Tag Archives: music lessons

Picking the Right Musical Repertoire for Your Skill Level

This is a very important decision and it’s something you should take very seriously. Having a teacher help you pick your repertoire is a great option, but there are a few tips I’ll share to help you pick the right piece for your skill level.

Sometimes teachers will make the mistake of having their students learn pieces above their skill level. Having a student playing a complex piece of music can be very gratifying and offers bragging rights for a teacher, but sometimes it comes at the detriment to the student. Learning a piece of music above your skill level will take you much longer to learn and it will be an arduous process. It is incredibly gratifying studying a piece on your level which you can refine to a high level of performance in a reasonable amount of time.

When you are a beginning or even intermediate student, you shouldn’t be playing pieces that take months to learn. Instead, you should try to focus on learning many pieces gradually building up your skill level. You will achieve two things by doing this: adding more work to your repertoire right away and gradually increasing the difficulty of the pieces you learn. In the same amount of time you would spend learning a complex piece, you could have much more music learned and have progressed much further in your playing.

You should also try and learn pieces that you can master playing up to tempo. Learning something and barely being able to get through it will not help you progress as a musician. The piece will not only sound bad but you will probably end up feeling frustrated.

As you progress as a pianist, it’s a great idea to push yourself with each new piece of music you add to your repertoire. You should find enjoyment in a new challenge but always be assured that it’s something you can achieve and master within a reasonable amount of time. As you advance to very complex music you will mature to the point of spending months learning an extended work, but you must be sure you have the skills to handle it.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

How to Connect Sections of Music on the Piano

You may have seen my video, Band-Aid Approach to Practicing Music. In that video I covered how to fix problem spots in your music. However, some viewers had questions on how to connect those sections once they are ironed out. I thought this would be the perfect subject to create a follow up.

To demonstrate I am using the Clementi Sonatani Opus 36 no 1. This is a good example because there is a little section in the beginning that leads into a much more complicated passage. I have had a lot of students over the years who have had trouble with this particular section.

I would suggest, as I did in the Band-Aid approach video, to play the music until you reach a problem spot. Instead of going back to the beginning each time, focus on the problem area until it is corrected and you can play it reliably. Play it slower at first, then work up a notch at a time with the metronome until you get it up to speed and feel confident in your ability to play the section.

With this particular piece you could first play the thirds in the right hand together instead of separately as written. After you feel confident put your hands together while still playing with thirds in the right hand. Once you are secure with the passage you can break up the music as written and work it up to speed striving for accuracy and effortlessness in your playing.

While you have corrected the problem area, you will discover that it’s difficult to play the passage in context accurately. Your mind and body is not used to playing it correctly when the passage comes and you’ll continue to have the same problem approaching this section. So how do you fix this?

I recommend starting right before the section you just fixed – not at the beginning of the piece. You can play a few bars before the section you corrected, then pause slightly right before you play the problem spot; just to remind yourself that you have reached the section. You can practice and mentally prepare yourself to approach it correctly. As you practice, you can shorten the pause before the corrected passage making it shorter and shorter until eventually there is no pause at all and you’re playing it as written. Eventually you will not have a pause in the music anymore but your mind will remember once you reach that section and you will be mentally prepared for it.

After you have done this try going back to the beginning. Is it smooth yet? Probably not. You might have to go back and play a little bit before the section you just practiced and work your way back to the start of the piece adding more music each time. Keep doing this until you can connect the sections of music without problems. It might take some time but once you do this you’ll be much more confident and able to play these problem sections without issues. It’s worth spending time to get this right.

I hope this helps and I encourage your comments and thoughts on this subject. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin, Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.

How to Develop a Sense of Beat – Music Lessons

While there are people who are supposedly tone deaf and have difficulty trying to match pitch, there are people who have an innate problem with even keeping a beat and clapping along with a song. So, is there any way to develop this? Or is it something you are born with?

There is a certain amount of talent that is simply “born” into some people and they are able to keep a beat well on their own, but it’s not a skill that can’t be learned. If you find yourself rhythmically challenged, here are a few exercises that can help you develop a sense of beat.

Traditional methods include clapping along with a beat or a metronome but sometimes these methods simply don’t work. You might encounter students that even with this type of practice still can’t keep a beat. Don’t give up on them, there is hope!

Simply listening to music will help develop a sense of beat a great deal. All sorts of music, rhythmic music, jazz, classical, rock, anything you can listen to will help develop a sense of beat. Beyond listening you should try moving with the music.

Dance is a natural way to learn to keep a beat by following the beat of the music but something as simple as even walking around a room and singing to your music or even walking around the room and timing your steps with the beat can help you develop a better sense of rhythm. Incorporating movement into your music will greatly improve your ability to keep a beat; there is actually a whole discipline called Dalcroze Eurhythmics that explores the relationship between motion and the beat of music. When you walk down the street you will most likely be keeping a steady step. Try adding in some music and you will probably find yourself naturally stepping with the beat of the music.

