Piano Video Lesson: How to Take Your Piano Playing to the Next Level

Robert Esther here at livingpianos.com, your online piano resource, with a subject I'm sure many of you're interested, which is "how to take your piano playing to the next level." It's really fascinating, and this transcends piano. It even transcends other musical instruments. It really comes down to, almost anything anyone wants to master, there has to be a critical mass of practicing. Now, what do I mean by this? Well, the term "critical mass" is typically associated in physics with fissionable material, radioactive material. You put enough of it together, and it starts a chain reaction, but did you know you could have plutonium, and you could have it, and it would never start a chain reaction, no matter how much you have of it, unless you put enough of it in one space at one time, that's what causes the chain reaction, and it's the same thing with your piano practice, or any other endeavor you want to master.

There has to be a period of time, an extended period of time, where you're spending just every waking moment at the piano, just about, and anyone who has really mastered an instrument that has gone through that process, and interestingly, even though we all continue to practice, or at least most of us, that formative practice of just absorbing every moment of your being in practicing your instrument, and living and breathing it for months or years on end, with just as much time as you can get every single day, once you go through that process, you will be forever changed, and you'll be on another level, and you can depend upon what you have given yourself with that experience. Another example of this, since I'm into physics, is something called "escape velocity." "Escape velocity," if you, for example, were to go into a rocket and just keep going and going and going and going and going straight up, and you keep going and going, you will never go into orbit.

In fact, the way to go into orbit is not by how far you go, but how fast you go. You have to reach a certain speed to escape the force of the Earth's gravitational pull. So, much like having enough fissionable material in one place and one time, there has to be enough speed generated. You have to have enough energy, enough mass, to be able to really get your piano playing on that level. You can practice for your whole life, one or two hours a day even, and never reach that pinnacle of achievement of a true virtuoso technique. To be a really accomplished concert level player, you've got to go through that process, and there is no substitute for that.

Now that I've made this bold statement, since a lot of people watch my videos, I'm interested in any of you out there... And it doesn't have to be just piano... Any field of endeavor, anybody who feel you've mastered painting, or physics, or anything, and you haven't gone through that process of total absorption for an extended amount of time, I want to hear from you, because I want to know if it's possible, because my feeling is it's not possible, and that's what it takes, and there is no shortcut to that. You can grow. You can become better, but you're never going to be on that top echelon level without going through that process. Talk to any friends you have who've mastered their instrument or their craft, and ask them if they've gone through this process. I'm really interested in the comments on this one here at livingpianos.com and YouTube. Thanks for joining me again. I'm Robert Estrin, living pianos.com, and lots more videos to come. Thanks for subscribing, hitting that thumbs up, the bell. You'll get notified about future videos that you'll enjoy.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/how-to-take-your-piano-playing-to-the-next-level/

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