Tag Archives: piano

Should You Learn the Notes of a Piece First?

This is a really loaded question. A lot of people think they should learn the notes of a piece first and later add the fingering, phrasing and expression. There’s a great fallacy in thinking that you can learn just the notes first. You might think that you should at least learn the rhythm with the notes and maybe you might even think the fingering should be learned initially. But can you add the expression and phrasing later? Here’s why this just doesn’t work.

Whenever you play a piece of music, you’re reinforcing the performance. The fallacy is that you can play without phrasing or expression such as dynamics. It’s virtually impossible to play without any phrasing or expression. How can this be? Well, what is phrasing? Phrasing is basically the way in which notes are connected or detached. So, if you play a passage that is written to be played staccato and you’re playing it legato, you are learning wrong phrasing. You will become used to playing it that way. The same is true for expression.

Why can’t you just add the expression later – things like dynamics (loud and soft). It’s because you’re always playing at a dynamic level! So if something is written to be played softly (piano) and you’re playing it medium loud (mezzo forte), you’re learning the wrong dynamic. Not that you’re meaning to, but you can’t play without dynamics. So, you’re learning the wrong dynamics and here’s why it’s so important to learn correctly all of the elements of your score right from the beginning. It’s because

Unlearning is much harder than learning.

Once you reinforce mistakes, getting rid of them is incredibly difficult and it takes massive amounts of practice to unlearn what you’ve solidified wrong.

So you may think you’re going to just get the notes and that you will add other elements later. This is a great mistake that does not serve you well in your practice. Take the extra time as you’re learning your music to learn all the details of the score right from the beginning and you will be rewarded by not having to go through the tedious process of trying to unlearn what is learned wrong.

Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. info@LivingPianos.com

Do Performers Make Mistakes?

The questions today is, “Do performers make mistakes?” I am referring specifically to Classical performers. You see them on stage playing and it seems effortless and perfect, but do they make mistakes? There is a lot to this question because first of all, of course performers make mistakes and brilliant performers sometimes have train wrecks, but it’s quite rare. Usually what happens is there’ll be something that may distract the performer and they have a mishap, but unless you’re intimately familiar with the score, seasoned performers know how to hide the mistakes well enough to not disrupt the performance. It’s not just that they’re trying to make themselves look great, it’s also that they don’t want the audience to feel uncomfortable.

This is an important skill, but there is more to it than that because performers today actually do play scarily accurately. If you compare performers from a generation or two ago, some of the greatest pianists of all time like Alfred Cortot, Arthur Rubinstein to Artur Schnabel, there are countless recordings that were made years ago where you’ll hear mistakes often in pre-WWII recordings of great artists with lots of missed notes. It is important to note that these recordings were made before the advent of editing. Yet even live performances today are on a much higher level of accuracy generally than years ago. What happened and how is everybody playing so accurately today and what does this mean?

I’ve talked about this quite a bit and of course today it’s quite obvious everybody hears everyone because of the internet. Even before that we had a generation of musicians growing up hearing edited recordings that were note perfect. As a result, everyone is expected to achieve this high level and there’s a certain homogenization of interpretations and tempos as well as voicing and other aspects of performance because everybody knows how everyone else plays. There is a standard level that is accepted today whereas years ago there was much greater variety. It’s true that the accuracy of performers and the sheer technical mastery that so many pianists and other instrumentalists have achieved is awe-inspiring.

On the flip side there isn’t as much experimentation. When listening to historical recordings, made from 78 rpm records, performers often take chances and liberties that nobody would dare today. Occasionally they’d fall flat on their faces. But when they didn’t, they achieved highs rarely heard anymore. So, accuracy is important and it is important not to make an audience feel uncomfortable. But yes, performers do make mistakes even though they hide them extremely well! It’s not all about accuracy, is it? I’m interested in your comments which you post here on LivingPianos.com or on YouTube. It’s a great subject and I would like to know what some of you think about the great old performers and if the missed notes are too bothersome to where you’d rather have more perfect performances even if it sacrifices a bit of the wild expression! Thanks for joining me Robert@LivingPianos.com.