If you find yourself unable to keep a beat don’t give up. Anyone can learn this skill but like many other things in life, some people will naturally be better. Don’t get discouraged and keep trying. If you have any more questions about this or any other topic please contact me directly Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

What is the Difference Between Modulation and Transposition in Music?

These are two terms that have major similarities but they also have distinctly different functions.

Transposition is simply changing the key of a piece of music or section of music to another key.

Modulation is changing keys within a piece of music, often times coming back to the original key. There can be many modulations within a piece of music.

In the video provided with this article you will hear an example of modulation, where I go from C major, modulate to G major, and then back to C major. This is used frequently in pieces of music to add harmonic interest. Since most pieces end in the keys they started in, often times there is more than one modulation within a piece or movement of a larger work. Modulation is a compositional technique which is written into the score; it’s not something you would generally choose to do with a piece of music.

Transposition on the other hand is used to take something and then play it in a different key. For example, if you were to take a series of chords and then play them again just transposed up a half step, a whole step, or anywhere you would like. This is transposition. If you have ever heard a choir warm up, they might sing a group of notes transposing the series of notes up by half-steps to help the group warm up. This is a classic example of transposition.

Another real world example of transposition would be if you were playing piano with a singer. You want the singer to be comfortable singing in a particular range. Sometimes the songs are available transposed into different keys to put the music in a comfortable range for the particular singer. There are even keyboards now that have a transposition functions that make it simple to transpose your playing into different keys at the push of a button!

Modulation on the other hand is a compositional technique that allows a free flow of tone centers within a piece of music.

I hope this is helpful and if you have any questions about this topic or any other, please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.

How to Sight Read Part 1: Why Sightreading is Important

Sightreading is an incredibly important skill for any musician. Being able to take a piece of music you have never seen before and play it at sight; it’s a pretty amazing skill to have.

I remember as a child I progressed with my piano playing but for a long time, I was terrible at sightreading. I used to see other musicians, like my father, who could sightread nearly anything! I have developed my sightreading to a high level, but it took a long time and a lot of work to achieve this skill, and it’s something that continues growing with your musical experience.

But why is sight reading so important? There are a number of reasons.

As you study an instrument you only get to study a limited number of pieces which require a great deal of work to get to a performance level; usually committing them to memory. And really, there are only a certain number of pieces you can learn in a year – and really only a finite number you can master over a lifetime. But who wants to be familiar with only a limited number of pieces? Most people will want to be able to play a broad spectrum of music and get the opportunity to try out other pieces just to see what types of music they want to learn.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to sit down and try a piece out to get a sense of it; to see if it’s worth studying? This is where sight reading can be incredibly useful. If you continue practicing sightreading on a daily basis, eventually you should be able to do this.

Another huge benefit to sight reading is playing with others. Meeting with other musicians informally and sightreading music together can be a rewarding experience; exploring new music with others offers a huge benefit to improving your playing and may even open new opportunities for your performances.

A huge benefit to learning how to sightread is the ability to spot trouble parts in music you are learning. If you can make it through a piece you will undoubtedly be able to tell which parts will require more practice than others. Being able to sightread a piece and go through it a few times will help you tremendously in figuring out what parts to focus on in your practice.

Really there are countless reasons why sight reading is important. It is something that every professional musician should be able to do at a reasonably high level. It’s also great fun exploring a wide range of music and being able to play with other musicians without necessarily practicing hours in advance.

Next week I will provide some tips on how to improve your sight reading skills. Thanks for joining me Robert Estrin here at VirtualSheetMusic.com

How to Sight Sing Intervals – Music Lessons

This is a very interesting topic that someone asked me about the other day. It’s not that hard to sight-sing scales and it can be very beneficial to gaining a deeper understanding of your music. But the question is, how do you practice sight-singing intervals? Other than sight-singing a wide range of music, how is it possible to become better at sight-singing intervals that aren’t just one note apart as in scales?

You will see a demonstration in the video that accompanies this article that may help you achieve comfort in singing all of your intervals! I highly encourage you to watch the video for a thorough understanding of these techniques.

The first exercise (that I actually learned as a child) is based upon the notes of a major scale going up by a third and down by a step over and over again until you reach the octave above. Then go backward going down by a third, up by a step on and on until you are back on the starting note an octave below. This is extremely helpful in hearing and singing thirds.

Later in life, I wondered why stop at thirds? So (with some prompting from my father) I expanded my horizons to other intervals! First, try going up by fourths, down by thirds again and again as before – then reaching the top and going down by fourths and up by thirds which brings you back to the starting note. This is a challenging exercise which is very helpful for understanding other pitch relationships. If you are brave, you can go through all of your intervals in a similar manner. It gets progressively harder – wait until you try sevenths!

At first, this will be a great challenge. But eventually, you will become fluent with all of your intervals utilizing these exercises. You will get to a point where you will begin to comprehend the notes of music you hear because you will have mastered all diatonic pitch relationships.

I hope this is helpful and if you have any questions about this topic or any other, please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.