Tag Archives: bach

How to Be Present When You Play the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to be in the moment in your playing. It’s so important! If you have performed for friends or your teacher, you know that sometimes it’s easy to become distracted. You want to be present in your playing; but it can be so incredibly difficult. I’m going to give you some ways of thinking about this, and approaching it, that hopefully will be helpful for you!

The first thing I want to talk about is a little bit philosophical.

We sometimes assume that words are thought. The whole idea of thinking in your head is that you’re stringing words together. But words were invented for communication, to be able to express ideas to one another. You don’t actually need words to think about something. Have you ever had a revelation that just came to you? Did you have to string words together in order to have that thought? Of course not! The words express the thought, but they aren’t the thought themselves. This is why there are those who master the art of meditation. They clear their minds from the internal dialog to be able to have pure thought, not hampered by words. If you’ve ever been in a state of flow while doing anything, whether it’s experiencing a beautiful sunset, looking at a beautiful painting, or just enjoying a moment of life without quantifying it and defining it with words, you understand that this is one of the most beautiful things there is in life! You don’t need to label every single thought.

How does this relate to music?

When you’re playing music, the thing that will distract you more than anything else is using words in your head, and thinking about what you’re doing instead of just doing it. You want to be present in your performance. You don’t want to be analytical and judgmental, thinking about what note comes next. You can’t think that way, it’ll drive you crazy and destroy your performance. You have to be right in the moment with a sense of where you’re going. Just like in life itself, you want to be living in the moment with a sense of continuity. You want to know where you are and where you’re heading.

The way to achieve this in music is simply by listening!

Listen to the sounds. Become absorbed in the beauty of the music you’re creating at that moment, rather than getting distracted with the mechanics of your playing. Of course, there has to be a certain amount that you keep present, in the analytical sense, so you don’t take a wrong turn in the score. There has to be a certain amount of intelligence. But moment to moment, you should not be bogged down with these intellectual ideas. Instead, enjoy the sound and explore where it’s going next. The most satisfying musical performance you can ever have is one where the music is unfolding, and you yourself are listening in anticipation of where it’s going to go next. You may have experienced this before if you have ever played on a different piano. It sounds different, and as a result, you’re playing with fresh ears. That’s the secret of what you want to achieve in your musical performance.

You want to be listening to, and engaged in your own music.

That’s what draws the listener in! It’s what keeps you on track in your musical performance. So remember, don’t get hung up with intellectualizing what you’re doing more than necessary. Just keep your wits about you to avoid taking wrong turns, knowing where repeats are, and knowing where you are in the score. If there are leaps that you have to quantify, you need to have your intellect alive. But don’t get bogged down with it. Enjoy your musical performance! Listen to it and everybody else will too. I hope you’ve enjoyed this! 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

How Soft is Piano?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. How soft is piano? That’s the question for today! You see piano written in your music, or maybe pianissimo. How soft should you play it? How soft is soft, and how do you even achieve it on the piano? We’re going to dive right into this today and cover this in a way that will help you achieve soft playing.

Dynamics can’t really be measured.

There is something called a decibel meter. It measures the unit of volume and you might think this could provide a good answer to this question. For example, when you see allegro in your score, how fast is allegro? What number is it on the metronome? There’s a similarity here because allegro is more of a mood, a feel to the music, not an exact number. It’s the same thing with dynamics in music. So how do you achieve a piano or pianissimo sound? How do you get a quiet sound?

Piano has more to do with tone than just volume.

For example, if you play the first Clementi Sonatina Opus 36, No. 1, the second movement is a quiet movement. Some people struggle to play really quietly, finding it difficult to even get the keys down! How can you possibly play that quietly? There’s a lot to be considered here. First of all, you should realize and understand that you are the closest person to your piano. Anybody listening to you is going to be much further away. Even if they’re just across the room, they might be three, four, or five times further away from the piano.

You must project your playing!

