Tag Archives: music theory

Finger Staccato Technique on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to address a question from a viewer. The viewer asks, “Can you comment on finger staccato and how this interacts with the wrists and staying closer to the keys as speed increases? I’m referring to the technique of flexing the fingers toward a more closed fist with each staccato note. The action requires suddenly scratching the keys or sliding the finger pads on the key tops. This is described as feeling like pulling the notes from the keys. I found this very valuable, but I seek more wisdom on integrating this with other techniques of speed and lightness.” This is a very interesting question. I get a lot of people asking about this idea of rubbing the keys. Indeed, there is something referred to as finger staccato.

What is finger staccato?

I’ve talked a great deal about staccato and how it’s performed from the wrist. Indeed most of the time staccato is performed from the wrist. The wrists are fundamental in playing staccatos on the piano. But sometimes there is an articulation that you want to achieve to get space between the notes, something that’s too fast for the wrists to accomplish. For example, in the Gigue, the last movement of Bach’s French Suite in G major, his fifth French Suite, you can play legato, but playing with a finger staccato creates a harpsichord like tonality to the punctuation of each note. It almost sounds faster, even playing at the same tempo, because of the delineation of each note.

Is this being done by sliding on the keys?

I don’t recommend sliding on the keys for a variety of reasons. First of all, key tops on different pianos are dramatically different from one another. On most pianos today you have composite plastic key tops. Some pianos have ivory. Ivory is a porous material that has more friction than plastic key tops. Also consider the dryness or the moisture on your fingertips. Dry fingers can really slide like crazy on ivory key tops. Sweaty fingers can slide a lot on plastic key tops. But the point is that you have different levels of friction on different key tops. So trying to rely upon rubbing the keys isn’t a reliable technique.

How do you achieve finger staccato?

You achieve finger staccato by staying very close to the keys and getting used to playing with spaces between the notes. You can practice this in your scales. Try practicing at a slower tempo, doing progressive metronome speeds, and keeping it very light. Avoid using the wrists! The wrists can’t go fast enough.

Practicing with staccato fingers is a phenomenal way of training your hand to play fast passagework because each note is articulated.

One of the tricks to getting clean finger work, whether it’s scales, arpeggios, or other types of passagework, is focusing on the release of notes. You want to have note lengths that are uniform throughout. The only way to achieve that is by playing with spaces between the notes. Playing all the notes very short from the fingers makes the maximum space between notes. Which later you can control, so you can have different lengths of spaces between notes. We think of practicing scales as a one-size-fits-all, but why not practice them detached or semi-detached? Ultimately, what makes music sound even is not just the attack of the notes, but the release of the notes as well. You want to have even durations of notes and even spaces between the notes, which can only be achieved by the fingers. By practicing with staccato fingers, it’s an extreme difference from legato playing. Then you can try to fill in all the touches between notes from staccato fingers to legato, so you can get any kind of phrasing you’re after in your playing!

That was a very interesting question! Maybe I didn’t give the answer you expected. I hope this is interesting for you and valuable for your piano playing, as well as your practice. Practicing a piece that has a lot of finger work with all staccato fingers is a heck of a workout for you! And it’s a great way to strengthen your piano playing. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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How Long Should it Take to Learn a Piece of Music?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how long it should take you to learn a piece of music. There are a lot of people who feel really committed to the piano. And when they are passionate about learning a piece, they don’t care if it takes a year to learn it. They just really want to learn that piece! This is not necessarily the best approach. Let me explain. In the amount of time that it would take in that year to learn one piece of music, imagine instead you focus on pieces that you can master in a couple of weeks. Then you build up a repertoire of pieces you can play on a high level.

Find music on your level.

Focus on pieces you can learn relatively quickly, each one a little bit more difficult than the last. You can expand not only the difficulty, but the style, the range, the mood, the period, all different aspects of music that you can assimilate into your technique. After a year, that piece that maybe would have taken you a year might only take you three or four weeks! The secret is finding music on your level. Now there are certainly exceptions to what I’ve just said. For example, maybe you’re a pretty serious pianist and you’ve just always wanted to study a monumental work like the Brahms Handel Variations, the Beethoven Hammerklavier Sonata, or the Liszt B Minor Sonata. Are you going to learn one of those pieces in two or three weeks? No, not likely. It could take you months to really learn and maybe up to a year to get on a performance level. A major concerto takes time to master as well. But even if you are learning such a work, I would strongly recommend that in parallel you also work on other formative pieces along the way. So at the end of the year you don’t have just that one piece, but maybe you have a dozen or more pieces that you’ve learned over the course of the year, including that one long-term piece that you’ve always wanted to learn.