What is an Acceptable Level of Action Noise on a Piano?

What is an acceptable level of action noise on a piano? You might not have ever thought about this before, but the action indeed with almost a hundred parts to each note can have some noise to it, particularly older actions. There is a way I like to test pianos. First of all, having the lid opened or closed is going to make a dramatic difference in the amount of action noise you hear. When a piano is open on a grand piano or in an upright that has the possibility of lifting up the lid or some other way of getting the sound out, you’re going to hear the mechanical noise of the action.

One way you can test how much noise your action has is to push down on a bunch of keys with the palms of your hands and then let up very quickly. Pianos that are older and are located in dry environments can have dried out leather and felt parts. This can cause extraneous noise. There can be a lot of reasons for that. So, what do you do about such a thing? Well, if the parts are not too far gone, sometimes they can be treated with chemicals to soften them up or even brushed with metal brushes to get these parts to soften up to lessen the action noise. Other times, the parts are too far gone and parts do have to be replaced in order to get a high level of performance and to minimize the level of noise.

So what is an acceptable level of noise depends upon the kind of music you play as well as the situation. For example, if you like to play aggressive pop music or rock, action noise is really not going to be much of a problem because the sound of your music is always going to be above the level of the action noise. Perhaps for a new age pianist or anyone who plays delicate music, the noise could be more distracting. As I mentioned earlier, if the piano is opened or closed, it is going to determine how much noise you hear from the action.

In recording situations, it can be vital to have a dead quiet action, particularly if you use close miking techniques for certain types of sonorities. The miking of a piano has a dramatic effect upon its tone. A close microphone can capture a very intimate kind of compressed sound that can be very appealing for certain styles of music, but you must have a really quiet action or it can be very distracting to your recordings. So, you can determine if action noise is a problem for you on your piano. I hope this has been helpful for you – info@LivingPianos.com

Do Pianists Need to Sing?

Is it necessary for pianists to sing? This sounds like a crazy question at first, but there is a lot of validity to this. Consider this: piano majors at conservatories and universities around the country, almost all of them sing in the chorus. (Sometimes they play an instrument in the orchestra if they play a second instrument.) In studying music theory, sight-singing is an intrinsic skill for pianists. I’ve had several videos on sight-singing because I consider it to be a beneficial skill for pianists.

Think about this: the piano and singing are about as diametrically opposed instruments that exist in the world. How so? The human voice is the most natural instrument. It’s the only instrument that everyone has and everybody has tried out. It was the first instrument, and for millenia was the only musical instrument. Eventually, people started banging on things and blowing through things. Even then, most music is evocative of the human voice.

What’s so unique about the human voice more than any other instrument is that you absolutely have to hear the notes you’re singing in order to produce the pitches. With the piano, you may have no idea of what a note is going to sound like. Yet, the pitch comes out anyway! However, it’s really important to hear what you’re playing. How do you quantify what you’re hearing? After all, a teacher can make corrections and you can do all the right fingering. You might play a note perfect performance but not really hear what you’re doing. Many pianists rely upon tactile memory.

This is not only dangerous but it is also not very gratifying. You must hear what you’re playing. This is really important in performance when inevitably you get off-track. It will happen. It doesn’t matter who you are and how experienced you are. At some point you will get off track and find your fingers over the wrong keys. You must make it sound right in order to get back on track. If you can’t hear it you’re pretty much done for if you’re doing it only by feel. That’s where singing comes in because if you can sing your music, you can play by ear until you get back on on track.

