The question today, “Is it okay to tap your foot when you play the piano?” It’s an interesting question. You see a lot of pianists tapping their feet and you wonder, “Well, if it helps you to keep time, isn’t it a good thing?” Well, yes and no.
It depends upon to a great extent the style of music you’re playing.
In groove-oriented music, tapping your foot can really be a help. Jazz musicians, particularly with something with an intricate rhythm, are able to maintain the pulse with bodily motion It is something some great jazz artists do successfully.
What about classical music?
If you want to maintain a good, steady beat, there is no substitute for using a metronome, which will measure your music. Why is a metronome preferable to tapping your foot? There are a lot of reasons.
First of all, if you tap your foot, you may get faster and slower. Alos, you may not be playing exactly with your foot. But the worst thing is this. You get used to tapping your foot, and then you can’t control it anymore!
What happens when you have to use the pedals? If you’re tapping your right foot, you’re totally out of luck, and even if you’re tapping the left foot, you can’t use the soft pedal (the una corda).
And it’s distracting to the audience.
Imagine someone playing a beautiful, delicate, slow movement or a nocturne, and you see a foot going. It’s inappropriate. You don’t want to distract the audience from the music.
Now, I will give you a little trick that I sometimes use. Sometimes, just to make sure, particularly in slow movements when you want to make sure you’re holding long notes long enough, (which is a whole other subject for another video coming to you soon) I will tap my toe in my shoe, or the heel of my foot very gently where there’s really no visible motion of the foot. But it helps me make sure not to rob long notes. This is really valuable in slow movements.
But if you’re playing something fast, if you want to tap your foot along, it’s really not going to help you. If you want to solidify your tempo and rhythm, use the metronome. And for other styles of music, playing with a rhythm section is great.
There are even programs like Band-in-a-Box or Garage Band,
or any of a number of intelligent arranger keyboards that you can play along with. This provides not just a click, but a whole rhythmic style which can be even more helpful. You can have a virtual rhythm section accompany you in your practice, so when you get together with real musicians, you’re at home.
So these are some perspectives on tapping your foot. I wouldn’t say it’s a complete no-no, but it certainly can be distracting in classical performances if it’s visible.
Thanks so much. I enjoy your comments by the way. Keep them coming, and remember to subscribe to LivingPianos.com so you’ll get all the fresh videos. Again, Robert Estrin here at Living Pianos, Your Online Piano Store 949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com
The question today is, “How do you deal with page turns on the piano?” This can be a real problem. One solution that works great is simply to memorize your music! When this isn’t the case, in some pieces, you might be lucky enough to have rests in just the right places giving you time to turn the page. Or, perhaps there’s a place where the left-hand doesn’t do anything and you have a moment to grab the page. But most of the time, this isn’t the case.
That’s why in a lot of concerts of chamber music, when you have a pianist playing with other musicians which is generally done with the score, you’ll see a page-turner on stage. If you don’t have that luxury? Is there anything you can do?
I’ve got some pointers for you! First of all:
You must practice your page turns!
Make sure to fold over the bottom of the pages so you can easily grab them. Then you want to really work on those sections so you can get through them. You may have to take your left hand up just for a moment and leave out a note or two. If you learn the part well enough, you might know a little bit past the page turns or you might have parts memorized just a bit before the page turns so you can get through the piece without disrupting the music.
Another trick that I have done is to copy parts of the score and put them above the pages or on the side of the pages. I have had some scores that I will copy all the pages and put them all the way across in one long sheet taped together. If the piece is too long, at a certain point with perhaps four or five pages taped together, I’ll (somewhat violently) rip off the top set of pages, revealing another set of pages underneath! So you have one disruption instead of several every time there’s a page turn.
For solo repertoire, there are so many benefits to memorization, aside from the issues of page turning. I recommend it really highly. But when you’re in a pinch and you don’t have a page turner, these are some solutions.
What about technology? Well, fortunately,
You can use on iPad or other tablet
and you can turn the pages very quickly, or even use a pedal to turn the pages for you! If the music you’re looking for isn’t available online, you can scan it and turn it into a PDF to have on your device.
