Piano Playing Part 5

15. Fingering 27

16. The Glissando 29

17. Octaves 29

18. Repet.i.tion Technique 34

19. Double Notes 35

THE INSTRUMENT 35

THE PEDALS 39

PRACTICE 45

MARKS AND NOMENCLATURE 57

ABOUT CERTAIN PIECES AND COMPOSERS 75

1. Bach 80

2. Beethoven 83

3. Mendelssohn 85

4. Chopin 86

EXERCISES AND STUDIES 93

POLYRHYTHMS 96

PHRASING 98

RUBATO 100

CONCEPTION 102

FORCE OF EXAMPLE 104

THEORY 104

THE MEMORY 112

SIGHT-READING 117

ACCOMPANYING 117

TRANSPOSING 119

PLAYING FOR PEOPLE 120

ABOUT THE PIANO PER SE 127

BAD MUSIC 133

ETHICAL 135

PITCH AND KINDRED MATTERS 136

THE STUDENT'S AGE 138

TEACHERS, LESSONS AND METHODS 140

MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS 150

A FOREWORD

This little book is compiled from the questions and my answers to them, as they have appeared during the past two years in the _Ladies' Home Journal_. Since the questions came mostly from young piano students and cover a large number of matters important to the study of the piano, it was thought that this republication might be of interest to piano students in general, and that, gathered into a little volume, they might form a new and perhaps not unwelcome sort of reference book.

To serve as such and to facilitate the reader's search for any particular subject, I have grouped the questions, together with their answers, under special headings.

It is only natural, however, that a book of this character cannot contain more than mere suggestions to stimulate the reader's individual thinking. Positive facts, which can be found in books on musical history and in kindred works, are, therefore, stated only where they are needful as a basis for the replies. Any rule or advice given to some particular person cannot fit every other person unless it is pa.s.sed through the sieve of one's own individual intelligence and is, by this process, so modified as to fit one's own particular case.

There are, in addition to the questions presented and answered, one or two points about piano-playing that would naturally not occur to the average student. The opportunity to discuss those here is too favourable to be allowed to pa.s.s, and as they hardly admit of precise cla.s.sification, I venture to offer them here as a brief foreword.

To the hundreds of students who at various times have asked me: What is the quickest way to become a great piano-player? I will say that such a thing as a royal road, a secret trick, or a patent method to quickly become a great artist, does not exist. As the world consists of atoms; as it is the infinitely small things that have forced the microscope into the scientist's hand, so does art contain numberless small, seemingly insignificant things which, if neglected entirely, visit dire vengeance upon the student. Instead of prematurely concerning himself with his inspiration, spirituality, genius, fancy, etc., and neglecting on their account the material side of piano study, the student should be willing to progress from atom to atom, slowly, deliberately, but with absolute certainty that each problem has been completely solved, each difficulty fully overcome, before he faces the next one. Leaps, there are none!

Unquestionably it does sometimes happen that an artist suddenly acquires a wide renown. In such a case his leap was not into greatness, but merely into the public's recognition of it; the greatness must have been in him for some time before the public became aware of it. If there was any leaping, it was not the artist, but the public that did it.

Let us not close our eyes to the fact that there have been--and probably always will be--artists that gain a wide renown _without_ being great; puffery, aided by some personal eccentricity, is quite able to mislead the public, but these will, at best, do it only for a short time, and the collapse of such a reputation, as collapse there must be, is always sure, and sad to behold.

The buoyancy of mind, its ability to soar, so necessary for both creative and interpretative art, these are never impaired by close attention to detail. If they should be destroyed by attention to detail, it would not matter, for they cannot have been genuine; they can have been but sentimental imaginings. Details are the very steps which, one by one, lead to the summit of art; we should be careful not to lift one foot before the other one rests quite securely upon its step. One should--to ill.u.s.trate--not be satisfied with the ability of "getting through" some difficult pa.s.sage "by the skin of the teeth" or "without breaking down," but should strive to be able to play _with_ it, to toy with it, in order to have it at one's beck and call in any variation of mood, so as to play it as it pleases the mind and not only the fingers.