Always be assimilating new music into your repertoire.

Learn music of different styles, different techniques, and you will grow as a musician far faster and greater than just focusing on one or two pieces that you really want to learn. You will actually be able to learn those pieces far sooner and get them at a higher level if you have progressive repertoire that you’re always mastering on the piano. I hope this is helpful for you and that you don’t find this discouraging. This is actually the fastest way you’re going to be able to learn that piece you’ve always wanted to learn! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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How Did The Great Composers Create So Much Music?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how the great composers came up with so much music. It just seems impossible! When you think about Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and so many other composers, it almost seems like magic. It’s as if something was handed down to them from the heavens. It doesn’t seem like anyone could write so much fantastic music.

The truth is that we only have a tiny glimpse of their music.

Most of the great composers made music up spontaneously, constantly. They were known to be tremendous improvisers. But because audio recording was not developed until centuries later, we only have the written scores of these great composers to go by. But we get glimpses as to what the great composers actually improvised, and some of their fantasies. For example, you think about Bach and you think about very regular, beautifully crafted music that obviously was written out. But what about music that he just made up? Are there any glimpses into that? Yes! For example, Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. The way that starts out is very rhapsodic and spontaneous in nature. It’s an amazing work that goes places you would never expect. It gives you a little glimpse of what these composers were able to create on the fly.

Improvisation can sow the seeds for compositions.

This isn’t just true of the early composers. Think about when you listen to a Chopin Nocturne. Just imagine the melodies that Chopin and Liszt made up. Sometimes they would have parlor gatherings, and they would go back and forth. As did other great composers of the 19th century, such as Anton Rubinstein. It was one of the things that they did, where they played for one another spontaneously. Listen to the opening phrase of the B-flat minor Nocturne of Chopin. The second cadenza is something that no-one would think of writing. He must have just played this and figured out a way to write it down. It’s very rhapsodic, off the cuff phrasing. It’s not metered. And it gives you just a little hint as to what these composers did on a daily basis, by themselves, for their family, for their friends, and at all kinds of get-togethers.

Have fun with music!

I believe all the great composers have joy and passion in their music! It wasn’t just a tedious task. It wasn’t all lonely nights of crafting great compositions, although that’s a part of music. A part of practicing and learning music is spending the time to learn scores. But having fun with it and not losing the love of music is what it’s all about! I believe those are the seeds of the great composers. So enjoy your music! Explore things and see what you can come up with! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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What Are The BEST Trill Fingers?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about which fingers work best for playing trills on the piano. Sometimes people see trills and they think they should just play as many notes as possible. I’ve talked before about how trills must be measured. You have to know exactly how many notes you’re playing in a trill. Even though when you listen to a trill it sounds like a free form explosion of notes going back and forth, trills have to be measured so you know exactly how many notes you play. Otherwise, ending a trill is impossible because you’re leaving it to chance whether you end up on the right note or not!

You don’t always get to choose your trill fingers.

There are some instances, for example in Bach Fugues, where you must trill with four and five. These are the worst fingers to trill with! Try to avoid four and five as trill fingers. A lot of people think three and two are the best trill fingers. And indeed, three and two are pretty strong trill fingers. But the best trill fingers are actually three and one! Three and one are the strongest fingers. Your thumb is the strongest finger and the third finger is probably your second strongest finger. Three and one are terrific for trills. Four and two could work nicely as well. There are a lot of different possibilities. Three and one are great when you have that possibility. Three and two are good too. It depends where you’re coming from and where you’re going in your score to determine what the right fingering is. Not only that but if you have other lines within the same hand, sometimes as I said, in contrapuntal writing in fugues particularly, you might not have much of a choice as to which fingers to use for trills.

