Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Robert Estrin here with one of the most fundamental aspects of music and harmony: what is an inversion? In a recent video, I explained triads, the most fundamental chord. I have a future video about seventh chords and expanded chords. But first, let’s delve into inversions.
The Concept of Inversions
In 1722, John Philipp Rameau first articulated that chords can be inverted. But what does this mean? Sometimes you see chords with different intervals, but Rameau stated that all chords are built upon the interval of the third. If it’s not a third, it’s an inversion.
Let’s take a C major triad: C, E, G. What happens if you put the E on the bottom? Now you don’t have thirds. Instead, you have a third (E to G) and a fourth (G to C). This new arrangement is the first inversion.
Identifying Inversions in Music
These inversions are identified differently in harmonic analysis and sheet music. If you invert the chord again, with G on the bottom, you get a fourth (G to C) and a third (C to E), creating a second inversion of the C major triad.
In sheet music, these would be labeled simply:
C major: C
First inversion: C/E
Second inversion: C/G
In harmonic analysis, it’s more detailed:
Root position: C major
First inversion: C major 6 (or 6/3)
Second inversion: C major 6/4
Seventh Chords and Their Inversions
Seventh chords are a bit more complex due to having four notes. For example, a G7 chord (G, B, D, F) in C major:
Root position: G7 First inversion: G7/B Second inversion: G7/D Third inversion: G7/F
In harmonic analysis:
Root position: G7 (or 7) First inversion: G7 6/5 Second inversion: G7 4/3 Third inversion: G7 4/2
Remember, these notations reflect the intervals:
6/5: a sixth and a fifth above the bass note 4/3: a fourth and a third above the bass note 4/2: a fourth and a second above the bass note
Practical Application
Understanding inversions helps in harmonic analysis and playing from lead sheets. For example, a dominant seventh chord, the most popular type, is assumed when you see a notation like G7 without further specification.
Conclusion
Inversions are essential in understanding chord functions. All seventh chords can be inverted and named in the same way, whether they are major, minor, or diminished. You can identify the root of the chord by arranging notes in thirds, giving you insight into chord function and resolution.
I hope you enjoyed this music theory primer. Let us know in the comments if these videos are helpful. This is LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks for joining me!
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to answer a really interesting question from a viewer: Does it take longer to become a concert pianist or a doctor? Both of these fields obviously require many years of study. So I’m going to break it down for you and give you an idea of what each of these career paths entails.
You have to spend many years in school to become a doctor.
To become a doctor, you will first need an undergraduate degree in some field, hopefully related to the medical field, perhaps biology or something. That’s followed by four years of medical school. So there is a big chunk right there. But is that it? Far from it! After that, there’s a residency, which can be anywhere from 3 to 7 years. Now, unless you’re becoming a general practitioner, there’s also a specialization with a fellowship that usually adds another 1 to 3 years. So you have anywhere between 11 and 14 years of studying before becoming a doctor.
What about pianists?
Pianists typically start at a younger age than doctors. In fact, most concert pianists on the scene today started as children between the ages of 4 and 7. There are some outliers outside of that range, but the vast majority are going to be somewhere in there. From the time they’re very young children, they’ve been practicing every day for at least an hour or two a day. As they get older, they’re probably practicing 3 to 5 hours a day. Most of them will go to a conservatory or a university program specializing in piano performance in order to study with the best teachers. If they’re expanding their repertoire, it’s likely that they’re practicing for at least 3 to 5 hours, more likely 6 to 8 hours if they’re entering competitions and things of that nature, because the repertoire requirements are so immense. So altogether, they’re probably going to spend easily 15 to 20 years of private instruction; that’s even more than the 11 to 14 years typical for doctors. It’s a long haul!
What about the continuing studies in each of these fields?
Doctors are always learning from experience. They need to keep abreast of the latest technologies and procedures by reading journals and possibly attending conventions. Pianists, on the other hand, are constantly learning new repertoire. They can’t keep playing the same solo recitals again and again. They have to have new music so people keep wanting to hear their performances. If they’re collaborating with other musicians in chamber music or accompanying, they have to learn the music that people want to collaborate with them on.
Concert pianists are constantly learning new music.
If they have the opportunity to perform concertos, they have to learn new concertos. A lot of pianists will also have original contemporary works commissioned for them, which they have to learn. For example, concert pianist Jeffrey Biegel, who was one of my father, Morton Estrin’s students. He’s carved out a whole career getting works commissioned for him, and he collaborates with orchestras all around the world. He has been doing it for years. This entails a tremendous amount of work, and you don’t even have the benefit of listening to recordings to hear what the pieces that you’re going to be performing sound like first! My sister, Coren Estrin Mino, performs a lot of new works here in the Cleveland area, helping out composers so they can have their works performed.
