Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how you can get the most out of your piano technician. First of all, did you know that not all piano tuners are piano technicians? Most tuners are technicians. But some people just tune, and that’s about it. They might do very minor work, but a full-fledged piano technician may be able to work out a myriad of issues on your piano. Whether you have a sluggish key, a squeaking pedal, regulation issues, or maybe your voicing is harsh and you want something that sounds warmer, a master piano technician can do wonders with your piano. So how do you get the most out of your technician?
First of all, make a checklist.
Any time you have an issue with your piano, write it down or put it in a document on your computer that you can reference. When you set up the appointment with your piano technician, tell them everything.
Make sure the piano is on pitch.
You can check the pitch with an app. There are many tuning apps available for your phone. If your piano has dropped in pitch, it’s going to take two tunings to get it back. First, a rough tuning just to get it in the zone, which is called a pitch raise. And then the second one is a fine tuning. Your technician will have to be prepared to spend the time to do that. So check the tuning on your piano. Make sure A is indeed 440 cycles per second. If you find that it’s dropped to 435 or something like that, it’s probably going to take a couple of passes of tuning to get it back up to pitch. And incidentally, that tuning won’t hold as long because once a piano goes out that far, it takes longer to get stable again with more periodic tunings.
Tell your technician ahead of time about anything that you want them to address with the instrument.
There might be issues with the pedals, or maybe the action is making noise. Whatever the issues may be, tell them before they arrive. The reason for this is that they usually set their appointments back to back all day. If you bring up any issues while they are tuning your piano, they may not have the time to address them. It is likely they will have another appointment to get to. So tell the technician before the appointment so they’re prepared to spend the appropriate amount of time with you. And once they arrive, remind them of all the things you want them to address.
Try the piano before they leave!
It is incredibly important that you play the piano while your technician is still there. You want to make sure that the issues have been fixed. Piano technicians are very busy. We sell pianos all around the country, and there seems to be a backlog trying to get tuners out. The fine tuners can have waiting lists for weeks! The last thing in the world you want is to have your piano tuned, and as soon as they leave, you discover an issue is still there. So you must try the piano and make sure everything has been fixed.
Have your piano technician as an ally.
Make sure you get the right technician who is more than just a tuner. You want a full-fledged technician who can resolve any issues you have with your piano. Tell them what to expect when you make the appointment, remind them when they get there, and try the piano before they leave. These tips will help you get the most out of your piano technician! 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/RobertEstrinContact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I had somebody ask me recently how long digital pianos last. I have a Steinway here, built in the late 1930s and still going strong. We rebuilt it a few years ago. But you know what? 100 years from now, it could be rebuilt again. Pianos can go on forever if they’re not completely thrashed by the environment. But what about digital pianos?
It’s hard to find good piano technicians, but it’s nearly impossible to find people to work on digital pianos.
There are not many people who work on digital pianos. The parts are not readily available. A lot of issues are related to the circuit boards. You end up paying so much money for those circuit boards. It’s kind of like when your printer breaks. Sadly, most electronic devices are basically disposable. You end up buying another one because you can’t find anybody to repair electronics. And digital pianos are no exception.
What goes wrong with digital pianos?
Generally speaking, unless there’s a spike in the current, like your home is hit with lightning or there’s some kind of surge of current, your piano should probably do fine for many years. The problem that people typically have is with the key contacts themselves—the mechanical components, not the electronic components. Because wherever the keys come down, there has to be metal-to-metal contact. If pianos are in a very humid or dusty environment, eventually you might find certain keys don’t play correctly. Maybe you have to hit it a couple of times, or you’ll play a note and it’ll be at full volume because it’s not getting the right information. Sometimes there are optical sensors there, and if even a tiny amount of dust gets in there, it can be a nightmare. It may be inconsistent in its performance. Can that be fixed? Technically, it could be, if you could find somebody crafty enough to figure out how to take the thing apart!
Just like computers, digital pianos keep getting better and cheaper all the time.
So when your digital piano is no longer operating correctly, buying a new one is generally what people do. But how long is the life of these instruments? Unless the environment is really harsh, you should be able to get ten years out of a digital piano. You might not get as much life from a cheaper one or one that’s taken around on the road a lot or in a house with smokers where there’s a lot of particulate matter in the air. But I have friends who have had digital pianos for decades that are still going strong! So it’s not always the case that you only get ten years out of a digital piano. In the right environment, you might get 20 or more years out of a digital piano.
If you want to prolong the life of your digital piano, get a surge protector.
