You should endeavour to reproduce the sum-total of the time which a musical thought occupies. Within its scope, however, you must vary your beats in accordance with their musical significance. This constitutes in musical interpretation what I call the individual pulse-beat which imparts life to the dead, black notes Beware, however, of being too "individual"! Avoid exaggeration, or else your patient will grow feverish and all æsthetic interpretation goes to the happy hunting grounds!
The Correct Posture at the Piano: Sit straight before the piano but not stiff. Have both feet upon the pedals, so as to be at any moment ready to use them. All other manners to keep the feet are—bad manners. Let your hand fall with the arm upon the keyboard when you start a phrase, and observe a certain roundness in all the motions of your arms and hands. Avoid angles and sharp bends, for they produce strong frictions in the joints, which means a waste of force and is bound to cause premature fatigue.
Do Not Attend Poor Concerts. Do not believe that you can learn correct vision from the blind, nor that you can really profit by hearing how a piece should not be played, and then trying the reverse. The danger of getting accustomed to poor playing is very great. What would you think of a parent who deliberately sent his child into bad company in order that such child should learn how not to behave? Such experiments are dangerous. By attending poor concerts you encourage the bungler to continue in his crimes against good taste and artistic decency, and you become his accomplice. Besides, you help to lower the standard of appreciation in your community, which may sink so low that good concerts will cease to be patronised. If you desire that good concerts should be given in your city the least you can do is to withhold your patronage from bad ones. If you are doubtful as to the merits of a proposed concert ask your own or your children's music teacher. He will appreciate your confidence and be glad of the opportunity to serve you for once in a musical matter that lies on a higher plane than your own or your children's music lesson.
To Those Who Play in Public I should like to say this: Before you have played a composition in public two or three times you must not expect that every detail of it shall go according to your wishes. Do not be surprised at little unexpected occurrences. Consider that the acoustic properties of the various halls constitute a serious danger to the musician. Bad humor on your part, or a slight indisposition, even a clamlike audience, Puritanically austere or cool from diffidence—all these things can be overcome; but the acoustic properties remain the same from the beginning of your programme to its end, and if they are not a kindly counsellor they turn into a fiendish demon who sneers to death your every effort to produce noble-toned pictures. Therefore, try to ascertain, as early as possible, what sort of an architectural stomach your musical feast is to fill, and then—well, do the best you can. Approach the picture you hold in your mind as nearly as circumstances permit.
When I Find Bad Acoustics in a Hall. An important medium of rectifying the acoustic misbehaviour of a hall I have found in the pedal. In some halls my piano has sounded as if I had planted my feet on the pedal for good and ever; in such cases I practised the greatest abstention from pedalling. It is a fact that we have to treat the pedal differently in almost every hall to insure the same results. I know that a number of books have been written on the use of the pedal, but they are theories which tumble down before the first adverse experience on the legitimate concert stage. There you can lean on nothing but experience.
About Reading Books on Music. And speaking of books on music, let me advise you to read them, but not to believe them unless they support every statement with an argument, and unless this argument succeeds in convincing you. In art we deal far oftener with exceptions than with rules and laws. Every genius in art has demonstrated in his works the forefeeling of new laws, and every succeeding one has done by his precursors as his successors have in their turn done by him. Hence all theorising in art must be problematic and precarious, while dogmatising in art amounts to absurdity. Music is a language—the language of the musical, whatever and wherever be their country. Let each one, then, speak in his own way, as he thinks and feels, provided he is sincere. Tolstoi put the whole thing so well when he said: "There are only three things of real importance in the world. They are: Sincerity! Sincerity! Sincerity!"
CORRECT TOUCH AND TECHNIC
Great finger technic may be defined as extreme precision and great speed in the action of the fingers. The latter quality, however, can never be developed without the legato touch. I am convinced that the degree of perfection of finger technic is exactly proportionate to the development of the legato touch. The process of the non-legato touch, by showing contrary results, will bear me out. To play a rapid run non-legato will consume much more time than to play it legato because of the lifting of the fingers between the tones. In playing legato the fingers are not lifted off the keys, but—hardly losing contact with the ivory—glide sideways to the right or the left as the notes may call for it. This, naturally, saves both time and exertion, and thus allows an increase of speed.
How is the true legato accomplished? By the gliding motion just mentioned, and by touching the next following key before the finger which played last has fully abandoned its key. To illustrate, let me say that in a run of single notes two fingers are simultaneously at work—the "played" and the "playing" one; in runs of double notes (thirds, sixths, etc.) the number of simultaneously employed fingers is, analogously, four. Only in this manner is a true legato touch to be attained. While the fingers are in action the hand must not move lest it produce gaps between the succeeding tones, causing not only a breaking of the connection between them but also a lessening of speed. The transfer of the hand should take place only when the finger is already in touch with the key that is to follow—not at the time of contact, still less before.