There are many avenues for both doctors and concert pianists, but concert pianists have a longer haul, starting younger and working longer in order to carve out a career.
Even going through everything I outlined for becoming a concert pianist is no guarantee that you’ll be a touring artist. There are just so many people who are highly skilled at the instrument, and a very limited number of people ever get to do it. Whereas for a doctor, if they go through all those different courses, degrees, and residencies, then chances are they’re going to find some place where they can practice. However, no matter how nerve-wracking performing the piano is, nobody dies. So we have a deep respect for doctors as well as pianists for the rigorous training that’s necessary in both of these fields. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I am giving a tutorial on how to play Burgmüller’s The Limpid Stream. I have a bunch of Burgmüller tutorials for you. This is another beautiful piece. What’s great about these pieces of Burgmüller is that they’re accessible even if you don’t have a virtuoso technique. They are wonderful pieces of music, each with its own unique voice, and this is no exception. What I’m going to do for you first is play the piece. Then I will go through it thoroughly, showing you how to practice all sections of it and how to get the most out of this wonderful piece of music.
First of all, let’s talk about the name The Limpid Stream.
It sounds kind of odd. It’s actually from the French Le Courant Limpide. If you translated that directly, it would be The Clear Current. That still doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. But you could hear that it sounds like a babbling brook, which I think would be a better name for this translation! The Limpid Stream sounds kind of odd in English, doesn’t it? But getting back to the music, essentially this entire piece is broken chords of one sort or another, so naturally, learning it in chords first is critical for being able to understand the harmonies and to develop good fingering. So I’m going to show you how to do the two different sections in chords. It’s in A-B-A form. You have the first section, the second section, then a da capo back to the beginning section.
What I recommend doing is learning it in very small chunks.
If I were learning this, believe it or not, I would just take one measure at a time! That doesn’t sound like much. It’s basically three different chords. You start and end on the G-major chord in the first inversion. The left hand is even simpler. Then you play the hands together in chords. I don’t play the second chord because it’s the same as the first chord. Instead, I just hold it for two beats. After you play it in chords, then you play it as written.
Notice the double-stemmed notes in the right hand.
What is this all about? It’s basically as if you have two different instruments playing. Imagine for a minute that the top triplets are played on a guitar strumming, and the bottom part is played with a viola or something else. On the piano, of course, you can play more than two parts at a time. Even with one hand, there are two parts. So you must hold down that quarter note longer than the value of the eighth so they overlap. Naturally, you have to lift it up so it can replay again. Once you add the pedal, it’s much easier because the pedal can catch these notes. But it’s essential that you practice holding those notes long enough so that the pedal has an opportunity to grab those notes. Because if you just played it as eighths and tried to grab it with the pedal, you might not be able to get the pedal in time. But by holding it long enough, there’s plenty of time to catch those notes with the pedal. You want to pedal half measures. For the second measure, since it’s all just a broken G-major chord, you can just hold the pedal for the whole measure if you want. But doing half-measure pedaling throughout the entire first section works just beautifully.
It’s important to take note of the dynamics.
It’s easy to remember. As the notes get higher, they tend to get louder. As the notes get lower, they tend to get softer. Until the end of the entire section, which ends gently as it’s going up the G-major arpeggio. So the middle section can also be practiced in chords. This is really a great way to learn this section. You will develop good fingering and an understanding of the harmonic underpinnings of the music by practicing in chords first. Once again, I recommend taking very small sections at a time and to play slowly. Even if you’re learning two measures at a time, you may find it helpful to break it down to one measure. Just do that first measure until you get it memorized, then do the second measure until you have it memorized. Then put the two measures together, once again, practicing in chords first.
The right hand is all a series of two-note slurs.
You don’t want it to sound mechanical. The two-note slurs are accomplished with a wrist motion going down on the slur and up on the second note, essentially making the second note of the slur staccato. Why is this? Slurs mean to connect, and staccatos mean to detach. Because the slur ends on the second note, it is de facto detached, which is staccato. To make matters even clearer, Burgmüller puts in eighth rests, so you absolutely must release the second eighth of each group. What better way than with the wrist? I’ve talked about how the wrist plays staccatos with a down-up motion, so it delineates the phrasing. It also helps you avoid accenting the thumb. The thumb is the strongest finger, but here it’s playing on the weakest part of the beat. You can practice this very slowly using a down-up motion with the wrist. The arm doesn’t move up and down, only the wrist. Strike from above to make the slurred note stronger than the staccato note at the end of the slur. Then, finally, when you have the right hand worked out that way, you put the hands together.
The left hand also has slurs. You must delineate the slurs by not connecting what is not slurred.
