Tag Archives: piano lessons

A New Kind of Music: What Is Sound Design?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to talk about sound design. I know many of you are pianists, but this is definitely worth your while. I’m going to show you something you’re already familiar with, but you may not realize the depth with which this type of music or sound is so involved in your lives all the time.

Historical Background

Instruments have been around for hundreds of years, with the symphony orchestra culminating in the late 19th century. So, what else could be possible? In the 1940s, a French man named Pierre Schaeffer came up with musique concrète. He used turntables, which is interesting because disc jockeys use turntables to create whole new soundscapes today! Schaeffer took sounds, manipulated them, and used tape recorders to gather sounds and mold them into compositions.

This was the infancy of what we’re discussing today. Music synthesizers entered into the equation soon after. In the late 1950s, RCA had their music synthesizer. I remember growing up, my father had a record of the RCA music synthesizer. You can probably find it on YouTube with all kinds of squeaks and weird sounds. At the end of it, they attempted to create a little jazz combo, and I was very taken with it as a kid.

It was Robert Moog’s synthesizer in the 1960s that really caught attention. Wendy Carlos’s famous album, Switched on Bach, took the works of Bach and orchestrated them using the Moog synthesizer. The Moog synthesizer was monophonic, playing one only note at a time. Carlos painstakingly recorded at half speed to get everything perfect, overdubbing all the parts to create different timbres, and brought Bach’s works to life in a new way.

Sound Design in Film

Sound design is most prevalent as a backdrop for video and film. Going back to the infancy of music for film, silent films used ragtime-type music to follow the action. Improvised music for silent films is a lost art, but a few people like Michael Mortilla in Los Angeles has kept it alive. https://www.midilifecrisis.com/

As time went on, film music started to become almost like sound design, even with traditional instruments. For example, Bernard Herrmann, a fantastic film composer, created music for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. There’s a particularly terrifying scene where the music doesn’t sound like music but is incredibly effective. High-piercing strings create tension in a way that symphonic scores hadn’t been used before.

The Impact of Sound Design

John Williams’s scores, like Jaws, use simple musical motifs to create tension. The two-note motif in Jaws is a perfect example of how minimalistic sound design can be highly effective.

Sound design can subtly shift moods, creating emotions without the audience even realizing it. It’s an art form that can stand alone as music because of the emotion it conveys.

Conclusion

Is sound design music? It can be, because there is emotion associated with it. If you want to delve deeper into this, check out some examples from my son David Estrin. He does all kinds of music, traditional and experimental. https://davidpaulyall.bandcamp.com/track/fond

What is your opinion of sound design? Electronic music, musique concrète, film music, and the different directions they take, whether symphonic or experimental? I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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

Understanding Inversions in Music

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Robert Estrin here with one of the most fundamental aspects of music and harmony: what is an inversion? In a recent video, I explained triads, the most fundamental chord. I have a future video about seventh chords and expanded chords. But first, let’s delve into inversions.

The Concept of Inversions

In 1722, John Philipp Rameau first articulated that chords can be inverted. But what does this mean? Sometimes you see chords with different intervals, but Rameau stated that all chords are built upon the interval of the third. If it’s not a third, it’s an inversion.

Let’s take a C major triad: C, E, G. What happens if you put the E on the bottom? Now you don’t have thirds. Instead, you have a third (E to G) and a fourth (G to C). This new arrangement is the first inversion.

Identifying Inversions in Music

These inversions are identified differently in harmonic analysis and sheet music. If you invert the chord again, with G on the bottom, you get a fourth (G to C) and a third (C to E), creating a second inversion of the C major triad.

In sheet music, these would be labeled simply:

C major: C
First inversion: C/E
Second inversion: C/G

In harmonic analysis, it’s more detailed:

Root position: C major
First inversion: C major 6 (or 6/3)
Second inversion: C major 6/4

Seventh Chords and Their Inversions

Seventh chords are a bit more complex due to having four notes. For example, a G7 chord (G, B, D, F) in C major:

Root position: G7
First inversion: G7/B
Second inversion: G7/D
Third inversion: G7/F

In harmonic analysis:

Root position: G7 (or 7)
First inversion: G7 6/5
Second inversion: G7 4/3
Third inversion: G7 4/2

Remember, these notations reflect the intervals:

6/5: a sixth and a fifth above the bass note
4/3: a fourth and a third above the bass note
4/2: a fourth and a second above the bass note

Practical Application

Understanding inversions helps in harmonic analysis and playing from lead sheets. For example, a dominant seventh chord, the most popular type, is assumed when you see a notation like G7 without further specification.


Conclusion

Inversions are essential in understanding chord functions. All seventh chords can be inverted and named in the same way, whether they are major, minor, or diminished. You can identify the root of the chord by arranging notes in thirds, giving you insight into chord function and resolution.

I hope you enjoyed this music theory primer. Let us know in the comments if these videos are helpful. This is LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks for joining me!

