My piano has a rather loud tone to which my people object, and urge me to play with the soft pedal. I use it most of the time, but am afraid now to play without it. What would you advise?
If a soft touch and sound are liked, have the mechanism of your piano changed at the factory. I found myself in the bad condition at one time that I could not play certain passages independently of the position of my foot on the soft pedal. Such is the strength of association that very soon a constant use of the soft pedal produces physical inability to play unless the foot is pressing the pedal.
[PRACTICE]
The Morning Practice On the Piano
In resuming my studies in the morning what should I play first?
Begin with your technical work. Scales in all tonalities, each at least twice well rendered. First slowly, one after another, then somewhat quicker, but never very quickly as long as you are not absolutely sure that both hands are perfectly even, and that neither false notes nor wrong fingerings occur. To play the scales wrong is just as much a matter of habit as to play them right—only easier. You can get very firmly settled in the habit of striking a certain note wrong every time it occurs unless you take the trouble of counteracting the formation of such a habit. After these scales play them in octaves from the wrist, slowly and without tiring it by lifting the hand to a needless height. After this play either Czerny or Cramer, then Bach, and finally Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and so on. If you have the time to do it, play one hour in the morning on technical studies and use one hour for the difficult places in the works you are studying. In the afternoon play another hour, and this hour you devote to interpretation. I mean by this that you should now apply æsthetically what you have technically gained in the morning by uniting your mechanical advantages with the ideal conception which you have formed in your mind of the work you are studying.
Morning Is the Best Time to Practise
How much time should I spend on clearly technical study? I am practising three hours a day; how long should I practise at a time?
Purely technical work—that is, work of the fingers without the participation of mind and heart—you should do little or none, for it kills your musical spirit. If, as you say, you practise three hours a day I should recommend two hours in succession in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. The morning is always the best time for work. Make no long pauses in your work, for they would break your contact with the piano and it would take considerable time to reëstablish it. In the afternoon, after the major portion of your daily task is done, you may move with greater freedom, though even this freedom should be kept within proper bounds.
Time to Devote to Technical Exercises