Tag Archives: how to play piano

The 3 Essential Elements of Sight-Reading

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you about the three essential elements of sight-reading. I know so many of you want to read better, and you’re wondering what the secret is. I’m going to tell you about three different skills that you must have working together in order to be successful at reading music.

Sight-reading is all about what you see, feel, and hear.

Naturally, there’s what you see in the score. You have to really see what you’re reading, which is why you can’t be looking down at your hands while you’re reading. Which leads us to the second thing: You must have a certain feel for the keyboard. So you’re seeing the music, you’re feeling the keys, and the last thing, which is the most important, is what you hear.

All three of these things work together as a system.

You can’t look at your hands. You can occasionally glance for a moment, but you have to keep your eyes on the score. As soon as you’re not looking at the score, you’re not reading anymore! So you have to keep your fingers moving on the keys. If it sounds wrong, you must adjust by feel. You have black keys and white keys, so you can feel where the correct keys are and make the adjustments. If it sounds wrong, go a little higher or lower. You might think that that’s imprecise, but anybody who’s a really good sight-reader knows that you have to make those kinds of adjustments when you’re reading something difficult. Even if you don’t play perfectly, you get the basic idea across.

You have to keep going.

If you are accompanying a soloist, they don’t want you to stop when you miss a note. That’s not going to do it for them. It doesn’t give the satisfaction of understanding what the piece is like with the piano part. So you must keep going and feel your way by listening, watching the score, and recreating what you see based upon what you feel and hear. The best way to do that is by playing with other musicians, because it forces you to keep going. You have to keep going. You must keep your eyes moving. You must keep your hands and fingers moving, and you must keep listening.

The way to develop your reading on the piano is by doing it!

Find appropriate-level music. If you can find anybody who has some accompaniments that are not outrageously difficult, to where you have a chance of being able to play a good chunk of the notes accurately, offer to play with them. You can even accompany children or friends singing songs they know. Find music that is on your reading level and offer to accompany them! Use the essential elements of what you see, what you feel, and what you hear. You will become a great reader over time, I promise you. If you have epiphanies about how to become better at reading, 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.

Why You Must Front-Load Your Practice

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you why you must front-load your practice. What am I talking about here? Sometimes you sit down to practice the piano, and you have certain issues. You get it pretty good, and you go on to the next part. And you keep working through it in this manner. Well, let’s erase that whole idea. Instead, with the first issue you have, go to extraordinary lengths to resolve it!

Spend as much time as you can correcting issues early on.

Go as far as you possibly can with your corrections. This is great when you’re starting a new piece. Maybe there’s something early on in the piece that isn’t gelling. You might think you can just skip it for now and get to it later. Well, here’s the secret for you: It’s okay for you to spend an inordinate amount of time on small issues. It may feel like you’re never going to get to everything else, but what you learn from taking something to the nth degree early on in your practice will have tremendous benefits for the rest of the piece.

All pieces of music evolve from the motifs that are introduced early on.

These motifs develop throughout the piece. So if you don’t solve those issues early on, as you go on with the piece, the problems compound themselves. That’s why you should spend a tremendous amount of time early on resolving issues that you have. You want to really solidify things to the maximum degree. By doing this, later you will be able to go through vast amounts of music without having to spend nearly as much time. That’s what I mean by frontloading your practice.

Put the time in during the early part of your music and the early part of your practice to get things really refined.

This process is going to help you master other parts of the same piece of music and will even transfer to other pieces with similar technical or musical challenges. Try it in your practice! Let us know how this works for you 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

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 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

Why You Must Not Overthink Your Piano Playing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today we’re going to talk about why you must not overthink your piano playing. Now that might seem like a strange thing for me to say, with thousands of articles and videos about piano playing, technique, how to practice, memorization, how to digest a score, harmony, and so many more. Isn’t that all about thinking? It is. And there is a time and a place for analysis, and there’s a time for intuitive playing. And you must have a balance between the two in your performances. So what am I talking about when I say you shouldn’t overthink your playing?

