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The 20 Skill Sets You Need at the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to share with you 20 skill sets you need at the piano. I tried to narrow it down to the absolute essentials for you. You can check to see how many of these skill sets you have. There are some things you might not have thought of that could be really important for you to take your piano playing to the next level. I’m going to start with the most important thing for classical players and something that’s great for anybody, which is…

Memorization

You may think you just have to be born with a great memory, but that’s not true. There’s a system for memorization that can be taught. Memorization makes playing the piano easier. It’s very encumbering to be watching the score. Sometimes it’s necessary, but when you have something memorized, it frees you to be expressive and just let the music come out of you naturally. What else is important? To learn more about memorization, click here!

Sight-reading

Reading music is essential because you can’t memorize everything. Plus, if you’re accompanying other musicians, you want to be able to see the score and their part. So you want to be able to read music to familiarize yourself with a wide array of music without necessarily committing it to memory. That’s another skill that can be developed. To learn more about sight-reading, click here!

Improvisation

Did you know that most styles of music are not dependent on reading every note in the score? Jazz, pop, rock, country, folk—you name it. Being able to improvise is so important. It’s also a great way to have fun with music. If you have a party and people want to sing some songs, being able to play by ear is great. Not to mention the fact that it can save your neck if you ever have a memory slip during a performance. You can get back on track if you can play a little bit by ear instead of starting over again. To learn more about improvisation, click here!

Scales and arpeggios

Learning all of your major and minor scales and arpeggios is one of the foundations of good technique on any instrument, and the piano is certainly no exception. It’s an essential toolbox of technique. The vast majority of Western music is built on scales and arpeggios. Having those literally at your fingertips is of tremendous value. Don’t be intimidated by it. You can just learn one a week, and it will take you about a year to learn all of them. There’s no hurry. If you haven’t done it yet, go for it! I’ve got a spreadsheet that you can check out that can keep track of all your scales and arpeggios. To learn more about scales and arpeggios, click here!

Octave technique

You hear people play rousing octaves, and you wonder, how is that done? Well, once again, a central technique of using the wrist. I have additional videos on that for you as well. And that brings us to the essential technique of the piano. To learn more about octave technique, click here!

Learn how to identify when to use the fingers, when to use the wrists, and when to use the arms.

They all come into play, but in different ways in different contexts of music. One of the most important things about learning technique on the piano is knowing which parts of the body to use. To learn more about finger techniques, click here! For more about the wrists, click here! For more about arms, click here!

Learn how to bring out different voices in your playing.

The piano is an instrument that can play many different parts at once. You, of course, have your left and right hands, but it’s much deeper than that. Sometimes, you have inner voices. You can even have different parts within one hand. Learning how to bring out different voices is such an essential technique. And once again, there are ways you can practice that. I have techniques for this. To learn more, click here!

Learn how to achieve a smooth melodic line.

Did you know that the piano is a percussion instrument? That’s right. When you play a note, the hammer is hitting the strings. You get a strong attack and rapid decay. So how do you get a smooth melodic line? Well, it’s the art of illusion. It’s a matter of using the weight of the arm to smoothly transfer the tone from note to note. The pedal can help with that as well. To learn more, click here!

Learn how to get a beautiful sound out of the piano.

Have you ever heard somebody play and everything just sounds harsh and ugly, and then somebody will play the exact same piano and everything sounds beautiful and warm? How is that possible? Singers have physiology that makes it so, and with other instruments, there’s such a connection with the throat, the breath, and the lips. But yes, on the piano, there are ways of achieving a beautiful sound. And there are ways you might get an ugly sound if you’re not careful. So this is a really important subject for you if you haven’t covered it before in your playing. You want to always get as gorgeous a sound as possible. To learn more, click here!

Interpretation

Interpretation is a wide open area. It’s very subjective, but it’s something important to understand and have a grasp of. You work so hard to learn a piece of music. How do you actually let it unfold? What do you have to say about it? Do you just play it the way your teacher told you to or the way you’ve heard it in a recording? Or do you have something unique you can say about the piece? How do you develop your own voice in music? That’s what interpretation is all about! It’s the reason we play—to express our love and our unique ideas about the music. The reason we work so hard is so we can bring our ideas into these pieces of music so others can enjoy our concepts of them. To learn more, click here!

