This book
is
the fruit of a lifetime of ex-
perience as a teacher and it has grown out of the advice which Mr. Merrick has been in the habit of giving to his pupils. Although no text-book can ever be a sub-
presence of an inspiring
stitute for the
book is distincThose who have learned
teacher, this particular tively personal.
from Frank Merrick
will almost hear his
voice beside them.
And
handed down
from teacher to pupil
orally
as far as advice
is of excellent pedigree. For Leschetizky, Merrick's master, learnt from Czerny, who in turn learnt from
goes, the advice
Beethoven.
Some
Press opinions of this book
"A really personal and valuable contribution to the art of piano playing. No person studying to be a concert pianist or well-equipped teacher can afford not to read and ponder over it, nor ignore its advice., which stems from an alert and well-furnished mind." Royal College of
'
A.
work which e:; i r i ues profound underof a traitless art.'* Monthly
fianciirg
Mu$ id :
Record
"Uith such
a
book
as (this) to inspire us.
mechanical dradger/ :an almost be minated, and practice
made as
eli-
interesting
ind entertaining as a game." HAROLD
RUTLAND, Musical Times "Written Ti'ims
wi:h
clarity
and h-;n:aiv"
Lhsrary Supplement
1 "Highly iiarged with precious. tounse ." FELIX AH..AHAMIAN, Sunday Times
Published in t * J.&.a.
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, New
INC.
180 Varick Street Yen, New York 10014
1148005984182
786.3
M56p Kerrick Practising the piano
67-11865
PRACTISING THE PIANO
PRACTISING THE PIANO FRANK MERRICK F.R.C.M.
LONDON BARRIE AND ROCKLIFF
FRANK 3MERRICK
1958
by RocklifF Publishing Corporation Revised edition published 1960 by Barrie and RocklifF (Barrie Books Ltd.) 2 Clement's Inn, Strand, London WGa
First published
3rd Impression 1965
Printed in Great Britain by <2f Son Ltd, Norwich 1O577/65
Fletcher
1
958
TO ALL MY PUPILS PAST AND PRESENT
FROM WHOM
I
MAY WELL HAVE LEARNT
MORE THAN THEY CAN HAVE LEARNT FROM ME
KANSAS CiTY
P.)
PUBLIC LIBRARY
Contents Author's Preface
..... ....
1
Delayed Continuity
2
Singing and Conducting
3
Chords
Some Useful Progressions
I
:
II
4
Ways
Pedalling:
II General .
.
27
.
.
3
7
Double Thirds
8
the Keys Practising on the Surface of
9
The Postman's Knock
Whole
.... .... .
11
Octaves
12
Difficult Passages Simplified Versions of
13
Practising with
14
Fugal Study
15
Looseness at the Shoulder
1
8
.
43
45 47 51
.
.
Time
Hand
Beauty of Tone
.
...
One Finger .
Gradations of
Preparing of
1
35
Practising in Solid Chords
17
17
.21
.
On
6
14 .
.
10
1
10
.
6
as a
7
.
Finger Passages
Works
.
i
.
5
Playing
.
of Practising the Chords
Preparatory Exercises
I
.
ix
Positions
.
.
.
.
55
60
'63 .68
...
72
76 80
Practising the Piano
and Rotary Movements of the Forearm
19
Trills
20
Sight- Reading
21
Miscellaneous
22
Bodily Stillness
23
Athletic
24
Dramatic Significance
25
Memory
26
Conclusion
Index
Form
.
.
.
.
83
.88 .92
......98 ...... .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
96
.102 105
.
.
.
.
.
vin
.
.
.
.
.
.
.109 .113
Author's Preface WHEN
I started teaching in an official capacity, which was Royal Manchester College of Music in 1911, I was somewhat haunted by an idea that a teacher should try to tell each pupil different things, since no two people are alike and there seemed a danger of handing out to one and all an undesirably rigid succession of statements too like the set
at the
speeches of some cathedral vergers. As the years rolled on, however, an increasing number of precepts seemed necessary for nearly all the pupils depending on my help, and what
had to be offered to
this majority
has largely been incorpor-
ated here.
may have been in the 'twenties that an acute observer me "You know, there is such a lot of ritual in your practising 1" The remark startled me, but led to a great deal It
said to
:
of meditation on the point and an ever-growing sense that the assertion was true. Whether, then, the ritual could be
which difficult pieces or passages or whether varied devices were lumped these may undergo, in ironical together disparagement by alluding to them as a called a series of processes
advocacy of them became increasingly convinced. So as much ritual or as many processes as could be intelligibly recommended were embodied in the appropriate chapters of this book. The order of the chapters may appear obscure in purpose. One method of pianoforte study may be for you to build up technical efficiency for a number of years and then consider yourself ready to superimpose the graces of interpretation ; at the other extreme you can develop your knowledge of
bag of
tricks,
interpretation
my
and musicianship during those IX
first
years and
Practising the Piano
then, realising what is wanted, start acquiring the -necessary technique to get it. In order to avoid either of these extremes,
the chapters are arranged so as to alternate as far as is convenient between the needs of musical enlightenment and
purely technical considerations.
Delayed Continuity LESCHETIZKY
said in one of the last lessons I had with "I advise you very often to stop and listen when you are practising and then you will find out a great deal for yourself." I have never ceased to follow this advice received over fifty years ago. The term "stopping practice" arose when it came to imparting the idea to others, but "delayed
him
:
continuity" seems to add an explanatory note. Some music is very easy to play phrase 1 by phrase with
pauses in between (Ex. Ex J. Schubert: Moment
******* ,
E r
I
i)
:
musical, op.94,no.6
rHr
^
m
*
r
P^Tl
r |
ir
^ ^ n ig ?
jj
J
if
_
r Ir
fa
T
fa^Tr
IT' E
T
P*E
If the pauses are so long that each phrase is mentally or actually sung a tempo (not flashed through in a second)
played, the player will benefit by this forethought and often excel previous efforts on the spot. If each phrase is also followed by a further pause for reflection and self-
before
it is
criticism the successful playings can be noted as worthy of and the unsuccessful as models of what to avoid.
retention
The
threefold ritual can be abbreviated into three verbs, "plan, play, judge", and is one-fifth of the way to a favourite
saying of Leschetizky : "Think ten times and play once." If the general underlying idea is persistently followed day by use of day, month by month and year by year, the effectual 1 Perhaps "phrase" should often be "melodic unit" in this chapter, but missible in the interests of simplicity to adhere to the one word.
it
seems per-
Practising the Piano
grow and result in increasingly exacting ideals coupled with more confidence and security in carrying them out. Remember that the pause must always be at least as long one's Interpretative will-power will constantly
as the phrase to come. lenth of pauses for Ex. Ex.2.
The i
following shows the
(Ex, 2)
&
:
Think
PUy
ThlBk
minimum
Play
Thmk
Play
m This leaves no extra time for the thinking
is
criticising
your efforts and
a really expressive mental rehearsal of
if
what
over of the mere (rather than an apathetic conning a add to breathing space to the notes) it will be preferable minimum pause. When time is also taken for self-criticism,
is
to
come
sorts of practical questions like "Did the fingering, pedala recognisable copy of that ling, etc., all conduce to give all
me
mental rehearsal ?" can be seriously faced. Sometimes the desire to try the phrase over again is irresistible, but think it through again first. Do not play twice on one mental rehearsal if you can withstand the violent temptation to do so which comes from an over-eager a hockey player but a golfer. When spirit* In this emulate not the latter misses the ball he repeats a very solemn and impressive ceremony known as "addressing the ball" before carrying out a second attempt.
What
about pauses that have no rests between them? Well, to use the ritual in such places is an art that must be acquired (Ex. 30 and b} :
Ex.
3a.Chopm Study, op. 10, no. 3 :
Lento
m*
non tropfo
Delayed Continuity This art involves thinking back (judging) and forward (planing) while sounds are being held on. That, however, will prove less difficult than might have been supposed, and when there is no reason for such a long pause that the sounds die away completely it is an advantage that the new phrase to be played is legato from the former phrase with its pause, delayed continuity thus becoming an acoustical fact. Indeed, when the sound has completely died away, it is often worth while to repeat the pause notes and let the new phrase flow out from them instead of beginning from silence.
Reviewing what has been proposed,
it is
seen that this
method of work
gives each phrase the force of a separate quotation. Now whereas a phrase that does not end staccato sounds as if it had stopped by accident when the time values of the notes are literally observed (Ex. 4) :
Ex.4. Mendelssohn: Song without words, op.!9,no.l ^ Andante conmot(L_
r when the
last
r
notes are held (Ex. 5)
:
Ex.5,
the pause sounds intentional, as though one wishes the listener to ponder on the special beauty of that separate phrase.
In stopping-practice, therefore, end with a staccato anyhow (Ex. 6) :
when
the phrase does so
Ex. 6. Beethoven : Sonata, op. 27, no. 2 Allegretto
and with
a rest where there is one (Ex. i), but otherwise with the sounds prolonged as in Ex. 3 and Ex, $. Sometimes a
Practising the Piano
phrase ends staccato in one voice and tenuto in another
(Ex.7): Ex.7. Beethoven: Sonata, op. 27, no. 2
and
in such cases the tenuto can
be held right through the
pause (if does not die away too soon) so that the new phrase joins on in due course to the old in one or more voices. enjoy in all this the combined advantages of continuity it
We
and interruption at the same time, and although objectors may claim that you cannot eat your cake and have it, there are occasions on which this miracle does seem to take place. In some pieces stopping-places are not too easy to find. Ask yourself whether the following pauses are rightly placed (Ex. 8)
:
Ex. 8. Bach: French Suite ,
in
G
Allemande
moment in one voice in be bad another. But may provisional experimental stops lead to a lot of clarity of mind about the phrasing some are so unacceptable that one would never repeat them, others so inevitably satisfying that it is difficult even to try an alternative afterwards. When there seem to be several plausible alternatives, try to hold them in your memory for possible future use. It can be delightful to change the phrasing when passages have to be repeated and to play differently on In such a piece as this a good stopping
Delayed Continuity
though it is unconvincing not to mean the one phrasing way or the other at the actual moment of any
different days,
given performance,
The more
clearly the method of stopping-practice is the will it be to use it for purely technical as easier grasped, well as interpretative purposes. When we do so, the pauses enable us to rehearse the execution of what is coming in our
A
imagination, striking expression for this, even if it does not find universal favour on our side of the Atlantic, is
When we dream
"mentalising our technique".
it all
seems
to be reality, and this vividness should be sought when we practise in our minds. It is strictly true that we can physi-
perform any piece of technical execution which we can really imagine at the correct pace, for anything we cannot perform will have lacked either vividness or the necessary pace or some other feature in the mental rehearsal, and if we can find where the discrepancy lies our task may be cally
greatly simplified.
Technical stopping-practice should often be split up into shorter fragments than phrases. Here we have pauses at regular intervals (Ex. 9)
:
Ex, 9. Brahms : Variations on a theme of Handel, op. 24
and here
at irregular (Ex. 10)
:
Ex.10. Brahms : Variations on a theme of Handel, op.24
In order to achieve delayed continuity in the physical execution of these examples we can pause with our fingers
Practising the Piano
touching the keys they have just released or the keys they will next be required to depress. To move to the latter will be a first step in the welding together of those links in the chain that are now being separately forged or tested. When the
pauses are long and profitably given up to effective planning and the tempo very quick in the actual playing, we combine the muscular development and high spirits of speed with the safety and confidence of slow practice in a way that tends to eliminate a great deal of profitless drudgery. Some slow pracbut it should be often supplemented and
tice is unavoidable,
sometimes superseded by of quick practice.
this
"look before you leap" kind
Singing and Conducting I N the previous chapter the ritual of "plan, play, judge" was advocated. "Plan" primarily meant "think" or "sing in your head before-hand". An essential object of this is to form and strengthen the habit of always singing in your head while you are playing. Leschetizky, who loved pithy over-statements, said "If you can tell when someone is playing that he is singing the music in his mind as he plays it, it is a good performance, and if you cannot, it is a bad performance." This would hardly be an over-statement if interpretative insight were presupposed. To sing out loud fervently and often is therefore to be preached from the house-tops, even if one's vocal efforts are raucous and out of tune. The singing should sometimes be :
when you
are playing but oftener when you are not playing. while Singing you play will help you to infuse more fervour into the expression as when an eager young pupil once asked me what she could do with her piece to "warmen it
up". But this pro has two cons.
drowns some of the actual tonal
One
is
that your voice
effects so that the result is
The other is that you may incur the habit when you are playing to others. I have known several cases where this habit seemed incurable. With partly conjectural.
of audibly singing
most pros and cons, however, to recognise what they are is an important forward step in helping us to achieve the pros and evade the cons.
Practising the Piano
As regards singing before you play, it is of enormous influence in teaching you how your melodies should be declaimed (a word of which Beethoven was fond in this conand of further influence in focusing your will-power to carry out what your voice has just taught you. Your voice not only helps you to decide which notes should be loud and soft but how loud and soft, and because this enlightenment is from within it will be natural and sincere. Whenever you text),
are puzzled about melodic tone gradation, let singing be your final court of appeal. Even if you are puzzled about the length of sounds, apply the same test. In Bach we are often faced with the problem of which notes to join and which to detach. Take this subject (Ex. i la and F) :
Ex .Ha. Bach: Concerto
in
D minor
The slurs and dots in Ex. na and b of many possible alternatives. You
only give us two out could argue at great length and still feel uncertain, but every time you sing the tune you will get nearer to a solution of the problem that
your mind, including the tricky of short how any detached notes should be. question to allied Closely singing is the conducting of imagined is slower to wax to maturity, but the more It performance.
will bring conviction to
we sing and the more reality there is in our musical thinking, more relevance and potency will our conducting gain. It can be applied to single phrases, or lengthened at will to entire movements (or even works) and it can alternate with playing like "singing before you play". If you conduct a phrase it is easier than ever to know where and how the the
climax
lies
and
to apportion the intensity of the various
stresses.
A
few hints about conducting (self-evident to the experienced) are generally needed by the inexperienced for 8
Singing and Conducting
guidance and encouragement. Firstly we should feel that the orthodox beats themselves are of real significance and potency. If an up-beat is seen to be like the diver's hands rising high above his head and a down-beat like a dive itself, the value of the two gestures will be very clear. If, in four time, instead of in, out,
"down,
up"
out, in, up",
we
rightly say
"down,
when beating with both arms)
(especially that "in" be realised quickly
was
less
it
will
ample and emphatic
than the more rapturous "out" for the stronger third beat. can learn the aptness of beating pp in inches and ff in feet, and crescendos with increase of distance and diminufurther step forward is taken when endos with decrease. our fingers participate in the gestures, we can smite the air with clenched fists to express grim determination, or stroke
We
A
with an extended palm to denote tenderness or persuasion, it with a pointed forefinger to suggest crisp, delicate staccato, to name a few characteristic possibilities. As our
it
or prick
conducting becomes more spontaneous and significant we it of ever-increasing value as a supplement to the
shall find
singing. notable benefit from conducting just before we play short stretches is that the actions of doing so strengthen and
A
focus our will-power in a stimulating way while also keeping our upper arms loose at the shoulder (see chapter 15) and getting our hands and fingers into a more or less ideal state
of poised readiness.
Chords I
CHORD
SOME USEFUL PROGRESSIONS
an extremely important aspect of pianism and benefits one in a number of directions, some unsuspected and others obvious. One of the latter is a knowplaying
is
ledge of the geography of the keyboard. The much-vaunted major and minor scales in single notes are not more than a
modest introduction to the required intimacy and complexity of that knowledge. A few harmonic progressions follow with which early familiarity should be gained. First the major scale in inverted triads, otherwise known as I
chords (Ex, 12);
fnrn
i
The
progression is more flowing than root-position triads or second inversions (| chords). The rhythm (| chords) chosen has more melodic shape than if all the notes were of
equal length. Learn to play these chords in all the twelve major keys. If some of them cause difficulty write out the
chords (the ascent only will do) on music manuscript paper, in every key, preferably in the order chosen by Bach for "The
D
5 E|>, E, F, Fft [Gfr], G, A|>, QJ, [ty], the A, B[;, B, [Qj], using proper key signature for each, whereby there will be no accidentals. The three keys with
Forty-eight"
:
C,
an enharmonic alternative in brackets should be written out
10
Chords: Some Useful Progressions in
both spellings.
was found
When
difficult
properly written out, any scale that should be practised with the music. Later,
when playing by the same
heart again, ascertain whether you can at time imagine the notation on paper, including both
spellings of the scales that have an alternative. Students can often play these three scales when imagining the one spellbut not when ing imagining the other, which is to be in an undesirable state of insecurity.
A similar progression in the minor, to be played in all the
keys
is
this (Ex. 13)
;
Ex.13.
rhPYYiff
I i
It will be found more grateful to the ear than consistent adherence to the harmonic or melodic form. Next let us have some rather more massive chords, again to be played in all the keys (Ex. 14) :
Ei.14.
f*
N* * The penultimate chord in the minor key will be equally grammatical and satisfying with a raised or flattened leading note. Then a chord pattern with constant key change produced
by semitone back to
shifts
which should be continued
C major (Ex.
15)
:
II
until
we
get
Practising the Piano
Then
the same with inversions following each other zigzag-wise, continued to the bottom of the piano (Ex. 1 6) :
Ex.10.
This
dominant sevenths
series of
frequent use.
One
is
is too disturbing for hurled from key to key (Ex. 1 7) :
EX.IZ
These modulations, on the contrary (Ex.
