Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about the importance of volume in music. It’s interesting, as technology has grown, the use of volume to reach larger and larger audiences has ensued over hundreds of years. Originally, music was just singing, because the human voice is the first musical instrument. Then percussion instruments came along with people banging on things to make even more sound. With the invention of modern instruments like the saxophone, volume again increased. Then electronics took us to another level with how much volume is possible. But today, we’re talking about something a little bit different. The subject today isn’t about how the volume of musical instruments and musical expression has grown over generations and beyond, but how volume in your own music has a profound effect upon the listener and the emotions that are conveyed. The actual amount of amplitude, the energy of sound levels, has a profound effect upon how you feel when you’re listening to music. I’m going to demonstrate this for you with some original music to celebrate the new year. I hope you enjoy this!
See the accompanying video to hear the performance
Sometimes you can actually make a far louder message by holding back and playing delicately. The same thing is true with technology on a grander scale. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into venues where the music has been so loud that you can’t really appreciate it because it’s beyond the threshold of pain! Any sound over 100 decibels is considered to be above the threshold of pain. If you go into a club, often the music is far above that level. But lower volume music actually draws listeners in! That’s the lesson for today on a personal level, as well as a global level.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this! Here at Living Pianos we wish you a great new year of music! We have plenty of great subjects for new videos in 2021, so stay tuned!
I’m 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today we’re going to discuss how to achieve speed and lightness in your piano playing. These two things are related. It’s simple physics really. Moving a great deal of mass takes more work than moving a smaller amount of mass. So minimizing motion in your fast playing is really the secret. I’ve talked about this with finger work, so today the focus is going to be on the wrists. The wrists are incredibly important on the piano for so many things that the fingers just can’t do because they don’t have enough power. First I’m going to give a little refresher on how this applies to finger work. Then I’m going to show you wrist technique and how minimizing motion gives you more speed and lightness with the wrists as well.
Minimize motion of the fingers when playing fast.
A piano melody, even one that is quiet, still has to project. It takes a certain amount of arm weight supported by the fingers to achieve this. This is analogous to the breath of a wind instrument or the bow of a violin. You can get a nice warm melody that projects and creates a fluid line by utilizing the fingers and the arm weight. But you can’t use that much finger motion when you want to play at a much faster tempo. You have to stay closer to the keys. Your fingers need to be close to the keys and rounded, so there’s a minimum amount of motion necessary. It makes it much easier to play fast and light.
The wrists are necessary for articulating staccatos, phrasing, accents, and chord technique.
For an example, I’m choosing a piece that I’ve taught countless times, the Ballade by Burgmuller. Students often play the staccatos with their arms, which creates a ponderous sound because the arms are so big and heavy. It’s better to utilize the wrists instead of the arms. However, trying to get the speed faster with that much motion can be incredibly difficult. But by staying closer to the keys you can play faster and lighter. When you want speed, stay closer to the keys in your finger work and use less wrist motion. Certainly don’t use the arms! The arms have a real limit of speed. Playing fast staccatos with the arms is all but impossible. But the wrists can go very fast. The wrists have much less mass to move compared with the arms, so already that helps. To get even more speed, agility and lightness in quick playing that is not just finger work, stay closer to the keys and have a minimal amount of motion. Then you’ll be able to go much faster!
Try this technique on whatever music you’re playing!
If you’re playing rapid finger work and you find that you’ve hit a brick wall, try lightening up and staying closer to the keys. In chord technique and staccatos, use the wrists, not the arms because they are much faster and more agile. And as you get quicker, stay closer to the keys and use less motion. That’s the tip for today! I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today we’re going to discuss the three worst piano practice habits. These might be things that you do in your piano practice. Maybe you’re scared I’m going to bring something up that you do! Maybe you’re not aware of these destructive habits that are part of your practice routine. But it’s better to find out now than to continue on the wrong path.
1. Hesitating before a tricky passage
Hesitation is a habit that I constantly work with students to eradicate. It’s such a bad habit! You get to a difficult part and you can’t quite get it, so you hesitate just for a moment, then you get it and go on. This is a very bad habit because it ingrains stopping into your playing. The more you do it, the more you will continue to do it. It’s self regenerating. So how do you break that habit? We’re going to get to that, but first I’m just going to list the three habits so you can see how they apply to you.