That is the way to learn this second section. First, learn it in chords. Just learn the right hand, the two-note groups, and get that memorized. Even if it’s one measure, take the smallest amount you need in order to learn it in a reasonable amount of time. If it takes you more than five minutes to learn something, then take a smaller section because you want to be able to digest things quickly and easily. The smaller the section, the easier it is to master it. If you’re learning it from the music, same thing. Take small sections. Even if you aren’t memorizing the music, the small sections give you an opportunity to really study the score and make sure you’re learning accurately right from the get-go. And that is basically the secret to this section.
At the very end, you may need to practice that scale passage slowly with the metronome ticking to quarter notes.
Take a tempo slow enough that you can play it, and be sure to practice that with a decrescendo back to the original theme. It’s not written, but it’s logical. Descending lines tend to get softer, just like when you’re singing, you naturally get louder with the higher notes and softer as you descend in pitch. You want to get that same sound out of the piano, so it gives it an organic quality, like singing, or a wind instrument, or a bowed instrument. You want to achieve a flowing line. Once you can play it at that tempo, then raise it a notch. Keep raising the tempo by one notch every time you not only get it perfectly, but it feels comfortable. It may take you a little while. But if you spend just five minutes, you will get the scale passage up to a faster speed. Keep going to the point of diminishing returns. You might not be able to get it up to performance tempo in one sitting. Don’t worry about it. There’s always tomorrow! Always take your practice to the point of diminishing returns. Don’t beat your head on something that you’re not making any progress with. Always consider taking smaller amounts and playing hands separately.
Try to break things down into smaller elements that you can absorb so that every minute of your practice is productive.
You don’t want to spend 20-30 minutes doing something where you’re not getting anywhere. That’s what my teaching is all about. You want to maximize your effectiveness in the work you do. And I do that with all of my students. If you’re interested in private lessons, you’re welcome to contact me! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is: What is Living Pianos? In a nutshell, it’s my life! And it’s your life too, if you have a passion for the piano the way I do. It’s actually a double entendre. There are two meanings to Living Pianos.
I have a video called What are Living Pianos?
That video tells about the restored American and European pianos that are so rare today, which we sell all over the world and have been doing so since 2006! But it’s much more than that. It’s really about living the piano. As a matter of fact, if you type “living the piano” in your browser, Living Pianos comes up!
I was lucky enough to grow up in a musical household.
My entire family is made up of musicians of one sort or another. Pianos have always been central. My father, Morton Estrin, was a concert pianist. He was my teacher and my sister’s teacher. He taught countless people, from Billy Joel to conductors, composers, and pianists the world over. My sister, Coren Estrin Mino, is also a pianist and a teacher. My uncle was a professional musician. The list goes on and on. My life is centered around teaching, performing, and media. This is what makes me want to get up in the morning!
My mission is to keep the piano alive in the 21st century, in the United States and around the world.
This is no easy task when you consider that the piano has been on a slow decline for over a hundred years. That’s why connecting with people like you who care about the piano is enriching. It makes me feel like there is value to my life. So I thank you all for joining me and encourage you to subscribe to LivingPianos.com and YouTube! You’ll find a treasure trove of content I’ve been putting together for many years! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to talk about the difference between playing Bach and Mozart. They are two great composers. You hear their music all the time. Many pianists play both composers. There are some fundamental differences in the approach to playing Bach versus Mozart, which we’re going to discuss today.
The fundamentals come down to two criteria: the period styles and the instrument that they wrote for.
Bach lived from 1685 to 1750. Interestingly, he never wrote for the piano. Did he ever play the piano? Well, yes, there are records of him having played a very early incarnation of what was a piano. What distinguished the piano from other keyboard instruments of the age was the fact that the piano could play loud and soft, which is how it derived its name, the fortepiano or pianoforte which was later shortened to, the piano. Bach never specifically wrote for the piano. In fact, he never wrote for any particular keyboard instrument other than the organ. All of his keyboard music, other than his organ music, was written simply for clavier, which means, “keyboard”.
What instrument did Bach play?
Bach played the clavichord. It was his favorite keyboard instrument because of its expressiveness. On the clavichord, the key mechanism would be in contact with the string to impart vibrato and other expressive elements that the harpsichord could not do. Yet the harpsichord was the most popular keyboard instrument in performance because of its robust tone. The clavichord was so quiet that it really wasn’t a performance instrument. So we can presume that most of Bach’s music was performed primarily on the harpsichord. And the harpsichord, as I said, didn’t have dynamics. You could push the keys with great energy or push them lightly, and you would get the same volume. And this is key to the type of music written for the instrument: contrapuntal music, music with intertwining melodies. The harpsichord had a strident sound that cut through, which worked very well with chamber music. The clarity of tone allowed the counterpoint to come through.
