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How Slowly Should Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata Be Played?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how slowly the Moonlight Sonata should be played. I’m referring to the famous first movement that so many people love to play. There are some questions as to how slowly it should go. After all, it is written to be played Adagio Sostenuto, which is slow and sustained. More than that, it goes on to say “Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordini.” Now that’s a mouthful! That translates literally to, “The whole piece must be played very delicately and without deafness.” Sordini, we know, means mute, so, without the mute. And what is the mute on the piano? Well, perhaps he was talking about the soft pedal.

Why wouldn’t you want to use the soft pedal in the Moonlight Sonata?

Well, you have to remember that the instrument that Beethoven wrote this piece for is drastically different from a modern piano. In fact, pianos early in Beethoven’s life are quite different from what pianos had become later in his life. He worked closely with instrument builders to develop the piano. My guess is that on the instrument he wrote the Moonlight Sonata, the tone was not sufficient with the soft pedal. I do like to use the soft pedal in the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

The Moonlight Sonata is not in 4/4 time.

I was teaching a student the Moonlight Sonata the other day. They were playing at a very slow tempo. I took exception with it. Why? Because in an urtext edition of the score, this piece isn’t in 4/4 time. Look carefully and you will realize it’s in cut time, 2/2 or alla breve. The symbol looks like a C with a vertical line through it. So instead of having four quarter notes getting the beat, you have two half notes getting the beat. Playing faster sounds slower when the pulse is a longer note value. Beethoven intended it to be played with the half note as the slow beat, instead of the quarter note which makes you play it slower. If you try to slow down that quarter note, the whole piece bogs down. It’s a fairly long movement as it is. To play it with a quarter note ticking makes it ponderous. It’s not the way Beethoven intended the piece to be played.

Check out your score and see if you have the cut time!

If your edition is in 4/4 common time, that is not correct. The authoritative urtext editions are written in 2/2 time, not 4/4 time. So you may want to think about your tempo of the Moonlight Sonata. I hope this has been helpful 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.

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

Why Corrections Are So Hard on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why corrections are so hard on the piano. You may have had this experience where you have something in your music you learned wrong or something doesn’t quite come out right. So you correct the mistake. You cement the correction. You do it over and over again until you get it perfect. You can play it ten times perfectly, no problem at all. Then you play for your teacher or at a performance and the same mistake comes back! You corrected that mistake, so how could it possibly come back to haunt you?

Why do old mistakes come back?

I’m going to give you a parallel here. Imagine there is a job you drive to every day for months, maybe years. Every day you get in your car and you go the same way. You’re so used to that route you don’t even have to think about it. That’s the problem! Because then let’s say you get a new job. You have to take a different way. But you’re so used to the old way that you end up making a wrong turn. You know which way you’re supposed to go, but it’s early in the morning and your mind is on other things. You end up reverting to the old way. The same thing happens in your piano playing! Just because you can play a correction ten times in a row, as an abstraction by itself in your practice with nobody there, doesn’t mean it is 100% solidified. The way you played it hundreds of times before, or that route you drove 100 times before, is still back there in your brain. It’s there, and it can come out at any time.

Correcting mistakes involves more than just correcting the mistakes.

You have to learn to be aware of the correction at the time it comes. During a musical performance in particular, when there are many distractions and perhaps a little extra nervous energy, you might revert back to something that you can’t even believe you would do. So what’s the answer to this? Of course, practicing incessantly on the correction until it’s ironed out is crucial. But there is more to it than that. You need to be aware when you get to the correction, just like being aware when you’re driving so you don’t make a wrong turn. Make a mental note so you’re aware of it when you get there. By doing this, you are present at that moment to incorporate the correction. You already know you can do it. You just need to keep the presence of mind to execute it when it comes.

I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know how you feel about this 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

What Does It Mean to Be Musical?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today the subject is about what it means to be musical. Sometimes you hear people say an artist is so musical. What does that mean? Well, there’s a lot to unwrap here! 

The piano has so many different facets of abilities that are necessary in order to be able to play successfully. 

You might think that somebody who has really good technique must be musical. But technique is something I put under the umbrella of musical abilities or even musical intelligence. Good technique doesn’t necessarily equate to being musical. It does indicate talent for the instrument. Another aspect is security in performance. There are some people who just play their best in front of people. They are good performers, but are they musical? That is really something different, isn’t it?

