Tag Archives: robert estrin

Is there Muscle Memory in Piano?

Hello this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Is there muscle memory when playing the piano?” This is a great question and I’m going to ask a question of all of you right now. Tell me if this rings true. Have you ever had a piece you’ve played a million times and you find yourself playing the piece and instead of “spacing out” you find yourself “spacing in”? You realize that you weren’t thinking about what you were playing at all! Maybe you were thinking about what you were going to do later. Yet, your fingers keep going. You wonder how that could possibly happen. Indeed, there is a high degree of tactile memory playing the piano.

If you’ve ever watched a toddler getting up for the first time trying to walk, you’ll see them discovering the whole process. They are concentrating and you can see in their faces that they are focusing on how to stand and put one foot in front of the other. For the next few weeks and months, you’ll see how they get more and more comfortable and acclimated to walking. When you or I go out, we can be thinking about anything when we are walking. We don’t have to think about walking at all. Indeed there is muscle memory at work here! Obviously playing the piano is much more complex than walking, depending upon what music you are playing. Yet, if you play a piece many times:

Your fingers will keep on going all by themselves without you even thinking about it!

Is this a good thing? Yes and no. While on one hand, it is not something you want to rely upon too heavily, without a degree of muscle memory, it would be virtually impossible for a pianist to get through an hour and a half recital playing on a high level if they couldn’t free-wheel some of the time. Being able to allow the music to continue when performing even when there are inevitable distractions is essential. If your fingers wouldn’t keep going and there was silence, it would be a complete disaster!

It is good that we have muscle or tactile memory. However, you can’t depend upon muscle memory entirely. Think about this. Most music you play goes from section to section with repeats of different sections. You must know where you are in the form. You have to have that part of your brain looking down on the rest of you lovingly making sure you don’t take a wrong turn. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by practicing away from the piano where you don’t have the benefit of tactile memory. If you can play your music by just thinking it through in your head, you really know the score well.

Your muscle memory in conjunction with your cognition of the score in depth is invaluable for securing your performance.

Yes, there is muscle memory at work when playing the piano. Thank goodness there is! But remember, you can’t depend upon it all the time. Practice away from the piano. You can practice with your score, going as far as you can, and when you find a hazy part, refer back to the score. You might have to move your fingers when playing away from the keyboard just to be able to do this at first. It is an extremely valuable skill so that you don’t fall into the trap of taking a wrong turn in a sonata (for example) and finding yourself either leaving out 2/3s of the work or going all the way back to the beginning and having no idea how to handle the situation. This is where muscle memory can play tricks on you. You can depend upon it to a certain extent while reinforcing intentional understanding of the music.

Thanks for the great questions! Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

What is the Farthest a Piano has been Moved?

Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store, with a really interesting question. What is the farthest a piano has ever been moved? Here at Living Pianos, we move pianos all the time. So, this question is very close to my heart.

Going across the country is around 3,000 miles from Maine to California. When you go overseas, of course, it is a much greater distance. We had the opportunity to sell a concert grand to the Royal Theater in London. That is almost five and a half thousand miles away! Interestingly, that move was a piece of cake until the last couple of miles. When you get to the inner city of London, it actually cost more for the last couple of miles than the entire rest of the move including crating the piano! This is their way of limiting traffic in the city.

How Far Have We Delivered Pianos?

We also have had opportunities to sell pianos to China. Shenzen is about 7,200 miles away. So, that is certainly far away. We’ve never moved a piano to Australia – at least not yet. If we have the opportunity, it will be over 8,100 miles away. Is that the farthest a piano can be moved? You’d think it would be since it is on the other side of the planet. Actually, no!

We’ve sold pianos to Singapore which is about 8,800 miles away.

That is the farthest we have moved pianos. But what is the theoretical limit a piano could be possibly be moved? Unless you are just taking a piano for a ride around and around the world, which could be endless, half-way around the world at the equator is the greatest distance at about 12,500 miles. So, that is the theoretical limit. Or is it? Did you know:

There is a piano on the International Space Station!

It is actually a digital keyboard. But, it is a piano nonetheless. For the sake of discussion, let’s talk about that. Once again, orbiting the Earth again and again could be many thousands of miles. But you would be just taking a piano for a ride and not actually moving it from point A to point B. The International Space Station is only about 300 miles away, straight up at the point at which it passes over you. So, the final answer is, if you are going halfway around the world at the equator, that would be the farthest you could move a piano which is 12,500 miles.

It’s interesting to wrap your head around what it takes to move pianos and how far they possibly can go. I hope this has been fun for you. Keep those questions coming in and you’ll see them in future articles and videos! Thanks again, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

How Long Does it Take to Rebuild a Piano?

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “How Long Does it Take to Rebuild a Piano?”

