Great Pianists on Piano Playing / Study Talks with Foremost Virtuosos. A Series of Personal Educational Conferences with Renowned Masters of the Keyboard, Presenting the Most Modern Ideas upon the Subjects of Technic, Interpretation, Style and Expression

by James Francis Cooke

You ask me what are the essential differences between the modern technic and the technic of the older periods? It is very difficult to discuss this question off-hand and it is one which might better be discussed in an article of a different character. One difficulty lies in the regrettable tendency of modern technic toward being a purpose in itself. Judging from the manner in which some ambitious young players work, their sole aim is to become human piano-playing machines quite without any real musical consciousness. Before radically condemning this tendency, however, it should be remembered that it has brought us many undeniable advantages. It cannot be doubted that we owe to the ingenious investigators of technical subjects greater possibilities in effective polyphonic playing, economy of power and arm motion, larger participation of the mind in the acquisition of technic, and numerous other praiseworthy factors in good piano playing. In the olden days, while technical exercises were by no means absent, they were not nearly so numerous, and more time was given to the real musical elements in the study of the musical compositions themselves. If the excellent technical ideas to be found in some of the systems of to-day are employed solely to secure real musical and artistic effects—that is, effects based upon known æsthetic principles—the new technic will prove valuable, and we should be very grateful for it. However, as soon as it becomes an objective point in itself and succeeds in eclipsing the higher purposes of musical interpretation, just so soon should it be abolished. If the black charcoal sketch which the artist puts upon canvas to use as an outline shows through the colors of the finished painting, no masterpiece will result. Really artistic piano playing is an impossibility until the outlines of technic have been erased to make way for true interpretation from the highest sense of the word. There is much more in this than most young artists think, and the remedy may be applied at once by students and teachers in their daily work.

Technic Since Liszt

Again you ask whether technic has made any significant advance since the time of Franz Liszt. Here again you confront me with a subject difficult to discuss within the confines of a conference. There is so much to be said upon it. A mere change in itself does not imply either progress or retrogression. It is for this reason we cannot speak of progress since the time of Liszt. To play as Liszt did—that is, exactly as he did, as a mirror reflects an object—would not be possible to anyone unless he were endowed with an individuality and personality exactly like that of Liszt. Since no two people are exactly alike, it is futile to compare the playing of any modern pianist with that of Franz Liszt. To discuss accurately the playing of Liszt from the purely technical standpoint is also impossible because so much of his technic was self-made, and also a mere manual expression of his unique personality and that which his own mind had created. He may perhaps never be equalled in certain respects, but on the other hand there are unquestionably pianists to-day who would have astonished the great master with their technics—I speak technically, purely technically.

Definite Methods are Little More than Stencils

I have always been opposed to definite "methods"—so-called—when they are given in an arbitrary fashion and without the care of the intelligent teacher to adapt special need to special pupils. Methods of this kind can only be regarded as a kind of musical stencil, or like the dies that are used in factories to produce large numbers of precisely similar objects. Since art and its merits are so strangely dependent upon individuality (and this includes anatomical individuality as well as psychological individuality), an inflexible method must necessarily have a deadening effect upon its victims.

The question of whether special technical studies of an arbitrary nature, such as scale studies, should be extensively used is one which has been widely debated, and I fear will be debated for years to come. Let us understand first, there is a wide difference between studying and practicing. They resemble each other only in so far as they both require energy and time. Many sincere and ambitious students make the great mistake of confounding these two very essential factors of pianistic success. Study and practice really are quite widely removed from each other, and at the same time they are virtually inseparable. The real difference lies in the amount and quality of the two elements. Practice means a large number of repetitions, with a fair amount of attention to mere correctness of notes, fingering, etc. Under ordinary circumstances and conditions it usually means a great sacrifice of time and a comparatively small investment of mentality.

Study, on the contrary, implies first of all mental activity of the highest and most concentrated type. It presupposes absolute accuracy in notes, time, fingerings, etc., and implies the closest possible attention to those things which are generally, though erroneously, regarded as lying outside of technic, such as tonal beauty, dynamic shading, rhythmical matters, and the like. Some have the happy gift of combining practice with study, but this is rare.

Hence, in the question of scale exercises, etc., if the word "study" is meant in the true sense, I can only say that the study of scales is more than necessary—it is indispensable. The pedagogical experts of the world are practically unanimous upon this subject. The injunction, "study," applies not only to scales, but to all forms of technical discipline, which only too often are "practiced" without being studied. I will not deny that mere practicing, as I have defined it, may bring some little benefit, but this benefit is gained at an enormous expenditure of time and physical and mental exertion. Oh! the endless leagues that ambitious fingers have traveled over ivory keys! Only too often they race like automobiles on a race-course—in a circle—and after having gone innumerable miles, and spent a tremendous amount of energy, they arrive at the same point from which they started, exhausted and worn, with very little to show for their work, and no nearer their real goal than when they started. The proportion in which mental and physical activity is compounded, determines, to my mind, the distinction between practicing and real study. One might also say that the proportion in which real study enters into the daily work of the student determines the success of the student.

The Study of Details Imperative

Study demands that the student shall delve into the minute details of his art, and master them before he attempts to advance. Only the most superficial students fail to do this in these days. All of the better trained teachers insist upon it, and it is hard for the pupil to skim through on the thinnest possible theoretical ice, as they did in past years. The separate study of embellishments, for instance, is decidedly necessary, especially in connection with the embellishments introduced by the writers of the early eighteenth century.