Tag Archives: playing piano

How Mozart Broke the Rules

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how Mozart broke the rules. Did Mozart really break the rules? What do I mean by that? It’s a funny thing that we, in retrospect, analyze music from hundreds of years ago, and come up with the forms these great composers composed in.

The quintessential form of all time is the sonata allegro form.

Sonatas are generally three- or four-movement works (sometimes two movements), and the first movement is almost always in the sonata allegro form. Why do they call it the sonata allegro? Because the first movement is usually the fast movement, and allegro means fast. In a nutshell, it’s a three-part form:

A. Exposition

– Theme 1. in the tonic key (the key of the piece)

– Theme 2. in the dominant key (the key starting on the 5th note of the scale of the key of the piece). – The Exposition Repeats-



B. Development: This is a free development of both themes
C. Recapitulation

– Theme 1. in the tonic key (the key of the piece) – Theme 2. in the tonic key (so the movement ends in the key it started in!)

The exposition has two themes. The first theme is in the tonic key, which is the key of the piece. The second theme is in the dominant key, which is five notes higher than the tonic. Then, the whole exposition repeats.

I’m going to outline it here in Mozart’s famous K 545 C Major Sonata, so you can see how he broke the rules.

The first theme is in C major, naturally, which you would expect. It continues to the second subject in G major, and the entire exposition ends in G major. This is a classic sonata allegro form. That’s the end of the exposition. Then you come to the repeat, and the entire exposition repeats.

After the exposition, you come to what’s called the development section. The development comes after the double bar, after the repeat, and it’s a free development of both the first theme and the second theme. After the development section comes the recapitulation. What’s the recapitulation? It’s a repeat of the beginning. You have theme one and theme two. Except theme two this time doesn’t modulate to the dominant. It stays in the tonic. So the piece ends in the same key it started!

But Mozart takes a turn that is unexpected.

Then the first theme comes back in F major, the subdominant. How did this happen? It continues in F major. But the first theme is supposed to come back in the recapitulation in the tonic key, C major, but we’re in F major. Then it goes to the second theme in C major, which is what you would expect. But there is never a restatement of the first theme, the opening theme in C major, which is a textbook of what a sonata is, and he just leaves it out. In fact, that statement of the main theme in the subdominant in F major is simply part of the development section. He never gives you the first theme in the recapitulation in the tonic key as expected. The recapitulation just has a short statement of the first theme in the subdominant, F major, in the development section. Then it goes right into the second theme in C major to the end. So yes, Mozart broke the rules.

All great composers break the rules!

The rules are just observations after the fact. It’s all the deviations from what you expect that make music great. Lesser composers do exactly what you think they’ll do, and it’s boring! Composers like Mozart or Beethoven are so full of surprises, always taking turns you don’t expect. That is the secret of great music! I’m wondering what you think about this. Are there any examples that you can bring to the table? Let us know 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.

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Are There Musical Geniuses Like Mozart Alive Today?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Are there musical geniuses like Mozart alive today? In the world today with billions of people, there have got to be some people with tremendous talent. There are great players and child prodigies, but is there anybody at the level of artistry, creative beauty, and pure genius of Mozart?

The answer is yes!

If you have not seen her already on YouTube, you must check out Alma Deutscher. I’ve been following her for years. She started posting on YouTube when she was five. There are videos of her playing the violin from a very young age. She is unlike any musical talent I think you’ve probably ever seen in your life. Just to give you an overview, she’s now 18 years old. She has composed three operas. She composed her first complete opera when she was only ten years old! There are some videos of her performing where the audience chooses notes and she improvises using those notes. She can instantly create a composition on the highest level, beyond what you would think of as improvisation.

She is an accomplished pianist, violinist, and singer.

She’s great on all three of these instruments, as well as being a conductor. She’s written violin concertos, piano concertos, and three operas. It’s just amazing. You could see her evolution through time. But from the youngest age, there is a spark of joy in her, and an appreciation for beautiful melodies, which just flow out of her naturally, whether she’s improvising or composing. If she just played the violin, sang, played the piano, or composed even a fraction of the music that she’s written, she would be noteworthy. But the fact that she does all of these things is astounding! She is much like Mozart, who was great on violin, piano, conducting, improvising, and composing for so many different ensembles, from opera to piano to symphonies, from the youngest age.