A great product is a pedal by AirTurn for turning pages.
VirtualSheetMusic.com also has great technology. You not only can use AirTurn pedals to turn the pages, you can actually use your head! You set how much range of motion it takes to turn the pages, so you don’t accidentally set it off, and whenever you want the pages to turn, you simply move your head to the side and your page turns for you!
So there are solutions for you when memorization isn’t in the cards for you. I hope this has been helpful. Thanks for the great questions. Again, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
Music expresses emotion. It can be a great challenge to bear your soul in a genuine way when performing music. It can be a challenge avoiding distractions whether it is noises from an adjacent room or a squeaky bench. Worse yet, you may find your mind wandering to concerns of daily life taking you away from your purpose as a performer – to reach the audience with a message only music can convey.
Perhaps the greatest challenge in offering true feelings in your music is when you are improvising, particularly freeform improvisations, not music based upon written scores. This is something most typically associated with jazz musicians, but not exclusively.
In the accompanying video, you will hear a performance of a freeform improvisation in which my purpose was purely to convey honest emotions.
Sometimes it can be a rewarding challenge to create musical forms such as Sonata or Theme and Variations. But in this instance, my goal was not to impress the listeners with displays of virtuosity or musical prowess, only to convey musical expression in a genuine way.
This is one of the greatest musical challenges! Fortunately, I had a great Baldwin SF-10 grand piano to inspire the performance with its beautiful sound. Please feel free to leave your thoughts about this subject.
Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Storeinfo@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
Musical expression is the personal take a musician has on the music they perform. It’s a uniquely individual experience. What do I mean by the term, “infinite expression” and how can you apply this to your music? Let’s start by explaining the two concepts of infinity and how they can relate to music.
The first concept of infinity is the idea of moving endlessly in any direction.
For example, if you go out into space and just keep going in any direction, you could theoretically go on forever. So, when it comes to music, what if you were to allow the music to flow in any direction with no limits? In the video included with this article, I demonstrate this concept with Chopin’s A flat Ballade No.3, Op.47.
If you listen to the piece in the video you might have an interesting response. Those who are intimately familiar with the piece would probably not be pleased with the performance. However, those of you who are new to the piece might have a more positive response. How can this be? In the context of the whole piece, adding so many liberties with timing, expression and voicing with infinite expression causes the music to go in so many different directions that it would be unsustainable. The whole piece wouldn’t hold together. It’s impossible to maintain the music cohesiveness for the duration of the piece playing in this manner. Infinite expression in this sense simply doesn’t work for classical performance.
The second concept of infinity is the idea of going halfway to a destination again and again repeatedly.
This presents another concept of infinity. Your musical framework allows for minute levels of expression and detail which is truly limitless. The nuance of each note, the levels and the balance of each chord, there are an infinite number of possibilities to add more character and expression to your performance. This concept of infinity can be applied to musical expression. This might sound like a complex concept, and it is, but I have provided an example of this type of performance in the video included in this article as well.
If you listen to the second performance in the video, you will notice how it contrasts with the first performance. While there are an infinite number of gradations of tone, balance and expression, there is a continuity that holds the music together.
I could play that section over again and again and never play it the same way twice!
Adding subtle details to different elements allows you to create character and expression while potentially never repeating yourself – a truly infinite form of expression.
Adding subtle details to your music within a framework allows for infinite possibilities in your music while still maintaining the intentions of the composer and the structure of the music. Yet with this concept, you can still add your own unique voice and expression to everything you perform. When you look at your performances in this way, it’s incredibly exciting – you can truly play a piece thousands of times and always add something fresh and creative.
I hope you have enjoyed this video and I encourage you to experiment with this type of expression in your music. Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
When I first thought of this question, I was interested in what information was available from Google and on Youtube. I was surprised to find that there isn’t much information available on this subject! This is a really important subject for anyone who has studied Chopin Waltzes or Mazurkas. Chopin wrote a thick book of Mazurkas as well as a big book of Waltzes. These staples of the piano repertoire are stupendous pieces of music!