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

Is Playing Practicing?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is: Is playing practicing? Many of you who have watched my videos know that I have drawn a red line that should not be crossed. You have to know whether you are playing or practicing. And yet here I have this question: Is playing practicing? There’s actually a nuanced answer to this question. While it is absolutely essential that you know whether you’re playing through your music or practicing your music, there are times when you want to practice performing, whether it’s a public performance that you’re preparing for or you just want to run through things for friends to see how they go. But what we’re going to talk about today is something entirely different.

Playing can be practicing!

For example, when you play a performance, whether it’s a formal recital or just playing for friends, particularly if you record the event, going back and listening to what you did while taking note of what went well, what things maybe you need to work on, and insights you may have gained during the performance that you’d like to explore further, can be an invaluable experience. In that case, playing is practicing.

What is practicing?

Aside from the physiological aspect of strengthening your hands and learning how to negotiate passages, finger work, and chords, practicing is really a mental activity. Anything that involves a thought process about playing is practicing. So that’s an example where playing is practicing. How could you use this to your advantage? There are actually many ways. I talked about practicing performing. How do you do this? In your practice, there are two complete extremes. During a performance, no matter what, the show must go on. You have to keep going! Nobody wants to hear you stop and correct something when you’re playing for them. In a live performance, this could be a disaster. But even when you’re playing informally for family or friends, it ruins the whole experience for them. But in practice, you want to stop whenever there is an error to correct it and solidify it.

When is playing practicing? How do you achieve this?

It’s just as I described before. You do a practice run-through of a piece, and you don’t stop. Make it like a performance. You can even record it. It doesn’t need to be a great recording. You just want to have something you can listen back to with the score. Maybe circle trouble spots in the score. Take notes as you listen. This can be an incredible experience for strengthening your performance. And indeed, this is an aspect where playing can be practicing. But normally, remember that red line. Practicing is on one side, and playing is on the other. And they are diametrically opposed. In playing, you want to keep going no matter what to maintain the continuity of the performance. In practice, you generally want to stop to make corrections and solidify. Double check the score, work through the passage, connecting it with the previous passage, getting that secure, then going back to the beginning and seeing if you can pass all of the trouble spots. So that’s the lesson for today! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

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

Which Takes Longer: Becoming a Pianist or a Doctor?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to answer a really interesting question from a viewer: Does it take longer to become a concert pianist or a doctor? Both of these fields obviously require many years of study. So I’m going to break it down for you and give you an idea of what each of these career paths entails.

You have to spend many years in school to become a doctor.

To become a doctor, you will first need an undergraduate degree in some field, hopefully related to the medical field, perhaps biology or something. That’s followed by four years of medical school. So there is a big chunk right there. But is that it? Far from it! After that, there’s a residency, which can be anywhere from 3 to 7 years. Now, unless you’re becoming a general practitioner, there’s also a specialization with a fellowship that usually adds another 1 to 3 years. So you have anywhere between 11 and 14 years of studying before becoming a doctor.

What about pianists?

Pianists typically start at a younger age than doctors. In fact, most concert pianists on the scene today started as children between the ages of 4 and 7. There are some outliers outside of that range, but the vast majority are going to be somewhere in there. From the time they’re very young children, they’ve been practicing every day for at least an hour or two a day. As they get older, they’re probably practicing 3 to 5 hours a day. Most of them will go to a conservatory or a university program specializing in piano performance in order to study with the best teachers. If they’re expanding their repertoire, it’s likely that they’re practicing for at least 3 to 5 hours, more likely 6 to 8 hours if they’re entering competitions and things of that nature, because the repertoire requirements are so immense. So altogether, they’re probably going to spend easily 15 to 20 years of private instruction; that’s even more than the 11 to 14 years typical for doctors. It’s a long haul!

What about the continuing studies in each of these fields?

Doctors are always learning from experience. They need to keep abreast of the latest technologies and procedures by reading journals and possibly attending conventions. Pianists, on the other hand, are constantly learning new repertoire. They can’t keep playing the same solo recitals again and again. They have to have new music so people keep wanting to hear their performances. If they’re collaborating with other musicians in chamber music or accompanying, they have to learn the music that people want to collaborate with them on.

Concert pianists are constantly learning new music.

If they have the opportunity to perform concertos, they have to learn new concertos. A lot of pianists will also have original contemporary works commissioned for them, which they have to learn. For example, concert pianist Jeffrey Biegel, who was one of my father, Morton Estrin’s students. He’s carved out a whole career getting works commissioned for him, and he collaborates with orchestras all around the world. He has been doing it for years. This entails a tremendous amount of work, and you don’t even have the benefit of listening to recordings to hear what the pieces that you’re going to be performing sound like first! My sister, Coren Estrin Mino, performs a lot of new works here in the Cleveland area, helping out composers so they can have their works performed.

There are many avenues for both doctors and concert pianists, but concert pianists have a longer haul, starting younger and working longer in order to carve out a career.

