Once you can identify the wrists separate from the arms, then you can have the speed and power to play advanced repertoire. And it’s rather effortless, because you’re only using a small amount of mass instead of trying to play with your whole body or your arms. But what I’m talking about today is something entirely different. I’ve never brought this up in any video before. It’s a different type of wrist technique.

Suppose you want something a little bit more subtle, where the staccatos are not punctuated in such a manner.

With the technique I previously described, every single one of the staccatos are accented. Maybe you don’t want that. Maybe you want it to taper at the end, yet still keep it short. For that, there is an alternative wrist technique where you come up, instead of going down with the wrist. You actually come up with the arm, and allow the wrist to just be lifeless. This way it comes off with a gentle staccato, not an accented staccato. So that’s the tip for today. If you want a gentle staccato, you can come up with the arm and allow the wrist to be floppy. You get the opposite of an accent.

Come up with the arm, and let the wrist just gently bend without any force, and you get a gentle staccato that isn’t accented.

So that’s a new technique for you to try out in your music. I’m interested in how this works for all of you! Try it out where you have staccatos that are on the off-beats, staccatos that are not punctuated, that are not to be accented. This is a way you can achieve that phrasing without accenting the staccatos.

I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know in the comments here at 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

An Essential Wrist Technique

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to give you an important wrist technique. I’ve talked so much about how to utilize the wrist in many of my videos, as well as with my students. The wrists are almost as