Appreciate different period styles.

To understand interpretation and many other aspects of technique, you really have to have an appreciation for the different period styles of music, from the Baroque to the Classical, the Romantic, the Impressionist, and the 20th century. They’re all different styles, and there are styles within those styles. Not to mention, the piano evolved over time. So the period the music was written in wasn’t for the same instrument as earlier or later pianos. When you’re playing Baroque music, it might not have been written for the piano at all. It was more likely written for the harpsichord! So understanding the period styles and the instruments the music was written for is very important for being able to play appropriately on the piano. To learn more about the Baroque period, click here! For Classical, click here! For Romantic, click here! For Impressionism, click here!

Another important aspect of piano technique is ornamentation.

There’s all kinds of ornamentation, such as trills. Sometimes in early music, you’ll see different squiggly lines that are representative of things that you do to embellish the music. How to translate those symbols is one challenge, but the other is simply knowing how to execute them cleanly. And there again, there are different aspects of knowing how to measure your trills and things of that nature. For more about executing trills, click here! For more about ornamentation, click here!

Music theory

A solid foundation in music theory can really enhance all aspects of your playing. Certainly, if you’re reading music, it’s helpful to know what key you’re in and to have some grasp of the chord progressions and modulations. When you’re learning a piece of music, a foundation of music theory will help you understand where you are in the structure and the harmonies. It’s going to help you learn it, remember it, and play it. For more about music theory, click here!

Harmony

Harmony is kind of a subcategory of theory. Having an understanding of the keys you’re in and the relationship of tones is what harmony is all about. To learn more about harmony, click here!

Dictation

One way to develop harmony is through dictation. Jazz players do dictation all the time. If you play popular music, sometimes the sheet music can be very drab and not really grasp what the original performance was about. So you listen to it and kind of copy it by ear. You can even write it down. This is a tremendous way to develop your ear and an affinity for different styles of music. To learn more about dictation, click here!

Music history

Having a grasp of music history is so important. I mentioned the period styles, but it goes so much deeper. You want to understand the culture and customs of the time and how the music fit into society. Was it something for the elite or the music of the people? The history of the time can be enlightening and might shed some light as to how the music should be approached. Is it folk music? Is it music for the Royal Courts? Having an understanding of music history can give you a depth to your playing that is really important. To learn more about music history, click here!


Accompanying

I talked about reading and sight-reading being important, but accompanying is an art unto itself. You want to be able to play with other musicians. All too often, pianists play by themselves so much that they lack the camaraderie that you develop playing with other musicians. You learn so much by doing this. You develop a better sense of timing, balance, and nuance. There’s nothing greater than playing with other musicians and learning from them. When you play with great musicians, it rubs off on you. You might feel squeamish about playing with people who are better than you, but take the opportunity. It will be enriching for you. For more about accompanying, click here!

Maintain a repertoire.

How many pieces can you keep in your repertoire? What pieces should you learn next? What is a well-balanced repertoire on the piano? These are really important questions for developing your piano playing and your musicianship. You need appropriate challenges in your repertoire—something that’s not going to take you an inordinate amount of time or something that you’re never going to be able to play at a high level without a foundation of learning other pieces first. You need to know what pieces to play, what pieces to study, and how many pieces you can keep in your current repertoire. It’s not limitless. But you can drop pieces and restudy them. If you try to keep everything at your fingertips and in your head, you won’t have time to learn new music! So maintaining a repertoire is a delicate balance. To learn more about maintaining a repertoire, click here!

