Tag Archives: music theory

My First Recital

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s show is about my first recital. It seems like it was only yesterday, even though I was a very young child. Performers know how different it is when you play for other people. In the olden days with in-person lessons, my students would play for me and say, “It went better at home.” But with virtual lessons, what excuse is there when they’re at home on their own pianos? Well, there’s a lot to this subject. Let’s dive right in!

I grew up studying piano with my father, Morton Estrin.

Though my father was a professor of music at Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island, he did most of his private teaching right in our home. There was a big addition on the house with two grand pianos. In fact, my father had monthly recitals there. Each month he’d feature a student who was preparing a solo recital. Sometimes he would have multiple students perform. It would be a three, four, or even five way recital, giving students ample opportunities to perform. Because it’s so important to practice performing, for the reasons I’m going to articulate in a moment. In June he had two recitals back to back for all of his students who weren’t ready for solo or joint recitals. That’s where I first had an opportunity to play in a recital.

In my father’s studio, he had professional recording equipment.

There are tapes of my playing from the time I started lessons. I have them in storage right now. One of these days I’ll pull some of them out. I’m sure many of you would be interested in hearing some of these recordings. From my very first pieces, he recorded virtually everything my sister and I studied. I’d have seven or eight short pieces and he’d switch on the tape machine. I’d announce them and play them. We did that for years and years. So there are a whole bunch of tapes. Because of that, you would think that playing a recital wouldn’t be a big deal. After all, it was in the same room on the same piano where I had recorded countless times. But here’s what happened. I remember the first time I performed so vividly! I was playing my father’s piano in his studio, which was in our home. You would think I’d be very comfortable. I knew the pieces really well. I could play without even thinking! By the way, that’s part of the problem, which we’ll get to in a minute.

I got to the piano and it was almost like being in a dream state.

The black keys looked so black and the white keys looked so stark white. I was looking down on all these keys thinking, “Oh my gosh, I have to find all the notes to these pieces I’ve memorized?” It just seemed absolutely impossible! How could I find all those notes among those keys I was staring at? It was a horrifying prospect! My father wouldn’t have me play if I wasn’t really well prepared. And because I was very well prepared, I ultimately was able to play.

It’s amazing how seriously we take our own performances.

During one of my first performances, I had a little blunder. In my mind I had a complete catastrophe! I thought it was just horrific what had happened. My life flashed before my eyes. There is something about playing publicly that gets your adrenaline flowing. I thought it was a complete disaster! But at my next lesson, my father put on the tape of the recital. As I was listening, there was one little tiny blip that went by. I was waiting for the mistake. But then it was over. I couldn’t even believe it. It was a little teeny, tiny momentary thing that I practically didn’t notice listening back to the tape. But at the time, it seemed like the world stopped! There was an eternity of time in that moment.

When you’re performing, you are hyper aware of what you’re doing.

You notice things during a performance in a way that is completely unlike your practice when you’re just playing without giving too much thought. In fact, your thoughts are focused on the music, which is really the key to being able to perform well. But how do you stay focused on the music? There are many ways to achieve this. I’ve talked about the importance of practicing performing. You can start by recording yourself. Then play for a family member or a good friend – just a single person. Then work up to more and more people. Some people will say you should just ignore the audience. Just go out there and pretend they’re not there and just play. While this may work for some people, I’ve always taken the opposite approach.

Visualize the performance as accurately as you can.

Think about the moment you are going to be in front of an audience. Try to get all the juices churning. Try to be in that moment. In my practice, when I do little tryout performances, even with nobody there at all, I’ll pretend I’m at the actual performance. I’ll think about the room. I try to psyche myself into the feeling of performing. It’s almost like a post-hypnotic suggestion. I think about sitting on the bench. I think about the image of the name of the piano. If it’s a Steinway, I think Steinway. If it’s a Baldwin, imagine the Baldwin logo. I just breathe deeply and imagine that moment with an audience there, seeing the name of the piano, so that it’s not a surprise when the moment of performance comes. Then you have some idea of what it’s like. When you sit down at a performance, or even if it’s your lesson on your own familiar piano, suddenly everything feels different. You want to prepare that moment in advance. Then when you come to it, you take that same big breath. You look at the name of the piano and it brings back that state of relaxation that you practiced beforehand. This is a great technique to get you centered.