I’m going to give you one final trill fingering tip.

I’m going to show you something that’s really interesting and it ties right in with the idea of measuring your trills. If you measure your trills, you might want to try alternating three, one, three, two. By using those fingers, you actually reduce the load of the trill to three fingers so none of the fingers have to work quite as hard. Not only that but it helps you to measure your trills. Even if you don’t end up using three, one, three, two as trill fingerings, it will help you to make sure that you’re playing the right number of notes in your trills, which is the most important thing!

You never want to think of trills as something abstract from music.

Just imagine that every single note is written out and play it as it’s written in the score. If you’re figuring out your own trills, find something you can play reliably. Don’t worry about trying to make the fastest trill. What’s important is that it’s musical, repeatable, and dependable. If you can use three and one, or at least three and two, you’re going to be way ahead of the game. I would like all of you to try three, one, three, two, as well and let me know how it works for you! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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How to Play with the Metronome

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to play with a metronome. It can be a really daunting task, particularly if you’re not accustomed to playing with a metronome. The tips I’m going to give you today are not just for those of you who are new to the metronome, but also for those of you who practice with a metronome incessantly and wonder how to stay with the metronome.

How do you set a metronome?

There is some great software out there that can be helpful. You can get apps on your phone that allow you to just tap the tempo and it finds it for you, which can be incredibly valuable. But how do you even establish the tempo? Let’s say you’re playing a piece and you’re wondering how to set the metronome. Well, you can tap your foot along with the music to establish the beat. You have to establish the beat first. Then turn your metronome on and try to match it. Once it sounds right, try playing along to see if it feels right. If it feels too fast or slow, adjust the speed and try again until it feels right.

How do you stay with the metronome?

I’ve seen so many people struggle to stay with the metronome. I’m going to show you a very simple technique that’s going to make a world of difference. When the metronome speeds up, speed up with it. When the metronome slows down, slow down with it. Of course the metronome is consistent, but I bet when you’re playing with the metronome, you could swear that it’s speeding up and slowing down! In reality, it’s you who is changing speed. But it feels like the metronome is slowing down or speeding up sometimes, doesn’t it? All you have to do is follow whatever it seems to be doing. If it seems to be getting faster, you get faster. If it seems to be getting slower, you get slower. And if you do that, you will stay with the metronome.

If you continue to struggle you may want to adjust the speed.

When you’re playing with a metronome and you’re not absolutely precisely with it, make minute adjustments in your playing by going a little faster with it, or a little slower with it to get back on time. But if you ever gain or lose a beat, you should stop and figure out if maybe the metronome is set a little too fast for you. Try a slightly slower speed to see if you can stay with it, because you should never gain or lose a beat. However, if you just nuance slightly behind or ahead, you might just finish the phrase then go back and see if you can do it more faithfully on the beat. Practice a number of times until that ebb and flow around the beat is minimized. The goal, of course, is to stay spot on with the metronome. But you don’t necessarily have to stop every single time you’re slightly off. Instead, get used to adjusting. Follow whatever the metronome seems to be doing. That’s the answer for staying with the metronome!

Once again to recap, establish the speed by tapping your foot or tapping your hand and then finding that speed on your metronome. Or better yet, download an app where you can just tap in the tempo. From there you can adjust further to find exactly the right speed. As you’re playing, if it feels just too fast or slow to be able to play with, adjust the speed. But once you lock it in, whatever the metronome seems to do, that’s what you’re going to do. That’s how you’ll stay with the metronome. I encourage all of you to try this! If you’ve had problems with the metronome, try these techniques and see how they work for you. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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How to Tell if a Piece is in a Major or Minor Key

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to know when a piece is in a major key or a minor key. There are certain sonic signatures you may already be aware of. Something in the minor key has more of a sad or dark quality than a major key. Just establishing a major key compared to the same exact chord progression in the minor key sounds drastically different. So you might be able to figure out that a piece is in a minor key because of the sadder quality that minor harmonies naturally tend to have. But is there a technical way to differentiate?

The key signature provides you with essential information.