There are still musical geniuses like Mozart alive today! But where can they shine?

Are there places for people like Alma Deutscher? Where will her career take her? This will be very interesting. Many composers today are in the film industry because it’s one area where people can actually make a living composing music. We no longer have royal courts with benefactors the way they existed back in Mozart’s time.

I want all of you to check out Alma Deutscher!

Check out her compositions and her improvisations. Watch her from the youngest age to what she’s doing now. I think you will be astounded at this world-class musician in our midst. I just thought I’d call it to your attention to her. I’m interested in other great artists of our time. If you know of anyone like this, share it 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

Alma Deutcher Improvisation

https://www.almadeutscher.com

https://www.youtube.com/@AlmaDeutscher

How Much Freedom Is There in Musical Performance?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. How much freedom is there in musical performance? If you listen to the same piece by different performers on the piano or any other instrument, you’ll find dramatically different interpretations. How much do you have to be faithful to the score, and how much can you just take off and do what you want to do? The answer may surprise you!

You want to play faithfully to the score.

If somebody was listening to a piece of music written by a great composer and they were transcribing it note for note, they should end up with the same score that the composer wrote with every last detail. Does that mean that every performance should be the same? No, surprisingly, because you can execute every detail of the score in different ways to indicate what is written, and different people have various ideas about how to achieve that.

I’m going to give you a great example today, which is Debussy.

Debussy was a French impressionist composer from the early 20th century. His music is a wash of colors and sounds. And yet, it’s important to have the clarity of what is intended in the score come out in your performance. But there is more than one way to achieve that. For example, sometimes there are double-stemmed notes, a note with a stem going down and a stem going up. Why are there two stems? Well, that note is part of two different lines of music, like different instruments playing. It may be 16th notes and 8th notes at the same time. One voice is on the top and one voice is on the bottom. Sometimes voices overlap, and they both hit the same note at the same time. The composer wants you to understand that and project it into the performance. It creates different sounds. So in the first movement of Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite, there are double-stemmed notes. Interestingly, it starts off in the third measure with double-stemmed eighth notes (with staccatos), which intersect with 16th notes on the bottom. What makes it even more interesting is that starting in the fifth measure, you have a similar passage except with double-stemmed quarter notes with 16th notes on the bottom. This is a subtle difference which is the genius of Debussy creating nuances of sound. (You can reference the accompanying video to hear this on the piano with the score provided.)

Ideally, you want to do as much as you possibly can with your fingers and then use the pedal for expression.

That’s just one example where the composer wants to have different lines of music, and it’s up to you as a performer to find a way to execute it to create the effect. On the seventh measure, you have the same pattern twice, but the first time with a crescendo/decrescendo, then it repeats with no dynamic changes. There are all kinds of subtle phrasing, double stemmed-notes, inner lines, expression, and crescendos. What I have found over the years is that if you really learn the precision of where the crescendos start and end, exactly how many notes are slurred, attention to double-stemmed note values, and you delineate all the minutiae of the score, it brings the music to life!

Be sure you’re not working from a heavily edited edition of the score.

You want to follow the markings of the composer, not the editor, because the editor may or may not have great ideas. You should always know what the composer had in mind with an urtext edition, one that is not edited, or one that clearly indicates what’s coming from the editor rather than the composer. That way, you can get in the head of the composer and get an idea of the concept of what they really were after. Those small details all come together to mold a great performance. So you can indeed follow the inclinations of the composer and do so with the conviction of how you believe the music can best be expressed. I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at Living Pianos: Your Online Piano Resource. Join the discussion at LivingPianos.com where you can leave your comments on countless articles with accompanying videos.

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Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

How to Recharge Your Piano Playing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to show you how to recharge your piano playing. Have you ever gotten a piece to a really high level and played it on a regular basis, but somehow it goes stale? It’s just not quite there. It’s not like there are trouble spots you can practice. The whole thing just doesn’t have the spark that it once had. How can you get it back into shape? I’m going to show you today. There are some very basic techniques that are going to do the job for you.

Slow practice is one of the most important aspects of piano playing.

I have had the opportunity to study with some absolutely stupendous piano teachers, including my father, Morton Estrin, Ruth Slenczynska, Constance Keene, and John Ogden. They all practiced slowly. Every fine pianist I have ever met practices slowly. Even when you can play something up to tempo, going back and practicing slowly is absolutely essential on the piano. You should also take your foot off the pedal. Listen to what your fingers are doing. The pedal covers so much. I can tell you that these two tips I have just given you are so fundamental that every great classical pianist uses them.