Take things a little slower during a performance.

When you are nervous, you tend to go faster. Your entire physiology speeds up. Your heart rate goes a little faster. You might have sweaty palms. If you just go a shade slower than you think you should, you probably will be right where you should be, right at your normal tempo. One of the reasons why you may have difficulty when you’re playing for somebody is you’re going slightly faster than you’ve ever gone before but you don’t even realize it. Then things start messing up. And once things mess up, if you get into a thought of, “What’s coming next?” It’s a disaster. Because the amount of material you learn is awe-inspiring when you think about it. It’s amazing that you can remember all that music! Even if you’re playing with a score, it’s amazing that you can digest all of those notes coming at you furiously. You have to make sure you have enough time. So give yourself that little extra time by taking a slightly slower tempo.

You can rely on motor memory, to a certain extent.

Physiologically, your fingers know where to go. I liken this to watching a toddler learning how to take their first steps. The concentration on their faces is unbelievable. But of course, once you learn how to walk, you can walk while thinking about other things. The same thing is true for driving. The first time you drive, everything is incredibly intentional. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t concentrate while you drive. You absolutely have to! But the human mind can’t really think about more than one thing at a time. You just go back and forth very quickly. And that’s what you do when you drive. You’re looking in front of you, you’re checking your mirrors, you’re keeping track of what’s around you. At your musical performance, it’s the same thing. You’re watching certain things. But if you’re playing something that’s really fast, how can you possibly think of all the notes? Of course, you try to think of all the notes. But if you’re playing a whole piece, or a whole program, there will be moments of distraction. Maybe there’s a noise in the audience, or something where you’re not100% on top of every single thing that’s happening. It’s almost like freewheeling, and it’s very dangerous! And yet, we all depend upon it to one extent or another. But you always have to have part of you looking down at yourself, making sure you don’t take a wrong turn. You have to continually reaffirm your concentration.

Listen to the music and let it draw you in.

If you listen to what you’re doing, your audience is compelled to listen also. It keeps you in the moment, which is the whole secret to having a coherent, solid performance. If you start thinking about what’s coming later it can be a disaster. You can’t really think that way. If you make a mistake, you can’t dwell on it. Once again, you have to be right where you are, focused on what you’re doing, listening and trying to make the most beautiful music you can. You want to reach people with your love of the music. The reason why you spend so many hours achieving the level you do is so you can share your unique take on these pieces. Take advantage of that moment. Let the audience inspire you! Take that energy and use it positively to keep you focused on the score, listening and creating beautiful music, and you’ll do great.

In your practice, don’t just depend upon your motor memory.

Go back very slowly with your foot off the pedal, playing with the metronome. Double and triple check your work, hammering each note clearly, delineating and exaggerating everything. Particularly dynamics, because one of the things you’re going to find in your performances, when you listen to them, is that things that you thought were really exaggerated, strong accents and short staccatos and loud fortes and quiet pianissimo, are not going to be nearly as extreme to the listener from 10, 20, 50 feet away. You have to exaggerate everything! Practice that exaggeration in your slow practice so you learn the sound and the feel of exaggerating everything. So that when you lose your concentration momentarily, your fingers still remember, and your ears remember the sound you’re after. I hope these tips work for you!

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here 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 Develop More Speed in Your Piano Playing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. We now have over 1,300 videos here on Living Pianos and YouTube! After 1,300+ videos, what more is there to say? Well, quite a bit, really! Today’s subject is about how to develop more speed in your piano playing. I did a video about this years ago. It’s worth watching. You can see that video here. But today I’m going to share one particular secret which is the whole basis for developing speed at the piano. Before I get to that, I’m going to talk about the simple physics of the piano.

