Tag Archives: piano

Piano Lesson – The Essentials of Fingering

Today we are going to discuss a very important topic, the essentials of fingering on the piano. We are going to use a couple of pieces as an example so you will benefit from watching the accompanying video.

Fingering on the piano is one of the most important aspects for developing a good technique. One of the greatest challenges is figuring out the best fingering for individual pieces. Even with scores that include fingering, you will rarely have all of the fingering written down except in very rudimentary music. Fingering is indicated as suggestions for key sections of the music. In fact, different editions of the same pieces have different fingerings! The fingering you play for a certain piece might not be the same as someone else. You must find a good fingering that works for you.

Fingering is the foundation of good piano playing. When you hit a wall in your practice after trying many techniques such as – slow practice, metronome work, hands separately, and other techniques, you should consider re-examining your fingering and see if there is a solution that works for you. Many times you will be able to solve your technical problems by discovering a new fingering.

Years ago I made a video that breaks down all piano playing into two essential components:

Fingering Patterns and Hand Positions

To sum up the idea behind that lesson, you should try to break down your music to chords wherever possible. By doing this you will be able to take in as many notes as you can in a hand position so you don’t have to jump around more than necessary.

The first piece I use in the video is Bach’s Prelude in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. I picked this piece because it is simply a series a broken chords – which makes it easy to demonstrate this lesson.

When you approach this piece, try playing block chords first instead of playing as written. It looks like this:

By grabbing as many notes as you can, it makes the piece much easier to learn and makes fingering choices obvious.

The trouble begins when you have to change hand positions.

For example, in the second movement of the Pathetique Sonata by Beethoven, when the first theme finishes, it repeats an octave higher. How do you approach this with the chord technique?

You see in the highlighted section that the piece goes up an octave. There is a technique for handling sections like this when you’re breaking down into chords. You figure out a “pivot note” to switch to a new hand position that gets over the new chord. Typically it’s a third or fourth finger crossing or as in this case, a thumb crossing. This instantly puts you in a new hand position!

Notice the position of my hands, as soon as I hit middle C, I am over the next chord.

By using this technique of identifying pivot notes to switch hand positions, it will guide your fingering choices.

Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this topic or any others, please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Email Question: What’s the best piano for me if price is not an issue?

QUESTION:

I really want to get a piano, but of course their expensive, take up space, and are loud. The expense is not what I’m worried about. What kind of piano should look for?

ANSWER:

You should try to get the best piano you can afford. All students eventually outgrow even the finest upright pianos. Here is a video on the subject:

The minimum instrument you can utilize to learn the piano would be an 88 key weighted action digital. An upright would be a step up from that. A baby grand is better yet. And large grand pianos in excellent condition would be the ideal instrument for you.

How to Improvise With Christmas Music

Happy Holidays everyone! If you’re a pianist (or a musician of any sort) you may be called upon by either family or friends to perform something for them this season. It might be fun to be able to accompany as people sing holiday favorites! While you may not have time to practice Christmas music, I have a simple solution for you!

Find some of the easiest Christmas music you can and make it your own by improvising! This is both an easy and fun way to present some holiday cheer as well as a way to practice your improvisation skills. In the video attached to this article, I use a song you can find on Virtual Sheet Music. There is a wide selection of Christmas songs available on the site and they have different arrangements for each of them (ranging from very easy to very difficult).

When it comes to improvising, the most important thing is being intimately familiar with the song. The great thing about using Christmas music is that you’ve heard them so many times; it’s perfect to improvise with!

In the video, I use the song “Greensleeves” (commonly known as “What Child is This”). I chose the easiest possible arrangement so it’s easy to read. You will hear an example of the music played exactly as written first and then a few improvised versions to see what is possible.

But how can you improvise on the written music? The beauty is that you can embellish any way you like! Don’t be afraid to experiment adding notes and altering rhythms. Then you can try to use play the left hand descending harmonies and make up a totally new melody on top! Or have someone play the left-hand part while you make up a melody. The only rule when it comes to improvising with this type of music is to have fun. Everyone you’ll play for will appreciate your efforts, so enjoy!

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Interview with George Ko (Pianist): Selecting a Piano for a Performance

This week we have a special presentation for you. I had the opportunity to interview Steinway artist: George Ko (www.georgeko.co) a professional pianist about how to select an instrument for a concert. We also discussed the piano industry in general. I hope you enjoy it. This is part of a continuing series of interviews with noted people in the piano world.

Living Pianos Podcast – Episode 02 – Jazz Music and Music Teachers

Robert and Mike are joined by Bijan Taghavi a jazz pianist who is currently studying under scholarship as a sophomore at the Manhattan School of Music and also one of Robert’s past students. On this episode they discuss Jazz and the differences and similarities between Classical music, relationships with music teachers and questions from listeners.

How Often Does a Piano Go Out of Tune?

This is a very tricky question. You might have seen in other videos of ours that we recommend tuning your piano at least once or twice a year – How Often Should You Tune a Piano?. So you might assume that with light playing and a stable environment your piano should stay in tune pretty well with one or two tunings a year. But it’s not that simple.

For example, here at Living Pianos we record videos of our pianos and we have them tuned – typically a day in advance and if we are lucky, the day of production. Yet even with the tunings, I find myself compelled to touch up select unisons because the pianos aren’t perfectly in tune even after just being tuned! You might wonder how this is possible considering we have the instruments in a controlled environment and tune them regularly. With pianos, tuning is never perfect for very long.

Take a concert setting for example. Many times a tuner will be tuning a piano right before an artist goes on stage to ensure that the piano sounds as good as possible. When the performer actually plays the piano – and especially if they are playing virtuoso music – the tuning will get knocked out quite easily. My father Morton Estrin would have his tuner touch up the piano during intermissions in his performances. At his recording sessions he would have a tuner there through the entire recording session touching up the piano every time a single note would go out of tune which was regularly during the sessions.

If you have a piano that is kept in a stable environment and tuned regularly it will eventually become extremely stable and the piano will hold its tuning quite well. On the hand, if you neglect to tune your piano it will be harder to get it into tune and it won’t stay in tune as long. This is why having regular tunings for your piano is so important and where the saying, “You can’t tune an out of tune piano.” comes from.

The ideal situation is having a live-in tuner who services your piano every day! I understand this is not possible for the vast majority of people. In practical terms, you will be fine if your piano drifts out of tune over time. If it becomes bothersome you should call your tuner and get it back in tune particularly if it drops in pitch overall. But it’s not essential to tune your piano more than a few times a year unless the piano gets tremendous use as in a practice rooms, teaching studios or restaurants – or if it is a critical situation such as in a recording studio or concert venue.

So, pianos are constantly going out of tune and need periodic tuning to maintain pitch. This is one reason some people choose digital pianos which require no tuning.

Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any comments or questions about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729