Performing

One of the important skill sets that has to be practiced is playing for people. Because if you play by yourself, it never really comes to fruition. The act of playing for people is where the music comes alive. When you’re playing by yourself, you know what you’re doing. When you’re playing for others, there’s a give-and-take. You’ll find that you will do things in your playing that you’ve never done before. Some of them may be unfortunate things, but you may find that, particularly if you have the wherewithal to play for people on a regular basis, it can become an inspiration for ideas because you get the feeling for what people are really paying attention to and the things that leave them flat. It’s just like a comedian working out material. They don’t really know what’s going to land and what’s going to fall flat until they do it in front of a crowd. The same is true with your piano playing. Playing for people is what it’s all about! You might think no one wants to hear you. That couldn’t be further from the truth! People will be impressed with your accomplishments. If they don’t play, everything will seem amazing to them. It’s all relative. There are different things that everybody can bring to the music. You don’t have to be the most virtuoso player in the world to be able to share emotions, feelings, and nuance about the music and taste that you have that’s unique to you. So play for people. People will enjoy it, and you will grow as a musician. To learn more about playing for people, click here!

Adjusting to different pianos and different rooms

When you play on different pianos, it feels completely different, and it can give you ideas about the piece you never had before. The rooms you play in also make a tremendous difference. Have you ever played in a room that’s completely acoustically dead, where there’s no reverberation at all? You end up working harder, and you may have to use the pedal more liberally in order to make up for the lack of acoustics in the room. You might go to a hall and try out the piano before a performance, and it sounds glorious in the beautiful echoey space. Then the audience comes in, and all those bodies with clothing absorb the sound, and it’s a completely different acoustic. So learning how to adjust instantly to a piano and to a room is an essential part of piano playing. And it’s enriching because you will learn more about the pieces you play, even if you’re not performing. Any time there’s a piano somewhere where you can play, play some of your pieces on it. I guarantee that you will learn something from the experience. To learn more about adjusting to different pianos and environments, click here!

I hope these are helpful for you!

But we have just scratched the surface! What about pedaling? Here is more on that subject for you:

HOW TO USE THE PEDAL ON THE PIANO – KEYBOARD KALEIDOSCOPE – ROBERT ESTRIN

And there is also independence of the hands at the piano:

HOW TO PLAY HANDS TOGETHER ON THE PIANO

These are just 20 tips and essential skills on the piano with two bonus tips! Any of you who can think of other skill sets that are important, leave them 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

Why Rests Are as Important as Notes

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to tell you why rests are as important as notes. I’m going to get a little bit metaphysical with you for just a moment. In some of his writings, Carlos Castaneda talked about how, when you’re looking at a tree, for example, you learn to tune out the space between the leaves and just focus on the leaves, as if the space between the leaves isn’t anything. But if there was no space between the leaves, you couldn’t identify the leaves!

The only thing that gives anything you look at definition is the space between.

In the universe, you have matter, energy, and the space between things. If there was no space, you would not be able to discern any matter because it would be just a whole conglomerate of mass. There would be nothing. If everything was mass, how could you have anything? Okay, that’s kind of a heady subject, but this relates to rests in music. How can you have sound if you don’t have silence? You need balance between what is and what isn’t: life and death, black and white, good and evil. This duality of reality is prevalent in music.

Rests make it possible to have music.

Without rests, you wouldn’t have sound. It’s the drama of waiting in anticipation for what’s coming next that gives music power and makes it compelling. Listen to a great jazz artist, and it’s the time between the notes where they’re formulating their ideas, much like a conversation. There’s nothing worse than getting stuck with someone who talks nonstop. You find yourself tuning out. You can’t even consider what they’re saying. It’s only the time between the sentences and your thoughts that gives you a chance to assimilate the information. And so it is with music.

Take rests for their full value!

It’s the mark of a great musician. Nothing irks me more than when I hear an accomplished concert pianist not hold rests long enough. It loses the character of the music. So remember, rests are just as important as notes. You can’t have notes without rests. Consider the time between the notes just as important as the notes themselves. I hope this resonates with you.

It’s easy to rush your counting when you’re counting rests. When nothing’s going on, it’s easy to speed up your counting! So deliberately slow down your counting to compensate for your natural tendencies. And check your work with the metronome to make sure you haven’t overcompensated. 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

What Are Modes?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m talking about modes. You may have heard of modes. It may even have been explained to you in some way that seemed incomprehensible. How can you possibly remember all of your modes? Well, you can’t! I’m going to show you the easiest way to figure out all your modes. You’re going to know all your modes, and you’ll be able to play them in all keys if you know your key signatures or your major scales.