More motion equals greater volume – Less motion equals faster speed.

I’m going to break it down into finger technique and wrist technique. I’ll show you how both of them work. To demonstrate, I’m going to use the Ballade by Burgmuller. This is a great little piece to demonstrate both techniques. The right hand has chords which utilize wrist technique. While the left hand has fast 16th note finger work. So let’s first talk about the wrist technique first in the right hand. When you’re first learning this piece, you should articulate everything clearly by differentiating each finger and each wrist motion to achieve precision in your playing.

Wrist technique:

It’s just like if you want a lot of power doing anything. For example, let’s say you are hammering in some nails. You would naturally lift the hammer up high enough to gain momentum of the hammer. which provides more motion. You’re obviously going to get far greater power from the extra motion of your arm. Well, in piano, you don’t use your arms for this type of technique. But you do use your wrists. So in slow practice you want to articulate the chords with your wrist. Later, you can use less motion to achieve faster speed. When going slowly, you can play chords with quite a bit of power if desired. Now in this particular piece, it is written at a low dynamic level. But if you want to play them loud, more wrist motion will accomplish that. As you go faster, you use less motion and stay closer to the keys.

Finger technique:

It isn’t just your wrists! It also is true of finger work. As you begin to learn a piece, use raised fingers and sink your fingers into the keys, much like you do when practicing exercises or scales and arpeggios at a slow speed, because it helps to delineate the release of notes. It’s actually far harder to lift up previously played fingers than to play new notes. What do I mean by this? Well, you can demonstrate this for yourself. Put your hand on a flat surface, and lift your fingers one at a time. You will notice the fourth and fifth fingers are particularly hard to lift up when your other fingers are down. However, pushing your fingers down is not so hard.

One of the most important finger techniques to develop on the piano is the release of previously played notes.

If you don’t practice releasing notes, you can get a blurry sound. Worse yet, imagine if your thumb didn’t release and couldn’t play again! The first three notes of this piece are C, B natural, and then C again. If the C doesn’t come up in time, it won’t replay after the B plays because it would still be down. That’s why in slow practice, practicing with an exaggerated motion of the fingers can really help your hand learn which fingers are down and which fingers are up. Try this and you’ll see the power you can get by using strong, raised fingers. Typically you don’t play this way in performance, but in practice it can be extremely valuable when you’re first learning a piece. You want to really articulate the notes to figure out your hand position, and to feel your fingers really dig into the keys. You want to start very slowly with a lot of motion and raised fingers. As the tempo increases, you’ll notice that the fingers stay closer and closer to the keys. Again, less motion equals more speed.

It’s simple physics really. When you need power, you use more motion. And when you need speed, you use less motion.

That’s the lesson for today! Try this in your playing. If you come to a passage you’re working on, and you can’t get fast enough speed, try lightening up. Stay closer to the keys, and you’ll be astounded at how much faster you can play by simply using less motion! I hope this lesson is helpful for you. I’m producing a lot more videos and it’s all for you! You can email me and let me know what you’d like to see in future videos. Tell me what topics you are interested in. 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

Piano Test-Drive: Steinway Concert Grand

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin, and this is Piano Test-Drive! I have a gorgeous instrument to present to you! The first thing I did on this piano is the first thing I do on almost every piano I encounter, which is to improvise. I let the sounds take me where they will. Truth be known, I did record the Chopin G minor Ballade on this instrument. You can find that performance here. But what’s really fascinating is sitting down on an instrument with no preconceived notions and just letting the sound take you.

An instrument like this Steinway Concert Grand from 1952, which has been masterfully rebuilt, is almost like driving a sports car.

Any maneuver you want to undertake, the instrument can handle it. You can go anywhere you like, and it can take you there at lightning speed! For example, the opening chords of the improvisation you’re about to hear, which I recorded last night. They’re massive chords. They blend from one to the next and it’s a glorious big sound. Yet in the middle, I come down and play with delicacy, just like if you’re in that sports car and you decide to take a scenic drive by the ocean to enjoy a little bit of the scenery. There are repeated notes, there’s everything I could throw at this piano! I’m wondering how you’ll like this. Listen for the end, because you’ll hear the massively strong, lowest B-flat octave on the piano at the end of this improvisation. I hope you like it!

