Tag Archives: bach

Why Crying is Essential for Your Musicianship

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com and today’s subject is, “Why Crying is Essential for Your Musicianship.” You might think I’ve gone off the deep end with this subject. Crying and music? What does crying have to do with music? A lot.

What is music about?

There are a lot of different styles of music. There’s dance music, there’s electronic music, there’s Gregorian chant. There’s a wide range of music, but ultimately I believe music is primarily a way of expressing emotions – emotions that are impossible to express any other way. Let’s say you have had some really tragic experiences in your life. Everyone experiences tragedy in this world. Nobody is sheltered. I know from the outside it looks like some people have that glorious lives of perfection. If you look on social media, everybody’s having a great time doing the greatest things. But the reality is that it’s just a front. Not just on social media, but even in person. Everybody is guarded, keeping their emotions at bay, not revealing too much for fear of getting caught by somebody who has spurious intentions.

Why do you need to cry?

Why can’t you just go through your life and just ignore those tragedies and the pain? Well, if you’re trying to express emotions honestly in your music, but you haven’t even reckoned the emotions you’re feeling, it’s all but impossible to be genuine in your music. You need to feel things in your life, not just the joyful things, but the tragic things as well. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if you don’t experience pain in your life by crying, at some point it’s going to come out inappropriately and it will also affect the other side.

How can you feel joy if you don’t feel sadness?

You have to feel. So you must work through your emotions so you can honestly express beautiful music, sad music, happy music. This is a lesson for life as well as for music. And if you have repressed emotions, it’s going to be all but impossible to really have the poetry, and the vision, and the experience that you want to share with others.

I encourage all of you to be honest with yourself and others about your pain.

It’s important to feel your emotions and work through them. It could be what you’ve been looking for to be really expressive in your music. I’d love to hear from any of you out there who’ve had this experience and share it in the comments below.

Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!

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Can Playing the Piano Ease Depression?

I’m Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is, “Can playing the piano ease depression?” Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and the information in this article is anecdotal. I would not suggest playing the piano as your only treatment if you have a serious mental or emotional condition. However, I will say this; I can’t even imagine living in this world if I didn’t have the piano to play!

How can playing the piano affect your emotional health?

What’s great about the piano in regards to emotional health is that you get a chance to completely occupy yourself. Playing music requires intense focus thereby quieting the mind. It’s almost like a form of meditation. Studies have shown meditation can reduce depression and anxiety, and even help people manage chronic pain. But there are other benefits to playing the piano in regard to how it makes you feel.

The beauty of music can connect you to the beauty of life.

Imagine playing a transcendentally beautiful melody like the F-Sharp Major Nocturne by Chopin, and how that makes you feel. If you were depressed and you played that piece, it might make you feel some joy! When I play that melody it fills me with very warm feelings. So you have the benefit of taking your mind away from everything in the outer world, as with meditation, while also experiencing the soul and emotions of people who lived hundreds of years ago who had something special to say. So it fills you with the emotions that they were feeling during their lives.

It can be cathartic to play music that explores deeper emotions

The beginning of the B-minor Scherzo of Chopin has such anger and hostility, it might actually help you release some of your pent up feelings. So, there can be a cathartic quality to playing the piano since there is a soothing calmness you can experience with music of great beauty. All the while, you can become detached from the day-to-day issues and frustrations that we all face in life.

I want to know how any of you feel about playing music. Does it help to keep you emotionally stable? Does it help you to overcome sadness and even depression? I’d love to hear from any of you out there who knows more about this subject. Put it in the comments. Let us know here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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What is an Opus?

This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com with a really interesting question for you: What is an opus? You probably have heard this when you go to concerts and see, for example, a piano Sonata no. 7, opus 10 no. 3 by Beethoven. You may have wondered what this means. You have the number of the piece, the key of the piece, what does opus mean?

Opus numbers started way back in the time of Handel in the 1700s. It is a way of organizing music so generally, lower opus numbers are earlier works, and higher opus numbers are later works. However, it is not quite so simple. If you have sonatas numbered, that already tells you when they were written. Why would you still need opus numbers? Chopin wrote a whole book of mazurkas and an entire book of waltzes. Many of them are in the same key and to be able to identify them, opus numbers can be very handy.

Let’s say Beethoven had three sonatas he wanted to publish. He would go to his publisher with the works. If the last works he published were, “opus 9”, these new compositions would be cataloged as, “opus 10”. If he presents three piano sonatas opus 10, they will be designated as opus 10 no. 1, opus 10 no. 2, and opus 10 no 3. That is a whole body of work. Next time he composes music it will be cataloged as opus 11. It could be piano pieces, string quartets, or a symphony. It depends on what is in that opus. It could be one work or a group of works.

Each opus represents a group of works published together

Here is where it gets a little tricky. Sometimes opuses are out of order. For example, the Opus 49 Sonatas of Beethoven come to mind. He wrote two sonatas that were published pretty late, Opus 49, yet they were written much earlier. While these pieces were composed earlier in his life, he didn’t publish them until later on.

You can’t always go by opus numbers in regards to the date that something was written.

However, they provide a way to clarify what works you are referring to. That is the whole purpose of opus numbers. Why do I bring this all up? It is a little personal story. Years ago, I composed a piece that was a mammoth work for synthesizers, digital pianos, and a whole host of other technologies. I called it “Opus 1” because I thought it was a cool name. I just did an improvisation in my living room after visiting my daughter in Portland, Oregon. I hadn’t touched the piano in a few days and I just came in, hit record, and sat down. I’m calling it “Opus 2” for you.