When you are performing in a hall, there are people listening from the last row of the balcony. Think about how far away from the piano they are. Think about a large hall like the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City at Lincoln Center. It’s is an astounding hall with magnificent acoustics. It holds 3,800 people in the audience! It’s an enormous place to fill with sound. There is no P.A. system; it’s all just acoustics. The singers on stage. and the instrumentalists in the pit, are being heard acoustically. There are no microphones or speakers. So when they have something written piano, they still have to use an immense amount of energy to create a projecting sound. The singers take big breaths and put it under pressure with their diaphragms so that they can project even the softest sound.

Playing piano or pianissimo is like being able to project a whisper by using diaphragm support.

When you whisper with diaphragm support, it can be heard across the room. That’s what you must achieve in your piano and pianissimo playing. Using the weight of the arm, you can project a big flowing line that will come through. It will still have a soft quality, even though the actual decibel level may be greater than you think. You would not believe the amount of energy you have to put into the keyboard, with tremendous weight of the arm transferring smoothly from finger to finger. So you shouldn’t just be limply pushing down keys.

The continuity of the arm weight is what creates the line and ensures that you can control a quiet line.

Remember, the melody line must project above the accompaniment in the left hand. It has to have more projection than you might think. Without that support, it would have more of a percussive quality, sounding loud even when you’re not playing particularly energetically. Instead, you want to play with a smooth quality that evokes the quality of sound of piano or pianissimo. This also enables you to shape the rise and fall of the phrase providing room to grow and die away, giving architecture to your music.

So remember, piano is more a quality of tone than an absolute volume.

Not only that, but you must project out into the room. Remember, you’re not just playing the piano, you’re playing the room you’re in! You must reach every listener in that room. So project your sound. Don’t be afraid to use some energy! As long as it’s a smooth energy, transferring from key to key with the weight of the arm, it will never have a harshness, and it won’t sound forte or even mezzo forte. It will have a tonal quality of piano. That’s the lesson for today! 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 Have Trouble Playing for People?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to become comfortable playing the piano for people. It’s imperative that you practice performing, but how can you do such a thing? You probably know if you’ve ever tried to play for someone, that things can go haywire. Why does that happen? You practice a piece, you can play it over and over again perfectly, but when you try to play it for someone, a friend or maybe for your teacher, everything goes wrong! What can you do to keep this from happening?

Preparation is key.

You can’t expect to play something in front of people that you can’t even play consistently on your own. So prepare like crazy! Practicing slowly is a great way to reinforce your memory and secure your performance. You are analyzing everything that’s happening when you play slowly, which is a little bit akin to what happens when you’re performing. Suddenly you’re hyper focused and you notice every little thing that maybe you didn’t really notice before. Have you ever felt that? When you play slowly, it’s more deliberate. That is a terrific way to solidify your playing so you feel more in control when you’re performing.

You can practice performing by recording yourself.

Set up your phone, computer, or any other recording device, audio or video, and record yourself playing. Get yourself psyched up like it’s a performance. The most important thing is that once you start, for better or worse, go through to the end. Make it feel like a real performance! You can always do it again later if you’re not happy with the way it came out. But don’t stop halfway through and start again, because that is not an option when you’re playing for people. Nobody wants to hear you start over. It’s kind of like someone telling a story and in the middle they stumble over a few words and start over from the beginning. You’re going to be really bored with them. So it’s really important to learn how to keep going. It’s one of the most important aspects of performing.

Play for friends and family.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable playing for a machine that records you, it’s time to play for people! Hopefully you have a good friend who likes music enough that they’ll sit and listen to you play something. And once again, even though they’re good friends, and they’ll forgive you if you stop and start again, don’t do that! Take advantage of the fact that you have this performance opportunity and play through for them. Plus they’ll enjoy it more if you don’t stop. Even if you’re not happy with the performance, they will enjoy it more if there’s continuity. Be in the service of your listener – the performance isn’t about you. It’s about your audience when you’re performing. When you practice, you can stop any time and make those repairs that are necessary. When you’re playing for people, it’s all about them. Make the experience enriching for them, which means don’t start over. They don’t want to hear that.