Better yet, get an uninterruptible power supply. Basically, it’s a battery that you plug into the wall that you plug your electronics into. It’s great for any sensitive electronic equipment. Everything is running off the battery all the time. So if the electricity goes off or there is a surge, it doesn’t matter. It provides a stable current. So that is your foolproof way of avoiding one cause of failure.
Sometimes you can do a reset routine.
If you’ve ever had a problem with any electronic gear, there’s what’s called initialization or reset. There’s both a soft reset and a hard reset. A soft reset usually involves just turning it off and back on again. But a hard reset takes it back to the factory specs. If all else fails, try initialization or a hard reset on your device. If it’s not a mechanical issue like I described, where the keys are collecting dust or corrosion, that could very well help you.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with digital pianos!
Have any of you gotten less than ten years out of your digital piano? If so, what brand was it? And were there any circumstances that you can attribute to the short life of the piano? Have any of you had a record amount of time you’ve gotten from your digital piano? Maybe some of you have digital pianos from the 1980s that are still performing just like they did when they were new. 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you a technique for balancing your hands on the piano. One of the great things about the piano is the fact that you have different parts with your two hands. But that also makes balancing the hands difficult. I’m going to demonstrate using Fairy Tale by Kabalevsky. Watch the video for the demonstration. You’ll hear the balance of the hands with the melody above the accompaniment, which is sometimes difficult to achieve. I’m going to show you some techniques to achieve this. I have a secret technique for you that I bet you’ve never tried before!
You can use different articulations in each hand.
You can play a gentle finger staccato in the left hand to be able to differentiate the two different lines. When you do that, you get a totally different feeling in each hand. One of the simplest techniques, by the way, is to simply lean more weight on one hand than the other. Make your right hand heavy and your left hand light. Now, that sounds really easy, but it’s not always that simple. Sometimes, when you’re playing, it’s really difficult to even hear what the balance is like. Not only that, you can practice hands separately, but when you put the hands together, it’s a whole different story. How can you control the melody while also playing the accompaniment and hear everything clearly?
Try playing with one hand on the keys and the other following along on top of the piano.
By playing one hand where you absolutely hear nothing, it gives you a chance to listen to the melody. You can also reverse the hands and do the same thing to make sure you’re getting the appropriate balance out of each hand. First, play just the melody by itself without encumbering yourself by playing on top of the piano. Then, try it with one hand on top of the piano and see if you get the same sound. You can check your work by listening to each hand independently on the piano, then adding the other hand on top of the piano so you can hear if you can get the same sound when you are coordinating both hands.
Using this technique, any little deviation becomes obvious to you.
You’re going to clearly hear any issues. When you’re hearing the hands together, it’s hard to distinguish one line from the other. Your brain can’t always hear everything. So this is a universal technique you can utilize whenever you’re having difficulty either balancing the hands or creating the correct rhythm in each hand when putting the hands together. Play one hand on top of the piano so you can hear things. Compare it to what it’s like when you’re just playing each hand separately without the other hand playing on top of the piano. This is a great technique. Try it out! Let me know how it works for you! Leave your comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you 20 skill sets you need at the piano. I tried to narrow it down to the absolute essentials for you. You can check to see how many of these skill sets you have. There are some things you might not have thought of that could be really important for you to take your piano playing to the next level. I’m going to start with the most important thing for classical players and something that’s great for anybody, which is…
Memorization
You may think you just have to be born with a great memory, but that’s not true. There’s a system for memorization that can be taught. Memorization makes playing the piano easier. It’s very encumbering to be watching the score. Sometimes it’s necessary, but when you have something memorized, it frees you to be expressive and just let the music come out of you naturally. What else is important? To learn more about memorization, click here!
Sight-reading
Reading music is essential because you can’t memorize everything. Plus, if you’re accompanying other musicians, you want to be able to see the score and their part. So you want to be able to read music to familiarize yourself with a wide array of music without necessarily committing it to memory. That’s another skill that can be developed. To learn more about sight-reading, click here!
Improvisation
Did you know that most styles of music are not dependent on reading every note in the score? Jazz, pop, rock, country, folk—you name it. Being able to improvise is so important. It’s also a great way to have fun with music. If you have a party and people want to sing some songs, being able to play by ear is great. Not to mention the fact that it can save your neck if you ever have a memory slip during a performance. You can get back on track if you can play a little bit by ear instead of starting over again. To learn more about improvisation, click here!