Mozart was born in 1756 and lived only 35 years.
During Mozart’s life, the fortepiano had developed somewhat and gained popularity. So Mozart did write for the piano, although he played both the harpsichord and the piano. But his music took advantage of the fact that you could play loud and soft, so different parts could be played dynamically with the two hands.
Let’s talk a bit about the stylistic differences between Bach and Mozart.
Bach lived during the Baroque era, which is noted for its counterpoint. I keep using that word. What does it mean? It means that you have separate lines of music intertwining with one another, so you get music where everything has equal importance between the hands and the different lines. All of the lines have equal prominence. Bach wrote using counterpoint. Contrast that with Mozart, where you clearly have melody and harmony. For example, in his famous C major, K 545 Sonata, you have a melody in the right hand and broken chords in the left hand. There’s not much going on in the left hand, but you have a beautiful melody in the right hand. So you have a clear melody against harmony. This is in no small part because the instrument itself was capable of playing different dynamics in different registers.
As the instrument became more capable, the musical form evolved.
The form had evolved from counterpoint, the interweaving of different lines, like a tapestry of music, to more structured music with different sections. The sonata allegro form, with its exposition, development and recapitulation, was very structured formal music where different sections were clearly delineated, rather than the intertwining of different lines in the Baroque era. That’s why the performance practices are so dramatically different. In a fugue, you want to clearly show the counterpoint and the important lines of subjects, the opening motif of a fugue. For example, you want to hear a clear delineation whenever the opening statement of a fugue returns. Whereas in a sonata movement, you want to show the themes that come back at strategic places within the movement. The structure is of paramount importance. You can hear the melody clearly in one hand and the accompaniment in the other hand. It’s the delineation of the structure of the work that makes the performance alive and digestible for an audience. Where, in the case of Bach, it’s the counterpoint and bringing out subjects strategically in fugues or inventions so the listener can make sense of the cacophony that could result if those subjects were not delineated clearly. Whenever the subject recurs, you bring it out so that the listener can make sense of the complex score, and you can bring clarity to the counterpoint. Whereas in Mozart, it’s the delineation of each macro section within the work that must be clear to the listener so the overall structure of the music can be appreciated.
While Mozart did write for the piano, it wasn’t like a modern piano.
During Mozart’s life, the piano didn’t have nearly the power or range of expression of a modern piano. The action was very simple. When you push a key on a modern piano, you’re putting dozens of parts in motion. Whereas the simple mechanism of a Mozart-era piano was not capable of the incredible repetition and power that a modern piano can produce. There were also only about five octaves of keys and no pedals. It’s a totally different instrument, but it had the same dynamic aspect of the modern piano that the harpsichord lacked. Those are some fundamental differences between the music of Bach and Mozart, the period styles of the flourishing counterpoint and ornamentation in baroque music, and the formal structure of Mozart’s classical era music, along with the different instruments they wrote for. I hope this is enlightening 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
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is: Why are Steinways so expensive? Did you know that even a baby grand Steinway is over $80,000? Concert grands are over $200,000! What could possibly make pianos so expensive when you can get other baby grands for around $10,000? Is it all marketing? Well, here’s the truth. And everything I’m going to tell you today doesn’t just apply to Steinway. It applies to other American pianos, like Mason and Hamlin, as well as European pianos such as Blüthner, Bechstein, Fazioli in Italy, Bösendorfer in Austria, and even hand-built pianos from Yamaha and Shigeru Kawai in Japan.
Hand-built pianos have many different technologies.
In the case of Steinway, American pianos, and many European pianos, the way the plates are manufactured is a much more time-consuming task. Instead of using a simple vacuum mold process, which is quick and precise, they do it the old-school way of wet sand casting. The benefit is that the metal is denser. It takes a long time to cure the metal, so it’s much more labor-intensive and time-consuming. There’s also the choice of wood. It’s much more expensive to find fine hardwoods. Sourcing the finest soundboard material, which is the heart and soul of your piano, is no easy task. They search the world over for woods that have very fine grain, which is noted for the vibrancy and sustain of the sound. The craftsmanship of these instruments requires a great deal of handwork. All pianos require handwork, but when you’re talking about hand-built pianos, the meticulousness that it takes to craft these instruments is on a higher level. It can take a year to make each piano!
Hand-built pianos are not mass-produced.
You have companies like Pearl River, which is the number one piano producer in the world by volume. They make over 100,000 pianos a year! Contrast that with Steinway, who makes maybe ,2500 pianos a year. You can see how the economy of scale enters into this equation. So is there anything you can do to be able to get a piano of that quality and not have to pay such a fortune? I have another video about this. You can check out how you can get a Steinway for less money if that’s something you’re interested in. 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
