Rocket Piano

Posts Tagged ‘piano lesson’

Concerning American instructors Alexander Lambert takes high rank. Pertaining to over twenty-five years he has held aloft the common of sound musicianship in the art of training and playing. A quarter of a century of thorough, conscientious effort along these lines must have left its impress on the complete rising generation of learners together with educators in this country, and manufactured for the improvement and advancement of American art.

It usually means much to have a native-born instructor of such high aims living and working between us; a teacher whom no flattery neither love of gain can influence nor render indifferent to the high aim ever in view. There is no getting out of any sound and comprehensive study course of study for those who come under Mr. Lambert’s direction. Scales must be, voluntarily or unwillingly, the everyday bread of the player; the hands must be put in good shape, the finger joints rendered firm, the arms and body supple, before pieces are thought of. Technical study must continue along the whole course, hand in hand with piece playing; method for its own sake, outside the playing of compositions.

And why not? Is the technique of an art ever quite finished? Can it ever be laid away on the shelf and considered complete? Must it not constantly be placed within working order? “Have you not noticed many changes in the aims of pupils, and also in the conditions of piano instructing in New York, while in the years you have taught here?” I asked Mr. Lambert, in the course of a latest discussion.

“Some modifications, it is correct, I have observed”, he clarified; “however We should also say in which the disorders attending piano training in America are peculiar. We possess a few excellent lecturers here, educators who could hold their own anywhere, as well as tend to be suitable of generating finished performers. However let a pupil goes to the ideal teacher in this nation, as well as the probabilities are usually that he or she will be still looking forward in order to ‘finishing’ with some European artist. These people are not really happy right until they possess secured the foreign stamp of acceptance. While this is accurate of the superior pianist, it is also much more in evidence within the actual mediocre player. He, too, is fantasizing of the ’superior benefits’, because he calls Then, of European study. He may have no basis to develop upon may not even be able to perform a scale correctly, yet nonetheless believes he must move in another country!

“You ask if I consider pupils can acquire just as great teaching here as in Europe? That is a little difficult to respond to off-hand. I totally think all of us have several instructors in America as capable as any on the other side; within several techniques they are better. Regarding one thing they are morally better I repeat, morally much better. According to another they are usually a lot more detailed: these people take more attention in their pupils as well as will do more for them. When such a teacher is observed, he definitely justifies the strong value and appreciation of the American student.

After he has done everything for the pupil fashioned him into a well-equipped artist, the student is apt to say: ‘Now I will go abroad for lessons with this or that famous European master!’ What is the result? He may never amount to anything may never be heard of afterward. On the other hand, I have individuals coming to me, who have already been years with some of the finest overseas masters, yet who are full of problems of all types, faults which it takes me many years to correct. Some of them are provided with tough touch, with tense position and problem of arms and body, with defective pedaling, and with a shortage of knowledge of several of the fundamental concepts of piano playing.

The beginner must go according to rule, until he has thoroughly mastered the rules. “One thing” a teacher should insist on, and that is that the pupil should study harmony. The pianist does many things the pupil should not attempt. easy piano lessons