1
8)
:
Ex.18.
usher you politely from one key into the next one. It will be seen that at the first move the top two voices descend a semitone while at the next move it is the lower two voices that descend. It is like a small child coming downstairs. This notation (Ex. 19): Ex.19.
'in
moment
of key change and what the new key is, and you should realise that the modulatory chord is the first inversion of the added sixth in the new key. implies the
The
regular addition of a fifth note to each chord (Ex.
20): Ex.20.
^
n
contributes to the value of the progression for practising purposes, and anyone whose stretch is not equal to all the
demands would do some of them
leave
better to spread the notes rather than out. But unless the addition had been
printed as a small note we might have needed the explanatory
Chords: Some Useful Progressions
rigmarole: "For the second chord the top-note-and-thebottom-two stay where they are while the top-two-but-one move down a semitone, and for the third chord the top-note-
and-the-bottom-two move down a semitone while the toptwo-but-one stay where they are" When the modulations continue to descend from the first chord until we reach the same notes an octave lower, twenty-five chords will have been played. If inversions are added in contrary motion, thus (Ex. 21) 1
:
Ex
m all
one's ten fingers are obliged to think what they are doing one of nearly 180 moves before the lowest note on
at every
the piano
Chords (Ex. 22)
is
reached.
in
whole tones have much to recommend them
:
Ex.22.
I
if
tj*f
ty sempre simile
m
simile
One way to find each new chord in this series is first to decide what one of its notes should be (say, the bottom one) in each hand, and then feel for the whole-tone-scale notes that are adjacent to that. This engraves the finger-spacing of each chord on your memory and is clearly related to the harmonic
coming. Another equally good and desirable way is to make the fingers do their semitone shifts one at a time till all five are in place, say in the order i, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 5, 4, 3, 2, i. This makes you specially aware of the way in which individual voices move to the adjacent note, thus effect that is
appealing to your contrapuntal sense* To play the various chord progressions correctly, making each chord full and harmonious, is undoubtedly worth while 13
Practising the Piano in itself, whatever touch detailed advice follows.
mechanism
is
employed, but more
WAYS OF PRACTISING THE CHORDS
II
WITH
muscular development in view let us start with Ex* 2 1 and play each chord staccatissimo, ensuring the speed thereof by immediately clenching our fists as tightly as possible. Do not play from a distance but touch all the notes of the chord consciously before they are pressed down. If this
rhythm
is
adopted (Ex. 23) Ex.23.
:
i
eighth of a bar to unclench and find the next chord, whereby the clench could occupy more than threequarters of each ban That will be strengthening in itself and it
may take an
productive of the right sort of relaxation at the
unclenching. Another rhythm to adopt E..M.
is
moment
this (Ex.
24)
of
:
.
which one difficulty is to achieve a really tight grip between each chord. The better you succeed, the more
in
the performance, and you may begin to wonder if your fingers are going to drop off. But although we are often warned to discontinue playing when physical discomfort is tiring
is
experienced, this particular discomfort is evidence of efficient
muscular exertion rather than a danger signal and can be continued till the chords become too weak for you to take any pride in them. A few bouts of this special practising tend to produce more progress in sheer muscular fitness than long spells of drudgery with scales, etc., and the principal perhaps unsuspected the joy of playing for the mere muscular sensation instead of being primconcerned with the significance of the music or, in arily
danger
is
pleasure of
Chords:
Ways of
Practising the Chords
passages like these, the harmonic fullness and rhythmical decisiveness of the chords.
This danger can be considerably lessened if we vary the progressions with a series of tone schemes as follows i. ff ; :
*#>; 3-#x/; >-^-
4-
The main
ff>~pp\
5-
value of the
#>>?; first
two
is
6./
to set the
extremes of loud and soft as far apart as possible. Then the crescendos and diminuendos which follow will be on a larger scale. When we are practising, a big crescendo rather unis more evenly gradated stimulating than an exquisitely controlled one on a smaller scale. The latter will encourage self-satisfaction without pointing the way further. The former encourages boldness and generous warmth, and you are not at all likely to be satisfied with the uneven gradations but will say : "Yes, like that but better controlled." This is one of the few instances where quantity may be preferred to quality.
Perhaps a digression will be pardoned at this point. If the above six tone schemes are used in practising the repeated halves of pieces in binary form (like most of the movements in eighteenth-century suites) they can be followed by a seventh the gradations that are demanded by the music. If a wide selection of alternatives suit it equally well, all the better, for in actual performance the repeats gain charm and
by varied expression the second time. Pondering on this added use of the tone schemes may well act as an encouragelife
them oftener. If you compare the sevenfold with unvaried repetitions of the same music you will find that the latter soon get you into a sort of coma not free from the danger of making mistakes, whereas the varied treatment compels mental attention and develops the habit of control by constructive and purposeful thought instead of the cessation of thought and reliance on automatic ment
to practise
ritual
habit.
In due course, substitute for the clench a gathering together of the fingertips as though you were trying to squash a ripe grape with them. This movement includes that
15
Practising the Piano
of ideal finger action with some extra drawing-in of fingerstill more of the latter) so it tips (the first clench has physically benefits one's finger
work
as well as one's chord-
and the clench should resemble the snap of a strong steel spring, the clench making for robust strength and the gathering of the fingertips for swift sprightliness and greater delicacy. playing. Both
it
A third movement, already alluded to in chapter i, in which we should emulate the speed of the first two, is to dart the fingers of both hands on to the notes that are next due. This
movement brings us a big
step nearer the needs will be discussed further in
of actual passage-playing and the chapter on the preparing of hand positions. Often use the pedal with staccato chords, especially as in
No. 5 of Ex. 28
in the next chapter.
They
will ring
out
inspiringly when the sound is thus prolonged, To follow up the processes recommended look out for passages with plenty of full chords in them, like the fourth
Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques. In that parvariation do your clench, or whatever it is, on the
variation in ticular
chords only, with the semiquaver octaves immediately before as quickly as you can, however slow the pace of the
them
practising
may
be.
16
Pedalling PREPARATORY EXERCISES
I
THE first part of this chapter might well be skipped by those readers whose pedalling has a reasonably solid foundahere for those who have never faced the of problems pedalling at all or have got into difficulties with them. Simple chord progressions are better for the exercises than series of single notes, and provide a pleasant degree of harmonious fullness, so let us take that of Ex. 12, adding the left hand an octave lower and using the same tion. It is offered
fingers for every chord and changing from one key to another at frequent intervals. Beginning with legato pedalling, the normal thing is to change the pedal when the harmony changes, so we shall be changing with every chord. To change the pedal means to let it up and press it down again, and in order to produce pedalled legato the up movement should be at the exact instant at which the new chord speaks, for which sound-point is a self-explanatory term. Remember that a hair's breadth of silence between the BarS ^
Adagio (J = 50)
^^^8
^PT rvrwrr ^
P
NO1 Legato 4 W^BIVV j Mdallin*!
p
.
jE.
*
^^
P*
P
p
&
P*
3fcP& r w ^
P
3fc
"^
P
4i ^^
P
*
P
<&> ^^
P*
chords can be undesirably conspicuous. In our first three up moments are always exactly at sound-point
exercises the
Practising the Piano
while the
down moments
are varied.
The
objects of this are
conscious control and musical expression (Ex. 25). As regards conscious control, the student sees in black
and white what is required of him and can therefore judge whether it is being accomplished. When a mistake is made, the best course
is
to proceed calmly without rhythmical in-
and to do terruption as though there had been no mistake the next bar correctly. If several bars go wrong it proves that our intentions cannot have been clear enough.
J^50 sion
;
g*ves us
Adagio b eats kke the steps of a dignified proces-
a quicker pace
is
not nearly so useful, patient control and plenty of time to
in delaying to press down the foot listen to results being all-important,
As regards musical expression, when the pedal is pressed down all the dampers are lifted off all their strings and the consequent sympathetic vibration (audible with a single note but much more so with our six-note chords) imparts a glow to the tone, a sort of crescendo of undeniable expressive value. For this crescendo to take place at one beat of the bar very different from the same crescendo at another beat (Ex, 260, b and c)
is
:
Ei.26a.
x.26c.
Ex.26b.
more so because in (a\ and still more in (<:), the chord have become weaker at the pedalled beat than it would have been on the second beat as in (F). Consequently, whereas the character of (^) is the most ardent and eager of the three all
the
will
most tranquil. Even greater would be produced by this pedalling (Ex, 27)
alternatives, that of (c) is the
tranquillity
:
Ex.27.
though the mention of half-beats at this point may be rather premature. In any case these differences of character should 18
Pedalling; Preparatory Exercises
be
by the
felt
sole of
our foot in the same way that our
fingers, in pressing lightly or the reverse in order to get pianos and fortes, link up our physical sensations with the
emotional requirements of the music. People are often described as musical to their fingertips, but the sole of the pianist's right foot rarely receives the verbal recognition to which it is entitled.
Let
be emphasised now, in preference to later on, that must never leave the ground and the foot must never lose physical contact with the pedaL If, as the pedal is released, the foot is lifted, even an inch, the kick when one's shoe returns to the pedal will often be heard. It is even worth while to find out whether the dampers on the instruit
the heel
ment you are playing the pedal
is
thud which
effectually silence the strings before for letting it up often produces a dull right up, in the concert room, and to audible is quite
eliminate this noise in pp passages is worth some trouble. To hold the pedal a quarter of an inch from the full up position at the cost of complete efficiency by the dampers, however,
would naturally be carrying our zeal
mechanism
for silent
(if
movement of our
foot) a quarter of an inch too far. In the next three exercises we are leaving the field of legato for that of intermittent pedalling. The same element of con-
not the
by planned variety of treatment is again to be time it is the ascent of the pedal that varies. this but found, scious control
(Ex.28): Ex.28.
i
*
*
*
li
*
*
*
I
*
The musical difference between these is in the duration of the sound. It will be seen that the pedal lengthens the short staccato chord (which might last about a semiquaver without the pedal) into a minim in No. 4, a dotted minim in No. 5, and a complete instead of a shortened crotchet in No.
6.
In No. 6 the effect
is
19
sound
for one-quarter
and
Practising the Piano silence for three-quarters of the time. Steady pulsation during total silence or when nothing new is happening is far
from inborn with most of in
good training special purpose. If
that
us, so these exercises will be direction, quite apart from their ensure a swift staccato by clenching
you your fists in playing each chord and then beat out the rests with your hands (plain down beats), it will probably have more rhythmical life than if you counted the beats out loud or mentally, partly because of the prosaic associations of the And at some point it will act as a sort of bridge syllables.
between the mere
drill
element of these exercises and real
schemes in chapter 3, part II, pedalling to use the six tone with the pedal exercises. Although the main purpose of the exercises is achieved by the very slow practice recommended, No. i (and No. I only) should eventually be practised more quickly. Perhaps "eventually" might be interpreted as "when all six exercises can be played with ease and security in one's sleep". Even
new
to pedal exercises may hope to reach that point after spending some ten or fifteen minutes a day upon them
those
it may not ever be necessary an occasional return to them again, though or confidence to add prevent your pedalling your might standards from deteriorating.
for a matter of weeks. After that
to practise
them
A good way to speed up No.
i is by altering the notation. stands, we can call it playing in semibreves and pedalling in minims, then playing in minims and pedalling
If>
as
it
in crotchets (Ex. 290)
would be twice
as quick, playing in
crotchets and pedalling in quavers (Ex. 29^) four times as quick, and playing in quavers and pedalling in semiquavers
(Ex.
29*:)
eight times as quick
:
However nimble the footwork, adequately
if
the dampers will not respond
you attempt much
20
quicker changing than this.
Pedalling: General
Those
lovely modulations in Chopin's op. 62, no. i (Ex. 30)
B
major Nocturne,
:
Ex.30.
come out
rather quicker for each chord.
II
EVEN
and suggest the same changes, one
GENERAL
before the above exercises,
if
worked
at,
are fully
mastered, few players would refrain from using the pedal with moderate frequency, often to good effect. Hymns and steady successions of chords will need pedalling similar to Ex. 25, No. 2, and regular changes (effected rather more of pieces like the speedily, however) suit long stretches Chopin Nocturnes of which Nos. i, 9, 13, 14 and 15 certainly thrive for a good many bars with two changes a bar, and Nos. 2 and 10 with four changes. When you come to a place where the advice just given produces an undesirable smudge, two changes instead of one is likely to be at least an improvement. When fewer changes are preferable Chopin difficult usually signifies that that is his wish. But it is often to choose pedallings and also to decide which effects that do not please are due to a bad choice, and which to a bad carrying out of a good choice. The cause is far more often one or other of these two than both at once, and sometimes a
change in the tone gradations
will
prove a better remedy
than different pedalling* to develop both wisdom and skill in pedalling is to play at the correct pace and stop for than playing really long pauses at suitable moments, -rather to each and pedal change at that unrelistening very slowly
Meanwhile the
best
way
presentative pace (Ex. 31)
:
21
Practising the Piano
enough, we have a splendid whether the harmony we stop firstly, on is free from smudge, and secondly, by thinking back, whether the previous pedal changes sounded clean enough as to their general effect. Many students require to be urged to listen much more carefully than has been their If all these pauses are long
opportunity of judging
wont before they can judge the first point reliably. Until they can do this they will not be ready for the second,
A
though when they can they are getting reasonably near, further point about these pauses is that even the most experienced players can learn volumes from them about the effectiveness of their pedalling, both its choice and execution. Leschetizky used to put it whimsically thus : "In
two seconds you can the audience in the
way down
tell
what the
effect is for a
member of
row, in four seconds the effect halfthe auditorium, in ten seconds the effect at the fifth
back of the gallery." In these precise figures there may have been what W. W. Jacobs called "the exactitude of untruth' ', but Leschetizky always expected us to season his utterances with the salt of common sense. One anecdote that sank deep into some of our young
how Leschetizky was
minds
told
stairs.
Sounds
like this (Ex. 32)
22
:
talking to a guest
on the
Pedalling: General Ex.32. Beethoven.- Sonata op. 26. *' A-*M~t~ And
were audible, and the guest ventured to enquire: "Oh, Professor, do your children learn the piano ?" Leschetizky replied
;
"That
is
The minimum
the great Essipoff practising." pause should never be shorter than the
which it follows, but you will do better have a you prolonged and analytical listening to the of the harmony pause and a real think about the earlier part of what has been played. It would be better for the pause sounds to die away completely than for the judgments to be hasty. If the sounds do die away completely, moreover, it is often wise to sound them again before the onward movement stretch of playing still if
is
resumed
(see chapter i, p. 3). If earlier beats are smudgy and the
pause beats beautifully be better than of some beautifully clean beats followed by a smudgy pause beat. Thus Ex. 33^ is better than Ex. 33^: clean, the effect will
An
instructive example of the same kind sound of this (Ex. 34) :
is
the tolerable
Practising the Piano
on the way from one clean chord to another (Ex. and the intolerable effect of the self-same blur at a stopping point (Ex.
i *P
Momentary
dissonances are remarkably harmless in the
right place. In both the cases which follow, it is misguided to change on the swiftly resolved semiquavers (Ex. 36 a and &) : Ex. 36a. Chopin:Prelude in A
Ex.36b. Schubert: Moment musical
C minor
ft
L
i
2
I
* The much-vaunted half-change often comes out very badly when tested by the method of pauses, it is usually preferable to preserve the
whole of the bass note firmly with
some smudginess in the higher register, rather than to remove only some of the smudge above in order to retain some of the bass, or to lose still more if not all of the bass remove the smudge completely. Of course problem arises the right course is to weigh alternative with the utmost care and patience. every One device often proves far more successful than might have been expected. The underlying idea is that when all in order to
whenever
this
the voices cannot be legato the extreme voices can least afford a break in continuity. Take as an example the beginning of the second movement of Franck's Prelude, Aria and Finale. If you change the pedal on the low bass E and while doing so hold the soprano D$ down with your finger, thus (Ex. 37), the legato of the extreme voices is ensured, and nevertheless
what
D$ will be very faint (perhaps inaudible), have taken care to play it pretty softly. An you especially irreproachably clean chord with a gap in the soprano voice would have given a far less satisfactory effect. Some may is left
of the
if
24
Pedalling; General prefer the pedal lifted with the D$ crotchet, whereby the low bass notes would no longer be legato ; the suggestion with regard to the soprano would still hold, however. Ex.37. Frank: Prelude, Aria and Finale
Three points
in conclusion, of which the first has been already. Many pianists would be horrified if they implied were advised as a general principle to "change the pedal less often and then change it splendidly*'. Nevertheless a very
clean change
now and
then
quite often preferable to
is
frequent less immaculate ones, not only tonally but because of the onward rhythmical sweep that tends to result.
This brings us to a second point the influence of pedalling on the rhythmical life of our pieces. A great deal of light will dawn upon us if we make a series of experiments in studying such a piece as one of the more lively waltzes of Chopin, in order to compare a large number of alternatives in intermittent pedalling. In these four bars the seven pedal-
lings can
any one of them add to the swinging
vitality of
the
rhythm (Ex. 38): Ex.38. Chopin Waltz, op. 34, No.l .
'^ 1.
2.
3.
f f
P
P P
I
I
P P
#
4. 5.
None
P
P
P
6.
None
,7.
When
J
f
f
^a i
I
P P
P P
P
*
# *
P
P
P
you are deeply versed in all this, the right choice should often come on the spur of the moment and it is quite bars likely that it will not be the right one when the same recur. Truly, pedalling is a life study.
Practising the Piano
The
not meet with universal approval. players think: "Where shall I add the pedal ?" much can be learned by saying "Where shall it be subtracted ?" In other words, if you keep it down practically the whole time the question would be where to leave it off. third point
may
Whereas many
:
Over-pedalling subsequently pruned down often leads in actual fact to better results than a policy of undue caution* Of course, neither approach exclusively will take you as far as a judicious use of both.