One should acquire sovereignty over it.

This sovereignty is technique. But--technique is not art. It is only a means to achieve art, a paver of the path toward it. The danger of confounding technique with art itself is not inconsiderable, since it takes a long time to develop a trustworthy technique; and this prolonged a.s.sociation with one subject is apt to give it supremacy over all others in one's mind. To guard against this serious danger the student should, above all, never lose sight of the fact that music, as does any other art, springs from our innate craving for individual expression. As word-thought is transmitted from man to man by verbal language so are feelings, emotions, moods--crystallized into tone-thought--conveyed by music. The effects of music may, therefore, be enn.o.bling and refining; but they can as easily be degrading and demoralizing. For the saints and sinners among music-makers are probably in the same proportion as among the followers of other professions. The ethical value of music depends, therefore, not upon the musician's technique, but solely upon his moral tendencies. The student should never strive to dazzle his auditor's ear with mere technical brilliancy, but should endeavour to gladden his heart, to refine his feelings and sensibilities, by transmitting n.o.ble musical thoughts to his mind. He should scorn all unnecessary, charlatanish externalities and strive ever for the inwardness of the composition he interprets; for, in being honest to the composition he will also be honest to himself and thus, consciously or not, express his own best self. If all musicians were sincere in this endeavour there could be neither envy nor jealousy among them; advancing hand in hand toward their common ideal they could not help being of mutual a.s.sistance to each other.

Art, not unlike religion, needs an altar around which its devotees may congregate. Liszt, in his day, had erected such an altar in Weimar, and as its high priest he stood, himself, before it--a luminous example of devotion to art. Rubinstein did the same in St. Petersburg. Out of these atmospheres, thanks to the inspiring influences of Liszt's and Rubinstein's wonderful personalities, there have emerged a large number of highly meritorious and some eminent artists. That many of them have lacked the power in their later life to withstand the temptations of quick material gain by descending to a lower plane is to be regretted, but--such is life. Many are called, but few are chosen. Since those days several of these "many" have attempted to create similar centres in Europe. They failed, because they were not serving art, but rather made art serve their own worldly purposes.

The artists of talent no longer group themselves around the man of genius. Perhaps he is not to be found just now. Each little celebrity among the pianists keeps nowadays a shop of his own and all to himself.

Many of these shops are "mints," and some of them produce counterfeits.

As a matter of course, this separative system precludes all unification of artistic principles and is, therefore, very harmful to the present generation of students. The honest student who will discriminate between these, sometimes cleverly masked, counterfeit mints, and a real art altar must be of a character in which high principles are natively ingrained. It might help him somewhat to remember that when there is no good to choose we can always reject the bad.

What is true of teachers is just as true of compositions. The student should not listen to--should not, at least, repeat the hearing of--bad compositions, though they may be called symphonies or operas. And he can, in a considerable measure, rely upon his own instincts in this matter. He may not--and probably will not--fully fathom the depths of a new symphony at its first hearing, but he must have received general impressions of sufficient power and clearness to make him _wish_ for another hearing. When this wish is absent he should not hear the work again from a mere sense of duty; it were far wiser to avoid another hearing, for habit is a strong factor, and if we accustom our ear to hear cacophonous music we are apt to lose our aversion to it, which is tantamount to a loss of good, natural taste. It is with much of modern music as it is with opium, morphine, and other deadly drugs. We should shun their very touch. These musical opiates are sometimes manufactured by persons of considerable renown; of such quickly gained renown as may be acquired nowadays by the employment of commercialistic methods; a possibility for which the venal portion of the public press must bear part of the blame. The student should not be deceived by names of which the general familiarity is of too recent a date. I repeat that he should rather consult his own feelings and by following them contribute his modest share toward sending some of the present "moderns" back into their deserved obscurity and insignificance.