The Differences and Similarities of Waltzes and Mazurkas
First, there’s a great deal that Waltzes and Mazurkas have in common. Waltzes and Mazurkas were both dance forms of the 19th century. They are also both in ¾ time. So, what makes them different? In this video, I’m going to demonstrate the B-minor Waltz and the B-flat major Mazurka so you can hear them for yourself to see if you can figure out what’s different about them. Since they are both based upon dance forms in 3/4 time, you might wonder what sets them apart.
In a nutshell, the difference between Waltzes and Mazurkas is which beats are accented!
Let’s start with a Waltz. They typically have a strong first beat. The third beat is also somewhat strong, but the first beat is the strongest beat. In a Mazurka, the emphasis is on the second beat. On the accompanying video you will hear complete performances of the B-minor Waltz and the B-flat major Mazurka with all of the changes of sections. You can listen for the accented first beat in the waltz as well as the somewhat prominent third beat.
When listening to the Mazurka, notice the strong second beat. I chose these particular selections for you because they have similar tempos and are both energetic pieces. Some Waltzes have a solemn mood with slower tempos while there are Mazurkas which are highly introspective. They can be quite deep pieces of music. They’re well worth listening to and I may present these in future videos. I hope you get a sense of the fundamental differences between Waltzes and Mazurkas. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store 949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com
Welcome to LivingPianos.com. This is Robert Estrin. Today the subject is, how to approach a new piece of music on the piano. I randomly opened this big fat book of Chopin Mazurkas to the Mazurka in A-flat Opus 24 No. 3. I do not know this piece. I literally flipped through the book, and we’re going to see what happens.
The first thing you want to do when you’re approaching a new piece of music is to sight read it through to get acquainted with it. There’s a fundamental difference in the way you’d sight read a piece when you’re playing it for someone, or certainly when you’re accompanying someone where you have to keep everything moving. If you’re playing with someone else, you must stay together. When sight reading a piece for someone, you do the best you can even though you may have to flesh some of it out leaving out some inner notes. You must surmise what it should sound like and do the best you can. But in this case, when you’re reading to get acquainted (not playing for or with someone), you want to make sure you’re playing everything accurately, even if you have to play slower.
So, I want to start off and sight read this piece. I’m going to do it the way I would if I was playing it for someone and when it starts, maybe I’ll know if I’ve heard this Mazurka before! You can listen on the accompanying video.
That went pretty well. But at this point you will notice, it wasn’t entirely accurate. I was sort of getting the chord changes. Since there is a repeated section, I’m going to stop. If I was playing it for somebody, I’d make my way through it, perhaps not using the best fingering and not quite getting all the notes. However, if I was reading this to get acquainted with it, I wouldn’t do that. Instead, I would take it slowly figuring out the exact notes. I would figure out how to negotiate the music properly. I wouldn’t get too hung up because I wouldn’t want to start practicing yet. I just want to get acquainted. So, you have to draw the line of how far to go with your reading in order to get a sense of the music, yet not start pounding out wrong notes and cementing mistakes. So let’s see how to approach learning a new piece.
I am going to use no pedal so I can hear everything clearly. This will give a sense of the harmony. I had it mostly right! I did spot a double flat that I had missed.
The first time I went through it, it wasn’t perfect, but it was like a performance at least. So if somebody wanted to hear the piece, it could be satisfying for them because I wasn’t stopping and starting all the time. However, when you’re approaching a new piece of music, you want to take a moment to make sure you’re playing the correct notes, the correct harmonies. Double check your accidentals and things of that nature.
Now, the next step, after you’ve read through the whole piece in the matter I’ve described, you really don’t want to read the piece ever again, if you want to read pieces, pick another Marzuka or another piece of music entirely. Why is this? If you continue to sight read the piece, unless you played it perfectly, the first time through, you’re going to continue to miss things. And even though I played fairly accurately most of the piece the first time, there are all kinds of details on the score that are essential for the piece that are important such as, the exact place where slurs end, where dynamic start and end, and other fine details. Composers aren’t haphazard with these details. These are intrinsic to the composition and must be learned meticulously.