There’s a very wide range of time, and there are many aspects to this question. Let’s say you have a piano you want to have rebuilt. Perhaps you have a Steinway, you want to have restored and you decide to send it to Steinway to rebuild. You’re probably going to wait over a year to get your piano back. It can take that long! Now, does that mean they’re taking the entire year to rebuild it? Well, yes and no. They might do parts of different pianos simultaneously. However:

It takes at least months to rebuild a piano.

Now, the other aspect of this question is, what does it mean to rebuild a piano? There are different parts of a piano that can be rebuilt. For example, are you replacing the sound board or repairing the old one? Are you creating a new key set, or are you staying with the original keys? There are different parts of a piano that can be utilized in rebuilding in most instances. Unless you have a piano that’s a complete disaster, you’re going to utilize a lot of the existing parts, so it can take different amounts of time depending upon how much work is required.

Let’s say, for example, you have an unusual piano from the late 1800s with a pre-modern action and it’s an art-case with beautiful scroll work, and some of the scroll work is missing. Perhaps other parts of the piano are destroyed as well, such as the music rack or one of the legs. It could take a very long time to match the woods, to hand-carve the beautiful intricate parts to make the piano match the way it was originally manufactured.

It could take longer than a year.

But I would say that any kind of even the most basic rebuilding that keeps the original action and replaces only some action parts, replaces strings, perhaps pin block, refinish the case, re-guild the plate, has got to take an absolute minimum of two to three months, if that’s all they’re working on. It is a big job. Not only that, you don’t want to rush through it because a piano needs to settle in, and a great part of the work of rebuilding a piano comes after the rebuilding in adjusting everything to play on a high level. On top of that, it’s important to make sure everything is stable.

If a piano has just been rebuilt and hasn’t had fine work performed, it will sound horrendous!

It takes tremendous refinement to get a rebuilt piano to play on a high level. It’s best to let the piano sit, play it, and have technicians work on it, and, of course, even over the next year or two, a rebuilt piano, just like a brand-new piano, is not going to be really settled in and stable for at least a year or two. You must play the piano and have it serviced on a very regular basis until it becomes stable.

So it’s all part of the process. I hope this has been helpful for you. If you have a piano you’re thinking of rebuilding and you want any advice, you’re welcome to contact us here at info@livingpianos.com. Thanks again. I’m Robert Estrin. We’ll see you next time.

949-244-3729

When Was the Golden Age of Pianos?

Robert Estrin here from LivingPianos.com with another great question. When was the golden age of pianos? You may have heard the term, “Golden Era”, particularly referring to American pianos. Did you know,

A hundred years ago there were over a thousand companies manufacturing pianos in the United States!

Even before the Great Depression and the crash of the stock market in 1929 there were still hundreds of piano companies in the U.S. The piano was as ubiquitous in homes as big screen televisions are today and in no small part by the player piano.

The player piano was the first home entertainment system.

In the late 1920’s the piano plummeted as radio and phonograph technologies came about. Of course when the Great Depression hit, the piano industry was heavily impacted. The golden era was really before this time. Yet, you could say it extended to before World War II when there were still hundreds of piano companies in this country.

However, during the 1930’s there was tremendous attrition of the piano market for the reasons I articulated: The Great Depression as well as technologies in audio such as radio and the phonograph dealt a death blow to the piano market. Yet there were still many companies making fine pianos.

Ten times more new pianos were sold in the United States sometime between the turn of the century and before World War I.

Remember, that was when the population was less than ⅓ of what we have today! The piano was extremely popular. That was the golden era.

Today, the piano has a renascence of activity in:

China where there are more companies manufacturing pianos than there are piano stores in the United States!

80% of the world’s piano students are in China today. You’ve got to be thankful that the piano is alive and well, just not in the United States like it used to be.

Of course, there are many of you who love the piano just as I do and they will always be around. Keep the questions coming in, again I’m Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Can Music Be Created Instantly?

This is Robert Estrin at livingpianos.com. The question today is, can music be created instantly? Truth be known, nearly all the great composers were phenomenal improvisers. We can only imagine what it must have been like sitting and hearing Liszt make up one of his fantasies, or hearing Mozart improvise theme, variations and sonata movements with good form and beautiful architecture of melodies and harmonies. So, yes, music can be created instantly.
In this video, I’m going to create an improvisation and see what I can create for you on the spot with zero preconceived notions as to what is going to come out. I hope you enjoy!

Is improvisation dead in the world today?

Well, in classical music it’s really just a micron of the entire industry of classical music. But in jazz and other forms of music, improvisation is a vibrant art form, and the crafting of solos by great jazz artists is awe-inspiring.

So, the tradition lives on in other styles of music today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at livingpianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Thanks so much for joining me.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Honest Expression On Demand!


Sitting down at a beautiful semi-concert grand can be inspiring! But the challenge of being able to instantly remove all distractions and focus solely on music can be enormous!

At first, I wasn’t going to release this video since the video quality isn’t the best. But after relistening to the music, I believe it is worth checking out.

Hope you enjoy!
Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729