Practice

PRACTICE, from lecture by Dr. Chow, former Southwest Missouri State University professor

A most striking conclusion of psychological investigation is that MERE REPETITION IS NOT A CAUSE OF LEARNING.

If you perform an act perfunctorily you'll get no better. But the moment you isolate it as a challenge to learn, and determine to do it better - it begins to improve.

Think more than you act. Analyze as best you can what you are doing before you do it. When you have tried it over a few times, stop and analyze again.

During the process of learning make a definite effort to get things straight. Be thoughtful. Do not be merely receptive.

There is no need to tolerate ineffectiveness in yourself. Learning is an ART- an art to acquire by intelligent practice. Why not make a start?

- Excerpts from "Streamline Your Mind" - Mursell

One of the first things I learned in music was that if I missed one or two days practice, I could not hope to make it up. Practice days missed or skipped are gone forever. One must take a fresh start and the loss is sometimes not recovered for several days.

Pupils must learn to concentrate. It is not easy to fix the mind upon one thing and at the same time drive every other thought away. With some pupils it takes much practice. Some never acquire it - it is not in them. Concentration is the vertebrae of musical success. The student who cannot concentrate had better abandon musical study.

The student should have the broadest possible culture. He must live in the world of art and letters. The wider his range of information, experience and sympathies, the larger will be the audience he will reach when he comes to talk to them through his music.

The pianist with a bungling, slovenly technic, who at the same time attempts to perform the great masterpieces, reminds me of those persons who attempt to disguise the necessity for soap and water with nauseating perfumes.

In closing, let me enjoin all young music students to strive for naturalness. Avoid ostentatious movements in your playing. Let your playing be as quiet as possible. The wrist must be loose. The hands, to my mind, should be neither too high or too low but should be in line with the forearm. - Emil Sauer (famous Liszt pupil)

There is a detail which few students observe which is of such vast importance that one is tempted to say that the main part of musical progress depends on it. This is the detail of learning to listen. Every sound that is produced during the practice period should be heard. That is, it should be heard with ears open to give that sound the intelligent analysis it deserves.

Anyone who has observed closely and taught extensively must have noticed that hours are wasted by students strumming away at keyboards and giving no more attention to the sounds produced than would the inmates of a deaf and dumb asylum. They may achieve strong fingers, but they will have to learn to listen before they can hope to become even passable performers.

- Busoni A famous pedagogue was once asked what he considered the real goal of piano instruction. "To teach the student how to practice" he answered.

"There are three rudiments of piano playing that brook absolutely no compromise of exactness in practice. These are NOTES, FINGERING, and COUNTING. The student must be expected to take full responsibility for these rudiments once they have been explained, without the necessity for having them constantly policed at his lessons". - Newman

"We should always practice with the same devotion and concentration as though we were sitting on a concert stage and giving a recital to a select audience of musicians." - Foldes