Challenge yourself by playing for more people.

Perhaps when you have company over say, “Would anybody like to hear some music?” Be bold! Give yourself an opportunity to play for more than just one person. In other words, you want to build up. So at first, you start just with the lowest pressure possible, just playing by yourself. Then you record yourself. Then play for a single person who doesn’t make you feel nervous. Then play for larger numbers of people. Then finally, if you’re ever in a place with a piano, particularly if it’s a better piano than what you regularly play on, that is a great opportunity to play through your music and learn how to adjust to another instrument. This is a tremendous challenge. You may discover things about the piece that you never even thought of before, just from hearing it on a different piano. Plus, with all the eyes on you, you’re hyper focused, and that attention you’re giving can really aid in discovering new things in the music. Of course, the downside of that is you might become distracted and things could fall apart. But that can help you to strengthen your performance, because you’ll know what to practice.

Building up from smaller to larger audiences is a great way to strengthen your performance.

Do it as many times as it takes to become comfortable. You’ll find that when you have a new piece, you may need to repeat this process. If you’ve never performed a piece, you want to break it in. My father, who performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and in Europe, would always have tryout recitals before he played in public. He would invite people over and play through his program. He tried to do this a number of times before the actual event. He would often record himself, and that way he’d know what state the performance was in. It would help him to focus his practice where it was needed.

This is a great idea for anybody on any level!

So remember, practice performing and you will be richly rewarded. It will take your piano playing to the next level. If you never perform your music for anyone, you’ll never have the opportunity to really understand what it’s all about. So go for it – you have nothing to lose! People will appreciate the opportunity to hear you play. You can’t imagine how much people really do appreciate live music. So give it a try! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

Musical Solutions to Technical Problems

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about finding musical solutions to technical problems. My teacher, John Ogden, tied for first prize in the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition with Vladimir Ashkenazy, two legendary pianists. I remember John Ogden talking about how he really was taken with Ashkenazy’s performance of the famous first Chopin Etude in C major Op. 10, No. 1, and how he had a lightness to it that he thought was really an interesting way of approaching the piece, because so many people play it really strong. Then I remember hearing an interview with Ashkenazy, who had rather small hands, saying his approach to that etude is because of the nature of his hands. It just falls under his hands better playing more lightly. John Ogden didn’t realize that this was a technical consideration. Ashkenazy came up with a beautiful, musical solution to a technical challenge. This is what it’s all about in piano playing!

Find what works for you with your physiology, your psyche, and your makeup, and find something that is musical.

There is no absolute when it comes to how something should be played. You want to find a way that you can accommodate the music. It’s the same with everything in life. Everybody has a different gait. The way you walk is not the same as the way I walk. Everybody has a unique way of approaching a myriad things in life, and piano playing is certainly no exception. Let’s use the Beethoven Sonatina in G Major as an example. Sometimes students have difficulty with the end of the first phrase because there’s a crescendo, and maybe they don’t have enough strength to be able to pull it off. But there is a great musical solution to this problem! Come way down right at the start of the crescendo so that you can easily achieve it. I think it actually sounds better that way. The crescendo can unfold naturally without having to force anything or struggle at all. This technique applies to a wide range of music.

There are ways you can give your performance more power without expending more energy.

For example, Chopin’s powerful Military Polonaise. Playing that piece in a very loud, strong manner takes a lot of energy. If you take all the repeats, it is a true tour de force, because it goes on and on with very few places where it comes down that much. By coming down wherever you possibly can, it gives you a reserve of energy. You can make it sound more powerful, not less powerful. Having a reserve is the secret to a powerful performance. If you’re at the limit of what you can produce, it sounds weak, no matter how much energy you’re putting into it. But when you have that reserve and you let it go here and there, just little flares of excitement, it leaves the listener wondering how much power is undulating under the surface that could fire up at any time!

Use selective energy in your playing.