Scales and arpeggios
Learning all of your major and minor scales and arpeggios is one of the foundations of good technique on any instrument, and the piano is certainly no exception. It’s an essential toolbox of technique. The vast majority of Western music is built on scales and arpeggios. Having those literally at your fingertips is of tremendous value. Don’t be intimidated by it. You can just learn one a week, and it will take you about a year to learn all of them. There’s no hurry. If you haven’t done it yet, go for it! I’ve got a spreadsheet that you can check out that can keep track of all your scales and arpeggios. To learn more about scales and arpeggios, click here!
Octave technique
You hear people play rousing octaves, and you wonder, how is that done? Well, once again, a central technique of using the wrist. I have additional videos on that for you as well. And that brings us to the essential technique of the piano. To learn more about octave technique, click here!
Learn how to identify when to use the fingers, when to use the wrists, and when to use the arms.
They all come into play, but in different ways in different contexts of music. One of the most important things about learning technique on the piano is knowing which parts of the body to use. To learn more about finger techniques, click here! For more about the wrists, click here! For more about arms, click here!
Learn how to bring out different voices in your playing.
The piano is an instrument that can play many different parts at once. You, of course, have your left and right hands, but it’s much deeper than that. Sometimes, you have inner voices. You can even have different parts within one hand. Learning how to bring out different voices is such an essential technique. And once again, there are ways you can practice that. I have techniques for this. To learn more, click here!
Learn how to achieve a smooth melodic line.
Did you know that the piano is a percussion instrument? That’s right. When you play a note, the hammer is hitting the strings. You get a strong attack and rapid decay. So how do you get a smooth melodic line? Well, it’s the art of illusion. It’s a matter of using the weight of the arm to smoothly transfer the tone from note to note. The pedal can help with that as well. To learn more, click here!
Learn how to get a beautiful sound out of the piano.
Have you ever heard somebody play and everything just sounds harsh and ugly, and then somebody will play the exact same piano and everything sounds beautiful and warm? How is that possible? Singers have physiology that makes it so, and with other instruments, there’s such a connection with the throat, the breath, and the lips. But yes, on the piano, there are ways of achieving a beautiful sound. And there are ways you might get an ugly sound if you’re not careful. So this is a really important subject for you if you haven’t covered it before in your playing. You want to always get as gorgeous a sound as possible. To learn more, click here!
Interpretation
Interpretation is a wide open area. It’s very subjective, but it’s something important to understand and have a grasp of. You work so hard to learn a piece of music. How do you actually let it unfold? What do you have to say about it? Do you just play it the way your teacher told you to or the way you’ve heard it in a recording? Or do you have something unique you can say about the piece? How do you develop your own voice in music? That’s what interpretation is all about! It’s the reason we play—to express our love and our unique ideas about the music. The reason we work so hard is so we can bring our ideas into these pieces of music so others can enjoy our concepts of them. To learn more, click here!
Appreciate different period styles.
To understand interpretation and many other aspects of technique, you really have to have an appreciation for the different period styles of music, from the Baroque to the Classical, the Romantic, the Impressionist, and the 20th century. They’re all different styles, and there are styles within those styles. Not to mention, the piano evolved over time. So the period the music was written in wasn’t for the same instrument as earlier or later pianos. When you’re playing Baroque music, it might not have been written for the piano at all. It was more likely written for the harpsichord! So understanding the period styles and the instruments the music was written for is very important for being able to play appropriately on the piano. To learn more about the Baroque period, click here! For Classical, click here! For Romantic, click here! For Impressionism, click here!
Another important aspect of piano technique is ornamentation.
There’s all kinds of ornamentation, such as trills. Sometimes in early music, you’ll see different squiggly lines that are representative of things that you do to embellish the music. How to translate those symbols is one challenge, but the other is simply knowing how to execute them cleanly. And there again, there are different aspects of knowing how to measure your trills and things of that nature. For more about executing trills, click here! For more about ornamentation, click here!
Music theory
A solid foundation in music theory can really enhance all aspects of your playing. Certainly, if you’re reading music, it’s helpful to know what key you’re in and to have some grasp of the chord progressions and modulations. When you’re learning a piece of music, a foundation of music theory will help you understand where you are in the structure and the harmonies. It’s going to help you learn it, remember it, and play it. For more about music theory, click here!
Harmony
Harmony is kind of a subcategory of theory. Having an understanding of the keys you’re in and the relationship of tones is what harmony is all about. To learn more about harmony, click here!
Dictation
One way to develop harmony is through dictation. Jazz players do dictation all the time. If you play popular music, sometimes the sheet music can be very drab and not really grasp what the original performance was about. So you listen to it and kind of copy it by ear. You can even write it down. This is a tremendous way to develop your ear and an affinity for different styles of music. To learn more about dictation, click here!
