Tag Archives: living pianos

How to Play 3 Against 4 Rhythms

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to explain how to play 3 against 4 rhythms. Have you ever tried to play three against four rhythms? You have a triplet in one hand and four 16th notes in the other hand. How can you possibly play those two rhythms? Some teachers just say to play the four with one hand, and play the three with the other hand, and then put them together. Well, what if that doesn’t work? What can you possibly do? By the end of this, you’re going to be able to play three against four!

First, I’m going to explain the mathematical relationship so you understand what is happening when you play 3 against 4.

Let’s simplify things for a moment and start with 3 against 2. 3 against 2 is not all that hard because it has basically six divisions. Two goes into six three times, and three goes into six two times. So your hands play together, right, left, right, left if the left hand is playing the triplet and the right hand is playing two notes. And indeed, that produces the correct rhythm.

Rhythm Chart 1

So the question is, can’t you do the same thing with 3 against 4? Technically, you can. But I’ll explain the problem with that in just a minute. You could figure out the mathematical relationship of 3 against 4 by counting to 12. Because, after all, three goes into twelve four times, and four goes into twelve three times. Mathematically, that works.

Chart 2

But the problem with that is getting it up to speed. Suppose you’re playing something like Debussy’s The Snow is Dancing from Children’s Corner Suite. At the fast tempo that goes, how could you possibly ever count that fast? You couldn’t. It’s impossible. A 3 against 4 is usually going to be at a faster tempo than you can count in this manner.

So here is the method for playing 3 against 4.

First, I’m going to show you how to rough it out where it’s not correct, but it is close to what three against four is. Basically, the rough version (which is not rhythmically even) is to play your hands together, left, right, left, right, left. If you just listen to the three, you’ll hear that the rhythm is distorted. It’s not quite right. So why am I telling you to do this if it’s wrong? Because you can at least start to understand which notes play first in each hand. Then you can adjust the rhythm to make it correct. And I’ll show you exactly how to do that. It’s the third triplet that has to come in later, so the last one in the right hand is going to come in later (if the triplet is in your right hand). The problem is, if you do that, the whole thing bogs down. So the last note in the right hand has to come in later, and then the last note in the left hand comes in right after that, much sooner than you might think.

To check if you’re doing it correctly, tap one hand on the top of the piano and play the other hand on the piano so you can hear clearly.

This is incredibly valuable. For example, with 3 against 2, the 3 is easy. So you tap the 3 on the top of the piano (or in your lap) while you play the 2 on the piano so you can hear the 2 clearly. When you play 3 against 2, you’ll be tempted to accent the second note of the 2. But that is not the way rhythm generally works. Usually, the first notes on the beat are louder or have more rhythmic emphasis than the off-beats in a group of two notes (unless it’s a syncopated rhythm). So you want to purposely underplay the second note of the tuplet (the two). You can do the same thing with your music. By playing one hand on top of the piano, you can hear what the other hand is doing. Because when you play the hands together, it can be all but impossible to identify the distortion of the rhythm. But when you play one hand silently in your lap or on top of the piano, you can clearly hear the evenness of the slower note on the piano (the two in 3 against 2, or the three in 4 against 3).

This is a hack that really works!

So remember, when you play 4 against 3, the third note of the triplet is going to be later than you think it is. And then the fourth note in the other hand is going to be right after the late triplet. That is the secret to playing 3 against 4! That’s the lesson for today. Try it out! If you’ve ever struggled playing 4 against 3, see if this helps. Let me know how it 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

27 Pianos in an 1100-Square-Foot House

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you the story of how we had 27 pianos in an 1100-square-foot house. It’s actually the story of how I got into selling pianos. It all begins with how I started teaching piano.

I started teaching piano when I was still in high school.

I assisted my father, Morton Estrin, with his teaching, as my sister did before me. It was my part-time job throughout my conservatory years. Teaching has always been a mainstay. People would call me for lessons, and the first question I would always ask was, Do you have a piano? If they didn’t, I would tell them, honestly, you’re better off with a piano and no lessons than lessons and no piano. So I was turning away students right and left, and I couldn’t really afford to do that. We were kind of struggling financially. I was driving my Pinto all over the county and beyond! This was in southern Indiana since I graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington.

Eventually, I bought a big old upright and moved it myself.

I ended up moving hundreds of those big, tall uprights. Thank goodness I lifted correctly and fortunately, never hurt my back. So the next time somebody called for lessons, I asked if they had a piano, and they said no. I said that I had one they could try out. And sure enough, they bought the piano! I got another student, and everything was good. So I was bold and bought two more. But my piano technician came in and told me that the bass bridges on both pianos were cracked. I always checked out the pianos. I would look at the hammers and the soundboards, but I never thought of taking out the kickboard. Sure enough, the bass bridges were cracked on both pianos! My technician said he didn’t do that kind of work, but he recommended another tuner. So I called them up, and they came over. I didn’t really have the money to fix it. So I asked if there was any way he could do the work, and then when I sold the pianos, I could pay him and split the profit. And he was nice enough to agree to that. So we did that. Sure enough, both pianos sold, and they both made a profit. So I realized that this was something we could scale (pun intended!).