Even going through everything I outlined for becoming a concert pianist is no guarantee that you’ll be a touring artist. There are just so many people who are highly skilled at the instrument, and a very limited number of people ever get to do it. Whereas for a doctor, if they go through all those different courses, degrees, and residencies, then chances are they’re going to find some place where they can practice. However, no matter how nerve-wracking performing the piano is, nobody dies. So we have a deep respect for doctors as well as pianists for the rigorous training that’s necessary in both of these fields. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store

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

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about 7th Chords


Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, you’re going to learn everything you ever wanted to know about 7th chords. I recently put out a video about triads. Triads are chords built on thirds containing three notes. 7th chords are kind of an extension of triads. A major triad consists of two different types of thirds: a major third on the bottom and a minor third on top. A minor third on the bottom and a major third on the top gives you your minor triad. A diminished triad consists of two minor thirds. An augmented triad consists of two major thirds.

7th chords contain four notes arranged in thirds.

Like triads, 7th chords consist only of major thirds and minor thirds. Major thirds are four half-steps apart. Minor thirds are three half-steps apart. It’s easy to remember triads because you have two sets of thirds, so there are only four possible combinations. But when you have four notes, how do you remember everything? I’m going to show you such an easy way. It’s kind of like a cheat, but it works, and you’re going to love it!

I’m going to show you the three types of sevenths that are used.

A major 7th is the seventh note of the major scale, a half-step shy of an octave. A minor 7th is a half-step smaller than that, and a diminished 7th is a whole step smaller. Those are the only kinds of sevenths that are used in seventh chords. The rest are just triads. A major triad with a major seventh is a major seventh chord. I think you probably can guess where this is going. A minor triad with a minor seventh is a minor seventh chord. A diminished triad with a diminished seventh is a diminished seventh chord.

Seventh chords, just like triads, are only built on the intervals of thirds.

So you always skip a letter when you see it written on the staff. It’s either all lines or all spaces (as long as the root of the chord is on the bottom). So indeed, the major triad is spelled C, E, G, B. The minor seventh chord is C, E-flat, G, B-flat. The diminished is C, E-flat, G-flat, B-double-flat. That’s right. Because it has to be spelled in thirds, and G-flat to B-double-flat is a third. If it was written with an A, it wouldn’t look right on the page. You wouldn’t identify it as a chord. When you see all the notes on lines or all the notes on spaces, you know it’s a chord. You just have to figure out the accidentals to know what type of chord. There are just two left that you have to learn.

If you have a major triad with a minor seventh chord, you have a major minor seventh chord, which is called dominant.

Why dominant? Because it is built on the fifth scale degree. If you play every other note of the major scale, starting on the fifth note of the scale, it forms a dominant seventh chord or V7. And in sheet music, when you just see 7, written after a letter, it indicates a dominant seventh chord. It is the most popular seventh chord and one of the most important for establishing the key.

There’s one more seventh chord called half-diminished.

How could it be half-diminished? It’s a diminished triad with a minor seventh. That’s your half-diminished seventh chord. It is found natively as VII7. You build a seventh chord on the seventh scale degree, and you have a diminished triad with a minor seventh. Incidentally, the diminished seventh chord is only found natively in the minor as the VII7, assuming it is a harmonic minor scale. The harmonic minor has a raised seventh. That’s where the diminished seventh chord is built. It is an incredibly powerful chord that can be built anywhere and can facilitate modulation and provide deceptive resolutions. It’s a fascinating chord unto itself. I have a video on the diminished seventh chord.

I hope this has demystified seventh chords for you!

Major/major is major. Minor/minor is minor. Diminished/diminished is diminished. Major/minor is dominant. And half-diminished is your VII7, a diminished triad with a minor seventh, VII7 in the major key. That’s it for today I hope this is enlightening for you! And I hope this makes it easy to remember all the seventh chords without having to think about all the possibilities of the three sets of thirds. This breaks it down for you in a very digestible way.
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

What is Living Pianos?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is: What is Living Pianos? In a nutshell, it’s my life! And it’s your life too, if you have a passion for the piano the way I do. It’s actually a double entendre. There are two meanings to Living Pianos.

I have a video called What are Living Pianos?

That video tells about the restored American and European pianos that are so rare today, which we sell all over the world and have been doing so since 2006! But it’s much more than that. It’s really about living the piano. As a matter of fact, if you type “living the piano” in your browser, Living Pianos comes up!

I was lucky enough to grow up in a musical household.

My entire family is made up of musicians of one sort or another. Pianos have always been central. My father, Morton Estrin, was a concert pianist. He was my teacher and my sister’s teacher. He taught countless people, from Billy Joel to conductors, composers, and pianists the world over. My sister, Coren Estrin Mino, is also a pianist and a teacher. My uncle was a professional musician. The list goes on and on. My life is centered around teaching, performing, and media. This is what makes me want to get up in the morning!

My mission is to keep the piano alive in the 21st century, in the United States and around the world.

This is no easy task when you consider that the piano has been on a slow decline for over a hundred years. That’s why connecting with people like you who care about the piano is enriching. It makes me feel like there is value to my life. So I thank you all for joining me and encourage you to subscribe to LivingPianos.com and YouTube! You’ll find a treasure trove of content I’ve been putting together for many years! 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