26
Finger Passages THESE
quick passages in single notes are a very important and universally recognised department of piano playing. Certain processes are always useful in mastering them and the problem is often which to adopt first and when to change over to another instead of blindly hammering away with the one. Try ringing the changes on some of these. I
.
Practising
hand staccato
to be the left-hand part of Chopin's Study, op. Suppose it with 12, no. 12, that we wish to master. If we practise it
the touch specified at about the pace of Jr^, considerable melodic significance should be precision and sequential ensure. Leschetizky said "The object of slow fairly easy to the melodic elements in the passage practice is to study but these are too often forgotten during spells of :
work",
meaningless drudgery. It may be asked: "Why practise staccato when that is going to be the passages with hand wrong mechanism in the end?" The answer is that although themselves will have to make the movements the fingers
when the semiquavers
are played
up
to time, this early
treatment will both give them greater strength and agility with which to do so at a later date, and engrave more firmly on your memory the order in which the notes (and the fingers which produce those notes) follow each other. Now whereas the loudest hand staccato we can achieve
27
Practising the Piano
add most
to our reserves of muscular strength, it is also to lead to insensitiveness of tone gradation in our likely general style of playing, and therefore to do most of this will
slow practice either delicately or with expressive tone gradais preferable. Even famous public favourites, renowned for their technique, who do a lot of ff slow practice, often play their quick finger passages with a pianola-like sameness
tions
of every syllable that can be regrettably inhuman in charWhat should we think of an actress who accentuated her syllables with equal force like this acter.
:
J
I?
The
J I
qua-li
-
ty
J iJ of
mer
-
7
J J
cy
is
Let us build up our reserves of strength 2.
not
u strained
in other ways.
Group practice
That
is,
short groups, one at a time (Ex. 39^, b
^
and
c)
:
Ex.39*.
Ex.39b.
In
(a)
and
we recommence with each new group by note upon which we ended the last one, and
(c)
repeating the
() we swing on from
that note, which has been held on. the should be staccatissimo as far as the (*) quavers hand is concerned, although it is quite good to make them temito by means of the pedal. It is strengthening to produce
in
With
this staccatissimo
by a rapid and
tight fist-clench or an of the equally rapid gathering fingertips into the minimum for both movements). With (a) space (see chapter 3, part II, and () there would be three alternatives the same gathering :
28
Finger Passages
of the fingertips although the note is held on by the finger that played it ; putting as many fingers on the notes which are to follow as can be reached from the one which is being held
down
or the apparently negative plan of leaving all the fingers exactly where they are (horizontally speaking) when the dotted minim sounds. With the last two, it is better to let all unoccupied fingers fall on the keys that are lying below ;
to hold them even a minute fraction of an inch above the keys. Holding them in the air is almost certain to result in a slight stiffness of the upper-arm at the shoulder joint, the avoidance of which is fully discussed in chapter 15. This last matter leads to the next process.
them than
3.
See-sawing
See-sawing on every note, every other note and every note, as 4.
recommended
in that
fifth
same chapter.
Practising with one finger
This is surprisingly beneficial and helps you to know the notes irrespective of the fingering by which you play them, whereby the said fingering will come to be an extra security instead of the foundation
Chapter
13 deals
more
upon which your
safety
is built.
fully with the subject.
Marking the beats with your other hand This bears a superficial resemblance to practising with a metronome, of which I am not personally in favour. There are, be it noted, three important differences. First, that the regularity of the beats is hand-made instead of machine5.
made, allowing dogged persistence
if this is required,
or
alternatively a flexible and unobtrusive steadiness ; second, that there is no tick-tack to drown some of the musical effects and so prevent one from being critical regarding the tone gradations ; third, that there is not only human will controlling what is being done, but it is the player's own
on which dependence movements for our purpose
will
is
being placed. The simplest be a series of plain down
will
29
Practising the Piano beats, say a couple of inches in size. To do these sometimes on one's knee and sometimes in the air is to be recommended ; a clenched fist may help concentration or a gentle forefinger may encourage delicacy in the execution. The
beats should sometimes be robust
and heavy, sometimes as
light as a feather, and so should the accents. It is very good training to do heavy beats with light accents and light beats
with heavy accents. 6.
Practising in this rhythm:
Although it still
this
sounds more flippant than the right rhythm, and emotional stresses where Chopin
has the metrical
wanted them. Some the music
more than
different is
rhythms
alter the
really desirable.
meaning of
On Playing Works
as a
Whole THIS important expressively
aspect of performance was quaintly but implied by the oft-repeated phrase of an
American journalist whom I met at the Rubinstein Competition in Petersburg (as it was then called) in 1910. If any of us competitors achieved the kind of unified presentation he particularly valued, the performance was described as an "unbroken mood-line", and the same words were used if he wanted to refer to a magnificent rendering of some great masterpiece by his hero Artur Nikisch. Whatever words are used, the thought may easily be neither more nor less than an intellectual abstraction, but when it is a living reality there are few, if any, factors that do so much to ensure that the audience will be carried away by the music. Audi-
may be
carried away by other things the personal fame of the player, exciting or eccentric movements, the phenomenal rapidity of the passages and other factors which may be interpretatively irrelevant but the assertion refers to occasions when the music itself potently reaches the minds and hearts of the listeners. How then are we to maintain these unbroken mood-lines ? A few suggestions may prove helpful. For one thing, much can be
ences
loveliness or
learned by simply playing pieces right through. Perhaps I
Practising the Piano
do
this
more
often than
I
recommend
it
to others (practise
other than preach, you may say), though how much it influences the unity of the whole depends upon what thoughts are borne in mind as we play. Obsession with note correctin the inner ness, for instance, clarity of pedalling, legato voices,
and so on, might
easily
reduce the special advantages
from the point of view of unity, though the mere fact of not stopping will at least accustom one's ear to continuity. Thinking pieces right through without any playing at all
good idea. So of the keys (see surface the on is right through an imagined performance. chapter 8), or conducting It is also useful to play nothing but the main melodic line, of the musical discourse. Yet equivalent to the thread another alternative is to play through to the end softly the music) is another (either with or without
playing them
slow side), without dramatic character(perhaps even on the isation in the sounds. This is like softly murmuring words over and meditating on their meanings without any outward tokens thereof. If you were to utter the fiery sentences of the great curse from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound \
Fiend, I defy thee, with a sufferer's curse All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do
dreamy monotone, it would be rather similar ; but it can be a revealing study in teaching us how far the unaided music can tell us its own tale, how, for instance, the in a slow
very "scoring"
may
build
up a mighty
edifice
without any
dynamic observances. It can certainly help us to think of no way prevents us from continuity for its own sake and in planning our eventual interpretation. It may seem out of place here to concentrate for a while on making each individual phrase complete in itself, but it is
which symbolic of our present quest and a foundation upon be reared. If can units you gradually larger and ever larger breath just sing each phrase right through without taking before you play it, and then while playing it keep this vocal
3*
On effort in
mind, the result
will
Playing Works as a Whole
be marked by a certain unmis-
takable unity. Building up on this foundation, day by day, a possible week's programme for a complete sonata would
be as follows
:
Monday Play your work phrase by phrase, first singing aloud each phrase on one breath. Tuesday Play lengths of about sixteen bars at a time with suitable stopping places (each of them to be decided upon beforehand) and substituting mental rehearsals for singing, if preferred. If you sing, taking breath will now be unavoidable, of course, but after playing your sixteen bars you should ask yourself: "Did it go forward in one onward sweep ?" Wednesday Play about a page at a time, with the unified imaginary performance first, and considered verdict afterwards.
Play lengths like exposition, development, recapitulation, coda, each complete as above. Friday Whole movements complete as above. Saturday Whole movements straight through without anticipatory mental preparation, critically noticing whether Thursday
one's
own
Sunday
feelings achieve the specially desired continuity. The whole sonata as on Saturday.
work is too closely concentrated you could three two or days to each of the treatments and by this give multiplication spread the whole undertaking over a longer If the week's
period.
The
is twofold, to grasp the principle and in actual performance. Similes can be a help. try to carry our piece through as on one tidal wave.
task before us
to realise
We
it
might We might think of a short story or novel (if there is one) which we have read straight through without being able to put the book down. The memory of journeys in which it has not been necessary to change trains or get on and off boats could intensify our appreciation of non-interruption. Many years ago Adrian Boult wrote some invaluable words in his handbook on conducting for students of that craft: 33
Practising the Piano
you must always think back, so must always think forward" performance you
"Remember and
in
that at rehearsal
simply put that we
not realise their full value at a first "think forward" with the idea of a tidal
may
Compare wave or a favourite ejaculation of Tobias Matthay who would punctuate a pupil's performance with the magic word reading.
"towards" in a stage whisper, thrown in at intervals like the If enough has been spurrings of horsemen in bygone days. lot to be done about a for be it said, necessary may yet as a whole. works our playing
34
Double Thirds SOME piano teachers who are precise in their choice of words (a truly estimable thing) object to the expression "double thirds" as applied to thirds played by one hand. But we speak of double notes for passages of regular or assorted thirds, fourths, sixths, and so on, in a way similar the string players with their double
to, if less logical than,
The
expression "double thirds" seems to follow and case become a kind of technical term. It is used any here with apologies to those who dislike it. stops. has in
The
aspiring student should hasten on to double thirds his single notes reach a high standard, for they before long are muscularly strengthening, they give the mind more
occupation per semiquaver than the single notes, and their execution automatically keeps all five fingers closer to the keys (a desirable thing in playing every kind of passage). With double-third scales the occasions when orthodox fingerings should be used in an actual piece are rarer than
might be supposed, and apart from the possible requirements of examinations it is better to be equipped with readiness for all sojrts of fingering than wedded to one. Eleven different fingerings, applied regardless of discomfort to all the diatonic scales in double thirds, provide a wide founda-
tion of general resourcefulness, mental are here recommended.
The
and
physical,
and
eleven fingerings fall into three classes: recurrent groups (three of these), mixed groups (five) and "organ
35
Practising the Piano first. With fingerings" (three). Let us take recurrent groups recurrent pairs you reach the beginning notes of the scale with the same fingers after two octaves (Ex. 40) : Ex.40. a
4 sempre simile
4
i a
J
The slurs
4 sempre simile
are not essential, nor
is
the rhythm, but both help
to fix the idea of the fingering. Both voices, or either voice, can be totally legato all the time. It will be noticed that we start
the return journey,
for
again
different fingers
on the individual
thereby producing
thirds.
recurrent groups of three, three octaves will be required to round off the plan and with recurrent groups of four, four octaves (Exx. 41 and 42) :
With
Ex.4i. BJff *
,
*
*
B
^
sr
\^ sempre simile
^
sempre simile
\
Double Thirds
What was said before again applies to the slurs and rhythm.
On
the outward journeys the soprano in the right hand and the bass in the left hand can be legato, on the return journeys the alto and tenor, Round
by Byrd
respectively. Sellinger's
gives a delightful opportunity for recurrent pairs (Ex. 43)
:
Ex.43.
RJH.
whether we
elect to play the quavers in slurred pairs or "Waldstein" Sonata, this passage
staccato. In the
sempre seems made
for recurrent threes (Ex. 44)
:
Ex.44.
Haydn's last sonata recurrent fours have much recommend them (Ex. 45)
and
in
to
:
Ex.45.
j t
Mixed groups and
j
f
s
1
1
nTj
are five in number, three of which combine and the other two threes and fours. All
threes, pairs five result in the
same notes getting the same fingers in as in octave every single-note scales. Threes and fours (Exx. and 46, 47, 48, 49 50) give us the principle upon which
LJ
LJ
is.
37
f
Practising the Piano
x.48.*-
*
i
H ;
a
4 | !.
i
} i
J4
.
i
modern orthodox fingering is based, if this is less obvious when the scale begins in the middle of a group. The rhythms in all the above examples are unessential as before, but as in in our minds.
Ex. 40, they
fix
All the fingerings submitted
when
the
fingers, particularly staccato either with forearm or
the idea of the fingering so
far
will
practised with
strengthen a bumpy
hand touch. At some time or be advantageous to practise one voice only
other it will also with whichever fingering
is
being used, for
38
this,
although
Double Thirds confusing
when
first
attempted, makes for increased security
in the end.
"Organ fingering" is a coined phrase suggested by the frequency with which the characteristic changes of fingers on held notes is seen in organ playing. A very few legato chords on the organ or harmonium make the need for such changes evident. Regarding the first two, it is not claimed that a whole scale would often, or indeed ever, be thus fingered (Exx. 51 and 52) :
@
Ex.5I.a
*a a Ex.52. 54 T> BT
32
ua.
*
a a
a a 82 32
aaaa 21
21
a
82
21
a a a a 12 12 12 12
& a a a 12 12 12 12
3^P r
a
64
21
82
r
IF^ ^a
p
aaaa aaaa m 1 a 84
84
64
64
82
82
64 82
^ a 23 23
23
23
P
=
84
84
83
23
23
23
23
45
m a a a
M
=1
but our practice of whole scales renders moments like this (Ex. 53) : legato s
t
legato
easier
when they
occur. In slow passages this fingering
(Ex.54):
"j
j
r
p
r
1
'
'
<
p
i i
'
Lii _
M is
L i^
4
often the best
5J
'
a 4
L
W
way to
*
2 4
5i I U 4
ii
|S
f *
57*g ||
J
*
*-
"}
I
get a really tranquil legato.
39
a g "^
Practising the Piano
In these rapid changes, the quicker they are made, the of a note speaking twice ; when that is greater the danger and swiftness of action avoided, the sensitiveness of control
by the
fingers involved
may well be unap parent to a listener,
could easily suppose the practiser to be almost going to is highly recommended for the weak fingers ; sleep. Ex. 52
who
more vigorous, often hefty passages, sounding considerably fail to produce so much technical progress. of It should be a habit from the first to make the change of the next notes (see chapter fingers include the preparation the keys in Ex. For 1 7). instance, 51 get | on the surface of indicated
by the diamond-shaped silent
*
Ex.55.fi
notes, thus (Ex. 55)
:
*
In Ex. 54, not only get f prepared at the but 5 as well (Ex. 56) :
moment
of change
55 can be in one flashes of time two flash, those in Ex. 56 must occupy made to make them seem (although every effort should be like one) because the fifth finger must wait till the third is down on G, and the third cannot leave E till the thumb has actions that cannot be got secure hold thereof; these are simultaneous. Even if the organ fingerings were never going
Note
that while the finger-changes in Ex.
to be used in scale passages later on, the practice of
would nevertheless be of immense value
them
in training one's
of the requirements of legato part-playing. One of my most talented pupils at the Royal College of Music once said to a fellow-student "If I did all the things
fingers for
many
:
me
do I should go out of my mind." was passed on by the lively girl this witticism Fortunately This chapter tends to bring it was addressed. to whom it to mind, and where so many alternatives lie before us it is a good thing to work at one set for a fortnight or so and then
Mr. Merrick
tells
to
40
Double Thirds
go on
and thus gradually gain some experithe route organised variety should be Along and sought major minor, loud and soft, legato and staccato, selected keys, and so on. Rarely do too much of the same to another set,
ence of
all.
thing on end, but remember what has been done so that or nothing is left out eventually.
little
You may ask how to make a final choice from among such a bewildering array of alternatives. When their character is familiar, however, this will often be fairly easy. Should there be any doubt, factors that help a decision are easiness to read and remember, easiness in combining the two hands, the avoidance of gaps or bumps or both, the
chances of minimising or covering up gaps by the use of the pedal (which may spoil a passage when used to conceal one gap while beautifully suiting the same passage when concealing another), whether an unavoidable gap should be in the upper or lower voice, and of course the position of the black keys. Notice critically the effect, both musical and physical, when the thumb is placed on black keys ; only if the movements are really too clumsy or the musical effect
unavoidably bad is it unwise to adopt unorthodox fingerings of this forbidden sort. This advice does not proceed is
from perversity or inconoclasm, and
when
thumb
is
prompted
partly
by
placed on a black key it the arm a forward gives slight swing, with a corresponding of the wrist a position from which benefit is often raising the fact that
the
is
reaped. If
all
the double-third scale practice results in less techwe had hoped for, the exercises which
nical progress than
follow,
however lamentably dry,
ment (Ex. 57)
will
prove a useful supple-
:
Ex.57
This
is
to
be continued up the major scale
till
the
Practising the Piano
sixteenth bar, which will be the second bar an octave higher. grace notes should be as light and quick as possible. If the crotchets are firm and decisive it is of secondary import-
The
ance whether the grace notes are well or badly executed They will stand to improve in any case. The accentuation of the crotchets will be musically and rhythmically helped if the moment they sound we clench our fists as swiftly as we can, not relaxing this iron grip until, say, the fourth beat of !
the bar.
The
next step
is this
(Ex. 58)
:
p and what was
said before about the grace notes will
now
apply to the semiquavers. The exercises should be transposed into all the other major keys, in some of which they may be found more tricky to play. The many differences of position in relation to the black keys will be of muscular benefit, there will be
much ground to cover, and both the neighpractiser's own ears will experience decided
twelves times as
and the from the changes of sound. Later on, the whole-tone clusters of Ex. 22 can provide a welcome variety of musical bours'
relief
effect
while spreading the fingers slightly wider apart.
42
8
Practising on the Surface
of the Keys HAVE
advocated this very persistently for many years, interested in reading Victor Booth's We Piano Teachers to find that he, too, was extremely convinced of its importance. It is valuable at every stage ; I I
and was most pleased and
recommend
to
new
pupils in their first lesson, and I myself often play complete works or even recital programmes through in this way.
generally
it
The more accustomed you are to playing on the surface of the keys the more do you mentally live the music you would be hearing if you had pressed the keys down and the more sensitively aware do your fingers become whether they are on the right keys or not. It is better to do this work without looking at the keys, but even if you do look at them (either because you must or because you wish to) much benefit
will
used
still
be derived.
You
will
become
ever-increasingly
touching keys consciously before them down, reducing thereby smudginess of exeyou press cution, faulty gauging of the pressure to be exerted (which produces tonal effects of all kinds which you do not intend), playing this and that not quite at the ideal moment, and so on. Benefit from the point of view of memory is considerable and will be further emphasised in chapter 24. in actual playing to
43
Practising the Piano
An advantage that you might never dream of theoretically that the poise of your arms during the silent practice is likely to be an ideal one. The ideal poise between special efforts, and one which should be recovered at as frequent is
intervals as possible, is that in which the upper arm is quite loose at the shoulder, ready to be sent swinging forward in the
see-sawing
movement of chapter 1 5
at a
moment's
notice. If
you call this condition a state of easeful vigilance, its motive and value stand out with especial clarity. Another advantage is the frequency with which a wrong note which one had not heard when playing aloud (in some rapid passage, perhaps) can be detected. When this happens you may feel humiliation first, but certainly gratitude after. "Mentalising one's technique" is a phrase that has been quoted before ; our surface practice is a great help in doing that, and you could call each bout of it a semi-mental rehearsal. Silent practice of all kinds spares your ears and those of your neighbours ; it can providentially save the situation if a sudden engagement makes it imperative to work far into the night when neither household inmates nor neighbours could tolerate audible work. Practice on the surface of the keys is also a grand remedy when pieces have become stale and you dare not give them a rest because they will be needed on a given date in the near future. Playing a work through in that way once a day for a week or a fortnight, and otherwise not working at it at all, will often remove all traces of staleness without the risk of giving it the total rest it appears to need ; for staleness is really a sense that the sounds are unwelcome
you press the keys down, and touching the keys without pressing them gradually creates a tantalised longing to hear again the very sounds from which you had begun to shrink. Did not one of Shaw's doctors say "Cure guaranteed"? as
;
44
9
The Postman's Knock IF
we can produce a sharp staccato without withdrawing our
hand from the keyboard, a lot of time and energy will be saved, but this knack is not often acquired without careful cultivation. Theoretically it is self-evident that two efforts of will and action to press-the-key-down-first and lift-thehand-away-second should take longer than press-the-keydown-but-don't~continue-doing-so. The slip 'twixt cup and lip, however, is that in the second case one's cessation of effort (or relaxation of the pressure) will probably be sluggish. Is
The
too
it
much to call the following a sovereign remedy?
postman's knock rhythm gives accentuation like the
word "defy"
FH
I
.
>-{
It is
one of these
we shall
:
.
Compare
this
with the word "hurry"
:
humiliating when a desperate effort to produce
But with due perseverance get our postman's knock, and whenever we
results in the other.
learn to
do, the physical speed that rendered the minim louder than the acciaccatura must have followed the acciaccatura so that
the musical desire to produce a postman's knock has cajoled out of us an unusually rapid key descent.
Now for > ponds
I
.
The rebound
of an indiarubber ball corres-
in rapidity to the speed with
reached wall or
floor.
which the
ball
has
Relaxation of an effort will be like this.
45
Practising the Piano
But how can we know whether what we do is relaxation or a lift? The answer can be delivered with the scornful on the triumph of a child "Easy !" If the finger remains surface of the key instead of in the air even a millionth of an inch away, the staccato cannot have contained any element of a lift. So when you hear (i) that the accentuation has been :
>J
and
and feel (3) been sharp J the key, you have achieved an
(2) that the staccato has
that your finger has not left of dispute. ideally executed staccato beyond possibility Often practise staccato passages with the double rap of
postman's knocks (Ex. 59)
:
Ex.59. Mendelssohn: Scherzo
f as in tie composition
as well as passages
with some tenutos in them (Ex. 60)
:
Ex.60. BralimB: Ballade in G minor
Vri 3E
ii
pausing at each double rap to cessful in
make
sure you have been suc-
three respects perhaps at the pace of ^40* later test the value of such work by trying the
all
When you
passage up to time with the acciaccaturas can be safely predicted.
cial result
left out,
a benefi-
10 Practising in Solid Chords THIS
comusually gives us what was at the back of the be so that can the he when mind passages composed poser's treated. You cannot write the figures of a clock face on paper first trace a circle on which to put them, or unless you
imagine a circle sufficiently vividly to be able to dispense with the visible line. The solid chords give us not only the harmony but the chord positions on the keyboard, thus producing extra technical
safety
by systematised economy of thought and
movement. Here Ex.61.
for instance (Ex, 61)
:
caniabile
we have in
our own
murmuring accompaniment.
The
We
can harmonies all its with unprejudiced melody favour by the magical glamour of the softly
four anxieties per bar instead of sixteen.
also listen to the
next two examples (Exx. 6a and 63)
Sx. 62. Brahms: Rhapsody in O minor
47
:
Practising the Piano
are chosen out of hundreds of equally suitable ones. The treatment in Ex. 63 can be carried right through the piece until the final four chords.
My
usual advice
is
to play the
Ex.63. Chopin: Prelude in Ft
simplified chordal version three or four times as often as the
passage
itself.
Chopin's Study, op. 25, no. 12, can be very happily "solidified". It will be seen that the last chord position in bars like the first one contains the top two notes only instead of the three previously demanded by the passage (Ex. 64) : Ex.64. Chopin: Study,
op. 25, no. 12.
s* zyiH w*
r
u
*
In the fifteenth bar the semiquavers rise an octave higher than they have been doing and this (Ex. 65) ; Ex. 65.
gives us the best
rhythm
in
which to play our 66a and )
at that point. In bar sixteen (Ex. x.66a.
as nearly solid as possible will Ex. 67.
solid chords
:
Ex.66b.
be better than
this (Ex. 67)
:
Practising in Solid Chords
whichever of the two exemplifies the fingering you intend to adopt. When solid chords suggest a new fingering it will generally prove to be an improvement, but when that cannot be, to take note and mark well any lack of correspondence will reduce the danger of later incertitude. Even muttering such words as "unrepresentative of the passage work" is better than unawareness of that danger. In bar forty-two, the right hand should treat the third beat like this (Ex. 68) :
Ex.68.
At the end of bar (Ex. 69)
fifty-seven, the
two hands should play thus
:
Ex.69.
and the best plan this (Ex. 70)
for the left
hand at the very end is probably
:
Ex. 70.
Nearly the whole of Chopin's op. 10, no. practised thus (Ex. 71)
Ex. 71. Chopin: Study, op.
\
can be
the beat instead of within
we
10, no.
7
4
the same device of playing the simultaneously still acting in the
In op. 25, no. i, treatment (Ex. 72) :
7,
:
thumb and second final ascent,
finger
though across
it.
see
how
49
after six bars of simple
Practising the Piano Ex, 72.
a
little
humouring enables the chords played to go on
exemplifying the fingering (Ex, 73)
:
Ex.73.
When a figure contains an unessential note it can often be very musically if
you play
Ex.74a* Ch
:
it
fitted into a
chordal version of the passage
as an acciaccatura (Ex. 74*2
Fantasy
Impromptu
and
&)
;
Ex. 74b,
The musical effect of passages solidified as in the examples of this chapter is often lovelier than the passages themselves as we have been playing them. When we begin to wish they had been written that way the magical charm is its doing
beneficent work.
The
harvest
may be
considered to be fully reaped when we can confidently manage two things : (i) to imagine the composer's figuration while we are playing the solid chords, and (2) to imagine the chords when we are the playing composer's figuration.
II
Octaves OCTAVE
scales
and arpeggios
in all the keys,
major and
minor, make good preliminary practising material and help one to know one's way about the keyboard from a standpoint
markedly different from that familiarised by ordinarily fincontinue each scale or gered scales in single notes. To is a good idea when arpeggio for a distance of two octaves both hands are playing together, this rhythm for ascent and descent (Ex. 75)
:
Ex.75.
being convenient for the Ex.76.
scales,
_ _.-
and j
^
this (Eec. 76)
:
^ ~iF
When
both hands are playing together it sixth is sometimes a welcome change to have them a third, it may distance. octave's an of instead tenth or Perhaps apart also be well to use the tone-schemes recommended in for the arpeggios.
chapter
3, part II, if
these activities are pursued for
more
Piano
Practising the
than a day or two. Leaving scales behind, we could proceed due course to the prettier Czerny Studies and their
in
like,
and add octaves to them (Exx. 77 and 78) Ex.77. Czerny: Left
:
Hand Study
Ex.78. Czerny: Studyf op.740,no.3
then after further progress to the Two-part Inventions of Bach (see chapter 13). Staccato octaves will be the main conthis chapter, and for these a practical mechanism is cern^of one in which the octave is maintained between gauge firmly
the
thumb and
fifth
the wrist, elbow or firmly enough at the will
be like trying to
finger, the movement shoulder. If the
coming from gauge is not held moment of playing any octave it move something with a stick that
bends. in which the firmness of the preparatory steps hand, comflexibility at the wrist or elsewhere, is ensured and becomes familiar in sensation are to clench the fists and
bined with
play only the
thumb
notes,
and
(i) (2) to gather the fingertips
and play only the fifth finger notes (with the of the fifth of tip finger, course). Being able to measure the intervals with each concerned finger separately makes it safer and easier measure them afterwards with both at ^to once. In preserving the aforesaid octave gauge later, it will reduce the muscular effort involved for the thumb closely together
and
fifth
finger if the second, third and fourth are held firmly pressed together (or either adjacent pair of these musically unoccu-
pied fingers).
Octaves
For wrist work it is good to play passages of staccato octaves slowly, drawing your hand lightly and swiftly right off the keyboard to produce each staccato as though you were brushing a grain of sand off the edge. This is a followthrough of the ideal wrist action required to play an octave, a chord, or even a single note, in which the movement should have ceased the moment the keys are down. Your followthrough should be carried as far as possible, giving a sensation at the wrist like the final turn of a watch-key when you cannot move it any further. At the moment it may feel a slight strain but there is muscles for wrist action
same moment.
no danger in it. It strengthens the and loosens the wrist joint at the
If you cease the effort the
moment
the finger-
from the edge of the keys, the hand will fly back an inch or more in the direction from which it has just come, a most helpful instance of the tips are as far as possible
springiness that produces staccato without a second effort of lifting away. Later on use the same action with its follow-
through on beats only instead of every octave, l:ke the "group practice" in chapter 5. For heavy whole-arm work a useful sort of follow-through (though this one contains no element of return spring or movement) is to pull the hands away from the keyboard until the elbows are as far behind your back as you can get
them
"rowing" in chapter 15). Later you will find that less than an inch of this same movement (with the keys still held down in fact) helps you to ensure a certain mellowness instead of thumpiness in ff (mostly on account of causes you might hardly suspect), and also to cultivate looseness at the (see
shoulder (chapter 15 again) allied to a springy condition of the upper arm. Legato octaves are a very different matter. Their execu-
mostly achieved by independent finger action, backed up (perhaps especially in/) by forward and backward swingchapter 15 yet again) ing of the arm ("see-sawing", in fact
tion
is
for alternate octaves.
Here again the thumb
notes only and
then the other notes of the octaves only, will be excellent
53
Practising the Piano
preparatory practice. Now although I once had a girl pupil could play legato octaves with this fingering (Ex. 79)
who
:
Ex.79. i
man
woman and we
can
such a stretch
is
say that
normally impossible to play octaves finger-
it
is
phenomenal
in
or
legato in both voices. In view of this better for one voice to be very legato
it is
generally
much
and the other quite
detached, than for both to be nearly legato. And as a rule the artful assistance of the pedal is indispensable in addition
any finger legato we can achieve. Even when the effect is acoustically legato, that on the listener's mind will often fail to
to satisfy because subtle matters of accentuation are so farreaching. slight bump on a half-beat, for instance, will
A
very often sound as if there must have been a break in the continuity of tone, even when there certainly was none.
12 Simplified Versions
of
Difficult Passages o %/ SOME
publications, like the Hall6 Classics with which I familiar as a small child, preface the pieces with preliminary exercises or special advice as to how to overcome
was
the difficulties. The exercises are all too often mere variants of the figures presenting technical difficulty and rarely develop the student's preception of the musical meanings of the piece. It would be better if the latter consideration were always kept to the fore as it can and should be with the examples that follow. The ideal thing is that the various processes should be made as beautiful as possible with the gist of the music so clearly presented that an audience
could enjoy listening to each process in turn. Let us take Chopin's flat Study, op. 25, no. I, first. It was recommended in chapter 10 that you should practise it thus (Ex. 80)
A
:
Ex.80.
t
I This might be followed by playing the right hand as it is left hand as above and then vice versa.
written and the
55
Practising the Piano
Another pair of complementary processes is for one hand to other hand the first note of play what is written and the hand is beat, making a slight change when the right every
playing the single notes by giving
it
this (Ex. 8 1)
:
Ex.81.
rrni,g A
third pair of complementary and sixteen. of every beat and omit middle the in to stop processes the notes that complete it (Ex. 82) :
in bars fifteen is
and
to leave the
(Ex. 83)
first
half of every beat similarly incomplete
:
Ex. 83.
In the first forty-three whole bars, the first process consists in playing the converging notes of the figure, and the second, the diverging notes. The second will be found rather less easy and rather less lovely than the first because the note on which you have to stop may be more difficult to reach, and often does not belong to the old harmony so that it sounds a bit gaunt until the rest of the beat fills up the
empty space. From bar forty-four onwards
it
will in the first
case be the descending notes that are omitted, and in the second, the ascending. So the first process is all convergings and then ascents while the second is all divergings and then
With
every process it will be preferable to play right to the end of this piece, always omitting the trill and descents.
Simplified Versions of Difficult Passages
turn in the
left hand, thus preserving throughout the essenelement of simplification. For the G flat Study from op. 25 certain processes imme-
tial
diately present themselves. First this (Ex. 84)
:
alternative physical actions recommended in chapter 3, part II, will all be of service. In bars ten, twelve and fourteen, the second break will be a quaver later :
in
which the
Next, left hand as written, right hand playing nothing but the melody right through (Ex. 85) :
etc.
Then right hand as written, left hand two quavers a bar only, giving us the essential bass voice. Three notes instead of two will be necessary in the eighth bar (Ex. 86) : Ex.86.
In the coda reasonable simplifications on similar lines would be these (Ex. 87 a and F) : Ex.87b.
Ex.87a.
J
ending in either case with
I
J
h
*
J
this (Ex. Bye)
i
J
I
:
_
Ex.87o.
These two complementary processes can be played first with and later with the fingering that suits the simplified version 57
Practising the Piano
to be used fingers that will have restored. are
The
when
the omitted notes
though not the official difficulty of this study, is difficult enough. It will be worthwhile to with fist clenches, and so on (four to the practise it by itself bar at first), and also with another quaint device taking all left-hand part,
the single notes with the wrong finger. Try the thumb then second, third, fourth and only then the correct 1
finger.
first,
fifth
These apparently perverse
improve your
alternatives will greatly skill in tackling leaps, and when you begin to
enjoy the fruits of all this labour you can further improve your skill by playing all those single notes, with the different than they are written fingers, an octave lower For the C minor Study, op. 10, no. 12, let us consider at least two processes. First, playing all the melody in single !
notes (the top note of each chord or octave) while the lefthand part is unaltered. Second, playing the right-hand part unaltered while the left-hand part is simplified to the utter-
most. This latter will work out as follows : In the introduction only play this (Ex. 88)
:
Ex.88.
When
the big tune comes in (bar ten), play nothing but the low 'cello Cs for five bars, holding them on as semibreves and minims. Then this (Ex. 89) :
Ex.89.
u
.
u.i
L.J
i
ir
*
-
m
the essential bass voice in fact. Continue with the essential bass voice, and at points which you can easily recognise a chord instead of one note will twice be preferable (Ex. 90) : Ex90.
1
When
preferred*
a
octaves occur instead of single notes, take the high road or the
low road
as
Simplified Versions of Difficult Passages
and on the
last
page
this (Ex. 9 1)
:
Ex.91.
Although the difficult left-hand part is the principal element from the study point of view, the right-hand part gives us the essential melodic thread of the musical discourse.
The
danger of the left-hand passage work becoming the player's main preoccupation and the right hand merely synchronising with the accompaniment in a servile manner is therefore considerable and the right hand must learn to be the
and dominate the performance while the left hand, intensely dramatic though its contribution should be, must act as a loyal and wary accompanist.
soloist
should be apparent that although the suggestions in this chapter all refer to the practising of entire pieces there will be innumerable cases where similar treatment will be of equal use for much shorter passages. Once the idea of simbeen accepted, there is practically no plified versions has end to the occasions on which it will come to our rescue. It
'3 Practising with One Finger THIS may seem when of futility, but
its
suggested foolish to the point beneficial effects can be far-reaching. Parfirst
the habit in studying such independent a Two-part Invention by Bach, in counterpoint as that of which the eventual effect should be that of an equally
ticularly valuable
is
matched duet. Try playing any one of those Inventions with your thumbs only for the whole piece (omitting ornaments and the third, if any), then with the second finger only, fourth and ing.
Your
only in turn, and finally with sensible fingerits familiarity with the music and contrapuntal fifth
intricacies in the actual
playing,
when
it
comes to
this
much
greater than if you had played the music six times with the proper fingering, for the one finger insistently draws your attention to the sixth effort, will probably
ceaseless changes
be
from similar to oblique and contrary
motion. It is
no longer one finger
octaves, but
it fulfils
many
if
we
play the whole piece in
of the same purposes including to be found on the keyboard.
knowing where the notes are It
may
comfort us to
reflect that this will
bear some resem-
blance to the effect of using an octave coupler on the harpsichord, although the right hand will have to play the octave above and the left hand the octave below to prevent the
hands from getting in each other's way. In itself it will be better for our general mastery of octave playing than using
60
Practising with
One Finger
studies of the dry type. Meanwhile the five fingers, the octaves and the sensible fingering give us a sevenfold ritual
apart from the occult blessings of that particular number, arithmetically one better than six. Many years ago a famous singer was asked by an eager
and
this,
is
young student why the class was told to practise a given exercise and the reply was "Oh you leave that to me, and do the exercise !" Surely one should always welcome enquiries even if they seem hostile or over-sceptical it gives one a chance to rake up a further list of benefits. Here is one more important benefit if you sing intervals, the wide ones :
!
;
:
occasion a special vocal
effort.
This (Ex. 92)
:
Ex.92.
i
is
a slight
effort,
and
this (Ex. 93)
;
greater one. To play these notes with one finger (as printed below the notes) instead of with natural legato fingering (as printed above the notes) helps us to mean the chosen
a
much
intervals vocally as well as correlating the vocal meaning with the keyboard distances. The benefits described in the
sentence are considerable and although they may seem remote or purely theoretical as you read the words, they are a great deal more as you play the notes. When the idea of last
vocalised intention
is
well rooted in your playing, the perils
of such skips as these (Ex. 94) Ex.94. Chopim Ballade in L.H
G
minor
:
Practising the Piano
be very perceptibly lessened by singing the bass voice of the passage, thus (Ex. 95)
will
:
Bx.95.
in
M
J
*
Mf
*
*
J
*
Hf
M M j
IJ
your mind as you play, however useful and necessary any
further expedients
may
be.
62
Fugal Study WITH many
of the problems of playing
I
am
tempted
some of the ritual advocated in
these chapters, and when I do so, hoping to save the time and patience of some of the brighter pupils, I generally regret it afterwards. With a four-part fugue it nearly always pays to insist on over to cut out
twenty separate processes, and if these are carried out the comfort and relaxation of many more mere playings through can be allowed without the risks that often attend heedless enjoyment. As a preliminary to the
fugue fugue
first ten processes, divide your into sections like fare stages on a 'bus route. The first in "The Forty-eight" is easily divisible by means of
A
D
cadences in different keys (G, and then two in minor, a C) into five sections. Then, section at a time, play through, as expressively as possible, each of the four voices separately, beginning with the bass and working upwards to the soprano. In some fugues, where voices cross or leave off, it is quite puzzling to know which notes belong to which voice and it is better to write out all such doubtful passages in score on as many staves as there are voices, than to be uncertain at any point. The separate voices should be fol-
lowed immediately by playing the sections through with two voices at a time, the lower with the left hand and the upper with the right hand. In doing this, if a unison occurs, play it scrupulously with both hands, although that is usually
63
Practising the Piano
unwise in ordinary playing.
The
best order for these six
(i) tenor with the right hand, bass processes with the left ; (2) alto right hand, bass left ; (3) soprano right hand, bass left ; (4) alto right hand, tenor left ; is
as follows
:
soprano right hand, tenor left ; (6) soprano right hand, alto left. You will soon realise that if you had done your ten processes for more than a section you would have forgotten the melodic outline of the single voices
combine them in pairs. These first ten processes are
when you came
to
two voices
at
fascinating, the
many beauties that could very easily have escaped notice. At the same time, since they constitute a somewhat microscopic examination of the texture of the a time revealing a good
fugue, they need to be supplemented by a bird's-eye view of the whole when we have completed our task with the sections. For this, let us play the extreme voices only of the
whole fugue straight through. At every actual point we have done this already, but playing the extreme voices might have coincided at a given point with process five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten, and in this fugue does coincide with five out of those six alternatives. We must pass from one to the other, therefore, as the music dictates. Remorselessly doing this will sometimes produce an unpleasing fault (as the geologists would call it) and such overlapping as this in bar twenty (Ex. 96)
:
should be welcomed whenever it saves one from some effect of musical illiteracy like the consecutive octaves which were avoided here.
To the fugally experienced our eleven processes may seem easy, but for the average student it is quite usual after a week's work at them still to get entangled here and there. ^X As soon as all eleven are mastered they will have done much VB/
Fugal Study to
show us what
needs, however
the playing of the fugue contrapuntally are they have done to achieve it.
We
little
therefore just ready for processes twelve and thirteen. In both we play the complete fugue straight through with
every note staccato, except the
You may
well ask monstrous as the why. conductor of a village band who told his players to read a difficult new thing just arrived from London "without the see that a great deal of the diffiaccidentals". But no of is in culty fugue playing holding one note on in one voice while another note in another voice is let go, often to move on somewhere else. If this difficulty is temporarily elimin-
And you
last one.
might argue that
1
it is
as
We
ated by staccato playing in every voice, and if the notes and rhythm themselves are both correct, it is something of a revelation to experience how much of the gist of the music
can still be divined. In the meantime, granting that one has not yet mastered the fugue (for in such a case further processes might be superfluous) this staccato treatment will give you a reasonable chance of doing the task that has been set with a hundred per cent, accuracy and knowing whether you have done so. It may surprise the reader to be advised to play all the tied notes again in these staccato versions. One reason for this is that it involves the registering of every printed note in the mind by the fingers, but a more important one is the way that it emphasises the dissonance of many suspensions and the beauty as each of them gets resolved. But it is time to explain why there should be a pair of staccato processes. Twelve is to be without pedal and thirteen with pedaL Twelve will be very disconnected, there-
and
comfort you to pretend that you are a string quartet, that all four bows were stolen by fore,
it
may humorously
a rival quartet leader, and that as rehearsal is imperative it has to be sempre pizzicato. Thirteen will naturally sound more connected than twelve but will need care if it is not to be too smudgy. If the pedal is changed about four times a bar in our C major fugue, the occasional smudges will probably give a less confused effect than legato organ playing
65
Practising the Piano
an echoey church. Neat changes will involve a less sharp moments of change than elsewhere, but this is all to the good in training our fingers to cling on a little longer when occasion demands. If they fail to do so in these in
staccato at the
cases
it is
like
handing someone a scalding cup of tea and
letting go of the saucer before you can feel that the recipient has got hold of it. At points where our crotchet pedalling is unpleasantly smudgy, it should be modified to suit the pro-
gressions ; we gradually gain increased skill in divining what desirable and carrying it out nicely when it has been decided upon. It may be emphasised here that all this
is
pedalling with the staccato playing
is
a very
good appren-
ticeship for later pedalling during legato performance. Wellpedalled Bach is very often preferable to unpedalled, just as
sunlight adds radiance to a landscape. Fourteen and fifteen are severely practical and are examples of delayed continuity as advocated in chapter I, though
the units are necessarily very short. In fourteen the pauses for reflection are at regular intervals, say twice a bar (Ex. 97): Bx.07.
your main duty being not to play the next bit until you have successfully done so in your head. In fifteen the pauses are at irregular intervals as in this (Ex. 98)
:
Ex.93.
and
your duty, two points are of special importdeciding where the next pause shall be before "pushing off", and if a difficult moment has been reached a quarter of a bar fully mastered will be better than half a bar or more with a defect. The other is to be sure to stop where you decided you would, instead of drifting on heedlessly in your joy because Scylla or Charibdis has been in fulfilling
ance.
One
is
safely passed.
Sixteen to twenty-seven are the cream of
66
all
the processes.
Fugal Study
With
talented pupils it is sometimes possible to scrap the often it worthwhile though enough may prove
first fifteen,
to have recourse to
makes
them afterwards
if this
or that weakness
appearance. In sixteen to nineteen you play the whole fugue straight through, in sixteen singing the bass voice as well, in seventeen, eighteen and nineteen the tenor, its
and soprano respectively. With a woman's voice some this of singing will have to be an octave or more too high,
alto
with a man's voice an octave or more too low unless he has a falsetto to fall back upon or prefers to whistle (an octave or more too high). Unexpected difficult moments will sometimes give us considerable trouble and by the time we can really sing the right notes in one voice a mistake may occur
must rely on getting this to sing the voice in which
we have been
focusing special attention
straightened out when this mistake occurred.
Now
whereas
We
we come
in the playing of another.
upon one voice while playing all four, and actually making the one louder by adding vocal tone to it in sixteen to nineteen, in twenty to twenty-three we again focus special attention on the one voice (bass, tenor, alto, soprano, in that
order), but by playing it louder* Sixteen to nineteen helps you to achieve twenty to twenty-three and vice versa.
Twenty-four to twenty-seven consist in listening attentively and in a lesser degree will produce an effect similar to twenty to twenty-three because the voice to which you are listening will come out rather louder than to the four voices in turn
the others, although less so than when you are trying to bring it out. If you play a few bars and ask a friend to tell
which voice you have been listening and he cannot say, you will probably find that you were not really succeeding in your attempt to listen to it A moderate amount of each of the above processes may be expected to produce better results than a great deal of a few of them, and it may be as well to follow them up by some conducting as recommended in chapter 2, and some
you
to
!
further thought
upon the message of chapter 6?
6.
%
15
Looseness at the Shoulder ALTHOUGH
I
believe that looseness at the shoulder
is
one
of the foundation-stones of efficient technique, physically so until pupils have speaking, I often refrain from saying
A
moment is then progressed a long way on their road. reached when it is of special value to trot the theory out* First let us be quite sure what is desired. In the 1890$ young girls like my sister (of about my own age) were instructed that
it
walked. Such was
was vulgar
to
swing their arms as they
the tradition of late Victorian deportment. movements, carried back and for-
These self-same vulgar ward parallel with the line of your
footsteps, exactly
produce
the looseness advocated in this chapter. If you sit at the and then carry them piano, place your hands on the keys,
backwards and forwards together instead of alternately, far back as continuing the movement from the keyboard as your elbows can be drawn, it will look rather like rowing,
though the elbows should not move outwards. Then if you keep your fingertips on the keyboard without letting between the edge and the wood of the lid while the upper arms swing backwards and forwards as far as the tethered fingertips allow, there will be a kind of see-saw
them
slide
With both these movements "rowing" and "see-sawing" the arm will be loose at the shoulder. If you get someone else to move your arm as in rowing or see-sawing, when you offer resistance you element in the movement.
68
Looseness at the Shoulder will
at the shoulder, and when there is no are preserving the easy poise which the move-
have stiffened
resistance
you ments are designed to produce. And when you perform either of these movements yourself it will loosen you if you are tight, and prove to you that you are loose already if you cannot be sure without the test. Now a ff chord, a difficult trill or mordent, the attempt to achieve a pp any difficulty in fact, even anxiety in itself, can very easily stiffen you at the shoulder, and the thing to do is to cultivate recovering that looseness when it has been lost. When you or others are
hampered by stiffness, try to ascertain where the stiffness and it will often prove to be at the shoulder. If this eliminated the relief
may
is is
well resemble that of Christian
when
the load of sin fell from his back. In stopping-practice you can row or see-saw in time to the mental rehearsal that precedes the next phrase, but as audiences cannot wait for you to perform such antics, the next thing to learn is to see-saw while you are playing
(Ex. 99): Ex.99.
you make these accents by means of the arm movements, you could say, watching your wrist to understand the choice If
of syllables (Ex. 100)
:
BUOO.
a
Down
J up,
down up, down
'^
J
J up,
down
up,
down
" up, down up,
f down
r=t up, down up,
being careful, however, that the wrist does not continue to when the elbow stops moving, for this would defeat your main object and prevent your upper arm from swinging forward again until the wrist had returned to the position from which it had sunk. There is a natural pace for these sink
somewhere about J S7J2 (though it varies with the individual), and if you play perceptibly slower or quicker crotchets,
69
Practising the Piano
than your own natural pace it will probably get you confused as to whether you ought to be doing an "up" or a
"down"
Now
at a given
moment.
"down" on every other note
see-saw with the
(Ex. 101): Ex.101.
_j
Down
The "up" movement
etc,
down up
tip,
here puts something of a brake on the
in fact, speed, so this will at best be quasi Vistesso tempo as as even slow J-.se- But if perceptibly slower, perhaps
you have a "down" on every Ex.102.
fifth
note (Ex. 102)
^^ ~
:
etc.
this
tempo
will
probably be pretty close to that of the
quavers.
We
should see-saw therefore with crotchets, quavers
and semiquavers, and the movement should sometimes be as exaggerated as possible and sometimes so slight that an onlooker (unaware of what you were supposed to be doing) might not see it. Sometimes the accents should be very conspicuous to the listener and sometimes hardly detectable. So
we have these four combinations
:
(i) lots of
; (2) lots of movement with little or no accent movement with a big accent and (4) little move-
a big accent (3) little
movement with
ment with
As soon
;
;
little
or no accent.
this is mastered a very little movement can an one give impressive accent when the finger has not the necessary strength for it, and this same little movement can unstiffen one's upper arm at the shoulder even when accentuation of any kind is undesirable. In the syllabic differentiation so essential to expressive cantabile playing, the use of these see-sawings and the sense of treading produced by the "down" movements bring the greatest comfort to the
as
all
70
Looseness at the Shoulder users, largely on the ground that when what you do feels physically like the effect you want to hear, natural ease in the effort
The
and
result are married in a truly blissful union. fundamental value of looseness at the shoulder will
therefore
its
become increasingly apparent.
i6
of Time
Gradations A GOOD
deal of textbook doctrine
on
this subject is at best
can easily become acrimonious. One or two assertions on the practical plane, howthan denunciations of those ever, may be more acceptable
unsound, and discussion about
it
who go further or along a different path. distinct kinds of flexibility are that of the beat that within the beat. Let us first consider the former. If
Two
and
you
count three or four in a succession of bars with march-like or
even metronomic precision, the rhythmical sequence of the beats will certainly be unbroken. If you then try dawdling
on individual beats it is
fairly easy
to
thre (one, two,
,
.
.
e,
f , our, for instance)
know whether the sequence has been main-
and you experiment with accellerandos rallentandos of increasing magnitude, your ability to say has been lost will grow from whether the
And
tained.
as
pulse
positively day to day.
so if Conducting is even better than counting, dawdles and hastenyou find you can conduct such and such a legitimate rubato in ings the result can be pronounced
of sequential continuity in the beats would have been a case of senza tempo. Whether the
itself,
whereas the
loss
example of rhythmical freedom
amples
a given appropriate in
a question of interpretation. within the beat each of these flexibility
passage
Of
is
is
an exaggeration for the sake of
is
and 104)
:
72
clarity
two ex-
(Exx, 103
Gradations of Time Ex.103. Beethoven: Kreutzer Sonata -ttc.
Ex.104. Polonaise accompaniments
J5
J-
dangerously easy to overdo* Such liberties are and the problem is often how much to and how often. National music makes many demands
Ex. 103
Is
called falsifications falsify of this kind.
A
within the beat
very helpful analogy for is
much
flexibility
the phrase "declamatory freedom".
would sing these two
syllables (Ex. 105)
You
:
Ex.105.
i shatter
more
swiftly than these (Ex. 106)
:
Ex.106.
fiercely
even if the composer had not attempted to specify any difference in the notation. Indeed it would probably be better for
him not
to
make any such
attempt.
Chopin's F minor Ballade often suffers from this kind of treatment (Ex. 107) :
eight times in the sixteen bars of this melody, which converts what might be a good effect Into a regrettable and stilted mannerism. We may sometimes be tempted to remind some
"miserable sinner" that the object of rubato is usually to render the music more beautiful rather than less, though it might not sound quite so embittered if we suggested constructive improvements.
A so-called definition of rubato
hand
free", a
phenomenon which
notation itself (Exx. 108, 109 and
73
hand
in time, right is often called for by the
is
1
"left
10)
:
Practising the Piano Ex.108. Chopin: Nocturne In F$
Ex. 109. Hummel: Sonata, in D,Op.l06
Larghetto a caprtcci*
(Thc last of fourteen similar bars)
Ex.110. Chopin: Nocturne in Dfe " Ztnfo sosttnxto
The
beauty with which Chopin treated such passages may be part of the reason why "left hand strict, right hand free" has been so often advocated as a solution of the rubato problem. The result of accepting this doctrine is usually similar to that produced by an insensitive accompanist who cannot keep together with the soloist. is
Changing the tempo is quite another affair. Nowadays it more severely frowned on than in my childhood. Lesche-
tizky was sometimes at pains to advocate subtle vacillations, perhaps in a graded series, that enabled one to achieve desired changes unperceived.