The Steinway model D is the Concert Grand you see on stages throughout the world!

If you go to the symphony to see a concerto, 97% of the time it’s a Steinway model D Concert Grand on stage. It’s the de facto standard. To have a glorious instrument like this is such a treat. I just want to record as much as I can on this piano for the time I have it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this! I would love to hear your impressions of this instrument in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here 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

Stealing Moments to Practice: Advice from Ruth Slenczynska

It is a great challenge to find enough time to practice! Even piano performance majors in conservatories have to deal with course loads to satisfy degree requirements. In my recent interview with Madame Ruth Slencyznska, I asked her how she managed to find time to practice, particularly when she was traveling from continent to continent playing concerts. Her answer was to steal moments!

My father had the same philosophy. Whenever a student couldn’t make a lesson, he would take advantage of the time by practicing. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you take advantage of every spare moment!

Dinner isn’t quite ready, practice! Waiting for a return phone call, practice!

In the accompanying video, I took advantage of a 15 minute slot I had available before teaching a student. I showed how you can learn at least a couple of phrases in a short practice session. These little bursts of productivity can really add up over time. You must take advantage of any time you have to squeeze in more practice time!

You will see in the video how I concentrate on learning very small chunks of music at a time. This has many benefits. First, if you only have a small amount of time, you are guaranteed to be able to learn something. Also, when you have more extended practice time, you can sustain a longer period of productivity by never exceeding what you can absorb at any one time.

Try this out for yourselves. You will find that even when you think there isn’t enough time to do anything productive, you could end up with more time than you imagine. Instead of just scrolling on your phone waiting impatiently, you can instead forge ahead with learning your music! Let me know how this works out for you.

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 Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

How Do You Achieve Smoothly Connected Chords on the Piano?

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin, and this is LivingPianos.com! Today’s subject is about how to achieve smoothly connected chords on the piano. This can be extremely difficult, particularly when you’re playing repeated chords. The whole mechanical nature of the piano is such that for a note to replay, the damper comes in contact with the strings. So it’s virtually impossible to completely connect a repeated note on the piano. You can use the pedal, but even then, because of the percussive nature of the piano’s tone, it never really sounds connected.

The more connected you can play with your hands, the smoother the sound will come out of the instrument.

This is true regardless of whether you’re using the pedal or not. Practicing without the pedal while trying to get repeated chords connected is essential. I’ll explain why in a minute. But first, how do you achieve such a thing? The secret is to keep your fingers in contact with the keys the entire time. Keep your fingers right on the keys. And be sure the keys come all the way up before they go back down again. If the key is down even a fraction of an inch before you play it, it may or may not play. A piano is not meant to have keys play when they don’t return all the way to the top. It’s not a technique you can always rely upon. So keep your fingers right on the surface of the keys, but be sure to let the keys fully return.

The first chord of each group has to be captured on the pedal, but you don’t want to capture the previous harmonies.

If you pedal too early, you’ll capture extra notes. You have a very brief amount of time to capture the chord on the pedal. It has to be after it is played, but also after the previous notes are gone. So by playing chords as long as possible, it gives you the maximum amount of time to grab the chord on the pedal. You want to work to have all the chords played while staying very close to the keys.

In places where you have repeated notes, you can change fingers.

When you change fingers on repeated notes, it’s much easier to make them sound smoothly connected. As one finger is going down, another finger is coming up. Whereas if you use the same finger, it doesn’t sound as smooth. It’s really hard to play with one finger and make the notes sound connected. When you change fingers on repeated notes, you get a smooth sound. You don’t have that luxury when you’re playing chords. You only have so many fingers on your hand! If you’re playing three notes, you have to use the same fingers.