2. Starting over from the beginning after making a mistake
The second bad habit is, when you make a mistake you get frustrated and you go back to the beginning. I’ve talked about this many times before. This is such a destructive habit. In a performance, if you find yourself having difficulty, what are you going to do? You can’t just go back to the beginning. The audience doesn’t want to listen to all of that again just so you can get past that point.
3. Changing speeds in your performance
Maybe there are some parts of a piece that you can play really well, so you play them at a nice fast tempo. Then you get to the parts that are a little harder and you slow down to accommodate them. Once again, you lose the whole flow of the music. You might think that to play everything slowly is tedious for the audience, so you might as well play fast where you can. But that doesn’t make for a fluid performance.
What can you do in your practice to eradicate these bad habits?
1. Hesitating before a tricky passage: You’re going along and you pause for just a moment, and then you go on. This is incredibly disturbing to the audience. Maybe they are tapping along to the beat and then suddenly it hesitates. It’s off-putting. With something that’s lyrical, anytime there’s a hesitation it just doesn’t feel right. I’m going to tell you what you can do. First of all, make sure you’re choosing the right tempo so you can play through the piece without hesitation. But suppose that just doesn’t cut it. Suppose you’d have to play the piece at half the speed just to avoid a couple of hesitations. That seems like a brutal solution. Indeed there are more effective ways of dealing with hesitations, unless you’re hesitating every bar, in which case you obviously need to choose a much slower tempo. But if it’s just a few key places where you are hesitating, and you can’t quite eradicate it, I have a solution for you.
When you are practicing, get in the habit of stopping whenever there’s a hesitation. Stop immediately and find your place in the score. Find an appropriate place in the score just before that hesitation where you can start to get past the point of hesitation. You might have to start slowly and increase the speed. Maybe even do metronome speeds if you can’t quite get through the hesitation by playing it several times. Then after you’ve played through the trouble section several times in a row perfectly at a comfortable tempo, go back to the beginning of the piece, or the beginning of the section to pass that hesitation.
Interestingly, you may find that even though you can play it many times in a row perfectly starting at the previous phrase before the hesitation, once you go back further, you may still hesitate there. So you may have to go back a little bit further to get it fluid. Then go back to the beginning of the section or the beginning of the movement to finally eradicate that hesitation. You can work all your key hesitations out that way. I sometimes refer to this as the band-aid approach of practicing. It can be very effective, because if you just have three or four places in an entire piece where you’re hesitating, to take the whole piece painfully slowly will feel quite tedious. And it’s not the most productive way to solve the problem. So hopefully this solution works for you!
2. Starting over from the beginning after making a mistake: It’s so tempting when something goes wrong to just start over and try again. Well, the problem with this is if you get in the habit of doing that in your practice, when you get out to perform you’re going to do the same thing. More than that, it doesn’t solve the underlying weakness in your playing. So what you must do is find exactly where you had the problem, and study the score to figure out the solution. Then, much like I described before in avoiding hesitation, start just before the point at which you had the problem, pass that point several times, increase the speed, and use the metronome if necessary. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s a very valuable technique. You may have to go back a little bit further to finally be able to start from the beginning and pass that point without starting over. So the key here is to reference the score and nail down the correction. Be very deliberate with this. Find the specific correction so that you don’t just play on automatic pilot with your tactile memory. You don’t want to rely upon that because obviously, whatever made you miss it that time, will undoubtedly happen again. So you want to really focus on the correction. A lot of people want to know what they did wrong, but that’s of no value. Find the correction! Whatever you focus on is going to be apparent in your playing. If you’re focused on the mistake, you’re going to make the mistake. Focus on the correction and forget the mistake. This is a life lesson too!
3. Changing speeds in your performance: I have a student who’s extremely talented. He likes to play everything really fast and it’s pretty dazzling. He hasn’t been playing very long, and I’m constantly impressed by him. But being able to get through an entire piece or even an entire movement at the speed at which he starts is oftentimes all but impossible. So going faster and slower really isn’t the answer.