If you know your key signatures, you know that if you have no sharps or flats that you’re probably in C major, if you’re in a major key. Because no sharps or flats form the C major scale. So what if that was in a minor key? What would that mean? Well, here’s the interesting thing about key signatures. All key signatures share both major and minor key possibilities. So if you have no sharps or flats, it could be in C major, but it might be in the relative minor of C major. What do I mean by the relative minor? It has to do with starting on a different note of the scale. The sixth note of the major scale is where the relative minor is found. So if you have no sharps or flats, instead of being centered on C, being centered on A, the sixth note of the C major scale, you are in A minor. Another way you can find the relative minor is to simply go down three half-steps from the major key. So once again, no sharps or flats could be C major, or it could potentially be three half-steps lower than C, which again brings you to A.

So what is the A minor scale?

The pure form of the A minor scale is simply the same exact notes of a C major scale, except starting on A. To discover whether a piece is in a major or minor key, you might think all you need to do is figure out where the notes are centered. There is actually a much easier way! Generally speaking, the minor is not found in its pure or natural form. Instead, it’s found in the harmonic or melodic forms, which have altered tones. That is to say that in a harmonic minor scale, the seventh note is raised a half-step. Interestingly, having a raised seventh makes an augmented second between the sixth and seventh notes. All the other notes of the scale are either half-steps or whole steps, but here you have a step and a half between the sixth and seventh notes.

Majors and Minors Sheet music

Why is this so significant? Because if you see a piece with no sharps or flats, and all over the place you have G sharps, then you can pretty well assume that you’re in A minor. I mentioned that there’s a harmonic and a melodic form. The melodic form has two altered tones. Both the sixth and seventh notes are raised by a half-step. But the melodic minor scale descends in the natural form with no altered tones. There’s something really interesting about the melodic minor in that it has all the exact same notes of the major scale with the exception of the third. If you just change the third note from C to C sharp, now you have an A major scale. That’s an interesting side note, not to confuse the issue, because the A major scale has almost nothing to do with the A minor scale, except they are parallel major and minor.

Today the thing to think about is the relative minor.

Once again, the relative minor is found starting on the sixth note of the major scale. In C major the relative minor is A minor, which can be found in either the harmonic form with the raised seventh or the melodic form with the raised sixth and seventh, which only is ascending. Descending, it reverts back to the natural minor. So if you have a piece with no sharps or flats and you see a lot of F sharps and G sharps, you can be pretty well assured it’s not in C major, but it’s in A minor.

With other keys, as long as you know key signatures, you know which specific notes to look for. For example, if you have one sharp in the key signature, which would be an F sharp, this is the key of G major. To find the relative minor of G major, it’s exactly the same thing. It starts on the sixth note of the G major scale. Or you could go down three half steps from G. Either way, E minor is the relative minor of G major. So if you played all the notes of the G major scale, except starting on E, you would have the natural or pure E minor scale, the relative minor of G major. But that’s not the way minor scales generally occur. Usually, minor keys are found in the harmonic or melodic forms with altered tones. Both the harmonic and melodic minor have raised sevenths. The melodic also has a raised sixth. But the raised seventh is the keynote, because either of those altered forms will have a raised seventh. So the seventh note of the E minor scale gets raised by a half-step, which means the D goes up to D sharp. So if you have a piece with one sharp you might assume it could be in G major, which it very well might be. But you also want to investigate the possibility that it’s in the relative minor. Just count up to the sixth note of that scale to E, go to the seventh note of the E minor scale, which is D, and if you see a bunch of D sharps in your score, even though you’re in one sharp and you think you should be in G major, it could very well be in E minor. This is the way to really assess whether a piece is indeed in a minor key or a major key. Every single key signature has its associated relative minor starting on the sixth note of that major key, or going down three half-steps from the tonic note.

I hope this is helpful for you!

Study the scores of pieces you’ve played for years or pieces you’re working on. Check to see those keynotes. If you have a raised seventh in the relative minor, you’re probably in the minor key, not the major key. I hope this has taken a rather complex subject and broken it down for you so that you can investigate for yourself. It is extremely important to have the whole understanding of the score, the harmonies, and the structure. It can help with memory. It can help with sight reading. It’s not just an arbitrary exercise in theory. It has practical elements for you! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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