I
74
can for once masquerade as
Gradations of Time
man if I submit that about the period of 1 900 many tempo changes and in the 19508 there too few. Certainly if there is anyone who perhaps
a moderate
there were too are
an inflexible metronomic constancy of pace of other considerations, he may be regarded as regardless an extremist.
advocates
Hand Preparing of Positions a pithy analysis of all we have as far as the keyboard is concerned ;
"FIND
p ress_let go"
is
to do in piano playing to me in almost casual conversation over it was
presented
The
thirty years ago.
first
of the three actions was always
called "preparing" in the Leschetizky fold
to exaggerate
its
An
it is
difficult
Take
the skips of a typical should early ritual of practising staccato, and whenever there is a
importance.
waltz accompaniment.
and
be to play very slowly, very dash like lightning to the next position. If in our skip to first example you seem to reach the silent diamond-headed
moment when
notes at the very
played
is
heard,
it
trick required (Ex.
will 1 1
1)
appear
the crotchet you have just to be the sort of conjuring
:
-* It
may be
to reach tantalising at first
note and not play
it,
but to play
it
your diamond-headed
tends to lessen the value
remove from your mind, in fact, the it. The very thing you had most wished to impress upon slower you play, the quicker can the skips be made and the of the skip
itself
to
76
Preparing of
Hand
Positions
deeper will the impression of this rapidity sink into the memory of your hands and fingers for future use. Moreover, the quicker the skips the more accurate are they likely to be you have no time to forget en route where you came
from or how
far you have to go. Afterwards do your special preparings once a bar only, playing up to time but with really long pauses. If the pauses
are three bars long the regular four-bar lengths into which the delayed continuity would fit will, by its ordered design, have a comforting and invigorating effect upon our spirit
(Ex.
1 1
la and
:
)
ExJ12a.^z^ro
^\>
I
,*
f^ ^
1
I
3=^=3 etc.
Ex.ll2b. tic.
In this (Ex. 113): Ex. 113. Beetltevtitt Sonata,Op.27,No.l
(with which some of my readers are sure to have had their struggles), the wide skips occur at irregular intervals. When the rests come, fling your hands on to the next chord as if
they had been hurled out of a catapult and ask yourself two questions : whether your aim achieved a bull's-eye, and whether the speed of the journey was as quick as it would need to have been if you had been playing straight on. The
77
Practising the Piano
answer
is
naturally more likely to be "yes" in both cases if is as the crow flies.
the journey
be inopportune, even though somewhat premature, to mention here that extreme zeal regarding these skips may sometimes make you so over-eager that you will play the chord preceding the skip too sketchily (smudged or not fully audible, for instance). It is a tantalis-
Perhaps
it
will not
ing but very useful discipline to stop just short of the skip, with your fingers on the surface of the keys that have that moment been released. For one thing, the release, if achieved by total relaxation of downward pressure and not attended by a lifting away from the keys, even as much as a tenth of
an inch, allows the subsequent journey to be made more swiftly and easily than if it had been the journey that produced the staccato. Meanwhile, as you learn to make the step mentally, though not physically, the tantalising element is gradually eliminated. Perhaps it will soothe our outraged feelings to exclaim with the King in Hamlet : thoughts remain below' ', up to Heaven,
"My words fly
my
which
is,
perversely enough, the opposite of what we are doing. Preparing must not be confined to chords and skips, but carefully cultivated in finger passages as well. If you play the scale of major for four octaves in semiquavers and a crotchet group has reached the following whenever pause
C
note (which might be called the destination of the group), the diamond-headed notes show you how many notes you should
prepare at the respective stopping-places (Ex. 114):
Preparing of
Hand
Positions
Sometimes practise the above with a "full-dress" mental rehearsal before each little rush. The sixth of the right-hand groups has what would be a grotesque fingering were those five notes to occur by themselves, but it is useful to realise that it is the right orthodox fingering if you are playing
your complete four octaves. The left hand gets the same fingering in the sixth group descending.
79
i8
Beauty THIS
of Tone
a subject which has aroused considerable controcannot make one versy. Scientists have declared that you isolated note beautiful or ugly on the piano, you can only
make
is
it
louder or softer. Musicians often declare that their
experience totally disproves the scientists' assertion. Even if the musicians were right, there are so many factors produc-
ing beauty or ugliness in tonal effect that the importance of single-note beauty would at best be comparatively slight. Factors which produce unquestionable differentiation of
tone quality are the pedal and the harmonies. Notes that are pedalled glisten with a lovely radiance that is like the beauty of a wet pebble on the sea-shore
:
dry the pebble and the
and the magic is restored. magic dip Compare the first part of Ex. 115 unharmonised with the same notes harmonised two bars later, and in Beethoven's Largo from op. 7 (Ex. n$a,b and c) is lost,
it
in water again
:
Ex.U5a.
J
Ex.1151).
Ei.ll5c.
J-3J
Think what the accompaniment^)/^ pedal adds to the unaccompanied E|j melody note with which another Chopin Study begins (Ex.
1
16)
:
80
Beauty of Tone Ex.116.
Apart from the magic of the liquid flowing semiquavers in the accompaniment, the way the harmony thereof supports the melody (with perpetual scope for subtle variations in the degree of that support) gives almost unlimited possibilities for beautifying the actual singing tone quality of that series of repeated E[>s. Then there are the various factors which seem to influence beauty of tone quality and therefore do affect beauty of tonal
We
might consider them from the negative point of view. When a note is too loud or comes too soon it may well seem harsh by reason of the shock it produces. For it to be too soft or too late will be feeble, lacking vitality, warmth or some other essential attribute. For the bass voice effect.
or other notes in the accompaniment to give insufficient support to the melody will make an accented melody note
sound hard when
it would otherwise have been completely a question therefore of harmonic proportion. acceptable, The dissonance of wrong notes also creates a harshness of its own. Start Beethoven's Sonata, op. 10, no. i, with a Btj
to the first chord by the right hand, and compare it with an equally fierce clean /chord. Mercifully, whatever our beliefs about tone and touch,
added
the same practical expedients make for good results. Three ways which might have been advocated for increasing beauty of tone quality in itself are in any case of great usefulness in
and comincreasing our power of avoiding the numerous forth in the preceding paragraph, and plicated dangers set therefore productive of much positive benefit. The first is mental, the other two physical. The mental one is always to be striving for the maximum tonal beauty. To long for and dream of loveliness makes us more likely to achieve a
81
Practising the Piano
beautiful effect, whatever the
means employed, more
alive to
the result, whether it be encouraging or disheartening, and more aware of what the effort to achieve it felt like, whether
with a view to preserving what was good, or avoiding whatever was not approved. The first physical observance is always to touch the keys before pressing them down, because hitting them from a distance (even a slight one) reduces precision with regard to the sound coming at the right moment, with the right volume (not only total volume, but also that of the melody note and balance with those that harmonise it), and without a smudge. The second physical observance is the habit of instantaneous relaxation of any superfluous pressure that may have been momentarily necessary for ff chords, and so forth. This last immensely increases the likelihood of good timing and general control in jf, as well as conserving greatly needed energy, It is wise to reflect on the varying fate of beautiful voices
(singing or speaking) and beautiful timbre in musical instrulike wind and strings where quality does vary so con-
ments
A
spicuously on single notes. lovely timbre soon loses its if the the lack phrases magic variety and appeal of human and expressiveness, conversely an unpleasing timbre is often
when musicians and actors possess Has even one of my readers failed to
same
forgotten
that
appeal. these truths ?
experience
1
9
and Rotary Movements of the Forearm
Trills
SOME
of our trills should sound like a bird or a flute, and musical. Slower ones are liable to sound lumberliquid and ing angular^ quicker ones like an electric bell or an infuriated wasp arriving on the window-pane. There is a place for
each of these types, according to the passage. Still slower than any of these is the kind some favour in Bach and other
composers, though many will find it unacceptable ; in these each note sounds like a separate syllable. If a trill causes you difficulty, try first to estimate the rhythmical groups of which it should be composed, writing them out if there is any lack of clear intention. must decide whether the groups should be twos, threes, fours, sixes, or what. If fours are too slow and eights too quick, we shall have to choose a triplet grouping and the further question may arise whether six notes shall be made up of two triplets or three pairs of notes. Incidentally the former, by virtue of the groups' starting alternately on the principal note and the upper note, makes very good practice even if not adopted subsequently. In the practising itself over-accentuation leads to greater ease and control later, especially when achieved by rotary exertions of the forearm. The latter will be considered in trills
We
some
detail later in this chapter.
83
"Group
practice", beating
Practising the Piano
with the other hand (for both see chapter 5) and very important singing the groups of the trill when they have been decided upon, are all three very valuable. If the final pace of the trill is going to be quicker than the maximum possible with your vocal technique, to sing a note and roll
an "r" on it is a suggestive and very helpful kind of semimental rehearsal.
A good way of working at a long regular intervals,
resuming the
trill
trill is
sponding to the beats that have elapsed
be practised thus:
and then:
to
come to
at a later :
I
a stop at
moment corre-
^^t^r^Ti>
fffj fffj J^JJJH /351
J^JJB JH3
of them with and without the
1
J
J773 /T73IJ
can
4J both
ties.
These examples assumed commencement on the principal note, but opinions vary as to whether a trill should do so. If you decide that a given trill shall, let the first note sing and play the next few much more lightly. If you begin with the upper note, prevent it from singing, and what follows from sounding as if the whole thing was an inverted trill on that upper note. Whichever line you take, the beauty with which
you carry out your preference preference
is
more important than the
itself.
It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that every trill should end on the principal note, and this may also involve careful
rhythmical planning. Where a trill needs a turn at the end, although the penultimate note will be below the principal note the rhythmical plan will most probably be unaffected.
The
beginning on the principal note and only three give us an upper mordent ; the shortest with a turn at the end will contain seven notes. These seven notes are the most shapely in one of these two groupings (Ex. 117* and V} shortest real
without a turn
trill
will contain five notes as
:
Ex.
84
117b.
Trills
and Rotary Movements of
the
Forearm
from which we should choose whichever suits the occasion better. In Ex. 117^ the two halves of the trill are found to be an upper mordent followed by a turn commencing on the note above, which seems to leave us with no actual trill Few listeners, however, will be bothered by this curious !
fact unless the fourth of the seven notes is grotesquely over-
accentuated.
A long
trill nearly always gains life (whether by its beauty, excitement, or whatever its particular quality) by tone gradations swellings, fadings, etc., like a long held note on a voice or violin. Nearly all trills are much better pedalled,
its
and when a gradual diminuendo is the required effect, a sudden drop of tone in the playing will produce the gradual drop in the sound, because unless the pedal
is
changed those
more softly played notes will have the sounds already ringing added to their volume. Trills benefit greatly by clearness of thought and physical precision in regard to rotary action and freedom of the forearm. In the early days of this century people often spoke as
Debussy had invented the whole-tone scale and Matthay What Debussy did was to unlock for us a rich treasure of beauty and imagination by his lovely use of the whole-tone scale, added to exquisite judgment in escaping from it when the moment came to do so, while if
"forearm rotation".
Matthay did great service in explaining principles about these forearm rotary mysteries concerning which there had previously been very widespread misunderstandings. Some worthies even used to advocate the placing of a coin where
your hand joins the forearm to prevent the tiniest rotary movement of the forbidden and dreaded kind. I once heard an examiner say to a candidate with scornful irony : "And when you have ceased to rotate . . ?" The rotary movements can be either a cause or a result. When they supply the energy with which notes are played the touch can be called rotary action, of which the fingers are and just agents. When finger action is the touch employed the rotary movements occur, they do so by virture of rotary .
85
Practising the Piano
freedom of the forearm. This is twice blest, for the fingers can move more easily when the forearm is thus free, and also need to move shorter distances to do their work, the saving corresponding to the amount of movement by the arm.
Now the two touches have a markedly different musical When you play the notes by rotary action they are
effect.
perceptibly martellato in character. In^it might be like the clattering of hooves on cobble stones or "the chaotic laughter
of a shunting train". In pp it might be like the tinkling of imagined harebells, but in either case there is a "ting-a-linga-ling" element in the notes. When you play them with finger action accompanied by rotary freedom of the forearm, you get more of a murmur as of zephyrs or bees. So it is
necessary to decide what you want in given instances. You probably vote for the murmuring effect in Chopin's F
will
minor Study, op. 25, no. 2, and for the clattering effect in the "Black Key" Study. Mercifully, if you first determinedly practise a passage with energetic rotary action, and then cease the conscious efforts, rotary freedom is left behind, a priceless deposit as one might say. There is no better way of cultivating the first of these touches than the following : Take any passage of broken intervals, whether they be octaves, sixths, thirds, mixed or whatever you like, play them first
as solid intervals (Ex.
1 1
8)
:
Ex.llS.Beethoveat Sonata, op. 2 6
Then do
the rotary movements corresponding to those in the passage rhythmically in the air (Ex. 119): Ex.110. Qttt in out IB
oat in opt in oat la oat in
oat in oat in oat in oat in
oat
out in out in
oat in oat in oat in out in
oat ia oat in oat in oat in
oat oat
86
Trills
and Rotary Movements of
the
Forearm
and thirdly play the passage as it was written, endeavouring to combine the two previous processes simultaneously instead of doing one after the other, an endeavour in which you will most often succeed. Of course if a friend enters the room when your hands are "doing their magics" in the air he may be constrained to ejaculate "Alas are you often :
!
taken like this ?" In so far as the use of rotary action of the forearm necessitates a conscious effort of the will, to make this conscious effort
and then, discontinuing
it,
rejoice in its "priceless
a simpler affair than acquiring many of the deposit" knacks which go to build up a reliable pianoforte physical is
technique.
2O
Sight-Reading THE
surest foundation for the best kind of sight-reading
to cultivate the
is
power of hearing music in your mind by Whether you are already skilled or a
at the page.
looking timid and rather unsuccessful beginner in this direction, a good ritual for practical use is to take short stretches of vary-
ing length according to the demands of the music selected, and with each stretch to read it mentally first, then to play
on the surface of the keys and finally out loud, when what you hear should be eagerly compared with what you had it
expected to hear. If either of the first two processes could be swiftly improved, you could persevere with it for a little while before proceeding to the next.
The proposed
ritual is
particularly valuable in helping you to avert inaccuracies before they actually occur. are taught that the recording
We
angel expects us to be tempted to play shabby tricks ; it is only considered blameworthy if we carry them out. Once we
have made a mistake in playing out loud, it is more likely to occur again than if the danger had been feared at an earlier stage and avoided in the nick of time. Indeed the advantages of "correct
first
time" tend to
pile
up
at the rate of
com-
The
possibilities of greater musical insight are also of considerable importance. hearing It is a very good thing to read unfamiliar pieces two or
pound
interest.
at first
three times, perhaps with a few days in between, and if this, like the ritual of the preceding paragraph, amounts to partly prepared sight-reading, that well done will have more
Sight-Reading influence on your progress than actual sight-reading of
an example of what you should aspire to, as well as making you more thoroughly acquainted with a great deal of music as time goes on. The habit of keeping your eye on the page while playing
poorer quality
is
of
;
maximum
it is
usefulness in sight-reading* Although
may have
we
seen valiant deeds performed by from and down darted whose eyes up page to keyplayers a superb that well become would who can do board, anyone instead of a good reader if the darting could be eliminated. in this field
often preached that one's eyes should be several bars ahead of one's fingers in sight-reading, and the value of this idea might be said to lie in the grasping of chord progresIt is
and whole phrases rather than spelling out the music a note at a time, however quickly. But essential though it may be for one's eyes to glance forward on the page, it is exceedingly valuable for them to glance back again and sions
indeed as often as possible to look the written notes straight in the face while playing them. If this is accompanied by it can often intensify grateful affection for musical notation the music. To look of one's sense of the emotional poignancy at these superb chords from Chopin's B minor Scherzo
during the very act of playing them (Ex. 120)
:
Ex.120.
will surely help
many
forcefulness
more
we analyse
in correct reading typical kinds of difficulty shall not fail to notice the following widely differing
If
we
still
of us to appreciate their shattering than ever.
sources of confusion
:
of a very diatonic Passage work of contrapuntal freedom Elizabethan character, such as is found in abundance in composers and in Bach. i
Practising the Piano
2
Passages that are riddled with accidentals, even
if
simple
rhythmically and otherwise. 3 as
4
The melodic floridity of the "Vienna period", does so much rhythmical complexity.
involving
it
Technical
difficulties
(Exx. 121, 122 and 123)
:
Ex.12}. Beethoven* Sonata, op. 2, no. 3 Mlegrocon trio .
Ex.122. Griegi Piano Concerto
5
Chords other than the standard ones
in
ordinary
harmony books. 6
Modern
incomprehensibilities.
Many players are good at some of the above and
bothered
few passages have more than two by of these difficulties at once. In any case, to realise which of them gives us particular trouble will show us in what directions to seek for the most improvement. Divining the character of what we read is in a different sphere altogether, so important that it could occupy a whole chapter or even volume. Perhaps the reader could be others. Comparatively
referred at this point to the chapter but in any case no effort should be
90
on dramatic
significance,
spared in developing our
,
Sight-Reading
musical insight while sight-reading as well as in the work
which follows
it.
Even if our sight-reading is of mediocre quality, there some ways in which we should respect it* If you play a
are
phrase straight away after you have for instance as this (Ex. 124) :
first
seen
it
such a one,
Ex.124. B*chi Eng-lish Suite in E minor
F may result in love at first sight and there will very likely be a beauty and a freshness in the sound that once lost might never be regained. Do everything you can to preserve that lovely bloom "thinking ten times and playing once" will
it
:
certainly help.
21
Miscellaneous THE DIFFICULT PACE IF you play finger passages slowly, say in crotchets at about and if you have the J = ioo> ft * s eas7 to do so stea dily>
same passages in semiquavers, also at at any J:ioo, the notes will probably sound equally or rate agreeably steady. But try a middle pace, say quavers at agility
to play the
about J : |2o> anc* y u ma7 b e reminded of church that behave like this (Ex. 125)
bells
:
Ex.125.
This pace can be nicknamed "the difficult pace", and each difficult pace for given passages player tends to have his own has a natural pace for walking just as each person there is no special reason for haste or dalliance.