For example, by playing the fast chords of the Military Polonaise very delicately, when you land on the strong chords, it gives you a lot of power. By doing this, you have tons of energy reserves. You can play through the whole piece without even breaking a sweat! Trying to play everything strong takes a tremendous amount of energy and bogs you down. Instead, play everything you possibly can lightly. You want to use selective energy, another musical solution to a technical problem.

Discover what works for you and make a convincing case for it.

You can discover countless ways of negotiating scores that are intrinsic to your physiology, instead of struggling for some preconceived notion of the absolute way a piece should be played. That’s what a great performance is ultimately all about. Try this in your playing! Maybe you don’t have a lot of power, or a big reach, or maybe your fingers are so big and clumsy that you can’t play lightly, but there are tons of ways to accommodate your physiology.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

My father, for example, had massive hands. Rachmaninoff just came naturally to him. He played all the preludes in a public performance at Lincoln Center! Can you imagine such a thing? It was like nothing for him. But playing a delicate Schubert impromptu was another story, with his big, fat powerful fingers. His secret was to delineate the notes by playing them separated. They weren’t actually as light as you might have thought, but he created the illusion of light fast playing by separating them with staccato fingers. So he found a solution that worked beautifully for fast light pieces that didn’t come naturally to him. Find your strengths in your music and bring them to your interpretation. That’s ultimately what great performing is all about! 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 Bring Out Voices in Your Music

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The topic today is about how to bring out voices in your music. The great thing about the piano is that it’s almost like a whole orchestra! You have so many different voices. Because of this, you want to call attention to different melodies intertwining within your music. I’ve talked about many ways of doing that in the past, which I’m going to refresh you on right now. Then I’m going to show you an intrinsic skill that transcends everything I’m about to tell you.

One great practice technique is to work on music with different articulations.

Try playing the melodies legato while playing accompaniments and parts you want softer with a gentle finger staccato. This way you can clearly hear the melody. You don’t want all the notes to sound equal. You want balance so that you hear the melody and the bass while keeping the inner voices delicate, yet everything may be in a piano context. The way to practice this is by playing the melody legato and those gentle, undulating notes in the middle with a gentle finger staccato. By doing this you train your hand which notes are melody, and which notes are accompaniment. It’s very difficult to quantify loud and soft, but short and long are very binary. You can hear the short notes on the bottom and the long notes on top. If you can do that, then you can play and control the balance of all the notes.

How do you draw the listeners attention to the voice that you want them to hear?

I’m going to show you a hack for drawing the listener’s attention to the voice you want them to hear. The secret is delineating the very first note of the melody you want the listener to be attached to. Once they hear the first note, they can follow it through. You want to make it very clear on the first note of a new line. After that, even if it’s not brought out that much, the listener is already aware that they should be listening for it. As soon as that first melody comes in. the listener is listening for it and they’ll follow it through. And you don’t even have to punctuate the melody that much anymore, because they’re already attuned to it. It’s in their consciousness.

Sometimes a melody or a counter melody can be contained within the texture.

Maybe the counter melody is at the top or the bottom, as is the case in the middle section of the Chopin Ballade No.3 in A-flat Major. In this section, there is a counter melody in the tenor voice, on the top of the left hand. You can accentuate the very beginning of it, and then just let it float. You don’t need to punctuate it that much after that, because it’s not necessary. The audience will already be listening for it. Once they hear the first note, they’re listening for where it’s going to go next. So it can be a more gentle inner voice, just punctuating that first note so the listener is aware that something new is there to listen to. Just play the beginning of that with some substance to the sound, and then let it be more in the background so that you don’t lose the melody on top, which is the main melody.

So that is the tip for today!