Music history
Having a grasp of music history is so important. I mentioned the period styles, but it goes so much deeper. You want to understand the culture and customs of the time and how the music fit into society. Was it something for the elite or the music of the people? The history of the time can be enlightening and might shed some light as to how the music should be approached. Is it folk music? Is it music for the Royal Courts? Having an understanding of music history can give you a depth to your playing that is really important. To learn more about music history, click here!
Accompanying
I talked about reading and sight-reading being important, but accompanying is an art unto itself. You want to be able to play with other musicians. All too often, pianists play by themselves so much that they lack the camaraderie that you develop playing with other musicians. You learn so much by doing this. You develop a better sense of timing, balance, and nuance. There’s nothing greater than playing with other musicians and learning from them. When you play with great musicians, it rubs off on you. You might feel squeamish about playing with people who are better than you, but take the opportunity. It will be enriching for you. For more about accompanying, click here!
Maintain a repertoire.
How many pieces can you keep in your repertoire? What pieces should you learn next? What is a well-balanced repertoire on the piano? These are really important questions for developing your piano playing and your musicianship. You need appropriate challenges in your repertoire—something that’s not going to take you an inordinate amount of time or something that you’re never going to be able to play at a high level without a foundation of learning other pieces first. You need to know what pieces to play, what pieces to study, and how many pieces you can keep in your current repertoire. It’s not limitless. But you can drop pieces and restudy them. If you try to keep everything at your fingertips and in your head, you won’t have time to learn new music! So maintaining a repertoire is a delicate balance. To learn more about maintaining a repertoire, click here!
Performing
One of the important skill sets that has to be practiced is playing for people. Because if you play by yourself, it never really comes to fruition. The act of playing for people is where the music comes alive. When you’re playing by yourself, you know what you’re doing. When you’re playing for others, there’s a give-and-take. You’ll find that you will do things in your playing that you’ve never done before. Some of them may be unfortunate things, but you may find that, particularly if you have the wherewithal to play for people on a regular basis, it can become an inspiration for ideas because you get the feeling for what people are really paying attention to and the things that leave them flat. It’s just like a comedian working out material. They don’t really know what’s going to land and what’s going to fall flat until they do it in front of a crowd. The same is true with your piano playing. Playing for people is what it’s all about! You might think no one wants to hear you. That couldn’t be further from the truth! People will be impressed with your accomplishments. If they don’t play, everything will seem amazing to them. It’s all relative. There are different things that everybody can bring to the music. You don’t have to be the most virtuoso player in the world to be able to share emotions, feelings, and nuance about the music and taste that you have that’s unique to you. So play for people. People will enjoy it, and you will grow as a musician. To learn more about playing for people, click here!
Adjusting to different pianos and different rooms
When you play on different pianos, it feels completely different, and it can give you ideas about the piece you never had before. The rooms you play in also make a tremendous difference. Have you ever played in a room that’s completely acoustically dead, where there’s no reverberation at all? You end up working harder, and you may have to use the pedal more liberally in order to make up for the lack of acoustics in the room. You might go to a hall and try out the piano before a performance, and it sounds glorious in the beautiful echoey space. Then the audience comes in, and all those bodies with clothing absorb the sound, and it’s a completely different acoustic. So learning how to adjust instantly to a piano and to a room is an essential part of piano playing. And it’s enriching because you will learn more about the pieces you play, even if you’re not performing. Any time there’s a piano somewhere where you can play, play some of your pieces on it. I guarantee that you will learn something from the experience. To learn more about adjusting to different pianos and environments, click here!
I hope these are helpful for you!
But we have just scratched the surface! What about pedaling? Here is more on that subject for you:
These are just 20 tips and essential skills on the piano with two bonus tips! Any of you who can think of other skill sets that are important, leave them 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to tell you why rests are as important as notes. I’m going to get a little bit metaphysical with you for just a moment. In some of his writings, Carlos Castaneda talked about how, when you’re looking at a tree, for example, you learn to tune out the space between the leaves and just focus on the leaves, as if the space between the leaves isn’t anything. But if there was no space between the leaves, you couldn’t identify the leaves!
The only thing that gives anything you look at definition is the space between.
In the universe, you have matter, energy, and the space between things. If there was no space, you would not be able to discern any matter because it would be just a whole conglomerate of mass. There would be nothing. If everything was mass, how could you have anything? Okay, that’s kind of a heady subject, but this relates to rests in music. How can you have sound if you don’t have silence? You need balance between what is and what isn’t: life and death, black and white, good and evil. This duality of reality is prevalent in music.
Rests make it possible to have music.
