[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/leatherimage46.jpg] 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.
The idea suggests a lot to have a native-born educator of such high aims living and working between us; an instructor whom no support neither love of gain can influence nor render indifferent to the high aim ever in view. There is no escaping the sound and thorough course of study for those who come under Mr. Lambert’s supervision. Scales must be, voluntarily or unwillingly, the daily bread of the player; the hand 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 together the whole course, hand in hand with piece playing; technique 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 true, I have observed,” he answered; “but I must additionally say in which the problems participating piano instructing in America are unusual. We have several excellent teachers here, lecturers which may hold their own anywhere, as well as are usually suitable of generating finished musicians. However allow a pupil goes to the greatest instructor in this region, and the chances tend to be that he or she will be still looking forward to ‘finishing’ with some European artist. These people are usually not necessarily satisfied till they possess guaranteed the foreign stamp of approval. Even though this is authentic of the advanced pianist, it is also more in proof within the average player. He, too, is fantasizing of the ‘superior benefits’, because he calls Then, of European study. He may have no basis to build upon may not necessarily actually be able to play a scale correctly, but nevertheless thinks he should move in another country!
“An individual ask if I consider pupils may obtain just as great teaching here as in Europe? That is a little hard to response off-hand. I fully believe all of us possess several instructors in America as capable as any upon the additional side; within some ways they are better. Regarding one thing they are morally better I repeat, morally much better. Regarding another they are usually a lot more comprehensive: these people take much more interest in their students as well as will do more for them. When such a teacher is observed, he definitely deserves the deep value and gratitude of the American student. But unfortunately, he rarely experiences the appreciation.
On the other hand, I have pupils coming to me, who have already been years along with some of the greatest foreign experts, yet who are full of faults of all types, problems which it requires me many years to correct. Some of them come with difficult touch, with tighten position and problem of arms and body, with faulty pedaling, and with a lack of understanding of several of the fundamental rules 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