If a performer doesn’t have security in their performance, it’s difficult to be musical. 

Just like if they don’t have technique, how are they going to be able to express anything? There are other aspects too. You need to be able to digest the score. It is crucial to be able to look at a piece of music and make sense of the structure of the piece. Once again, that’s musical intelligence. These are all important aspects of piano playing. All of these things are related. They really are important. How could you possibly be musical if you can’t digest the piece, if you can’t hold it together, or if you don’t have the fingers to be able to to execute the music? But assuming all of those things are there, what does it mean to be musical?

I believe being musical is being able to elicit emotions in the listener. 

There are some people who are astoundingly accomplished at the piano. They can play the most difficult music with fluency and security. And yet maybe they leave you cold. But sometimes there’s a student, maybe even a young student who doesn’t have much technique or experience, and they don’t even necessarily do all the things that should be done in a piece, but there’s a beauty to their playing. It makes you feel something! It brings a smile to your face, or maybe sadness. Their playing makes you feel emotions. This is something that is really elusive to describe. It’s even more difficult to teach. 

A certain amount of this is inborn. 

A certain amount cannot be learned. But like many other things in life, someone who is naturally musical can become more musical by exposure. With good training, and by listening to other musicians who are more accomplished than they are, they can grow musically. Somebody who just doesn’t have much sense of where the music should go, maybe they can learn a great deal. Their musicianship and their ability to elicit emotions and create excitement or sadness can be improved. But somebody who has very little of that natural ability will have a tougher time with musicality. 

Everybody can improve! 

This doesn’t just go for musicality, for lack of a better word, but all aspects of piano playing can grow. Technique can be improved. Security in performance can be improved. The ability to digest a score can be improved. All of these things can be improved along with that elusive musicality. So don’t fret if you are lacking in one or more of these skill sets. They all can be developed! Nobody has all of them in spades. Everybody has to mitigate their weaknesses and develop their strengths. 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

Why Middle C Isn’t Middle C (on the piano)

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about Middle C. But middle C isn’t middle C! What am I talking about? Have I gone off the deep end? No, and I’m going to prove it to you right now!

The exact middle of the keyboard actually falls on the E and F above middle C.

That is the middle of the piano. Did you ever realize that? Well, middle C is the middle C of the piano, right? Actually, no! There are 8 Cs on the piano. So, middle C and the C an octave above are technically both middle C’s, aren’t they? So what is going on here? Why do they call this middle C when it’s not the middle of the piano, and it’s not the middle C of the piano? While it’s not technically the middle of the piano, and it’s not technically the middle C on the piano, it is about the middle of the piano where the closest C occurs. So it kind of is middle C.

Modern pianos have 88 keys. But if you go back to the 1870s, the piano had only 85 keys.

Back then, the highest note on the piano was A below the highest C on modern pianos. On an 85 key piano, middle C would be in the middle of the keyboard! But if you ever thought that middle C is the middle of the modern piano, you might want to adjust where you sit. You should be sitting with the E and F centered in front of you. This doesn’t make a big difference. But it could make a little bit of a difference lining yourself up between E and F, because indeed, this is the middle of your piano!

How do you feel about this? Did you realize this before? I’m interested in your comments here on LivingPianos.com and 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

How Much Should You Stick To Routine in Your Practice?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how much you should stick to routine in your piano practice. Years ago, I made a video about how you can make practicing more enjoyable. It was a guide on how to organize your practice to make it as productive as possible. I described how you should have an appetizer of scales for warming up, then a main course of memorization and refinement, and then you can have a dessert of review pieces! You can see that video here. But what I’m going to talk about today is something quite different. And it’s the flip side of this!

Don’t get too attached to your practice routine.

All too often, students get married to their routines. They love their routines so much that they don’t realize they might be missing out on discovery. Truth be known, my practice is anything but organized! I don’t necessarily stick to a regimen in what I do. In fact, sometimes I find a specific area that needs work and I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time on one specific problem, maybe ten times more time than I spend with anything else in the practice session. It could be a very small section of music. Maybe there’s a certain technique that you’re working on. Or there’s a part of the music where you’re discovering new possibilities in the score. Maybe you’re finding a new way of approaching the keyboard. Maybe you are after a different sound out of the piano. You might think it’s important to stay on task and get to your scales or to your new piece. You might feel you need to get to all those regimented aspects of practice. But it’s more important to feel engaged in your practice.