Here again, you want to focus on the parts you can’t play up to speed. The answer here is to work with a metronome. Once you get to the part you can’t play up to speed, find a speed you can handle and set your metronome to it. Then start from the beginning and play the whole selection at that speed. If you really want to play a faster tempo, zero in on the parts you can’t play faster and work with progressive metronome speeds and other practicing techniques in order to get them up to speed. Then you will be able to play everything at the tempo you want. But starting off at a tempo faster than you can play the difficult sections won’t work.
So these are three tips for you! You’ve probably noticed there are similarities in the solutions. Focusing in on the correction, going back, speeding things up, working with a metronome, going back a little bit further, then going back to the beginning. These are tremendous practice techniques that come into play in solving these common problems in piano practice. If you can break these bad habits, I promise you, you’re going to take your playing to a higher level! You’ll really have security, and you’ll be able to play through a piece from the beginning to the end at one speed without stopping, without going back, without hesitating, and without changing speeds. I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. A viewer asked me, “How are piano competitions judged?” And it got me thinking. It’s such a subjective thing, isn’t it? Who’s better Who plays the piano better? Obviously it’s more art than science. So there’s a lot to this question. I’m going to dive right in for you! There are more fine concert pianists in the world today than ever before in history. Consider this:
In China alone there are over 40 million piano students!
Many of them are extraordinarily accomplished. And of course there are pianists all around the world. But there are a limited number of competitions. The international competitions, like the Cliburn, the Chopin, and the Tchaikovsky attract the greatest talent from the entire world.
What does it take to enter these competitions?
You have to play at such a high level to even approach these competitions because the repertoire requirements are tremendous. These top tier competitions require several complete programs, concertos, chamber music, all from memory, and sometimes there will be a piece written just for the competition that nobody’s ever seen or heard before! Instead of being able to refresh all the music that’s percolating in their heads, competitors have to immerse themselves in a brand-new piece to learn on the spot! How’s that for a challenge? Yet, there are still so many people vying for these piano competitions. The truth is, just being able to get into the semi-finals in one of these competitions is a milestone.
What is it like to compete in a piano competition?
Just like the Olympics, people prepare for months or years in anticipation of this one day. These competitions only come around periodically. Competitors might have a good day, they might have a bad day. Maybe they got a cold just the night before. The piano used in the competition might have an action similar to what they are used to and they’re right at home. Conversely, somebody else might feel off-put by the piano if it doesn’t feel anything like what they’re used to. Many of these top tier competitions, like the Tchaikovsky, offer a choice of pianos. Making that choice can be a very tough decision as well.
What are some of the things that enter into how judges evaluate one pianist to the next?
There are many things involved, but I’ve got an interesting story for you. Years ago, the wonderful concert pianist, Ivo Pogorelich, entered the Chopin competition. At a certain point, he was eliminated. But one of the judges of that competition was the great pianist, Martha Argerich who was so incensed by this, that she walked out of the competition! This made news and actually propelled Pogorelich into a career from the sheer spectacle of it all! But why do you suppose that Ivo Pogorelich was the favorite of Martha Argerich, and yet the other judges dismissed him? Well, one of the factors of competitions is that a pianist who really makes a statement and has a personality that is different from anything people have heard before will be loved by some and detested by others. In competitions, there can be a race to the center. It may be beneficial to not be extreme in one direction or another. And that’s kind of sad really. But how else do you quantify?
Tempo can play a role in how a judge may perceive a performance.
Judges are sitting there hour after hour, listening to pianist after pianist. If somebody comes in there and gives a very energetic uptempo performance, it can be invigorating! Then if somebody comes and plays a very beautiful, elegant performance, it may not have the same energy. After you hear a piece at a faster tempo, going to a slower tempo can be a let down. It sounds a little bit lifeless by comparison. This makes it very difficult to appreciate the slower performance. Though if you didn’t hear them next to each other, you might actually prefer the elegance of the slower performance! This is why many times the faster, louder player wins competitions.
But how else can you quantify who’s better? Let’s say somebody comes in and plays a Mephisto Waltz of Liszt. They play it faster than anybody else. It’s clean and it’s convincing. It’s very difficult to fault that, isn’t it? Of course, that player could play it slower if they chose to. But could the other players play it as fast? That’s an unknown. So there’s a lot to the idea of playing faster, playing louder, and playing very straightforward the way everybody expects the music to sound. I hate to think that that’s the way competitions are run, and truly they aren’t always run that way. But there is the risk of them turning out that way because of human nature.