Let me first show you a major scale.

A major scale is just a series of whole steps and half steps. It’s actually all whole steps, except between the third and fourth and seventh and eighth notes. The white keys on the piano represent a C major scale because you have whole steps except between three and four and seven and eight (E-F and B-C). That’s the way all major scales work. So that can be transposed for all major scales. So what the heck are modes?

Modes are simply starting on a different note of the major scale!

The major scale is the Ionian mode. If you start on the second degree of a major scale, that’s called the Dorian mode. If you start on the third scale degree, you get the Phrygian mode. If you start on the fourth scale degree, you have the Lydian mode. If you start on the fifth note of the major scale, you have the Mixolydian mode. Starting on the sixth note, you have the Aeolian mode, which is also the natural minor scale. And finally, starting on the seventh scale degree, you have the Locrian mode, which is not used very often in music. Those are all the modes!

You can easily figure out all your modes, provided you know your major scales.

For example, if you were playing the Ionian mode in C, it’s the same as the C major scale. But if it’s the Dorian mode, it starts on two. Well, C is the second note of a B-flat major scale. So you just play the notes of a B-flat major scale, except starting on C. To play the Phrygian mode, you play all the notes of an A-flat major scale, except starting on the third note of the A-flat major scale which is C. For Lydian, you would start on the fourth note of the G major scale (also C). For Mixolydian, C is the fifth note of the F major scale. For Aeolian, C is the sixth note of an E-flat major scale. And finally, the Locrian is the seventh note of the D-flat major scale.

If you know your scales or your key signatures, you just start on any note of that scale.

Once again, if you start on the second note of the scale, it’s the Dorian mode. The third note of the scale is the Phrygian. The fourth note of the scale is the Lydian. The fifth note of the scale is the Mixolydian. The sixth note of the scale is the Aeolian. And the seventh note of the scale is the Locrian. You can start at any scale degree. That’s all there is to it! This is so much easier than memorizing seven different whole-step and half-step relationships. I couldn’t keep all of that in my head. And you don’t need to! Just think of key signatures and where you’re starting within that key signature, and you have all your modes.

What are modes for?

Modes are really useful in musical compositions from different periods. Before major and minor tonality were prevalent in Renaissance music, it was all based on modes. The Ionian mode (major scale), and the Aeolian mode (natural minor scale) came to dominate Western music in no small part because of the raised seventh. That’s why the minor scale has a raised seventh. The minor scale is usually in the harmonic form or the melodic form, both of which have raised sevenths. The melodic also has a raised sixth, giving that strong tonality of the raised seventh. Listen to the difference between a natural minor and the harmonic minor and how much more driven you are to resolve to the tonic note at the top of the scale with the harmonic minor with the raise seventh compared to the natural minor or Aeolian mode. The natural minor floats up there, but you don’t feel propelled to resolve to the last note of the sclae. It doesn’t really propel you the way the raised seventh does. These are the roots of tonality in a nutshell: the raised seventh that is brought about with the Ionian mode, which is your major scale, and the natural minor that has the harmonic and melodic versions that give you that strong sense of tonality. You may wonder about the Lydian Mode that has a raised seventh, but the two tri-tones in there give it a very austere quality and an ambiguity that you don’t get with major and minor tonalities.


So that’s everything you want to know about modes and more! 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

How to Learn the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to learn the piano. For me, it’s hard to imagine any other way because, from the youngest age, I started private lessons with my father, Morton Estrin, who was not only an incredible concert pianist, but also one of the most amazing teachers. I was very fortunate to have that opportunity.

Private lessons are a great way to learn to play the piano if you can find the right teacher.

I can’t tell you how many horror stories I’ve heard from people. Some teachers are just mean. Some will even hit their students’ hands with rulers! Many times, people study for years and years and discover they really haven’t learned how to play anything with solidity and confidence, because teaching any subject is an art that very few people possess, sadly. But I’ve known many people who have picked up piano on their own just by playing and listening. And they have managed to figure out how to play things to their own satisfaction. Formal piano instruction isn’t one size fits all. Some people can just pick it up on their own.