So remember the secret to playing repeated chords is to keep your fingers in contact with the keys. But be sure to come up completely before depressing the chords down again. That should help you achieve smoothness in your repeated chords in any music you’re playing! Thanks again for joining me. 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

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

How to Practice With a Metronome

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to practice with a metronome. The metronome is one of the most valuable tools for your practice. It is perhaps the most valuable tool other than the instrument you’re playing on. The metronome is something that should be on your piano whenever you practice, to check your work, and to work out passages.

How do you use a metronome to work through a section of a piece?

Let’s say you’re working on the famous Alla Turca movement of the famous Mozart Sonata in A major K.331 no. 11. You get to the F-sharp minor section that has some tricky finger work, and it isn’t gelling for you. Some people might think you should go through the whole piece with the metronome. There is value in doing that to check your tempo, and the consistency of speed throughout a movement. It’s important to make sure you’re not speeding up or slowing down. But what I’m going to show you today is how to use the metronome to be able to solidify a passage like this. So let’s say you aren’t happy with your playing in the F-sharp minor section. It’s not as even as you would like. What can you do about that?

Find a speed on your metronome at which you can play the trouble section evenly and beautifully.

Taking too large a section to do progressive metronome speeds can sometimes be counterproductive. If you work on smaller sections, and then string the sections together later, you might have more success. Not only that, but maybe there’s a section you can already play up to tempo, but the next section still needs improvement. It’s unnecessary to work all those metronome speeds on both passages.

There are metronome applications for your phone that allow you to simply tap in the tempo. That’s a real help. If you are using a traditional metronome, you just start tapping or clapping along with your music as you sing or play mentally, so you can match the speed on the metronome. Make sure that it’s a comfortable speed for you. The most important thing is finding a speed at which you can play it perfectly. Once you can play the passage absolutely perfectly, and repeatably, you’re ready to increase the speed. But make sure you find the speed at which you have absolute security first.

The first time you do this, you’re going to find it to be really difficult to play perfectly at any tempo.

Here’s the key: Spend the time on the front end. Play it perfectly even with comfort. If you find you can’t do that, slow the metronome down further until you find a tempo where you can. Make sure you can play without feeling you’re getting off from the metronome at all. Make sure it’s rock solid, steady, and repeatable. You should be able to get it at least three times in a row, perfectly. It should not only sound perfect, it should feel comfortable. Then once you have it at one speed, take the metronome up a notch.

Physical metronomes actually have one benefit that digital metronomes don’t have. On physical metronomes, each notch goes up multiple numbers instead of having every number. For example, 60, 63, 66, 69, 72, 76, 80, et cetera. Notice how the speeds progress from going up by three, to going up by four beats per minute. If you double the speed, 60 to 63, at 120, the next notch on the metronome is 126 which is double the slower speeds. It doesn’t just go up by three throughout the range of speeds on the metronome. So the progression of speeds on a metronome is calculated correctly. You don’t want to go from 69 to 70 to 71 because the increases in speed are infinitesimally small. But one notch on the metronome, or maybe two notches at most, provides just the right amount of challenge to speed up a passage. Once you can play it successfully and repeatably with comfort at one slow speed, go to the next notch on the metronome. So if you’re at 60, play the passage at 63. You may only have to play it once to feel that it’s perfect and keep going notch by notch. But anytime you have any issues where it doesn’t sound right or doesn’t feel comfortable, keep doing it at that metronome speed.

This is one of the greatest practice techniques for developing speed, fluency and evenness in your piano playing!

I recommend doing metronome speeds on a regular basis with anything in your music that isn’t up to a high standard. If you feel that there’s some passage work or any sections of your music that aren’t even, or aren’t reliable, find a speed at which you can play it perfectly, repeatably, and comfortably, and go through metronome speeds notch by notch. You can solve almost any technical problem this way. Try it out! Let me know how it works for you! You can leave comments here at LivingPianos.com or YouTube. Thanks so much for joining me. 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

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com