I hope you enjoyed this brief tutorial on what “opus” means. If you have any questions I’m always here for you: robert@livingpianos.com I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for joining me again. This is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Should You Use the Piano Pedal In Bach?

Is it okay to use the pedal when playing Bach? This is a great question and there are many different ideas about this. Why should there even be issues with using the pedal or not when it comes to playing Bach? Bach lived from 1685 to 1750 and the very earliest pianos were invented just around 1700. While Bach got a chance to try some of these early instruments, he really never wrote for the piano. He never wrote for any specific keyboard instrument other than the organ. All his other works are written for clavier, which means simply “keyboard”. It is up to the performer to decide which keyboard. No keyboards had pedals anytime during Bach’s life (other than the organ, but that’s a completely different matter).

There are many purists who feel that you shouldn’t use the pedal simply because Bach did not have one. Other people feel that if Bach was alive today, he would love to use the pedal! There are different schools of thought. There is some music that absolutely calls for the pedal. Why? Music is written sometimes where there are notes to be held, yet you run out of fingers since you have to move your hands to another part of the keyboard. So the only way to hold those notes that are written to be held is to sustain them by using the pedal.

You can certainly play Bach without the pedal and get very good results. When I studied with Ruth Slenczynska, she insisted upon using no pedal in Bach and it works great! I am going to offer an example, of the beginning of Bach’s 5th French Suite. Why would you use pedal and how would you use pedal in Bach? You don’t use it to connect notes that you can’t hold with your fingers because there is nothing that is written that necessitates the use of the of the pedal for this purpose. Instead you use the pedal to add color. You’ll notice that even in this fast music, there are little touches of pedal to enhance the tone of key notes.

The important thing is that you must practice Bach using no pedal at all. In fact, I recommend practicing all of your music without any pedal until you can play as connected as possible finding the best fingering that accomplishes this first. Then it becomes obvious where the pedal can be utilized.

I am going to play the first section of the Bach 5th French Suite with the repeat as written. The first time I will play it with no pedal. Then upon the repeat, I will utilize the pedal to add color. If you listen to the video, you can determine which performance you prefer. I would love to hear from all of you in the comments on LivingPianos.com and YouTube.

Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. info@LivingPianos.com

Why is Bach’s Italian Concerto Called a Concerto?

Why is Bach’s Italian Concerto referred to as a concerto? This is a really good question. A concerto is generally a solo instrument or small group of soloists along with a larger ensemble and almost every concerto you encounter meets this definition. Yet, Bach’s Italian Concerto is a solo keyboard work! So, how can this possibly be considered a concerto? The reason for this is that it is written with the Italian style of a concerto grosso and the way Bach achieves this is by doing something he rarely did in any of his keyboard music which is, he wrote in dynamics in the entire three movements every single note; in the right hand and the left hand. Either they’re both forte or they’re both piano or one or the other is forte. This is what achieves the feeling of a concerto of the larger group and the smaller group.

The entire concerto was built upon the juxtaposition of the sound of a solo group against the entire group and it gives the feeling of an Italian concerto. It’s so fascinating to realize two things about Bach. One is that there is a tremendous amount of music that we’ll never know because he was undiscovered until years after his death. There’s an old wives tale that many of his scores ended up being used to wrap fish. I don’t know if this is true, but we do know that he wrote a lot of music that we have never gotten to hear and probably never will. The other thing about Bach is that he lived in Leipzig, Germany and did very little travelling, yet he wrote a magnificent Italian concerto, a set of beautiful English suites as well as French suites. How is it possible that he wrote all this music? After all, there was no recording back then. Being in a major city, any time any artists from other places would come to visit, he made a point of listening to many different styles of music. Being the genius that he was, he could assimilate those styles and could write some of the greatest Italian, French and English music as well as his native German music,

So that’s a bit of a lesson on Bach’s Italian Concerto for you. I hope this has been helpful! Again, this is Robert@LivingPianos.com

Free Piano Lessons – Tips for Playing Bach Minuet in G

Welcome to another part in a series of videos offering you tips for selected piano repertoire. Bach wrote many Minuets in beautiful Baroque style and this one in particular is a wonderful little piece for even elementary level players.

A minuet is a dance form in meter of three and because it’s a Baroque piece it has nice counterpoint. The goal of this piece is to showcase great clarity while retaining a bouncy and dance-like feel. The secret to achieving this is how you execute the phrasing – specifically, how you articulate the staccatos and how you negotiate the slurs.

Like in many other pieces, the technique is accomplished with the wrist. You will want to use certain wrist techniques to clarify the staccato notes contrasting with the slurred legato notes. This might sound simple but many times when first approaching this piece you may unwittingly use the arm in conjunction with the wrist producing a muddled sound.

For this piece, the first beat should have more emphasis than the second and third beats in keeping with the dance form. By coming down with the wrist for the first beat on the staccato notes, you can create a very dynamic sound. By using the arms you will produce a heavier tone that doesn’t sound nearly as bright and bouncy as it should.

The way I would recommend playing this is to bring your wrist down on the first note and then quickly lift it back up on the staccato notes. If you watch the video attached with this article you will see some great examples of this wrist movement. It’s very important to not rely upon the arm for the up and down motion; it must come from the wrist!

You should keep the same motion for each individual staccato note: down, up, down, up. And remember that it’s only the wrist being utilized in these notes; not the arm. If you have to, hold your arm still with your other hand at first and play the notes only using your wrist.

You will be greatly impressed by the results of employing a light staccato using the wrist; it will truly bring new life to this piece and many others. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com