Use the score.

Even if you have a piece memorized, it’s not good enough. You have to reinforce your memory. Do you think you can remember every single detail, like where a slur ends, where a crescendo begins, or the exact voicing of every chord? You must constantly reinforce your memory!

Use the metronome.

Practice with a metronome to keep yourself honest. Put the metronome on a nice, slow speed. Play with no pedal and keep your eyes on the score. The amazing thing is that just going through it slowly like that a few times will already clean up your playing enormously. But if you really want to develop a stellar technique, you can do all the speeds in between, where necessary. You might not have to do all the speeds everywhere. But any place that doesn’t come out consistently or feel comfortable, do progressively faster metronome speeds on those sections.

I remember watching my father practice when he was preparing to record his Brahms album. I used to watch my father practice all the time. I loved it! It was really enriching. I remember he got to a point where he was playing through everything just slightly under tempo without the pedal. It was totally relaxed and clean. That’s what you want. You want to get to the point where you get it up to tempo and it’s all comfortable. The notes are just there. You don’t have to work to make it come out. And because you study the score again and again, slowly seeing every detail, you really perfect your performance.

This is a great way to get any piece back into shape!

If you have a piece that’s gone stale or a piece you’re performing and you want to make sure it’s still in good shape, this technique is bulletproof. Practice slowly, with the score, no pedal, and using a metronome. Try it in your practice! You’ll be amazed at what this can do for your playing! I hope this is valuable for you! Let me know 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

How Does Memory Work on the Piano?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about memory. How does memory work on the piano? People play whole programs—an hour and a half or more of music—all from memory. Their fingers know just where to go. How does that work? I received a question that addresses this from a viewer named Frank. Frank asks, “When professional pianists perform long, complicated pieces, say, a concerto or sonata, how much of that is from muscle memory versus actual explicit memory? That is, do their hands just know where to go? Or can they actually write out the scores of the works they perform?” This is a great question!

There’s so much involved in memory.

If you’ve played a piece a number of times and you’ve gotten it under control, you get to a point where you can be playing your piece and you realize right in the middle that you’re daydreaming. Yet it keeps going! Well, this is a fact of life, not just with piano playing but with so many things we do, for example, walking. When you walk, you can be thinking about many different things, but the act of walking actually takes a tremendous amount of coordination, as you can see in the face of a toddler learning how to walk for the first time. This is even true about driving a car. I hate to say it, but you can drive a car without really being aware. Did you know that there are people who sleepwalk who sometimes drive cars while they are asleep?

Muscle memory is an intrinsically important part of memory on the piano.

For those brief moments when you lose concentration, thank goodness you have muscle memory to keep your fingers moving. However, you certainly can’t rely on this. Your fingers don’t know if you’re in the earlier or later part of a sonata movement. They don’t know whether you’ve made repeats or not. You have to have that part of yourself looking down on yourself so you know where you are in the music and what comes next. Without this awareness, you could easily take a wrong turn.

Could you actually think through and write out the entire score of a piece you have memorized?

If you really know your score, yes, you could absolutely write it out. Ideally, you should be so familiar with your score that you can remember every detail. If you sit down at the piano and just try to slow down a piece that you’ve played many times, it can be difficult to get from note to note without the benefit of muscle memory. This is why slow practice is so important on the piano. It solidifies your memory. It makes you have intention with every note you play. Slow practice is a great way to develop security and knowledge of the score. Practicing slowly with the score gives you double reinforcement. You get the feeling of each note being delineated clearly and distinctly while also absorbing the visual image of the notes on the score of something you’ve already memorized.

Writing out a score is an incredibly difficult task.

Writing out just one minute of music can take hours, even if you know exactly what you want to write. Figuring out rhythms and counting them out so you know exactly what kinds of notes to write, where each slur comes in, which notes are staccato, where the dynamics start and end, hairpin crescendos and decrescendos—these are the kinds of infinitesimally small details of music that can make a profound difference in the integrity of your performance. Not to mention the fact that great composers didn’t just put these markings in willy-nilly. The architecture of the piece is dependent upon the precision of these details in the composition. So it’s well worth your while to learn the score exactly as it’s written, to the point where you could write it out.

