This is one of the most beautiful works of Brahms performed on a hand-built August Forster grand piano manufactured in Germany. It was a piano we restored and sold which I enjoyed playing. It inspired this performance of this gorgeous work. Hope you enjoy it!
Tag Archives: robert estrin
Free Pianos & Lessons!
Hi, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. Amazingly, there are hundreds of free pianos available all over the country. You can check out the links in the description below. But there’s so much more than that! What about free piano lessons? There are so many resources online, it’s unbelievable! You can check out what we have for you right here on LivingPianosVideos
There is a lot to consider here. The first question is:
Can you find an instrument for free that suits you, and if free video lessons are what you are after.
Some people may prefer a good, inexpensive digital piano. Again, there are countless resources online. Some people may resort to Craigslist.
But maybe you’re after a high level piano like a Steinway. But the prices have gotten out of reach for most people:
So, you may appreciate expertly restored American and European instruments from Living Pianos with top-tier instruments with free delivery anywhere in the continental United States! Aside from the thousands of free videos and articles on LivingPianos.com
I teach private lessons to students all over the world:
I was fortunate to grow up in a musical family. I also got to study with so many great pianists! So I enjoy sharing my passion for the piano.
I started teaching the piano while still in high school assisting my father with his teaching as my sister did before me. I got into selling pianos after graduating from music conservatory. Many people who contacted me for piano lessons didn’t have pianos! So I made it my business to find good used pianos which I had my piano technician put into good shape for them. There was such a demand for this sort of thing, and because of my extensive experience with pianos, people have relied upon me to help them with pianos ever since!
Teaching has been a continuum in my career which has many facets, from performing, to recording, as well as writing articles and making videos. So you can consider me your personal resource for information about pianos and piano lessons. Just email Robert@LivingPianos.com for a personalized response to help you! Thanks for joining me here at LivingPianos.com – Your Online Piano Resource!
LINKS:
Piano Lessons – How to Play Piano
My Teachers:
The Single Greatest Challenge of Piano Playing
Welcome to Living Pianos. I’m Robert Estrin. In this article, we will be discussing the single greatest
challenge in playing the piano. There are many aspects to playing the piano, such as playing with both
hands, playing multiple parts, playing fast, and playing scales, arpeggios and repeated notes. However,
there is one aspect that is the Achilles heel of piano playing, and that is the envelope of the sound
produced by the piano.
The Piano’s Sonic Characteristics
If you listen to just one note played on the piano, what do you hear? You hear a sharp attack, a quick
decay and a slow, quiet sustain that gradually decreases in volume. This presents a major challenge for
playing the piano since it is difficult to play melodies which imitate the human voice. After all, the human
voice is the original musical instrument of all time! Wind instruments have the benefit of using breath to
create musical lines. Violins and many other string instruments have bows to sustain notes. But on the
piano, in order to overcome this limitation, you must master the art of illusion!
How to Create the Illusion of a Continuous Line on the Piano
One of the techniques for creating a singing line, or sustained line, is to use the weight of your arm. The
arm has weight and, by using it as an analog to the breath, you can create a smooth line. You can
transfer the weight of the arm smoothly from note to note, rising and falling like the breath, with more arm
weight in the middle of the phrase, and less arm weight in the beginning and end of a phrase. This
technique can be enhanced with the use of the pedal. But before we discuss this, let’s talk about
something I refer to as, “The Phantom Pedal.”
The Phantom Pedal
The Phantom Pedal refers to the use of finger technique to hold down notes with your fingers instead of
relying upon the pedal. This allows you to sustain notes with your left hand while adding emphasis to the
melody notes in your right hand with the pedal. This creates a much more sustained melody, without the
risk of creating clashing harmonies or muddy sound.
Bonus Tip
As a bonus tip, we will discuss the use of the una corda, or soft pedal on a grand piano which is the
pedal on the left. Una corda means, “one string” because in early pianos, there were 2 strings on each
note. Depressing the pedal shifted the hammers so that the hammers only struck one string on each
note. Modern pianos have 3 strings on each note in most registers. The hammers still hit all the strings,
but not directly. This results in a softer initial attack. Yet the sustain is just as rich because of sympathetic
vibrations. By combining this pedal technique with the use of the arm, as well as the other techniques I
described earlier, you can overcome the inherent limitation of the piano’s sonic characteristics.
In conclusion, the single greatest challenge in piano playing is the envelope of the sound produced by
the piano. However, by mastering the art of illusion, and combining techniques such as using the weight
of the arm and using your fingers to hold notes (phantom pedal), you can overcome this limitation and
create a beautiful, sustained sound. This is the secret of artistry in piano playing.
I hope this has been helpful for you! Leave your 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 or want more information about pianos. I have many
resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com
Should You Use Pedal in Bach?
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Is pedal necessary in playing Bach? That’s a question I received from a viewer. Most of you probably know that the piano wasn’t invented during Bach’s lifetime. However, Bach did try the very earliest incarnation of what was ostensibly a piano. But he never wrote any music specifically for the piano.
Bach’s favorite keyboard instrument was the clavichord, because of how expressively it could play.