As a performer, should you toe the line, or play to your own convictions?
You wonder how performers entering these competitions think about this. Are they going to take a chance and play the way they want to, even if they know it’s radically different from anything anyone else has done? Or are they going to play it safe and try to play for the judges? In my opinion, you really have to go for it and play to your own convictions. And that really is the lesson for today. Sometimes the winner is the person who plays to their convictions, and they play in such a way that it makes it seem as if it’s the only way the music should be played! This is not an exact science. This is art. It’s so subjective. That’s why this is an excellent question!
Keep the questions coming in! I pay particular attention to my Patreon subscribers. Those of you who want to have more input on these videos, I suggest you join my Patreon channel. www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about what it takes to become a piano teacher. I received this question from a viewer. This is a really pertinent question because a lot of people who watch Living Pianos videos are teachers, or are thinking about teaching.
Because the internet is global, I talk to people all over the world. In fact, I have students in Australia, Pakistan, The United Kingdom, as well as all over The United States. Interestingly, in other countries the requirements for teaching piano are quite different from what they are here in The United States. Here in The U.S., there are 3 different types of music teachers. There are people who teach in the public schools, there are university and college teachers, and there are private teachers. Each of these have different requirements.
What are the requirements for teaching music in schools?
Piano isn’t typically taught in public schools, but to be a music teacher of any kind in public schools, whether it’s K-through-6, middle school or high school, takes certification, a degree or two including an education degree. And that’s really all that’s required. At the university and college level, all too often, they are looking for people with at least Master’s degrees. But it’s so competitive that having a Doctorate puts you in an advantageous position. Because unless you have something to set yourself apart in your resume, it’s very difficult to get any attention. There are very few teaching positions relative to the number of qualified applicants coming out of music conservatories and universities.
What does it take to be a successful private teacher?
For private piano teachers, and private music teachers of all ilks, there are absolutely no formal requirements. Anybody can put up their proverbial virtual shingle and say, “I’m a piano teacher.” And all too often people do just that. The flip side of this is some of the most accomplished pianists who have multiple degrees are not necessarily good teachers! As a private teacher, you need to be able to play the piano, or at least have been able to play the piano on a high level at some point. It’s really not necessary to be a concert pianist to be a great teacher. While some concert pianists are great teachers, there are concert pianists who are not good teachers at all. Many of them started very young, and were prodigies. They could play well due to natural ability. They can’t even remember having learned the fundamentals on the instrument. They were already advanced players at a young age. To relate to somebody starting out can be extremely difficult. Now, this isn’t to say that there are not people who were child prodigies who grew into great pianists and great teachers. I studied with Ruth Slenczynska, who was one of the great child prodigies of the 20th century. She was an absolutely wonderful pianist and teacher. So it does happen.
You have to have been a formidable pianist at one point in your life in order to understand enough to be able to teach.
Of course, if you’re teaching very young children, only going up to an intermediate level, you don’t necessarily have to be a very accomplished pianist. You just have to be a competent pianist who knows how to read music well and how to figure out and teach rhythms as well as hand positions and other aspects of piano technique. So how do you learn how to do all of that? The best case scenario is to have great training. If you’ve had great training, you might remember your early lessons. You might even have old books. I have the original manuscript book that my father worked through with me when I started lessons as a very young child. I still rely upon the things I learned from him in my own studies. I’ve taught them countless times over the years, because I also had the benefit of having assisted my father with his teaching. So he trained me in teaching as well.
Having a great teacher guide you in your piano pedagogy is invaluable.
I’ve worked with many teachers helping them to hone in their teaching skills, to know how to deal with students, and to take their teaching to another level. Maybe they want to teach and they find a lot of students, but they don’t feel comfortable teaching because of the repertoire or the style. Or they have students who want to study with them, but the students want to learn more theory than they’re comfortable with. I’m happy to teach people how to teach, and finding a mentor can be invaluable. So read up on various techniques, go to conventions. There are many ways of immersing yourself in teaching the piano. It is particularly important to spend time reflecting upon how you practice and be able to break it down into individual steps. That is the most important aspect of teaching. That’s something I learned from my father, not just with playing and practicing the piano, but music theory, sight-singing, all the disciplines. Breaking disciplines down methodically and explaining all the steps involved is invaluable for students. And if you can do that for people, it will be extremely productive for them.