When you’re performing, you have to have a presence of mind.

You need to make sure you’re sitting in the right place and that your hands are in the right position. You need to listen in order to achieve the proper balance of sound. But if you make the mistake of really thinking about what you’re doing, it can drive you crazy. You might completely lose the ability to play at all! When you’re playing a piece of music, there are thousands of notes, different rhythms, articulations, phrasings, and dynamics. There’s so much going on. If you stop just for a moment to think about what you are doing and look at your hands, you might question if you even know what the next note is because you’re doing things almost on automatic pilot to some extent. Hopefully you’ve learned your music well enough that you can think it through, even away from the piano which gives you great security. You’ve referenced the score, you’ve studied the score, you’ve played slowly, and you’ve done all these things so you have security. But if you start thinking about what you’re doing while you’re doing it, you can get completely psyched out.

Stay in the moment while performing.

You’re playing a piece, and you’re in the moment. It’s great. But suddenly, you start thinking about how the next section goes. You take yourself out of the moment by overthinking. If you’re not right where you are, then you get completely fouled up. Because when you get to that part, you’ve thought it through and you’re not sure if you thought it through right or not, and you might second-guess it wrong. These are the kinds of mind games that can completely destroy you in a musical performance.

Remember, the time for analysis is in your practice, but when you’re performing, don’t overthink it.

Stay in the moment. Listen to what you’re achieving. Try to go with the sound of the music and keep your head on your shoulders. Think about where you are and let the music flow naturally, like you’ve done hundreds of times in your practice. Sometimes that’s the greatest challenge because when all eyes are looking at you in a performance, or even if it’s just a friend or your teacher you’re playing for, you start thinking more about it in a way that you aren’t used to in your practice.

Another thing you can do is practice performing.

Play through your music and pretend people are watching you. Pretend you’re playing for your teacher or your friends, and see if you can keep your wits about you. Try to psych yourself out and see if you can still hold things together. Because inevitably, when you play for people, it just feels different. Your whole psychology changes; so don’t let it overtake you. Stay in the moment in your playing, and you will be rewarded with fine performances. 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 Get the Most Out of Your Piano Technician

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how you can get the most out of your piano technician. First of all, did you know that not all piano tuners are piano technicians? Most tuners are technicians. But some people just tune, and that’s about it. They might do very minor work, but a full-fledged piano technician may be able to work out a myriad of issues on your piano. Whether you have a sluggish key, a squeaking pedal, regulation issues, or maybe your voicing is harsh and you want something that sounds warmer, a master piano technician can do wonders with your piano. So how do you get the most out of your technician?

First of all, make a checklist.

Any time you have an issue with your piano, write it down or put it in a document on your computer that you can reference. When you set up the appointment with your piano technician, tell them everything.

Make sure the piano is on pitch.

You can check the pitch with an app. There are many tuning apps available for your phone. If your piano has dropped in pitch, it’s going to take two tunings to get it back. First, a rough tuning just to get it in the zone, which is called a pitch raise. And then the second one is a fine tuning. Your technician will have to be prepared to spend the time to do that. So check the tuning on your piano. Make sure A is indeed 440 cycles per second. If you find that it’s dropped to 435 or something like that, it’s probably going to take a couple of passes of tuning to get it back up to pitch. And incidentally, that tuning won’t hold as long because once a piano goes out that far, it takes longer to get stable again with more periodic tunings.

Tell your technician ahead of time about anything that you want them to address with the instrument.

There might be issues with the pedals, or maybe the action is making noise. Whatever the issues may be, tell them before they arrive. The reason for this is that they usually set their appointments back to back all day. If you bring up any issues while they are tuning your piano, they may not have the time to address them. It is likely they will have another appointment to get to. So tell the technician before the appointment so they’re prepared to spend the appropriate amount of time with you. And once they arrive, remind them of all the things you want them to address.