There are other ways of learning the piano.

Online resources are tremendous these days. I’ve seen people who have had great success just from watching YouTube videos with the notes going down, almost like Guitar Hero. To me, that seems much harder than reading the notation. But some people just want to learn which keys to push down. And you know, some people do very well just with that. But there are many other online resources. Here at LivingPianos.com, we have thousands of articles and videos on just about every subject you can imagine. What other possible avenues are there for learning the piano?

Piano classes are a great way to get introduced to the piano.

With piano classes, you have the social element, which can make it fun and enriching. However, I have taught piano classes, and the problem is that everybody has drastically different abilities on the piano. So private lessons are much better for really getting to any sophisticated level on the instrument. It’s not like some people are better and some people are worse. It’s the types of abilities. There are so many different skill sets that are necessary to play the piano. There’s the actual physiology and what type of hands you have, the connection from reading the score to the hands, the sense of rhythm, the sense of pitch, the sense of sound and tone. There are so many different aspects! People have talents in some areas and weaknesses in others. In a class situation, it’s very difficult for a teacher to really cater to everybody, and so it brings down the median level because the teacher can’t possibly be sensitive to everybody’s needs. But if you just want to get your feet wet, see how you like it, and meet other people who are interested in the piano, a piano class can be a good choice.

However you choose to learn the piano, it can be greatly rewarding!

Private lessons, if you find a great teacher, is a great way to learn to play the piano. Just experimenting on your own and having fun with it could work for some people. There are also online resources. It’s amazing what you can find on YouTube and other places on the Internet. And lastly, just if you want to get your feet wet and try it out, piano classes can give you an idea of what you’re getting into. Can you think of any other ways to learn the piano? 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.

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 to Care For Your Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, we’re going to talk about how to care for your piano. If you have a nice instrument, you want it to last a long time. Not only that, you want it to play well for you on a regular basis. I’m going to give you some simple tips today that will help you extend the life of your piano and make it play better for the time you own it.

The first thing is the environment your piano is in.

It’s vital to provide a stable environment for your piano in regards to temperature and humidity. It’s really pretty simple. If it’s a place you would be comfortable sitting day in and day out, your piano is going to do great! Excessive humidity takes its toll on a piano. The strings can rust, and the action can become sluggish because wherever there’s friction, there are felt bushings. And those felt bushings can absorb moisture. As a result, it gums up, and everything becomes sluggish. On the flip side, you don’t want to keep your piano in a really dry environment. Let’s say you have a home with forced hot air, or worse yet, if the hot air vent is under your piano, it could actually dry out the soundboard and crack it. You could destroy your piano, and it could take tens of thousands of dollars of work to either replace or repair the soundboard. So you really want a median humidity in the 45-50% range. If you get down to single digits or up to 85-90% humidity, you’ll have problems over time. Also, if you have big swings in temperature, it can affect the tuning stability.

Equally important is the maintenance of your piano.

I can’t tell you how many times people contact us and say, “I got a piano. It’s perfect. It just needs tuned.” And by that, they mean they have a piano that they haven’t tuned in ten years. It’s like if you had a car and hadn’t changed the oil in ten years. Your piano is not going to be the same. It’s going to take major work to get it in tune. And it’s possible that the piano might start breaking strings. It can be really tough. So you want to maintain your piano on a regular basis. What does that really mean?

The Piano Technicians Guild recommends four tunings a year, and that’s a good number.

Now, believe it or not, some people should tune their pianos even more than that. My father had two grand pianos in his studio, and because he taught on the pianos and practiced on them, he had them tuned every month! You might think that’s excessive, but the more you play a piano, the more it goes out of tune. In a perfect world, your piano would be tuned every day! But of course, that’s not practical. Four times a year is a good amount for most people. And the real minimum is twice a year. Why twice a year? Well, when you go from heat to air conditioning, and then back again later in the season, the piano can shift. Interestingly, it might sound okay, but the whole piano might lose pitch. Sometimes, a piano can even go higher than pitch! The secret to keeping your piano in tune is keeping it as stable as possible.

