Why Your Music Must Have Pulse
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- livingpianos.c...
Hi, I’m Robert Estrin and this is LivingPianos.com. The subject today is about having a pulse in your music. Your music must have a pulse or it dies! Now that's an intense statement, but it's true. Sometimes you listen to seasoned concert artists who become so self-indulgent in their playing that they lose the beat of the music. It really loses its whole energy and purpose when you don't have the pulse to guide everything and hold on to the structure.
I couldn't agree more. This is an aspect of music making that is not given newly enough attention, especially in classical music.
thank you so much! i love your videos, even though i’m mainly a guitarist the principles of musicality are very useful. I have a yamaha p125 and i plan to practice way more, i love the sound of piano.
I’m a harpist, and though Robert’s instrument is the piano, I’ve learned so much about _musicianship_ by watching, and learning from his videos. Keep up this valuable work, Robert!
The harp is the heart of the piano. I've developed my approach to playing the piano through imagining that I'm playing on a harp. The music making is more accessible to me through that lens.
I'm a harpist, too.
Mine just happens to be stuck sideways in a box and the strings get pounded instead of plucked. 😊
Excelente!
My piano teacher is constantly on me about this. Just one more thing to concentrate on while playing! Ugh
You practice it with a metronome. When you get it down it should flow naturally and you don’t have to overthink it
@@chrisbennapiano3968 I’m tryin’ !
As with most living things, a heartbeat is most important.
What a great message... I subscribed
Love the video arrangement.
Yes, I was playing with rubato. Here's more information about that for you: livingpianos.com/what-does-rubato-mean/ The important thing is never gaining or losing time.
Thank you for your instruction. I just started with a teacher and she is having me use the metronome. I took lessons as a child but loss memory of reading music do to heart attacks and stroke . I am 59 and self taught myself piano these past two years and can play at a grade 8 or level 14 . But I started with a teacher and the metronome flusters me hearing that annoying tick tick !! Slowing it down sounds like a great idea. I’m going to try that out and maybe I won’t throw the metronome 😆 thank you
🎉🎉🎉
I love your videos
I've been working on Claire de Lune (on flute) and you've pointed out the exact challenge I was having. Thanks so much for another wonderful flute lesson... on piano!
That was very interesting, Robert. I’m kind of relieved to see that you have some of the same issues I have with pulse. Do you do it metronomically? By quarter, Eighth? Half? Fast beat? Slow beat? The answer that has taken over my playing over the years has been “the line.” I have no idea what other people call “the line,” so I’ll define what I’m saying: the line is what holds a listener in that trance, waiting for the next note, unbroken from the first note to the last release. The line is very elastic, but it has a shape, and if you bend it too much or too fast - or too slowly for that matter - you break the line. The listener must reevaluate, catch up to where you are now. You threw him off the horse back there. If you play for someone, you’re aware of that line. You know when you’ve lost them. So over time you know what works and what doesn’t. That’s your only guide. The line. Within it, pulse and beat find their places. Dynamics and expression find theirs. Articulation comes out right or drives you mad until you make it right. Playing the line puts you in a trance-like state where you are living the music and nothing else exists... except those sounds that are always around. Coughing, highway sounds, jets, clocks, cell phones... Just have to roll with those, but everything else serves the line. Is that what people commonly call it? I can play some music - Bach, for example - within a metronome’s beat without breaking the line, but more romantic stuff bends a bit more. Still, I can get the line close to a metronome even with those. I think that’s important for the very reason you stated: the pulse. It’s too easy to lose that pulse. Rubinstein seems to have played these lines. Some moderns not so much. But they’re all interesting. I love them all! Everyone hears it differently. But when you can keep an audience glued to that line, start to stop, no break, then you’ve got something musically pleasing.
I believe that what you're saying is very true and I myself would probably almost always play that way but I have to say that even when the pulse is missing the music can still be great. For example there are a lot of accomplished composers that to me don't always rely on a pulse.
Like debussy in his version of claire de lune (he plays quite fast so it's not as easy to recognize), his golliwog's cakewalk or his la fille aux cheveux de lin.
And sometimes you spot it in rachmaninoff's playing.
But I might be wrong
It's OK to play rubato for a bit as a special effect, say as an intro in certain music, but I agree that in the main, you need a pulse. Further to that, there needs to be an evident beat if you're accompanying someone in modern music with a loose arrangement.
I was horrified when at a regular jazz duo gig the restaurant manager asked me to remove all the rhythm from my piano playing on Girl From Ipanema. He made a big issue of it, and the singer sort of backed him up. "The singer will lose me" was my first thought - only I couldn't say that. He would never understand, and it would sound like I was blaming her. There was no percussion and there was no bassist - just me on a basic baby grand. I suggested "less rhythm" instead, and I played it as a much smoother bossa nova, but I was rattled and off my form for the rest of the set. I nearly threw the job in.
The secret to rubato is never gaining or losing time. Instead, it's a give and take: livingpianos.com/what-does-rubato-mean/
Chopin would have fell in love with Claire de Lune.....it doesn't get any better than Chopin and Debussy. Thank you for this wonderful video.
Kate Liu e Krystian Zirmeman fazem um ritardando exponencial e alla breve(movimento de andamento, acelerando e desacelerando) e fica muito expressivo e agradável.
Lol and never forget it starts on a rest.
I laughed so hard. It must have been terribly difficult for you to play pulseless, all over the place like that.
Good video but it sounded to my ears you were rushing the pulse a little the second time around on the Nocturne where you had it on the actual pulse but same tempo? Might’ve been my ears but sounded like some notes or phrases didn’t land exactly on the pulse you had playing. Were you playing rubato any? Staying within the tempo but giving or taking some time within the measure?
Are there other examples
available for adjusting the metronome speed to dotted quarter dotted half notes ? is that a technique to decipher musical notation language ?
if i concentrate on the subdivisions , make them perfect won't the main pulse come out right. Concentrating on the main pulse throws me of.
I often practice with a metronome and sometimes as I play further into a score it feels as if I'm dragging. Conversly, without a metronome I sometimes speed up the tempo as I'm playing. This is related to 'pulse' I think. Do you have any suggestions?
Snooze! lol Often artist forget that every song written has rythm and without it's snooze fest. I'm now challenging myself by mastering boogie woogie and without rythm well it's just might as well be a fast paced lullaby! It's just not in my nature to play without timing. You have to love music I believe to play it correctly no matter what type it is.
1:30 You can tell Robert was in mild discomfort throughout the whole piece.
must have a pulse? Yeah, tell that to Beethoven lol
ok since you are a teacher of music. name me a piece of music I should SIGHT READ that would impress you sufficiently to demonstrate that a pulse is not always required? it can be a few bars or a movement or a whole piece.
music does not require a pulse if it is for EDUCATIONAL purposes. for a teacher and STUDENT can appreciate what is being delivered. for when musicians ignore music, a player without a pulse can play it and bring some into play some CURIOSITY about music they could go off and play with a pulse themselves to get something done about it. showing MERCY is what a musician should have. and they don't.