Tone poems are programmatic pieces which are based upon stories.
They are typically large orchestral works, sometimes approaching an hour or more in length. Richard Strauss, Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) is one such epic work for symphony orchestra. Richard Wagner also composed tone poems as did Debussy. However, it was actually Franz Liszt who first developed the tone poem earlier in the 19th century even though he is known mostly as the quintessential virtuoso pianist and composer of brilliant piano works.
Since early childhood, throughout conservatory and beyond, I played both piano and French horn.
So, I have always been enamored with tone poems. The great tone poems of the late Romantic era are in my blood! I hope you enjoy the tone poem I have created for you. info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Today, I have three secrets to playing slow music. When you hear instrumentalists, such as pianists, you notice that many have a lot of technical achievement. But when you hear a great artist play a slow movement, magic can happen. It can reach the inner depths of your soul. This is the sign of a great musician. How do you approach slow movements in order to get that quality, to get that beauty and be able to reach people on an emotional level? These are the secrets I’m going to give to you today.
Number one is: Make sure you take the right tempo.
A lot of people play slow movements too slowly. For example, if someone were to perform Debussy, Clair de Lune, you may hear it played very slowly. Now, it might be okay at the beginning, but by the time you get to the middle and compare the tempo they’re playing in the middle of the piece, often, they’re going faster because it gets ponderous after awhile at such a slow tempo.
Another clue for you when you’re taking a tempo that is too slow is that you will find that if there are repeats, you won’t want to take them. They don’t seem to work. So, if you have a piece of music and think, “Mozart didn’t mean all those repeats”. Yes, he did! And if they don’t work, it’s a clue that you are playing too slow a tempo. Another thing related to this is to:
Hold long notes long enough.
There’s nothing worse than robbing long notes. But it’s so easy to rob long notes because you’re just sitting there doing nothing! It’s easy to count to yourself and accelerate your counting in your head. You can lose the pulse.
A lot of performers play very slowly and rob the long notes, such as again, the beginning of Clair de Lune. To me, that is simply playing out of rhythm. But you’d be surprised how many performances you’ll find online of very renowned concert pianists playing this piece and robbing the long notes. Holding all the long notes for their full written value gives the music soul, doesn’t it? You’ve got to take the right tempo and you must hold the long notes long enough. What else is there? The other thing is to:
Think of the long note as the pulse.
This enables you to have a slow pulse with a faster tempo. An example is the second movement of the K. 332 Mozart Sonata in F major. First, you could play it thinking of each sixteenth note as the beat. The left hand has sixteenth notes, and each one of those can be punctuated as the beat. Then, instead of thinking each sixteenth note as the beat, try thinking each eighth note as the beat. It’s already going to be better. Rachmaninoff said,
“The bigger the phrase, the bigger the musician.”
Well, related to this is, the longer note that you feel as the pulse, the more freedom you have with your music. Now try feeling the quarter note as the pulse. This also gives you the benefit of being able to take a faster tempo but still having a relaxed feel to your music. Even with a slightly faster tempo, but with the quarter note as the pulse, it doesn’t feel hurried! Those are three secrets to being able to play slow music.
Make sure to hold long notes long enough, feel the long note as the beat, and choose the right tempo.
Don’t take slow pieces too slowly. If you do those three tips, it will enhance the performance of your slow music. I’d love to hear from all of you and give me your perspective. And if you haven’t subscribed to LivingPianosVideos’ YouTube channel, go for it! You’ll get all the fresh videos. We produce them for you every week.
Mordents and trills look so similar on the page. You usually find these in Baroque era music of Handel, Bach, Scarlatti and other composers from that time. I want to show you one specific difference that’s very important. The beginning of the Sarabande movement of the 5th French Suite of Bach starts with a mordent. You can hear me play it without the mordent on the accompanying video first. Shortly after, there is a trill so you can discern the difference. You will hear it played first with no ornamentation. Mordents and trills differ from each other in two interesting ways. Bach wrote a mordent on the first note in the right hand which is a “B”. The secret to a mordent is you add the note below and then go back to the note that’s written so when you have a B you’re going to play B-A-B.
So what’s different about trills? Right after that, you have a trill. Trills start on the upper note. Typically trills can have more than one or two notes and this is for freedom of expression. In fact, the whole Baroque era is noted by its ornamentation. And it isn’t just music. Take a look at the architecture and the art of that period. It’s noted for the filigree and all the beautiful fine detail. Ornamentation is an opportunity for the performer to add their own expressive element. That’s why if you listen to different performances of the same exact pieces of Bach, Handel, Telemann, and other Baroque composers, the ornamentation can be quite different. You can listen to how it sounds with the ornamentation.
You have to watch the squiggly lines: the mordant has often has one less than trills and have a vertical line.
It’s kind of like deciphering a code. Interestingly, different performers have different ideas about what these squiggly lines, turns and all this means because we don’t really know what people played hundreds of years ago, do we? There are many books written on this subject and ultimately it’s up to you as a performer to play something you feel passionately about and really feels right to you. Sometimes with French Suites and other pieces that have repeats in all the sections, you can a do different ornamentation the first time compared to the second time around to make it even more interesting.