What
is
here recommended
is
when
that in long, swift succes-
sions of single notes, such as in many Bach movements or Czerny Studies, we should find out the pace at which the
notes are the most tottery and then assiduously play long stretches through at that exact pace. In a few days the and staggerings will gradually melt out of existence, difficulty so for the passages in question there will cease to be a difficult pace. It is not often that playing
something badly with
conscious realisation of the fact proves positively beneficial.
92
Miscellaneous
Why
does so in this case seems to be that each little stagger produces a sense of annoyance and that the next time you pass the spot where you felt this annoyance a special it
effort will instinctively be made to avoid a repetition of the defect. In some the cases defect previous may have been
due to
failure in controlling the rotary movements of the forearm, in others to vagueness about accentuation, and in
some you may be unable
to trace the cause even
when
improvement has been achieved. In any case the exploitation of "the
pace" can often prove to be the suppletreatment which moderately successful passages mentary still need. difficult
TRANSPOSITION Ex.120. Beethoven* Sonata, op. 81 A
The
above, like the twin passage later in the same movement, is one of the sort that we practise for weeks and appear to have conquered, and then on the night of the concert we
go and fumble it. Many of the audience were on the lookout, wondering whether we should get past this corner with credit. So we must try and surround the passage with an extra wide margin of safety. For this it will be good to slave away in a variety of ways and two rather unhackneyed suggestions are offered here.
One
is
to play those three bars
in all the twelve keys while
adhering to the fingerbeginning ing of the original passage. They begin in (7 though a series of modulations starts almost immediately. If you begin a semitone higher at each repetition, the thirteenth effort will be the original one an octave higher. If you dread the number thirteen you can retrace your steps a semitone at a time and you will reach the original passage again at the twenty-fifth effort ; you will certainly know it better then
93
Practising the Piano
times as it is, and the you had played it twenty-five movements new little of number enormous suddenly demanded of your hands and fingers will have greatly increased your physical and mental agility. Of course, few
than
of
if
my readers
will
at first to
be able
manage
all
these trans-
it would certainly pay to write out all those positions, but that give too much trouble (using the new key signature each
those transpositions from the time) after which you can play MS. Do not flinch, even if you have to write out the three bars quite a number of times, for copying is valuable in itself. If you are still obliged to grope about in some of the even then, doing so will be worthwhile and transpositions lead in time to greatly increased fluency.
DUPLICATION Another way of drudging at the above passage is to play twice each in unbroken sequence. tiny units of two quavers allows which device a This is you to do all the physical in the passage at full speed but with twice as a neat and most long to think out what is coming next, combination of the benefits of slow and quick prac-
movements helpful
when dupliparticular passage the in both cated can be advantageously phrased following
tice at the
same time. Our
as far as practising
ways
is
concerned (Ex. 127)
:
Ex 127
The
alternative printed over the notes, if carrying out the better to plan with less relentless logic, conforms
proposed
the grammatical sense of the music.
PRACTISING WITH THE This
may
strike
many
WRONG HAND
readers as a gratuitous
perverse waste of time, but
it
and even
can be unexpectedly helpful.
94
It
Miscellaneous is
a good
way of
getting to
"know
notes irrespective of the
fingering by which they are played". Moreover, as the right hand gets more opportunities of development than the
hand, our eccentric procedure will often involve the left in tasks that would not otherwise fall to its lot, thus at least reducing the inequalities of opportunity as between the hands. In one kind of passage, it may be noted, most left hands have learned to excel the right to a marked degree. Try sliding the stool about a foot to the left and playing the left-hand part of your favourite Chopin Waltz with your right hand, an experiment which brings surprise to many. left
hand
22 Bodily Stillness SOME
bodily movements as you
to play given passages, as
sit at "the
piano help you the top or
when you need to reach
bottom of the keyboard with both hands. Others may help your imagination
in the task of getting into the right mood Some may, and in fact do, or
to interpret the piece passage. various in the ways, public impress
though what might be
called the "higher showmanship" may lead us to abjure them. From the technical point of view the elimination of
can vastly reduce the physical superfluous bodily movements total of exertion in the difficult pascomplexities and sum If you think of drawing a circle with a compass and
sages.
the centre before the allowing the pin to slip away from circle is complete, the danger to your circle suggests the devastating effect of shuffling on the piano stool
unnecessary movements. To bother about the question
when you
are
and other
on the
form may be unwise, but do so sometimes during
plat-
practice.
Perhaps the best time to play passages with your body as still as a statue is when you are trying to listen with more than usually
critical attention. If
you think
this (Ex.
Ex.128. Beethovem Sonata in C minor for Piano and Violin
Atltgr*
96
128)
:
Bodily Stillness
was as exciting as
it
ought to have been when no
visible
movement followed
the staccato C, you were probably justified in the belief. If you had flung your arms into the air
with a dramatic gesture you would have been far more likely to be self-deceived.
Of course, if you hold yourself still by stiffening, the energy saved in one direction may be lost in another. The poise of a racer ready to dart away, or of a cat before a spring, is what wanted. Some good devices for cultivating the knack are :
is
1
Take a passage
Symphonic left
hand
like Variation
No. 4
in
Schumann's
Studies. First play the right-hand part while the
lies
on the keyboard an inch or two lower than the
lowest right-hand note. Then play the left-hand part while the right hand lies an inch or two above the highest left-hand note.
The benefits of this treatment will soon be apparent.
Play difficult passages staring fixedly at the music on the page as you do so. The line of vision between your eye and the page will be like a magical silken thread, and will 2
eliminate a great many bodily movements while drawing your attention to those that still occur.
Pretend that you are literally glued to the piano stool, 4 Get someone to hold two fingers below your chin in gentle contact while you are playing some animated passages and every time there is a tremor in your frame you will be 3
most potently informed. Let it be reiterated that these devices are of extra use and comfort when adopted with the special purpose of listening more critically to the actual musical effect. It will also be found that playing on the surface of the keys, and playing fp regardless of the eventual need for tonal variety, both allow one to bear bodily stillness in mind with less apprehension or sense of constraint than in a normal performance.
And when you have reached the stage of knowing that given difficult
keeping firmly in
are passages are under better control because you to bear such benefits still, it ceases to handicap you
mind even on the
concert platfoms.
97
23 Athletic THE
first
Form
day of the tennis season or of a walking tour and stiffness, due to
in hilly country often produces aching
energetic and persistent use of muscles that have not been in vigorous action lately, if indeed ever before. The discomfort is appropriately described as healthy tiredness and the in the days that follow. By remedy is further
persistence
our hands and arms, we inducing can build up varied muscular efficiency, which will greatly increase the speed, nimbleness and endurance that so many this healthy tiredness in
technical difficulties in piano playing
demand. The problem,
which has already been touched upon in chapter 3, part II, is to recognise the difference between healthy tiredness and strain.
A pianist who has had physical trouble like neuritis, local strains
to act
and so forth, may need expert advice before venturing upon the suggestions that follow ; they may only be
adopted with safety by those backs. in
For the
latter, these
who have had no
two
earlier set-
be found helpful are on sound lines.
tests will
determining whether their efforts
Leschetizky used to assert that with any continued action producing tiredness in the forearm, even to the extent of a burning sensation, it was all right if the discomfort was i
the part of the forearm you can see when you are playing). In that case you could go on till you were
above
(that
is,
Athletic
Form
"black in the face". But
if the discomfort was felt below, were to leave off at once. To find pieces or passages in you which the same sort of difficulty is unremitting is better than plodding away with dull, unmusical exercises, or, if you can, to extemporise tunes with modulatory designs and harmonic variety is an admirable way of combining duty and pleasure. If you want to exercise both hands at once, Chopin's Studies op. 25, nos. 3 and 12, are suitable, while if you play the same composer's op. 10, nos. 8 and 12 in alternation, one hand can get respite while the other is purposely tiring itself. We were advised to repeat such alternations so that each hand after resting could tire itself
again. 2
Taking
similar examples (Chopin Studies, etc.),
when
you cannot play them right through without the wrong pain coming on or the loss of power to sound the notes adequately, notice at what point the pain or inadequacy occurs. If it is nearer to the end of the piece on Tuesday than it was on you get
still
tiredness
may be
diagnosed, especially if nearer to the end on Wednesday. If the pain or
Monday, healthy
inadequacy occurs sooner on a later day danger signal.
it
may be regarded
as a
Many ideal
other Chopin Studies tax one's endurance in the for our present purpose, and sets of variations
way
often provide very suitable material. So may passages out of the pieces you are learning. If any reader is studying Brahms' B[j Piano Concerto, he could not do much better than use the coda of the second movement. It will be found that the beneficial healthy tiredness in given pieces or passages may fail to be produced after a while, for one's powers of endurance grow and cease to be over-taxed. When that
happens, you must either search out different material or decide that the bout of exercising shall be considered at an end for the time being. It seems that occasional spasmodic bouts of this sort of work are more useful and, surprisingly enough, of more permanent value than the hour or half-hour
99
Practising the Piano
of technical exercising which
is
usually so piously advocated
for daily fare, year in, year out. And the time that for learning more music is of immeasurable value.
is
saved
In chapter 3, part II, practising long successions of staccato chords with a swift, tight fist-clench after every
chord was recommended. Variation No. 4 of the HandelBrahms set, with the fist-clench on every semiquaver, keeps the right hand clenching with hardly any respite, the left hand more intermittently. Let the left hand stay tightly clenched whenever it has nothing to play (Ex. 10, ignoring the pauses)
:
Ex. 10. Brahms : Variations on a theme of Handel, op.24
same set with four clenches a bar whenever rests are printed (Ex. 9, ignoring
Variation No. 25 of the in each hand,
the pauses)
i.e.
:
Ex. 9. Brahms Variations on a theme of Handel, op. 24
highly pleasurable. Here one hand stays clenched while the other hand is playing and one's movements recall those of a cat that is It was in this context of is
pleased.
specially
muscular development that Leschetizky used to add his solemn warning: "And don't forget that the more athletic
technique you get the worse you'll play !" I have probably quoted this remark to most of the pupils I have had in my long teaching life. The truth that lies within the palpable over-statement is that when muscular sensation engages too
much
of our
mind
as
we
play,
IOC
human
expression and
Athletic
significance (or call
it
interpretative
life)
is
Form
cold-shouldered.
From the purely muscular point of view it also seems that the greatest benefit is enjoyed when one's athletic form, having reached a kind of high-watermark, has been allowed a few days for a partial recession of the tide.
101
Dramatic
Significance
PERHAPS
the subject of this chapter is really the fundamental essence of musical interpretation itself, although
oddly enough two well-known books on interpretation seem to be principally occupied with questions like time flexibility in the
one case and the
different periods of
style of presentation
music
in the other.
of musical nationality might have
proper for Perhaps the claims
filled
a third book, but
although all three subjects are admittedly important aspects of interpretation they are surely not right at the heart of the matter.
Whatever our views on these cance in musical works
is
points, the dramatic signifi-
of profound importance both in
and as an element of performance. It might be hastily assumed that what is dramatic will be of a fevered and itself
though that would be appropriate would clearly be out of place in enough others. Lullabies should be slumbrous, laments griefexcited character, but in
some
cases
it
and so on. Berlioz made a point of some psychological subtlety in the observation that when she was singing "A King in Thule" nothing should be further from Margaret's thoughts than the King in Thule. stricken, sarabands stately,
Our
subject seems interwoven with the twin questions of music set to words and music. on
programme
these branches of the art
For
is
instance, Bach's arias
Meditating a great interpretative education. and choruses, Mozart's operatic
102
Dramatic Significance
numbers and Schubert's Lieder cast floods of light on the way we should play the works of those masters on the piano. Similarly, symphonic poems, overtures and innumerable passages from operas contribute to the wealth of imaginative suggestion that music so richly provides, even though the literature of descriptive pieces for piano is comparatively
small. Notable contributors in that direction
have been
Schumann, Grieg and Debussy. The first named was quite a pioneer in the use of titles (which can be said with no lack of recognition of earlier pioneers like John Munday, Kuhnau, and
others), though if some of Schumann's are apt indeed, others are of no perceptible relevance. The titles of Grieg and Debussy are usually so happily wedded to the music that
and music both add to the total beauty and significance. folk decry the whole idea of programme music, though that seems to be woefully unmindful of a lovely province in the musical territory. Tovey put the whole problem of programme music in a very reasonable light when he said that Beethoven's "Lebewohl" Sonata tells you a lot more about the title than the title tells you about the music, and if one's first impression is "a smart epigram", it soon becomes evident that the utterance is one of profound discernment. A warning note is struck in an amusing tale about Beethoven which Leschetizky told and which I have never seen in print. An enthusiastic amateur was asking him whether he really intended the first notes of the C minor title
Some
Symphony to represent a yellow-hammer, or the knocking of Fate or indeed what. The composer's uncompromising .
reply was I
:
"I meant
meant 1"
You
*
< *'
.S_
---* J "j
J
|
j.
^
that's
what
sometimes hear derisory comments on teachers who gild their counsel with flowery similes. But when these are appropriate enough there can be great potency in them. Aptness and sincerity are the qualities that will
or others
had recourse to justify their use. The great composers often them in their expression marks and in verbal statement. H
103
Practising the Piano
Beethoven's direction "beklemmt", Haydn's "innocente", Prokofiev with his "narrante", "alzando", etc., Bax with "feroce", Debussy with hosts of suggestions, Hindemith's
"mitbizarrerPlumpheit"andScriabin's "perfide" (though to mind, is unintelligible to me) spring rapidly
the last
totally
Debussy told Thomas Fielden that the opening of his piece Mouvemcnt should be "like the hum of a great city". Most was Beethoven's hint that the impressive of all, perhaps, recitatives in the first
like a voice
movement
from the tomb.
of op. 31, no. 2, should be
A teacher's similes will naturally
tend to be modificatory rather than creative
:
"more persua-
are essentially sive", "why so sentimental?", "sterner", related to efforts which already have some character of their
own. There
a school of thought in this century that favours the playing of music in a strictly businesslike frame of mind, with total accuracy according to the text both regarding the is
music and the expression marks, but with scrupulous detachment on the part of the players, who should not allow their feelings of love, reverence, joy or delight to add to the presentation. The doctrine, however unacceptable to some of us, was apparently a violent swing of the pendulum away from the tendency at the end of the last century to offer performances in which the individuality of players produced results too widely at variance with the spirit of the compositions presented. An uncle of mine who haunted St. James's Hall in the '8os
and '90$ used to expatiate on various famous pianists whom he had heard there. It always ended up with eulogies of Anton Rubinstein and how it was the dramatic significance of gave him pre-eminence. Leschetizky's desscription of Rubinstein's intense expressiveness has probminds ably left a deeper impression on some of his pupils' than many of the magnificent performances we heard even in our most impressionable years. "Heard melodies are his playing that
sweetj but those unheard
.
.
."
104
25
Memory IT may be reasonably urged that those who are able to memorise their pieces should usually do so and that those who having done so play better with the music should play with the music ; there is a vast difference between looking at the page to remind yourself of what you already know and looking at it to fill in the gaps by last-minute sightreading.
At one time the
public became very intolerant of soloists only a few favourites like Pachmann
who used the music, and Pugno could do recital
programmes
so with impunity.
The
repertory of
fifty years ago, however, lent itself to
easy and natural memorisation, rarely going back before Bach and as yet uncomplicated by the bewildering developments and experiments that were to follow Debussy. Beethoven, very often Bach, Chopin and most of the composers up to 1900 or so fall into the normal pianist's memory and stay there. Far fewer players can deal with some of the ever-changing fashions that have sprung up in the present century. Going back to the Elizabethans, many of their effective pieces are unusually difficult to memorise to give only one instance, the captivating variations on Bellinger's Round by William Byrd, which only take about six minutes to play, provide over forty occasions where the
wrong turning could be taken without If
loss of coherence.
you have not already learnt to play by heart, make an 105
Practising the Piano
can only play unconattempt to do so. If you find you make a serious effort at selfstrainedly without the music, that very common but in to overcome and learn conquest some ways regrettable limitation of your powers. The final consideration should be the quality of the performances you can offer, with or without the notes. the task of memorisation, the somewhat negaAs regards
tive policy of daily studying pieces and awaiting a moment when you find you know them by heart will often prove
But a more methodical approach will sometimes be necessary and may often be preferable. One of these would be called conning if you were learning a poem. You utter a succession of words, one line for instance, over and over again with your eyes on the page, and eventually try it
successful.
with your eyes shut or turned away. When you have uttered fourteen separate lines, each one without looking, the sonnet is already in your memory. If after (say the psychologists) success with the fourteenth line you try to start again, you may seem to have totally forgotten the beginning, though it
a cold one, to be told that the impression is there in your mind, merely covered up by subsequent in this cold comfort will impressions. The truth, however, next morning. emerge later, possibly the delayed continuity of chapter I as the basis is
a comfort,
if
Taking
of such conning, the ritual advocated could be modified in some such way as "plan play try it by heart", but the would often preliminary rehearsals, mental and physical, have to be repeated a number of times to be effectual, or
supplemented by a series of alternatives. Earlier chapters and your own habits of work should provide a goodly stock of these. It may be added that four, eight, or even more bars at a time will usually be preferable to the very short is no need phrases used in illustration of chapter i There to be rigid ; you can carry out as much of the programme as you find you are able to enjoy regarded as a musical else
.
be ensuring a general your playing quite apart from the degree of
experience. In doing that
improvement
in
you
106
will
Memory success in the memorisation. Indeed, if you find you cannot the chosen stretch heart in play by your mind, it will often be better to play it with the music and pass on to the task
of conning the next stretch, in preference to the bulldog tenacity of further struggling with the present one. The
work you have just done will in any case bear more week hence than can be expected today.
fruit
a
you play chosen stretches several times out loud with the music and then try them once without, that would be If
The more repetitions there were, the more however, danger would there be that the playings
less intensive conning.
would become this would be in the actual
and perfunctory. A precaution against avoid any repetition when your interest
dull to
music wanes.
probably allow of a greater profitable repetitions if some of them are carefully varied, very slow, very soft, with different tone schemes, It will
number of
and so on. Even some eye,
may
startle
trivial irrelevance, like
us into a
new
alertness.