Try the piano before they leave!

It is incredibly important that you play the piano while your technician is still there. You want to make sure that the issues have been fixed. Piano technicians are very busy. We sell pianos all around the country, and there seems to be a backlog trying to get tuners out. The fine tuners can have waiting lists for weeks! The last thing in the world you want is to have your piano tuned, and as soon as they leave, you discover an issue is still there. So you must try the piano and make sure everything has been fixed.

Have your piano technician as an ally.

Make sure you get the right technician who is more than just a tuner. You want a full-fledged technician who can resolve any issues you have with your piano. Tell them what to expect when you make the appointment, remind them when they get there, and try the piano before they leave. These tips will help you get the most out of your piano technician! 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/RobertEstrinContact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

How Long Do Digital Pianos Last?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I had somebody ask me recently how long digital pianos last. I have a Steinway here, built in the late 1930s and still going strong. We rebuilt it a few years ago. But you know what? 100 years from now, it could be rebuilt again. Pianos can go on forever if they’re not completely thrashed by the environment. But what about digital pianos?

It’s hard to find good piano technicians, but it’s nearly impossible to find people to work on digital pianos.

There are not many people who work on digital pianos. The parts are not readily available. A lot of issues are related to the circuit boards. You end up paying so much money for those circuit boards. It’s kind of like when your printer breaks. Sadly, most electronic devices are basically disposable. You end up buying another one because you can’t find anybody to repair electronics. And digital pianos are no exception.

What goes wrong with digital pianos?

Generally speaking, unless there’s a spike in the current, like your home is hit with lightning or there’s some kind of surge of current, your piano should probably do fine for many years. The problem that people typically have is with the key contacts themselves—the mechanical components, not the electronic components. Because wherever the keys come down, there has to be metal-to-metal contact. If pianos are in a very humid or dusty environment, eventually you might find certain keys don’t play correctly. Maybe you have to hit it a couple of times, or you’ll play a note and it’ll be at full volume because it’s not getting the right information. Sometimes there are optical sensors there, and if even a tiny amount of dust gets in there, it can be a nightmare. It may be inconsistent in its performance. Can that be fixed? Technically, it could be, if you could find somebody crafty enough to figure out how to take the thing apart!

Just like computers, digital pianos keep getting better and cheaper all the time.

So when your digital piano is no longer operating correctly, buying a new one is generally what people do. But how long is the life of these instruments? Unless the environment is really harsh, you should be able to get ten years out of a digital piano. You might not get as much life from a cheaper one or one that’s taken around on the road a lot or in a house with smokers where there’s a lot of particulate matter in the air. But I have friends who have had digital pianos for decades that are still going strong! So it’s not always the case that you only get ten years out of a digital piano. In the right environment, you might get 20 or more years out of a digital piano.

If you want to prolong the life of your digital piano, get a surge protector.

Better yet, get an uninterruptible power supply. Basically, it’s a battery that you plug into the wall that you plug your electronics into. It’s great for any sensitive electronic equipment. Everything is running off the battery all the time. So if the electricity goes off or there is a surge, it doesn’t matter. It provides a stable current. So that is your foolproof way of avoiding one cause of failure.

Sometimes you can do a reset routine.

If you’ve ever had a problem with any electronic gear, there’s what’s called initialization or reset. There’s both a soft reset and a hard reset. A soft reset usually involves just turning it off and back on again. But a hard reset takes it back to the factory specs. If all else fails, try initialization or a hard reset on your device. If it’s not a mechanical issue like I described, where the keys are collecting dust or corrosion, that could very well help you.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with digital pianos!

Have any of you gotten less than ten years out of your digital piano? If so, what brand was it? And were there any circumstances that you can attribute to the short life of the piano? Have any of you had a record amount of time you’ve gotten from your digital piano? Maybe some of you have digital pianos from the 1980s that are still performing just like they did when they were new. 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