Piano Video Lesson: Can You Get a Singing Sound Out of the Piano?

A little trick or tip that works so incredibly well that you will not even believe it, which is as notes get higher, you play them louder, and as they get lower, you play them more softly.

Can you get a singing sound out of the piano? I'm going to show you how to get a singing sound out of the piano.

I'm Robert Estrin and you're watching LivingPianos.com. So what is this about getting a singing sound? After all, piano, did you know, is actually a percussion instrument.

Yet there are such beautiful melodies that evoke the quality of the human voice, as well as other instruments. In fact, the piano is almost like a whole orchestra with accompaniment and melody and many other elements, all right under your fingertips.

So much piano music are beautiful melodies and you wonder how can you evoke the quality of the human voice or at least a wind instrument or a string instrument with the continuity of the ball when after all the notes, as I stated so many times before, are fading away. We're battling it all the time as pianists and you want to get that beautiful singing sound. So I'm going to show you one technique today that is incredibly important. Now I've shown you in the past how you use the weight of the arm transferring the weight smoothly from finger to finger in order to achieve that smoothness, the analog to the breath that gives you the continuity instead of calculating from note to note, you just let the weight of the arm transfer smoothly from note to note. What I want to show you today is a technique related to that, that you can use in conjunction with the weight of the arm. But instead of just the rise and the fall of each phrase, I'm going to show you a little trick or tip that works so incredibly well that you will not even believe it, which is as notes get higher, you play them louder and as they get lower, you play them more softly.

It's the most natural thing in the world and as a matter of fact, if you try singing almost any song, naturally you're going to get louder in the high notes and softer in the low notes. It's very difficult not to achieve this when you're singing or playing a wind instrument. It comes out that way naturally. So if you want to evoke that sound in the piano, listen to this, I'm going to play you the complete Bergmiller Pastoral. So it's a rather simple piece so you can get the concept of this.

And listen how I am going to ignore every other aspect other than getting louder when getting higher and softer and getting lower with very few exceptions. And listen how splendidly it works.

So, I'm going to play you the complete Bergmiller Pastoral. So, I'm going to play you the complete Bergmiller Pastoral. Now, I did take the liberty at the end of getting quiet and I did the same thing at the end of the first section. I almost didn't take the repeat. I don't know how many of you noticed that, but I decided to take the repeat for you. So, you noticed I was really paying attention and just ignoring any other inclination other than getting louder in the high notes and softer as the line descended. And what did you think about the way that worked? And you know what? If it works on this simple Bergmiller etude, imagine how splendidly it will work on other music. Try it on your Chopin Nocturnes and your slow movements of Beethoven sonatas. See how it works for you. I'm really interested here in the comments at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. And thank you all your subscribers and Patreon subscribers. The support of the channel means the world to me to know that there are people out there who love the piano as I do. Again, I'm Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource. We'll see you next time.

Bye-bye.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/can-you-get-a-singing-sound-out-of-the-piano/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---