Aside from practicing with different articulations so you have control over all the notes in a texture, remember when you want to bring out a line, bring out the first note and the listener will latch on to it. This is particularly helpful when playing counterpoint like Bach fugues, for example. Whenever the fugue subject starts, articulate that first note. Then the listener doesn’t have to work hard to find the melodies of the subjects of fugues. It’s handed to them on a silver platter! They can easily follow it through even if you don’t punctuate it that much. It doesn’t have to sound labored. It can sound fluid and beautiful, and yet the listener has the experience of understanding the structure of the music, which greatly enhances the appreciation of the score. 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 find Motivation to Practice the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The topic today is about how to motivate yourself to practice. Sometimes things are going well and you can’t wait to get to the piano. But I’m sure you also experience times when you just don’t feel the motivation to practice. You want to be able to learn music. Perhaps you have a lesson coming up, or a performance, or you just want to use the beautiful piano you have sitting at home. Somehow you just can’t muster up the energy to practice. Is there anything you can do about such a thing? The answer is yes!

You are not alone.

Don’t beat yourself up because you are unmotivated. It’s natural. If you practice correctly, it’s hard work. It may be rewarding to have musical scores you can play, but the process of learning music is hard. So of course there are going to be times when you don’t have the energy to practice because of work, health issues, or other conflicts. Just finding the time can be an arduous task! So forgive yourself for feeling this way. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s normal. There’s an ebb and flow in your energy and your expectations as to what you’re going to achieve. There are times when you can sit at the piano and accomplish amazing things, and other times you’re just hitting your head against the wall.

When you’re hitting a roadblock, you’ve got to change things up.

You don’t want to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That’s one definition of insanity! Sometimes the best thing to do is to just leave it completely. Go take a walk or a bike ride. Do something invigorating. Physical activity is often the best thing you can do when you’re feeling any kind of a funk. Getting your blood circulating and breathing fresh air really rejuvenates you. It’s important for your health as well as your psyche. You might take a walk around your neighborhood and come back to the piano with renewed energy. That might be all it takes.

What else can you do?

Well, there’s a lot you can do. You can shake up your practice. Maybe you have a routine where you spend some time with scales, you do some memorization, and you do some refinement. But maybe your routine has gotten stale. The whole thing feels like drudgery because you know what you’re going to do next. If that’s the case, that isn’t effective practice anyway. Practicing, as I’ve mentioned so many times before, is a mental activity. You must be engaged in the process or you aren’t really practicing. In fact, you can be away from the piano thinking through your music, and that can be more effective than sitting at the piano when your mind is not engaged!

How do you become engaged with your practice?

Sometimes simply playing through pieces can make you feel good and bring the joy back into the equation. You feel like you should work, so every time you go to the piano, you feel a sick feeling in your stomach. If you think you should be practicing, but all you want to do is play the piano, go ahead and play! What’s all that hard work for if you can’t enjoy playing your instrument? Play for a while! Just the physiological benefit to your fingers is good. It’ll keep you in shape. It’ll keep those review pieces in your memory and in your fingers. Maybe you want to take on some new music. Maybe you just want to read through some popular music that you never normally play because your teacher doesn’t assign it to you. Or maybe you just want to make stuff up. You can explore the sonorities of the piano just for fun too.

Do anything to break away from the rut you find yourself in.

There’s a host of things you can do. You can try practicing piano at a different time of day or night, just to make it feel fresh. Anything that changes the routine can help you. Perhaps just listen to music, whether it’s piano music or orchestral music or anything at all. Check out different styles of music, go to concerts, get together with friends who like music, and play with other musicians. If you have friends who play or sing, invite them over to accompany them. You could even have an informal jam session. Anything that gets your creative energy working again is going to be worthwhile for you.

The big point is, don’t beat yourself up!

If it’s your routine that isn’t working, change it up. You don’t have to be married to your routine. Keep it creative. Keep yourself engaged. If nothing’s working, go outside for a while. Do something different. Go to the gym, take a swim, anything to get your mind relaxed. You don’t want to beat yourself up for not practicing. That’s the worst thing you can do, because then you’ll feel guilty. Even if you practice, if you’re just going through the motions, you’re not really practicing, are you?

So that’s the lesson for today!

I’d love to hear comments from all of you about this! I’m sure all of you have suffered from this at some point. If you haven’t, what is your secret? Share that 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