You want to be able to hear every note of the score in your mind.

One of the great ways to practice a piece you’ve learned and can play well is to sit down without the score and start playing in your lap. Better yet, do it without even moving your fingers, thinking it through as if you’re playing. If you can do that, then you really know your scores tremendously well. I had a situation many years ago when I was at the Manhattan School of Music. I came down with mononucleosis, and I just couldn’t seem to knock it. I was in bed for several months. I had a recital that was scheduled, and I had to keep postponing it. Finally, I just really wanted to play the recital. I was getting better, but I wasn’t really strong enough to practice that much. My program was about an hour and a half of music. It was a solo recital, and it was all memorized. So I took the stack of music into bed with me, and I practiced in bed, going through it just as I described, trying to think through every detail. Whenever I couldn’t remember exactly the voicing of a chord, where a slur ended, or exactly where a crescendo started, I would reference the score until I could get through everything successfully.

Visualizing a desired outcome is a valuable tool.

Visualization is a way that many people find success, not just in playing the piano but in almost every aspect of life. If you have an upcoming job interview, you could rehearse in your mind. A basketball player could imagine getting a free throw shot in. This is the best kind of practice you can ever do because you don’t have the benefit of tactile memory. It’s just pure thought, which is pure practicing, because, as I’ve said so many times, practicing is a mental discipline. So take this to heart. And by the way, that recital I played years ago was so much better than one I had played a year earlier, even though I spent far less time at the piano. But I did the mental work to prepare, and it made all the difference in the world.

Try these techniques in your practice!

Take out the score of the music you’ve memorized. Play through slowly and securely. Take your foot off the pedal to hear what’s really there. Exaggerate finger motions with raised fingers and delineate staccato from the wrist. Challenge yourself and try playing mentally, first moving your fingers, and then eventually getting to the point where you can just play through the piece with all the nuance of sound and touch, all away from the piano. Let me know how this works 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

Supplemental Content: How to Play Piano with Your Mind

Should You Follow Pedal Markings in Your Scores?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is about whether you should you follow pedal markings in your scores. All too often, you don’t even have pedal markings! So where should you pedal? In a nutshell, it’s where harmonies change. You don’t want to blur harmonies from one chord to another because you get a mess of dissonance. So whenever harmonies change, that’s the appropriate place to change the pedal. But what about when you do have pedal indications in the score? Well, this comes down to two factors. Are they the composer’s markings or the editor’s markings?

Very few composers wrote pedal markings in their scores.

Most of the pedal markings you’re going to find are editors’ markings. You can try them, but I would, for the most part, ignore them unless you find them helpful. Now, what about when composers write pedal markings? There are some places where Beethoven wrote pedal markings, for example. Even then, with Beethoven as a good example, the piano was a very different instrument during Beethoven’s lifetime. As a matter of fact, the piano was a very different instrument early in Beethoven’s life compared to later in his life! The piano was evolving. The pedaling that worked for Beethoven’s piano doesn’t necessarily work well for the modern piano. Well, what about later composers? If you have composers from the late 19th or 20th century who wrote pedal markings, should you follow them? You may want to in some instances.

Sometimes you’ll have markings for the una corda pedal, the soft pedal. Should you follow them?

In regards to the una corda pedal, on some pianos, the soft pedal does almost nothing. On a new piano, for example, where the hammers aren’t grooved, the change in position of the hammers makes very little difference. On other pianos, it can make a dramatic difference in tone. If the hammers are very heavily grooved, the una corda pedal will make a significant tonal change. You’ve probably noticed how, on a grand piano, the action and the hammers move when you depress the una corda pedal. That puts the soft felt striking the strings. So did the composer make these una corda pedal markings for a piano with a dramatic change or a subtle change? You have to weigh that in deciding whether you follow the markings. Ultimately, your ears are your guide.

What about sustain pedal markings?

In regards to the sustain pedal, different pianos have different levels of sustain. Different rooms have different qualities of reverberation. Also, the composer may or may not have been a great interpreter of their own music! So I would say pedal markings are suggestions. Try them, by all means, when the composer wrote them, certainly, and even if editors wrote them. But if they don’t work for you, don’t feel compelled to follow pedal markings in your scores. They may or may not work on your piano, in your room, or in the style you’re trying to achieve in your playing. I hope this is helpful 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