Before we knew it, we had five pianos, then seven pianos, and we topped out at 27 pianos!

We had a walk-out basement. I also had my recording studio down there. I’ve always been into music technology. We had a lot of the pianos upstairs because, among those pianos, six of them were grand pianos! We had two young children at the time. Eventually, we topped out at 27 pianos in an 1100-square-foot house! That’s right. This is real. It’s not just clickbait. We actually did that. Since that time, we’ve always had pianos in our home. And we still do right here in the Waterloo Arts District. This beautiful historical building was originally built in the 1860s, if you can believe it. We have two showrooms down here, and we live on the two levels above. Down in the basement, we have our ping-pong table. We play almost every night! The other half of our pianos are up the street at Treelawn Music Hall, where they have a phenomenal jazz program in a small venue and a large music hall where they have a 9-foot concert grand Steinway we sold them. We have our pianos there in what used to be a bowling alley. So we literally live with these pianos, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now my teaching is all online, and it’s a joy. Teaching and pianos, along with performing and recording technology, have been the mainstays since my high school days. 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

The Greatest Challenge of Moving to Cleveland


Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to tell you what the greatest challenge has been with moving to Cleveland. Believe it or not, it’s finding enough great piano technicians! We started LivingPianos.com as the world’s First Online Piano Store in Orange County, California, in 2006, doing over 80% of our business out of the area. We were in one of the most expensive places in the country. And we lamented that we had to spend so much money to do business there when we were selling most of our business out of the area.

My sister, Coren Estrin Mino, is also a pianist.

She graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music years ago, and she settled here. She’s a pianist and a teacher. So I’m no stranger to Cleveland. But think of the arduous task of moving our store with dozens of pianos. We had a recording studio. We even had an Airbnb we rented out. Not to mention our home. Moving was a huge undertaking, but it has been incredibly worthwhile!

We loved Southern California.

We were 20 minutes away from Laguna Beach. We have friends there who we loved to visit. But coming home, if it was after 2:00 pm, we would be stuck in rush hour traffic. We had to plan our whole day around the traffic. I don’t miss that. Of course, the weather in Cleveland cannot compare to Southern California. But there are a lot of great things about Cleveland.

Cleveland is a great place to live!

We’ve got the second-largest playhouse district in the country! The real blessing is having the Cleveland Orchestra 10 minutes away. There’s a necklace of metroparks around the city, and we are 10 minutes from the lake. So spread the word! If there’s anybody you know who works on pianos who would like a new life in a place that has a rich cultural history, Cleveland is the place. And it’s very affordable to live here. Come join our team of great technicians! 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 Your Room Can Affect Your Piano: A Tale of Two Pianos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how a room can affect your piano. This is an incredible story that I would love to share with you. My sister is also a pianist, and a couple of years ago, we were playing a two-piano concert together. At that time, my sister lived in the Cleveland area, where she still lives. But we were in Southern California. So we didn’t get to rehearse together until she came to California.

At the time, I had two spectacularly great Baldwin SF-10 seven-foot pianos.

While they were both great pianos, there was one that was clearly the better instrument. One of them was a high-gloss black. The other one was satin black. The high-gloss piano was a magical instrument. The other one was very good, but that high-gloss black was my go-to instrument. I loved playing that piano. Since she was coming and we wanted to rehearse in advance of the concert that was going to be at the nearby Bowers Museum, I decided to go ahead and move the two pianos into our recording studio, which was right next door. Here’s where it gets really interesting.

After the pianos were moved, I sat down with them, and I couldn’t believe it, but they switched!

The great piano was now the satin SF-10! The high-gloss one was good but didn’t have the same character and warmth as the other one. It was the same two pianos, but in two different rooms. One was clearly the better piano in one room, but as soon as they went to the other room, because of the different acoustics, it was exactly the opposite. They were both still fine pianos, beautifully regulated, nicely voiced, and in tune. But one was so much nicer and warmer, and it was the opposite of what it was before. So how does this impact you?

Where you place your piano in your home can make a tremendous difference in how it sounds and even how it feels.

Did you know that a piano with a brighter sound can feel like it has an easier action? Sometimes a piano can have a heavy action, and yet it doesn’t feel heavy because it has a bright sound. The opposite can also be true. Sometimes a piano has normal action weight, but if it’s voiced on the warm side, you have to work more to get the tone out, so it feels heavy. Room acoustics can play the same tricks on you—these psychoacoustic effects. You can try treating your room, and that can actually make a big difference. You could put a rug under your piano or hang curtains to deaden the sound. Or to liven up a room, you could put a flat piece of wood or even plexiglass under your piano to get the sound from underneath the piano to reflect out because half the sound of a piano comes out from the bottom.

Think about the challenge of trying to buy a piano.