So that’s some information about mordents versus trills! Trills can be a little more elaborate since they can add more notes. Generally, trills go up and mordents go down. Trills often start on the auxiliary note which is the note above the note that is written and can include a flourishing of notes. There’s a whole world to this and I hope you’ve enjoyed this! Again, I am Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
This is a very complex and deep subject and discussing this in the limited amount of time we have for this video won’t do this topic justice. However, there are some universal truths I would like to share with you. Music speaks to all of us in different ways and sometimes you may encounter a particular piece that you find to be stunning and unforgettable. What is it about certain artists that separate them from their contemporaries? Why is Mozart so much more highly regarded than his contemporaries?
Whether it’s listening to music, reading a novel, looking at a painting or watching a film, any piece of art sets up expectations. If you are reading a book or watching a motion picture and every time you think you know what’s going to happen next in the story it unfolds exactly as you predicted, you’ll find yourself disengaged and bored. The same thing is true for other pieces of art. A piece of music that is extremely predictable is not likely to hold your attention either.
The flipside to this is creating a work that is completely random and unpredictable. There are schools of music dedicated to this type of work such as expressionism and serialized music which aims to randomize elements. There is nothing inherently wrong with this type of approach – just as there is nothing wrong with making something predictable. But you might find that your audience becomes disengaged. It’s just like a movie with random images and no discernible plot – or a painting with a series of nonsensical images, complete randomness is impossible to comprehend and it can lose most of its audience just as quickly as something that is predictable yet for opposite reasons!
So how do you avoid these pitfalls? How can you create something that straddles the line between predictability and randomness?
The best pieces of art will tend to set up expectations and then surprise its audience in either big or subtle ways. The films which everyone tends to remember often have some of the most surprising elements in them. Just when the audience thinks things are going in one direction they are immediately thrown into another. If it’s done convincingly it can become something that people will remember. The same principle applies to music, setting up your audience and then surprising them in creative and significant ways will make your piece engaging and memorable.
Mozart was a master of Classical structure which seems deceptively simple. Yet, just when you are lulled into a sense of complacency, a turn of phrase will pleasantly surprise you with its subtle genius. It’s not shocking, but it’s a way to subvert expectations and create something captivating. Beethoven offers a different form of the same principal. His pieces are known to radically surprise listeners and keep them engaged by going down a certain path only to shock you with something completely different from what you expect. It’s can be intense in some moments and it’s never dull.
The balance between randomness and order is the ultimate foundation of art. You don’t want to bore your audience as much as you don’t want to confuse them. You want them to be surprised, engaged and remember your work. It’s what makes great art “great”. This holds true for musical performances as well.
Thanks again for joining me. I would love to hear your opinions on this subject as well. If you have any questions or comments about this subject or any subject at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.
This is a great topic because it applies to so many different types of music. Voice Leadings refer to how each note of a chord resolves to the next chord. This is something found in every type of music you could imagine, from jazz to classical and to the early days of choral writing. While this all might sound confusing now, voice leadings are actually a very simple subject.
If you take the notes of a scale and number them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (being the octave), which in C major would be C, D, E, F, G, A B, C, the formula is this:
– 2 goes down to 1
– 4 goes down to 3
– 6 goes down to 5 and
– 7 goes up to 8 (or down to 5 for better resolution in some cases)
This is true for both major and minor keys.
As for accidentals, raised notes go up, and lowered tones resolve down. So in C major, sharps resolve up and flats resolve down. In keys with sharps or flats, naturals may alter tones up or down depending upon context. But it works exactly the same way. So for example in F major which has a B-flat in the key signature, if you had a B natural, it would resolve up to C!
That’s basically the essence of how voices resolve! Active tones resolve to restive tones. 1, 3, 5, and 8 are the restive tones and the active tones must resolve according to the simple guidelines described above in order to sound fluid. You will find these truths evident in music of all periods to be rather pervasive.
So, check out your music and see how the masters deal with voice leadings! Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. Robert@LivingPianos.com
First, why is it important to be able to establish the key? If you have a room full of people and you want to sing a song together, you must all start on the same note or you will have chaos! If you have ever sung Happy Birthday with a crowd of people, you know how confusing an experience that can be with everyone starting in a different key!
So, how do you establish the key? The dominant 7th chord or V7 is ideal for establishing a key, which would be a G7 in the key of C major or minor, the notes G – B – D – F. But there is an even stronger way to establish the key and that is with a Perfect Authentic Cadence. This is a chord progression as follows: I – IV – I6/4 – V7 I. So, in C major that would be CM – FM – CM with a G on the bottom – G7 – CM. There is no doubt where the tonic or “Do” (the first note of the scale) of the key is when hearing this progression – even with Happy Birthday! Although, since Happy Birthday begins on the dominant (G in the key of C Major), an additional V7 (G7) at the end of the cadence will assure your crowd sings in key!
