| > | | | | there that she really had nothing up her sleeve - that |
| | | | there was no magic about it, nothing but hard work |
| The most helpful piano lesson I ever had was given | | | | and a never-say-die spirit. My great regret is that the |
| when my teacher called a number of her pupils | | | | first teacher I had did not do something of that kind for |
| together in a class and actually showed us how to | | | | me. It would either have made me quit then and there |
| practice. Not told us how, but actually showed us how. | | | | or it would have saved the years of useless dreaming |
| I had had other teachers deliver long lectures on how | | | | of royal roads to success and countless hours of |
| to do it but this was the first time one ever | | | | poorly directed and misapplied practicing. |
| demonstrated her method to me with her sleeves | | | | The teacher of whom I write opened my eyes to the |
| rolled up - and nothing up her sleeve! | | | | fact that acquiring a repertoire or playing a single piece |
| In this lesson the teacher memorized a page and a | | | | was an accomplishment of an architectural sort - a |
| half of a piece which was entirely new to her and | | | | thing built up piece by piece. Her first running over the |
| worked it out as she would have done by herself. | | | | selection was like a builder studying over the general |
| She read it over once to see what it was all about | | | | plan. The practicing over and over again of one phrase |
| and, without losing any time, she went right to work on | | | | was like the laying of the foundation, then each part |
| the first phrase and memorized as she went along. I | | | | was properly finished off before adding the next. |
| was surprised at the great number of times she | | | | What she did with the second, the third, and the |
| repeated over and over again so small a thing as half | | | | remaining phrases was but a counterpart of her work |
| a measure. When she had gained a working | | | | on the first. |
| knowledge of the whole phrase she went over and | | | | When she had done all of that she laid aside the notes |
| over that, trying it in many different ways as to touch, | | | | and played the piece from memory. And I could see |
| pedalling, and fingering, and upon deciding which was | | | | the value of each piece of preliminary work. |
| best, she then practiced the approved version | | | | It reared up a perfect, finished structure, not the poor |
| numberless times until she really knew it in her mind. | | | | patchwork of mistakes, glossing-over, and lovely |
| I had thought that when musicians began to approach | | | | embellished fakes of the poor amateur |
| perfection they discarded childish things like counting | | | | musician-architect. When it was all over most of the |
| aloud. It was a surprise, then, to hear this teacher rigidly | | | | class went home to practice as rapidly as they could, |
| counting each measure. I concluded right then and | | | | and for the first time they really knew how! |