If you never sing, how do you know that you’re actually hearing what you’re playing? Singing is a tremendous tool. Likewise, singers need to study the piano. It’s a really important to play an instrument that can play more than one note at a time. An organ or guitar can also aid in this. Something where you can hear the underlying harmonic structure because after all, you can’t sing more than one note at a time! So singers must study the piano and pianists must sing. Does this mean you have to be a professional singer? Of course not. If you’ve heard me sing on some of my videos, you can attest to that! The fact of the matter is, I sing constantly as a way of hearing music. For me I love sight-singing with syllables because I can figure out the notes I’m hearing. It quantifies pitches.

I strongly recommend singing your music. One technique if you have music that has counterpoint where you have interweaving lines is to try singing one of the lines while you’re playing. Then try singing a different line. You will learn immeasurable amounts about your music. By singing, you’ll understand in a way you never will from only playing your music on the piano. So the answer to this question is a resounding “Yes”, singing is necessary to develop as a pianist.

Hope this helps! Again, this is Robert@LivingPianos.com.

How Much Does it Cost to Restore a Piano?

This is a very common question which has a somewhat complex answer. If I had to give a one-line answer to the question I would say the average is around $15,000 to restore a piano. In reality, restoring and rebuilding a piano can be a substantial project that varies tremendously based on each individual instrument. As we’ve discussed previously, there are literally thousands of parts on a piano and finding out what is needed on a particular piano to bring it back to a high level requires time and expertise.

There are essentially three components to a piano:

The Belly – is comprised of the soundboard, bridges, pinblock, strings, plate and other components.

The Furniture – This is the case and finish of the piano.

The Action – can be removed as a unit to work on separately. It is comprised of the keys, hammers, and thousands of other parts which must be adjusted to very stringent tolerances.

Any one, two or all of these components could require substantial work when restoring or rebuilding a piano. Just refinishing the case will cost thousands of dollars and require specialized work.

When it comes to rebuilding pianos, generally it concerns high end instruments. There is not much purpose in restoring cheap Asian production pianos because the cost of the restoration could exceed the value of the piano (unless it only needed minor work). A good candidate for restoring a piano is a classic American or European piano such as a: Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, Baldwin, Bluthner, Bosendorfer, Bechstein or other pianos which cost a substantial amount to replace. These pianos new can cost upwards of $80,000. So, it can be worth the cost to bring them back to life if the essential structure has not been compromised.

Obviously, restoring different parts of the piano will cost different amounts of money. Replacing the hammers or key tops will cost a lot less than replacing the soundboard on a piano. It really is a matter of what is required to get the piano to a desired level. Many times the soundboard on a piano can be restored to a high level with expert repair. However, if you need to replace a soundboard, you could be looking at a project in the tens of thousands of dollars with everything else that is entailed.

If you’re thinking about restoring a piano, you should contact someone reputable in your area to get an idea what the cost would be. The quality of the work is very important and varies widely. So, contacting someone with a good reputation is incredibly important.

Piano restoration is a very complicated process and it’s something that you shouldn’t embark upon alone. If you want advice on restoring a piano, please feel free to contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com or call (949) 244-3729.

How to Play Staccato on the Piano

The question today is: How do you play staccato on the piano? You may think of staccato as playing notes short. Indeed, in most contexts, that’s exactly how staccatos are played. However, staccato actually means to play detached, in contrast to legato which is played smoothly connected So if you have staccatos for example on slow notes (such as half notes), it might seem confusing at first for them to be marked staccato. In this case you would play detached but not necessarily short.

Many times staccato notes are found in faster music. Playing fast notes detached necessitates playing the notes short. In order to achieve a nice crisp staccato, you want to utilize the wrists. It’s really important to identify the wrists separate from the arms. The arms are too large and heavy to play fast and crisply. The wrists produce a completely different sound. The arms produce a heavy sound because the arms are large compared to moving only the hands from the wrists.

You’ve heard the expression, “It’s all in the wrist!” This is totally appropriate for successful execution of staccato in many contexts.

I hope you’ve found this information helpful! Robert Estrin – www.LivingPianos.com – Robert@LivingPianos.com