I hope this is helpful for you! Any of you who have more questions, I offer counseling for my Patreon members. So if you’re thinking you want to teach and you want more advice, join my Patreon and I’ll be there for you! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why you must be able to play your scales on auto-pilot. What does this mean? I’ve talked before about motor memory or tactile memory being a dangerous thing to rely upon in your piano playing. You can take a wrong turn here or there if your mind isn’t cognizant of where you are in a composition. With repeats, expositions, developments, changes of keys, you must have an intellectual awareness of your music. Otherwise, you can end up in the wrong place in the middle of a piece! But, you absolutely must be able to play your scales with just motor memory because of the fingering crossings.
All major and minor scales involve finger crossings.
Scales encompass thumb crossings in the right hand going up and in the left hand coming down. And you have third and fourth finger crossings in the left hand going up and in the right hand coming down. All major scales and minor scales have the same basic premise of third and fourth finger crossings in one hand going up, the other hand coming down, and thumb crossings in one hand going up and the other hand coming down. That’s a whole lot of stuff to remember! That’s why in the early years of study, rather than working on scales which have complicated fingering to learn, it’s better to develop the strength of your fingers first by playing early Hanon exercises which avoid finger crossings.. The whole idea of practicing scales is to develop fluid notes in a row so that you can play beautiful streams of notes with evenness and clarity.
What if you can’t get the fingering?
As I mentioned, I love to start students with the very first exercises in Hanon, which have myriad different patterns, but none of them involve finger crossings. So, you get to work out your fingers developing strength, fluidity, and speed, without worrying about the complexity of finger crossings. But why do they have to be on automatic pilot? When you’re playing a fast scale, there just isn’t time to think of all of those fingerings! You have to be able to just do it without thinking about the actual fingering. Then you can focus on the sound, the expression, the volume, the evenness, and the clarity without thinking about fingering.
I made a video a few weeks ago on how playing the piano is like learning how to walk. At the beginning, it’s a struggle. If you’ve ever watched a toddler taking their first steps, the concentration on their faces is unbelievable as they figure out how to traverse one step to the next. We don’t have to think about walking, because we walk on auto-pilot. Imagine if every time you took a step you had to think about everything involved, the coordination, the foot muscles, the leg muscles, and keeping your body upright. It would be almost impossible to do anything while walking! Yet, we walk and talk about all sorts of things all the time and don’t even think about it. That’s exactly what you must do with your scales. How do you get to that point? Well, first of all, you should only start scales when you have enough strength in your fingers. If you’re just starting out learning scales an octave or two octaves, it’s really not that valuable.
You want to play all your scales in four octaves right from the get-go.
Even though the fingering is the same, when you’re playing in the low register, the angle of your arms is quite different from playing in the high register. You must get used to playing the whole keyboard. If you’re not up for that challenge yet, you’re better off doing 5 or10 Hanon exercises first to prepare yourself for practicing scales. This is a great way to get your fingers strong and to develop fluidity. Start with one note to the beat at 60 to the metronome, so you can really see how your fingers are working, then two notes to the beat, and then finally, four notes to the beat. Work on these Hanon exercises until you can play them in a fluid manner with strength and evenness. Then you are ready to embark upon scales. You should work on your scales in exactly the same way. Work on them in four octaves, just like in Hanon: 60 Selected StudiesFor The Virtuoso Pianist. This book is like the Bible of scales and arpeggios because it has all the standard fingering that 99% of pianists utilize. I highly recommend getting a copy. Get to the point where you can play your scales without thinking about fingering. Then when you have scale passages in music, you don’t have to start practicing like it’s a fresh thing. It’s already there, literally at your fingertips!
That’s the lesson for today. Get your scales on automatic pilot, on motor memory, on tactile feel, so you don’t have to think about the fingering. If any of you touch type as I do, you know that you don’t even have to think about where your fingers are going. Those of you who have to hunt and peck, you know it’s a little slower, a little bit harder, but you can get pretty fluid at it. But when you know where the keys are without even thinking about it, it makes it so much easier. You want your scales to be that easy as well!
Thanks again for joining me! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