Anything that engages your mind is ultimately the most productive practice you can do!

Don’t fall into the habit of routine for routine’s sake. You may find yourself doing the same thing almost to the point of mindlessness. Don’t just go through the motions because you think it’s important. You may be getting some physical benefits, strengthening your hands. It could even be productive to play over pieces so you don’t forget them. But the real practice is that of discovery.

Remember, practicing is a mental exercise.

Practicing is a thought process. So if you find yourself spending way too much time on something, but you’re getting somewhere with it, go for it! Because you’ll find, after spending a tremendous amount of time on something small, it will translate to other aspects of your playing. You can get great benefit from spending a tremendous amount of time on something that’s seemingly very small. It all relates to everything else you do on the instrument.

Routines are good, so you don’t forget important aspects.

Work on your sight reading every day, or at least every week. You don’t want to forget your review pieces by neglecting them for a week or two. So it is important to keep up with the basics. But ultimately, you should go off on tangents that engage your mind. You shouldn’t feel like that is wrong. So long as you’re accomplishing something, it is worth the time! Keep your practicing interesting to you and you will accomplish even more in the work you do at the piano! 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

Why Playing Fast Is Easier Than Playing Slowly

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how playing fast is easier than playing slowly. You might think that’s crazy. Of course, it would take more work to be able to develop speed in your playing. There is some truth to that. But once you do have some speed and fluency in your playing, have you ever tried to go back and play slowly again? It can be really difficult! There are a lot of reasons for this. We’re going to discuss this and what you can do to help your playing.

Once you’ve played a piece many times, your fingers just know where to go.

Years ago I made a video about how playing your scales should be on autopilot. I likened it to learning how to walk. You see toddlers taking their first steps. The concentration on their faces is unbelievable! Of course, once you learn how to walk, you really don’t think about it. It’s almost involuntary. You can be thinking about other things while you’re walking once you learn how to do it. Well, the same thing is true of scales! It’s also true of all the music you play. You get to a point where your mind is wandering, but your fingers keep going. That’s actually a good thing in some respects. If you didn’t have that to rely upon, it would be hard to be focused 100% of the time. But naturally, you can’t depend upon that motor memory, finger memory, muscle memory, whatever you want to call it.

When you play slowly, it’s harder to think through everything.

When you slow things down, every single note becomes very obvious. But there’s another reason why playing fast is easier than playing slowly. I’m not even talking about the solidity of how well you know the score. I’m talking about musical considerations. When you’re playing slowly, it’s very difficult to even know where the line is. For example, Chopin’s E Minor Prelude. Playing that piece slowly and trying to get a sense of the rise and the fall of the line is all but impossible. It’s very difficult to maintain a line playing under tempo.

All music really is reflective of the human voice.

All instruments are an extension of the instrument we all carry with us. Naturally, wind instruments are a direct analog to the human voice, because the breath is involved. It’s a natural extension. Bowed instruments, like a violin or cello, have the continuum of the bow against the strings. On the piano, it’s a challenge to create that continuum of sound. But imagine a wind player or a singer trying to sing a song much slower than its normal speed. It would be hard to sustain the phrase. You would run out of air! It would be hard to get a sense of the line. That same Chopin prelude played at a faster tempo, with the pulse of the quarter note or even the half note, makes it much easier to feel the musical line.

Once you know a piece, it’s so much easier to play it faster, because you can get a sense of the line.

The challenge is gaining enough fluency that you can play up to speed. Sometimes it helps just trying to play something up to tempo. Even if it’s not totally polished, playing it up to tempo helps you know what you’re working for. Of course, you don’t want to repeat sloppy playing again and again. You may even want to play just the right hand, just to get the feel of the phrasing. Once you understand the intention of the music, your practice is so much more productive. You want to know what you’re aiming for. So think of your music up to tempo, even if you can’t quite play it yet. Try to play it up to speed so you get a sense of the music. Your practice is always in service of the music.

That’s the message for today! I hope this works well for you. 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