The very next thing to do after the precursory reading, is to go to the very beginning and break it down to the smallest possible elements checking everything. I could probably start from the beginning and read it through five or six times and sort of know it and then I could go back and keep reconstructing the score trying to fill in the details I didn’t quite get. But that’s not very effective practice.
On a piece like this, I might be able to get away with it honestly, because I can almost read it! But if I was learning a Bach fugue or a late Beethoven Sonata, or a piece of Ravel, there’s no way that method would work! So, you might as well use this practice technique with everything you learn which is the method I described in a video years ago that’s worth watching.
I’m just going to show you that here with this piece. The very next thing I would do if I was learning this piece, even if it was a piece of Mozart which is relatively easy to memorize, is to break it down as follows.
Start at the beginning taking just the right hand, the very, first tiny phrase.
Believe it or not, that’s all you should take because you can learn that really quickly and it’s satisfying. You will notice things like how the music starts with a decrescendo, and then you have a decrescendo. Also, the very first note starts with an accent. That doesn’t take very long to learn, so you might as well get all these details learned right away.
You want to check your work constantly as you go. Work out the fingering as well as the notes, the phrasing and the expression – everything!
Before moving on, be sure everything is solid. Play it until it becomes automatic and you don’t even have to think about it!
Next, you take the left hand. Solidify the music until it is memorized.
Check everything over and make sure there are no other markings, no indications of expression or phrasing that you may have missed.
Before putting the hands together, refresh your memory of the right-hand part you learned earlier.
Make sure you still remember it. Check it with the score once more. You might wonder why you need to go through such tremendous pains to learn a piece of music. It’s because you never want to have to unlearn something. You must make sure you are learning things correctly.
Next is the hardest parts – putting the hands together!
It’s important to put the hands together from memory the first time. You must challenge yourself even if you have to play much slower. Again, check your work with the score. You will hear subtle differences when you follow details precisely.
Finally, you add the pedal – That’s your reward for a job well done!
Keep playing until you are happy with your performance. Then you can go on to the next phrase and learn it the same way.
If you practice this way, you will be able to play your music exactly as you intend it to sound.
By taking very small phrases, you can spoonfeed the music to yourself. This is important because you can practice like this all day long because it’s relatively easy. Where if you try to memorize eight measure phrases or 16 measure phrases, you may be able to do it. But it would take so long that you may be limited in how many phrases you can emass in one practice session. However, you can work through this entire piece of two measure phrases and never get mentally tired. And better than that, you know it’s secure since you’re looking at every detail and solidifying as you go..
Next, you want to put the phrases together from the beginning.
First, refresh your memory of the first phrase you learned earlier. Check your work with the score. Play many times until it is secure from memory putting the two phrases together. Now you can reward yourself playing with the pedal!
So, that is the secret of productive piano practice. You must take your time focusing your attention on all the details as you learn. Remember, first read through the piece, a little bit more carefully than you’d read it if you were just reading it for somebody or accompanying somebody certainly. Take the time to make sure you have all the notes and at least have an idea of places you need to work out fingering later, even if you can’t quite get it initially. And then get to work and practice. Don’t take more than you can bite off at a time. If you’re taking more than a minute to learn something, you’re taking too much, because that way you can learn something every single minute of your practice and make it really productive and sustain a long practice. Even if you could read through the whole piece a bunch of times and almost have it memorized, and almost is the key word here, you don’t want to do that. You want it to be learned perfectly. You want to get every last detail of the score because that’s what makes it sound so beautiful!
Chopin was a master and crafted his music taking advantage of every marking in the score. Don’t get used to playing it wrong, because the correct phrasing and expression and fingering are going to bring the piece to life.
I hope this has been enlightening for you and you see the way I work and I recommend that you try it with your music. You can go through the whole piece connecting phrases as you go, memorising first just after you’ve just read through it and you won’t believe the difference it will make it your practice.
I hope that’s been helpful for you again, this is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store. info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729