Because there wasn’t an escapement on the clavichord, you could actually impart vibrato on notes after you played them! Of course, the piano has escapement. That means the hammers escape the strings after striking them. This allows for a wide range of dynamics. But the sustain pedal didn’t exist during Bach’s lifetime.
What I’m going to do today is a really interesting experiment!
I’m counting on you to help me with this! I’m going to play the first section of the Bach French Suite No. 5. The first movement has a repeat. The first time I’m going to play it with no pedal at all. Then I’m going to play it with lots of pedal. But I’m going to be using little tiny bursts of pedal, just to enhance the tone. The questions are, can you hear the difference? And do you have a preference? Watch the video, then let me know your impression in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube.
Watch the video to take part in the experiment!
So I’ve shown you two examples of the same exact section. You probably wonder what I was doing with my foot there, fluttering up and down so quickly. Well, in this piece, as in so much Bach, there’s so much counterpoint going on that it’s difficult to really use much pedal. If you’re playing Chopin, for example, there is obviously so much you can do with pedaling. In fact, you need to use the pedal! If I were to play, for example, the Chopin G minor Ballade without the pedal, it would sound pretty thin. In music like that, the sustain pedal is absolutely essential to hold out notes for harmonies to blend together. But the music of Bach wasn’t written with the sustain or damper pedal in mind. So it works just fine without the pedal.
Why would you want to use pedal in Bach?
In Bach, you use short bursts of pedal to enhance longer notes to make them sustain longer. Because, as you know, when you play a note on the piano, it’s always dying away. As pianists, we’re always fighting that. We are trying to create a singing sustained line for the illusion of continuity, like in the human voice or the bow of a violin. The pedal helps to enrich the sound of key notes so that you get a sense of the line. Why just little flutters of pedal? Because to do any kind of substantial pedaling where the pedal stays down for any length of time, would blur the counterpoint together. And that’s not what you want. I’m really interested in reading your comments on this! Which way do you like better? Could you hear a difference at all? Let me know! 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
Magical Practicing Tool: Extreme Repetition
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to discuss the incredible value of extreme repetition in your piano practice. This type of practicing can be really annoying to listen to, but it’s incredibly valuable. Anybody who’s lived with me knows that I do a lot of this kind of practice. I find it to be one of the most helpful ways of practicing. So I thought I’d share it with you!
Take a very small chunk of music and play it over and over again.
I practice this way much of the time. Focus on just a few notes. Sometimes even one or two notes! Try to play those notes with absolute security. Even more importantly, play them with total relaxation. Feel that your fingers are simply falling on the right keys with minimal effort. Play tiny note groups. Don’t push to articulate each finger. Instead, just play as relaxed as possible.
Don’t be afraid of taking very small chunks of music.
It could be just two notes! You want to be able to play them with security and relaxation. Don’t be afraid of repeating something again and again and again. This is a very effective way of working through your music. I spend an incredible amount of my practice time working this way. So play small groups of notes up to speed as relaxed as possible. Don’t be afraid to repeat something until, like I say, you feel like you’re just falling on the right notes.
Use the weight of the arms.
After some time, your fingers just know where to go. Don’t push your fingers into the right keys. Let the weight of your arms allow your fingers to just fall into the right keys, keeping everything relaxed, instead of punctuating each note with your fingers more than necessary. You can get so much accomplished if you’re not afraid to spend an inordinate amount of time on very small groups of notes. Try it in your practice! Let me know how it works for you. Leave your comments here at LivingPianos.com and 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
Why Corrections Are So Hard on the Piano
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why corrections are so hard on the piano. You may have had this experience where you have something in your music you learned wrong or something doesn’t quite come out right. So you correct the mistake. You cement the correction. You do it over and over again until you get it perfect. You can play it ten times perfectly, no problem at all. Then you play for your teacher or at a performance and the same mistake comes back! You corrected that mistake, so how could it possibly come back to haunt you?
Why do old mistakes come back?
I’m going to give you a parallel here. Imagine there is a job you drive to every day for months, maybe years. Every day you get in your car and you go the same way. You’re so used to that route you don’t even have to think about it. That’s the problem! Because then let’s say you get a new job. You have to take a different way. But you’re so used to the old way that you end up making a wrong turn. You know which way you’re supposed to go, but it’s early in the morning and your mind is on other things. You end up reverting to the old way. The same thing happens in your piano playing! Just because you can play a correction ten times in a row, as an abstraction by itself in your practice with nobody there, doesn’t mean it is 100% solidified. The way you played it hundreds of times before, or that route you drove 100 times before, is still back there in your brain. It’s there, and it can come out at any time.
Correcting mistakes involves more than just correcting the mistakes.
You have to learn to be aware of the correction at the time it comes. During a musical performance in particular, when there are many distractions and perhaps a little extra nervous energy, you might revert back to something that you can’t even believe you would do. So what’s the answer to this? Of course, practicing incessantly on the correction until it’s ironed out is crucial. But there is more to it than that. You need to be aware when you get to the correction, just like being aware when you’re driving so you don’t make a wrong turn. Make a mental note so you’re aware of it when you get there. By doing this, you are present at that moment to incorporate the correction. You already know you can do it. You just need to keep the presence of mind to execute it when it comes.
I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know how you feel about this 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
