1.
Never miss a day's practice, if you can possibly help
it. If it should happen that your time is limited,
practice your regular daily technical exercises at
least.
2. If
you cannot manage to get through with the study of
the work set for you, inform your teacher of it before
beginning the lesson. A few measures practiced thoroughly
are better than a whole exercise or piece studied
superficially.
3. Never
waste time strumming on the piano. The more conscientiously
you practice, the sooner you will be able to play
anything you like. Five or ten minutes well applied
will do a great deal towards improving your technique.
Never practice, however, without being properly seated
and without concentrating your whole mind upon your
work.
4. Never
begin to practice before having ascertained and made
clear to yourself all about the key, the time, the
rhythm, and the phrasing of the piece. Think over
every measure and determine upon the best way of playing
it.
5. When
taking up a new exercise, carefully guard against
the first mistake. Remember: "prevention is better
than cure;" it is always easier to avoid a mistake
than correct it. The fingers are only too apt to repeat
mistakes once made, and thus to accustom themselves
to bad habits.
6. Every
technical difficulty must be overcome and mastered
by a special exercise. Similarly, every passage or
part in a movement must be practiced, or worked up,
till it can be played with the exactness and precision
of clockwork. Every detail in a piece must be studied
and mastered separately, until the whole can be rendered
in a truly artistic manner.
7. It
is no use playing a piece over and over again from
beginning to end, even though each hand plays its
part separately; mind and memory must first of all
have become familiar with every detail, and the fingers
must be trained, until they become accustomed to overcome
each difficulty perfectly and with ease. Hence the
necessity of dividing up each exercise into small
parts or sections which must then, if necessary, be
practiced first with each hand separately and then
with both hands. The more difficult the parts, the
more frequently they must be practiced.
8. Begin
by practicing slowly at first, so as never to be obliged
to stop. Always play strictly in time: rhythm and
time must never be neglected for want of patience
or energy. Sounds without rhythm have no more meaning
than single letters of the alphabet.
9. During
the rests, do not remove the hands from the keyboard,
but rather utilize the time, if necessary, for the
next position. While one hand is playing, it is quite
easy to prepare the other for its part to come, if
you are only quite clear in your mind what it has
to do. Hence, such parts as require a change in the
position of the hand should be practiced alone, until
the hand has learned to assume the required position
and to do its work unconsciously.
10.
Aim for the highest, so as to attain something worth
attaining. Overcome all fear or dislike of finger-exercises.
Convince yourself that they are as absolutely indispensable
and essential as are the words and rules of grammar
which must be learned by heart before the knowledge
of a foreign language can be acquired.
11.
Be patient and persevering. Want of patience will
spoil all; perseverance will overcome the greatest
obstacles and difficulties.
12.
Be glad, if you can give others pleasure by your playing.
But do not seek to excel by brilliant technique, which
can never be the object of the true artist, whose
aim must rather be the acquisition of a thorough musical
education. The ambition which incessantly urges on
toward perfection is the natural quality peculiar
to those gifted with great talent and a strong character.
Pride and vanity ignore, or know nothing of, the ideals
of true art, and are the outcome of small minds.
This article, written by Karl Zuschneid,
was taken from the November 1922 issue of magazine
"Etude Musical Magazine." This article
is featured at http://www.thepianopages.com,
along with free piano lessons, sheet music, products,
and lots more.
(Source: Goarticles.com)
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