But
shutting one as advised in
the previous paragraph, to pass on in the case of momentary lack of success can be better than too much grim persistence at
the time.
Whatever our methods of attacking the problems of memorising, subsequent tests need to be applied and should be varied. One very good one is playing on the surface of the keys. play this
My own pupils have often been told
through correctly heart, you deserve to manage
:
"If you can
on the surface of the keys by it
out loud, but not unless." The
same could be said regarding playing by heart in your head. Another test is whether you can begin anywhere within reason, such as immediately after good stopping-places. In sonata form movements, for instance, to be able to begin where the bridge starts or the second subject, or the second
melody of the second subject when there is one, or at the codetta, would all be good starting-places. To repeat suitable us lengths two or three times in succession by heart gives experience in starting at various points without the usual advantage of having just arrived there.
107
Practising the Piano
A
useful if quaint device for beginning
play from further back (the very opening
if
anywhere is to necessary) on the which you desire
surface of the keys, and, at the moment at to start, suddenly to play out loud. This is quite amusingly helpful and will often enable you to start at a given spot a
number of times
in succession for the
purpose of trying
alternative nuances, pedallings, fingerings
and so on, by
memory. Sometimes we can play or think passages by memory up to time, but not very slowly. In such cases to remedy the detected weakness will certainly bring additional safety. can remember the printed page, though unless it sug-
We
gests the sounds
it is
musically null and void
a sense of
sight. We can remember the physical sensations of playing,
on the surface of the keys (which tends to bring other aspects of memory with it) a sense of touch. We can remember the sound of the music upon which the meaning and beauty depend a sense
many of which are included
in playing
of hearing, though if this is not allied to the memory in your sense of touch it will not enable you to play the music, while if
your memory of the printed page be the greater.
is
added to both, the
total security will
When playing by heart the boldest spirit may be intimi dated by a sudden thought that a memory hitch is impendpolicy which is sometimes followed in such a crisis is ing. to stop thinking and play by mechanical memory, but
A
positive thought is preferable. The more your technique is based on the habit of your keyboard journeys resulting from the inward singing of the melodic and harmonic progressions, the more safety will there be in ceasing to look at the
keys so as to stimulate the groping propensities of your fingers and singing internally with concentrated determination. pupils and I have a somewhat crude motto for use in exorcising this particular demon of fear which for the "Shut your eyes and polite world could be translated as with all heart and soul." sing inwardly your
My
:
108
26 Conclusion A FEW
general observations
may
not
come
amiss.
When
starting to practise, try to form as clear an idea as possible of what you are hoping to achieve* Then when you stop you
can judge better whether the time has been well spent. Of course this is more difficult to estimate when some goal is is certain to take weeks to attain. Even so can ask you yourself many questions like "Do I grasp the musical meanings more fully? Do I know the notes better? I clearer what to attempt tomorrow? What about the pedalling? Is the execution improving? What
in
view that
:
Am
else?"
we must sometimes decide to concenon specially learning new works and sometimes on improving those we know. Adding to our repertoire often In planning ahead
trate
more
improves the quality of pieces already learnt, partly by giving the latter a rest and partly because of the increasing skill and experience that are being acquired. But it is not easy to foretell which works will thus benefit. Periodical overhauls are stimulating and sometimes lead to
weak
points
becoming strong ones. Accuracy,
trills,
pedalling, audibility in$, mellowness in jf, rhythm, the left hand, are all typical objects for such a special overhaul. As one of these progresses there will be no need to deteriorate in other directions.
At an
early stage the
problem may 109
arise as to
whether we
Practising the Piano
should spend more time on exercises, pieces. It is partly
scales,
studies or
a question of personal inclination and the
your teacher, but still more depends on how you what practise you do practise, let us even say how tastefully this were agreed we could add that if you use so. If do you the of studies Czerny and Cramer type, it is best to choose those which would charm an audience if beautifully played at a concert, and very rarely, if ever, to practise them in a totally detached or dry manner. And it is better to practise beliefs of
actual passages out of pieces instead of inherently meaningless and humdrum successions of notes in preparation for the
subsequent conquest of those or like passages. In any case the flowing passage work of Byrd, Bach and others is likely to benefit you more than even the most melodious typical study, as in the former, the notes which lie ahead are so very often aurally and technically less expected. First hearing these notes in your mind and then finding them on the key-
board with the fingers best suited to do so give you a better foundation for your technique than that upon which
many
players build.
Sometimes learn pieces that are unquestionably too difficult, not intending to master them in one spell of work. In such an enterprise let there be a month or two of work followed by a long interval during which you keep busy with other pieces, then a second month or two followed by a similar
At the third or fourth spell of work you may in completing a task that might never succeed quite likely have been achieved in one spell (however grimly determined the effort), and although there will probably be some pieces that you do not master even in the end, the work on them will prove of far-reaching value in regard to your general long
interval.
progress.
Fanny Davies once
told
me that
she often worked
at Beethoven's op. 106 and intended to play She was then in her sixties. She had great
some day. vitality and it must have
it
whether she ever performed the sonata or not, nourished her glowing imagination to work at it. On one occasion when Leschetizky was talking about various
no
Conclusion
who did not play Schumann's "Of course they've studied it."
pianists
Toccata, he added
:
book can be
said to be written from a given point of view, its dominating idea might be described as the cultivation of conscious purpose in all our playing and practising, and an endeavour to reduce the parrot element to a miniIf this
mum. An as
an
experience outside the sphere of music may serve At the outset of one of my few attempts
illustration.
to learn a
new language,
the little grammar book which was hands my urged readers always to think about the of the words meaning they were writing or uttering, whether referring to the hues of a sunset, the perfume of a rose or the everyday concerns of gardeners and their aunts. Following this advice may have delayed arrival on the last
placed in
page by many a long day, but
its
beneficial influence
by
making me think words
as I
went
in the language, instead of translating along, was of permanent value.
In piano playing the higher the proportion of will-power and conscious direction of the mind becomes, the slighter becomes each actual effort of will. These efforts are gradually transformed into a kind of second nature that has the advantages of mechanical execution without the drawbacks, furthering the sense of human intention, significance and beauty for the listener, the concentrated absorption of the player, and the technical control,
so rusty
when
thought
:
greater
whereby
reliability
and permanence of
one's playing does not get nearly
physical practice has not been regular. It is difficult to find the right words with which to conclude. It has been said of those who uphold a certain line of
"They speak
truth." If what
of the truth
it
is
truth, they
have one-twelfth of the
written in this volume has a small fraction
may
help some of
my fellow
music-lovers to
make further headway on their road. Above all, let us remember that every pianistic problem has both its origin and solution in the music itself.
in
INDEX Chords, 10-16, 17-18; six-note, 18;
AcCELLERANDO, JZ
solid, 47-50; staccato, 16, 100 Coda, 33, 57 Concerto in minor (J. S. Bach), 8
Acciaccatura, 45, 46, 50 Adagio, 1 8
D
"Alzando", 104
Conducting, 7-9, 67, 72 Continuity, 1-6; dekyed, 66 Contrapuntal sense, 13 Cramer, Crescendo, 15, 1 8
Analytical listening, 23
Aptness, 103
Arpeggio, 51
no
Audibility in pp, 109
Czerny, 52, 92,
BACH,
J. S., 4, 8, 10, 52,
60,
83,89,91,92, 102, 105, no Ballade in F minor (Chopin), 73; in
G
minor
(Brahms),
46;
(Chopin), 6 1 -2 Bax, Arnold, 104 Beat, flexibility of, 72f.; flexibility within, 72!*.; marking the,
29-30 Beating with the other hand, 84 Beethoven,
3, 4, 8, 23, 73, 77, 80, 8 1, 86, 90, 93, 94, 96, 103,
104, 105,
no
UAVIES, FANNY,
no
Debussy, 85, 103, 104, 105 Development, 33 Difficult passages, 55-9 Diminuendo, 15, 85 Dissonances, momentary,
Dominant
Dramatic significance, 102-4 Duplication,
94
no
"Beklemmt", 104 Berlioz, 102 Binary form, 1 5 "Black Key" Study, 86 Bodily stillness, 96-7 Booth, Victor, 43 Boult, Sir Adrian, 33-4 Brahms, 5, 46, 47, 99, 100 Byrd, William, 37, 105,
no
English Suite in E Minor (J. S. Bach), 91 Erlkonlg (Schubert), 90 Etudes Symp&ontfues (Schumann)
16,97 Execution, 5 Exposition, 33
FADINGS, 85 C/ADENCES, 63 Cantabile,
24
sevenths, 12, 35-42
70
Chopin, 2, 21, 24, 25, 27-30, 48-9, 50, 55-9, 61, 62, 73, 74, 77, 80-1, 86, 89, 95, 99, 105
Fantasy Impromptu, 50 Fatigue, 98JF.
"Feroce", 104 Fielden,
Thomas, 104
Finger passages, 27-30
Practising the Piano Fingering, 2, 29, 35-42, 49, 50, 54; 57, 60-2, 95; grotesque, 79;
"Lebewohl"
legato,
61; mixed, 35, 37-8; 35, 39-40; recurrent, 35-7; unorthodox, 41 Forearm, rotary movements of, 83-7
Left
organ,
Legato,
"Forty-eight,
The",
10, 6$ff.
3, 17, 19,
52
24-5, 32, 37, 39,
40,41,53-4,61 Leschetizky, i, 7, 22-3, 27, 74, 76, 98, 100, 103, 104,
no
Lieder, 103
French Suite
Lullabies, 102
G (J. S. Bach), 4
(Beethoven),
Hand Study (Czerny),
Franck, C&ar, 24, 25 in
Sonata
103
Fugue, 63-7
MARTEIXATO, 86 CJRACE NOTES, 41-2
Matthay, Tobias, 34, 85 Mellowness in^ 109 Melodic tone gradation, 8; unit, in. Memorisation, 4, 105-8 Mendelssohn, 3, 22, 23, 46, 47 Mental rehearsal, i, 2, 4, 79, 106
Gradation, uneven, 15 Grieg, 90, 103
Group
practice, 28-9, 53,
83-4
Mentalising technique,
HALF-CHANGE, 24
Metronome,
Hall
"Mit
Classics,
55
positions, preparing,
Harmonic
44
Modulations, 12, 21
Hamlet, 78
Hand
5,
practising with, 29 bizarrer Plumpheit", 104
Moment Musical (Schubert),
76-9
37, 104 Hindemith, 104
Mood-line, unbroken, 3 1-2 Mordent, upper, 84-5 Mouvement (Debussy), 104 Mozart, 102
Hummel, 74
Munday, John, 103
effect,
13; progressions,
i off!
Haydn,
i,
24
Muscular development, 98-101
"T INNOCENTS", 104
NARRANTE" 104
Inversion, 13
Neuritis,
JACOBS,
W. W.,
22
98
Nikisch, Artur, 3 1 Nocturne in B major (Chopin), 21; flat (Chopin), 74; in F in
D
sharp (Chopin),
KEY CHANGE, 12; signature, 10 "Kreutzer" Sonata, 73 Kuhnau, 103
LAMENTS, 102 Largo, op. 7 (Beethoven), 80
74
V-/CTAVE, 51-4, 58, 60-1; coupler, 65 gauge, 5*; kgato, 53-4? staccato, 52-4 One-finger practising, 60-2 Opera, 102-3 Over-accentuation, 83, 85 Overtures, 103
114
Index Scales, major,
THE DIFFICULT, 92-3 Pachmann, 105 Pause, iff., 23, 24, 66 JL
ACE,
Pedalling, 2, 17-26, 32, 65-6, 80,
109; changing, 25; con-
85,
scious control, 18; influence
rhythmical
life
of
on
25; intermittent, 19-20; legato, 17; musical expression, 18; over-, pieces,
26
Schumann, 16, 97, 103, Scriabin, 104 Self-criticism, i, 2-3
Round (Byrd),
Physical discomfort, 14
Concerto
90;
(Grieg), (Brahms), 99 Postman's knock, 45-6
B
in
flat
Practising
Shoulder looseness, 68-71
on the surface of the
wrong hand, 94-5 and Finale
Prelude^ Aria
C
keys,
(Franck),
minor (Chopin), 24, 25; in 24; in F sharp minor (Chopin),
f
Shakespeare, 78 Shaw, G. B., 44 Shelley, 32 Sight-reading, 88-91
32, 43-4; special, 14-16; with
.
37, 105
Semitone shifts, n, 13 Senza tempo, 72
Petersburg, 31 Phrase, iff.
Piano
no
"See-sawing", 29, 44, 53, 68-71 Bellinger's
"Perfide", 104
10; double-note, 35-
41; minor, 10; octave, 51-4; single-note, 37; whole-tone, 85 Scherzo (Mendelssohn), 46; in B minor (Chopin), 89 Schubert, i, 2, 24, 90, 103
8
Sincerity,
103
Singing, 7-9, 32-3, 76-8 Slow practice, 6, 20, 27, 28, Slurs, 36,
94
37
Smudge, 21, 22, 23, 24, 43, Solid intervals, 86
78
C
minor for piano and (Beethoven), 96; in (Hummel), 74; op. 2, no. 3 (Beethoven), 90; op. 10, no. I
Sonata in
Principal note, 84 Programme music, 102, 103
D
violin
Progressions, 10-14 Prokofiev, 104
(Beethoven), 81; op. 26 (Beethoven), 23, 86; op. 27, no. I (Beethoven), 77; op. 27, no. 2
Prometheus Unbound^ 32
Pugno, 105
(Beethoven),
3-4;
op.
8iA
(Beethoven), 93
Song without words (Mendelssohn),
JtvALLENTANDO, 72 Recapitulation, 33 minor (Brahms), Rhapsody in
G
Ritual, ix,
Rhythm,
3
47
1,15
30, 37, 65, 109; postman's
knock, 45-6 Rotary action, 85; freedom, 85-6 "Rowing", 53, 68-71 Rubato, 72, 73 Rubinstein, Anton, 104; Competition, 3 1
ST. PETERSBURG, Sarabands, 102
Sound-point, 17 Staccatissimo, 14, 28-9 Staccato, 3, 19-20, 41, 45-6, 52-4,
65* 76, loo; bumpy, 38; hand,
27-8;sempre, 37 Staleness, curing,
i, 5
Stops, experimental, 4-5 Strain,
3r
44
Stopping practice,
98
Study in A flat, op. 25, no. i (Chopin), 55-6; in C minor, op. 10, no. 12 (Chopin), 58-9; in F minor, op. 25, no. 2
Practising the Piano Study
no
cont.
(Chopin), 86; in
25 no.
G
(Chopin)^ 57-8;
flat,
op.
op. 10,
(Chopin), 2; op. 10, no. 7 (Chopin), 49; op. 12, no. 12 (Chopin), 27; op. 25, no. i (Chopin), 50; op. 25, no. 12 (Chopin), 48-9; op. 740, no. 3 3
(Czerny), 52
Toccato (Schumann), Tone, beauty of, 80-2; gradations, 21, 28, 29, 85; schemes, 15
Tovey, 103 Tranquillity, 18
Transposition, 93-4 Triads, inverted, 10; root-position,
10 Trills, 83-7,
109 Two-part Inventions 52,60
Swellings, 85
Symphonic poems, 103 Symphonic Variations
(J.
S.
Bach),
(Schumann),
97
Symphony
in
C
minor (Beethoven),
103
VARIATIONS
ON
A
HANDEL (BRAHMS),
THEME 5,
100
"Vienna period", 90
1 EMPO, CHANGING THE, 74 Tenuto, 4, 28 Thinking back, 3, 34; forward, Tied notes, 65 Timbre, 82 Time, gradations
of,
3,
34
WALDSTEIN" SONATA, 37 Waltz, op. 34, no. i (Chopin), 25 We Piano Teachers, 43 Whole-arm work, 53 Wrist work, 53
72-5
116
OF
Interpreting Mozart on the Keyboard
EVA AND PAUL BADURA-SKODA Although
book
this
refers
Mozart's keyboard music, to interest anyone
who
mainly to
it is
designed
loves the
com-
poser's works, whether as performer or
The means of music-making have changed; the piano is virtually another instrument; the constitution of listener.
orchestras has greatly changed. This
is
Much
dealt with in the first chapter.
space,, with many musical examples, is given to the obscure but important ques-
tion of ornaments. Other chapters deal
with
and with passages
cadenzas
Mozart where the performer
is
to improvise embellishments.
in
expected
A
chapter
Rhythm and Tempo shows the rational, exact way in which the composer on
treated this fundamental question, and
points to
some
pitfalls for
the modern
interpreter. Here, as throughout the book,
the authors draw generously on Mozart's letters,
and on
treatises written
by
other
leading musicians of the time, including his father
and C.
on some
technical problems presented
keyboard writing.
For the
P. E. Bach.
pianist there is a chapter
The
specific
by Mozart's
long final chapter
provides a detailed commentary on three
of his best known piano concertos.
"This scholarly and stimulating book a book which no thoughtful player .
.
.
It is
or teacher can ignore." Listener
"Until the coming of the present book, I
cannot recall one which deals so fully with the interpretive aspect of his work."
Music Teacher
84$ net
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