The more you tune a piano, the longer it will hold its tuning.

If a piano hasn’t been tuned for a long time, the next tuning won’t hold very long. So keep up with your tuning. Put it in your calendar. You have two or three strings on most notes of the piano. If they’re not right in tune with each other, you hear waves or beats. It doesn’t have a pure sound. If you hear that, it’s time to tune your piano. If you’re wondering if your piano has lost pitch, there are tuner apps you can get on your phone, and you can check to make sure the pitch is stable. If you start seeing that A has deviated from 440 more than 1 or 2 cycles, it may be time to tune your piano.

Lastly, but also important, is the furniture.

After all, a piano is one of the most significant pieces of furniture you have in your home. You want to keep it looking nice. What do you need to do? Well, simply dust your piano with either a cotton cloth or a microfiber cloth. That’s all you should need to do most of the time. If you get smudges on your piano, you can dampen the cloth slightly. If it’s a piano with a hand-rubbed finish where you can see the lines, or if there’s woodgrain in your piano, rub in the direction of the lines. And that’s really all you want to do. Because if you use any product on your piano, it builds up over time and has to be professionally removed.

What about the inside of the piano?

If you keep your piano open all the time, dust will collect in there. You can try blowing it out with a vacuum cleaner, but that can get pretty messy. Even then, the soundboard can get really gummed up with dust. Your piano technician will have a tool to get under there. They actually take out the action and then get under there with the tool and clean it for you. You don’t have to do that that often, but you want to keep up on it so it doesn’t get really dirty because then it can actually inhibit the sound, and it gets harder to clean if you go a really long time. That’s one reason why it’s best to keep your piano closed, particularly at night if you keep your windows open.

So those are the main things to think about.

Provide a nice, stable environment for your piano. If it’s comfortable for you, it should be good for your piano. Keep up with tuning and servicing. Get your piano tuned every 3-6 months. You can periodically do other maintenance with voicing and regulation to keep it playing at a high level. Clean the furniture and the interior, but don’t use products. These simple steps can keep your piano looking great, sounding great, and preserve it for decades to come. 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.

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 You Must Practice Perfectly 3 Times in a Row

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about why you must practice perfectly three times in a row. This is really important for any of you who want to develop consistency in your piano playing. So often, when I’m working with students and they come to a passage they are having trouble with, they play it a few times with issues, then finally, they get it right, and then go on. If you played it and missed it about five or six times, and got it right only once, what are the odds you’re going to get it right again? Only one in six.

You want to put the odds in your favor!

Three times in a row is the absolute bare minimum where you get any sense that the odds are in your favor at all. Why? Well, if you miss it once and then get it, you’ve got a 50/50 chance. By playing it perfectly three times in a row, you have a better than 50% chance of getting it. But it’s not enough just to be able to play it three times in a row perfectly.

You must get it three times in a row, perfectly with absolute relaxation and security.

If you’re just barely getting through a passage three times in a row, you aren’t really getting the security you need. You need to get it where it just comes out without even having to work hard. Your fingers should almost have an automatic response. You want to develop motor memory to the point where it’s just in your hand, and you don’t have to have tension to get it. So when I say three times in a row, I don’t mean just getting it to sound right three times in a row. It has to feel right three times in a row as well.

Three times in a row is the bare minimum.

You want to have security in your playing. So remember, get the odds in your favor! Don’t just get it three times in a row; get it to the point where you’re relaxed and it just comes out in a fluid manner three times in a row. Then, you can challenge yourself by playing it louder, softer, faster, or slower. Try doing different things if you want to really gain security. But don’t go on in your practice unless you get something at least three times in a row perfectly.

When you’re initially learning something, you might not be able to get something three times perfectly.

You want to practice to the point of diminishing returns. If you get something three times in a row perfectly, but you’re just barely getting it, you could spend the next 2 hours trying to gain a little bit more security. Sometimes it’s better to leave it for the next day. But even then, you want to play it perfectly at least three times in a row at some point. It really is important. I hope this is valuable for you! How many of you are already doing this in your practice? How many of you know you should be doing this but don’t do it? 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.