Going from showroom to showroom, or even within one store, going from room to room, how do you know what these pianos really sound like? It’s like the situation I described—how these two pianos swapped. Which one was the great one, and which one was the good one. There is no easy answer to this question, but it’s something to be aware of.

Think about what room to put your piano in, how to treat the room, and where to place the piano in the room.

I’ll give you one more example. I was once in a recording studio with a vaulted ceiling. There was a piano in the room, and we tried moving the piano around. My natural inclination was to put the piano where the ceiling was low so it would project into the room. But it’s exactly the opposite! Putting the piano in the high ceiling part of the room and projecting into the lower part, in that case, sounded much better. So there’s a lot to consider. Acoustics is both a science and an art. The acoustics of a room have a tremendous effect on the sound of your piano. Share your experiences with pianos and acoustics! Have you ever moved your piano and noticed a change in the sound or feel of the instrument? 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

A Piano Convention!

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I’m here at the PIPPA Piano Convention. It’s the first of its kind! I play the French horn, and I always enjoyed going to the French horn convention, the International Horn Workshop. My wife is a flutist. There’s a flute convention; there’s a trumpet convention; there’s a trombone convention; there are conventions for almost every instrument except the piano until now, with PIPPA: Piano Industry Professionals & Producers Affiliated. This piano convention includes pianists, piano teachers, piano technicians and piano manufacturers from all over the world!

I’m really excited to try many pianos including a Hailun 9-foot concert grand piano!

This is the first time I’ve ever played this piano. It is a great opportunity to try so many instruments from around the world. You can check out the accompanying video to hear this 9-foot concert grand from one of China’s premier piano companies, a country with so many piano manufacturers.

Out of hundreds of piano companies in China, Hailun is among the best.

This piano has such a velvety smooth action. It’s really beautifully crafted. With hundreds of piano companies, the competition in China is tremendous because there are tens of millions of piano students there. And this is the pinnacle of what’s coming out of China today. And there are so many other pianos here. There are Petrof pianos from the Czech Republic, which are absolutely exquisite handcrafted instruments. There are pianos, pianists, piano technicians, and piano teachers from all over the world here at PIPPA.

It’s an amazing thing for all of us to be able to get together!

I hope you enjoy this! I think it’s great, and I look forward to visiting PIPPA again! Let me know what you think about the whole idea of a piano convention 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

Can You Play at 208 on the Metronome?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m asking: Can you play at 208 on the metronome? Metronomes have all kinds of speeds, typically starting at 40 and going to 208. There are metronome applications that you can put on your phone where any number can be selected. But there’s a reason why these numbers exist in the first place. I’m going to show you that to begin with, and then I’m going to explain some things about the metronome that you probably don’t know.

The slowest speed on most metronomes is 40, and the fastest is 208.

Any speed slower than 40 would be very difficult to follow because it wouldn’t feel like a pulse anymore. Any speed faster than 208 would be very hard to follow as well. Now, how to set a metronome is a whole other issue. Metronomes have guides on them for how to set the tempo showing the range of speeds for Adagio, Andante, Allegro, etc. I’m going to show you how farcical that whole idea is by demonstrating it for you. I’m going to play the famous Mozart C-major Sonata K. 545. I’m going to set the metronome at 208. Can I play this piece at 208!? Watch the video to see for yourself!

It depends on what note value you assign the ticks.

I let the metronome tick sixteenth notes. It wasn’t fast at all! On the flip side, I set the metronome on 40 and let the ticks equal whole notes. That is a very fast tempo! With a beat that slow, trying to feel the pulse is difficult. So really, you must choose the note value that makes the most sense.

You don’t need accented beats on your metronome.

All the metronome apps have accented beats, and it’s really unnecessary for most purposes. The reason why I don’t like that, aside from it being completely unnecessary, is that when you’re practicing with the metronome, you have to wait for that first beat. You can’t just go in on the next beat. If you were playing a slow piece in six, it would take up a lot of time waiting for the first beat. So a simple quartz metronome is your best bet. The other problem with many digital metronomes is that they have every numeric value. You don’t need every single number. If you’re going from 116 to 117, it’s an infinitesimally small increment. 116 to 120, which is what a metronome has, makes more sense. So you should find a metronome or metronome application that has the true numbers of a traditional metronome, not every number.

So yes, you can play at 208 on the metronome!

You can play at 208, but it depends on what note value you select. You must select a note value that makes sense. In that Mozart, for example, 208 was ridiculous. Having the 16th note tick doesn’t make sense. So what would make sense? I think having quarter notes tick at about 132 would be fine. That would be more reasonable. You could perhaps have it at half that speed and have half notes ticking. So those are a couple of reasonable subdivisions of the beat that make sense. But sometimes it can help to put the metronome on a faster speed to make sure everything is quantized correctly. Or you might take a very slow speed so you get the feel of the pulse where you want to have a little bit more freedom within the beat for rubato. And I recommend ignoring the tempo indications on your metronome because it really depends on the note value you have ticking. 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