Without rests, you wouldn’t have sound. It’s the drama of waiting in anticipation for what’s coming next that gives music power and makes it compelling. Listen to a great jazz artist, and it’s the time between the notes where they’re formulating their ideas, much like a conversation. There’s nothing worse than getting stuck with someone who talks nonstop. You find yourself tuning out. You can’t even consider what they’re saying. It’s only the time between the sentences and your thoughts that gives you a chance to assimilate the information. And so it is with music.
Take rests for their full value!
It’s the mark of a great musician. Nothing irks me more than when I hear an accomplished concert pianist not hold rests long enough. It loses the character of the music. So remember, rests are just as important as notes. You can’t have notes without rests. Consider the time between the notes just as important as the notes themselves. I hope this resonates with you.
It’s easy to rush your counting when you’re counting rests. When nothing’s going on, it’s easy to speed up your counting! So deliberately slow down your counting to compensate for your natural tendencies. And check your work with the metronome to make sure you haven’t overcompensated. 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m talking about modes. You may have heard of modes. It may even have been explained to you in some way that seemed incomprehensible. How can you possibly remember all of your modes? Well, you can’t! I’m going to show you the easiest way to figure out all your modes. You’re going to know all your modes, and you’ll be able to play them in all keys if you know your key signatures or your major scales.
Let me first show you a major scale.
A major scale is just a series of whole steps and half steps. It’s actually all whole steps, except between the third and fourth and seventh and eighth notes. The white keys on the piano represent a C major scale because you have whole steps except between three and four and seven and eight (E-F and B-C). That’s the way all major scales work. So that can be transposed for all major scales. So what the heck are modes?
Modes are simply starting on a different note of the major scale!
The major scale is the Ionian mode. If you start on the second degree of a major scale, that’s called the Dorian mode. If you start on the third scale degree, you get the Phrygian mode. If you start on the fourth scale degree, you have the Lydian mode. If you start on the fifth note of the major scale, you have the Mixolydian mode. Starting on the sixth note, you have the Aeolian mode, which is also the natural minor scale. And finally, starting on the seventh scale degree, you have the Locrian mode, which is not used very often in music. Those are all the modes!
You can easily figure out all your modes, provided you know your major scales.
For example, if you were playing the Ionian mode in C, it’s the same as the C major scale. But if it’s the Dorian mode, it starts on two. Well, C is the second note of a B-flat major scale. So you just play the notes of a B-flat major scale, except starting on C. To play the Phrygian mode, you play all the notes of an A-flat major scale, except starting on the third note of the A-flat major scale which is C. For Lydian, you would start on the fourth note of the G major scale (also C). For Mixolydian, C is the fifth note of the F major scale. For Aeolian, C is the sixth note of an E-flat major scale. And finally, the Locrian is the seventh note of the D-flat major scale.
If you know your scales or your key signatures, you just start on any note of that scale.
Once again, if you start on the second note of the scale, it’s the Dorian mode. The third note of the scale is the Phrygian. The fourth note of the scale is the Lydian. The fifth note of the scale is the Mixolydian. The sixth note of the scale is the Aeolian. And the seventh note of the scale is the Locrian. You can start at any scale degree. That’s all there is to it! This is so much easier than memorizing seven different whole-step and half-step relationships. I couldn’t keep all of that in my head. And you don’t need to! Just think of key signatures and where you’re starting within that key signature, and you have all your modes.
What are modes for?
Modes are really useful in musical compositions from different periods. Before major and minor tonality were prevalent in Renaissance music, it was all based on modes. The Ionian mode (major scale), and the Aeolian mode (natural minor scale) came to dominate Western music in no small part because of the raised seventh. That’s why the minor scale has a raised seventh. The minor scale is usually in the harmonic form or the melodic form, both of which have raised sevenths. The melodic also has a raised sixth, giving that strong tonality of the raised seventh. Listen to the difference between a natural minor and the harmonic minor and how much more driven you are to resolve to the tonic note at the top of the scale with the harmonic minor with the raise seventh compared to the natural minor or Aeolian mode. The natural minor floats up there, but you don’t feel propelled to resolve to the last note of the sclae. It doesn’t really propel you the way the raised seventh does. These are the roots of tonality in a nutshell: the raised seventh that is brought about with the Ionian mode, which is your major scale, and the natural minor that has the harmonic and melodic versions that give you that strong sense of tonality. You may wonder about the Lydian Mode that has a raised seventh, but the two tri-tones in there give it a very austere quality and an ambiguity that you don’t get with major and minor tonalities.
So that’s everything you want to know about modes and more! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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