Don't use the sustaining pedal too frequently, not even as frequently as indicated on the rolls. The pedal directions on the rolls follow those of the printed sheets too closely. The pianist often is obliged to use the sustaining pedal to hold a note that he cannot keep down because his fingers are otherwise employed. But the music rolls are cut so that every sustained note is held down as long as the composer directs that it should be. Remember too that the term "loud pedal" as applied to the sustaining pedal, as it properly is called, is incorrect. This pedal sustains but does not increase the power of the sound that is produced. That effect is secured by a stronger pressure of the feet upon the pumping pedals. In fact by varying the degree of pressure of the feet on the pumping pedals the pianolist can vary the degree of sound from a whispered pianissimo to the strongest fortissimo.
The pianolist should remember that, as the instrument on which he plays relieves him of all burdens of technique and enables him to play anything, no matter how difficult, with absolute technical accuracy, it is all the more his duty to play with as much expression as he can call forth from his inner nature. Emotion, the power of expression, the art of interpretation, can be developed by practice as well as any other latent capacity. It is an excellent plan for the beginner to take one piece, the Nevin waltz that I have described, for example, and play it over many times, not necessarily at the same sitting, in fact better not; but without attempting anything else. Each time let the pianolist try to get more meaning, more expression out of it than he did before. He will find, if he does this, that, when he takes up another composition, the expression, the art of interpretation, will come to him more naturally and more quickly, until, from an ignorant beginner, he soon will have developed into a musical artist who can give himself and hundreds of others the most exalted pleasure—that of listening to music, not to mere playing.
Typographical errors corrected in text: