Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-10-04
PIECES AS SIUOiES.
The Secret of Rapid Progress In Piano
 Playing Is Versatility.

The Secret of Rapid Progress In Piano
 Playing Is Versatility.
 Experienced teachers agree that tho playing of n pupil accustomed to spend all or nearly all her time upon exercises and studies having merely the form of pieces without their spirit is far less musical and spontaneous than that of those accustomed to playing variety of well written COT. positions.
 Nevertheless the study has certain ad- yantages which come more easily to it than to n piece. A study is taken as a duty and practiccd as duty. A piece is primarily pastimc, and if practiced as pastime but little moro than pastime will come out of it. What is the solu- tion of this difficulty? Is it that we must go on relying upon studies for all the serious part of the pupils work? Not at all, :" is the reply of q writer in The Musical Record, who says:
 We must contrive to bring to the ac- quistion of pieces tho same qualities of mental attention and seriousness that come of their own accord i'll the case of studies. When this is done, and when the subject matter of tho lessons is in. telligently diversified for shaping the playing in order to modify it in this di- rection or the other, the pieces will be found to afford much more profitable material for study than ''Etudes, by no matter how many eminent writers, always excepting tho Chopin works. The teacher who undertakes to forward the student by tho uSo of pieces, with. | out other help than tho technical eXer- cises, immediately encounters the diff culty of collecting n suitable repertory ! of material.
 There are pieces which the student likes on first hearing. These, as rule, are of but little use to him. There are other pieces of a hidden beauty, such as the works of Schumann, Chopin and the like. To expect a student of tender years to like one of these is wrong. What we need is to select the piece with reference to its compatibility with the students temperament or possibili' ties and then assign it as study at the proper moment. As study it will hold
 the serious attention. Later, when 1t:
 inner correspondence of spirit shall have
 had time to make itself felt, the student
 will find himself liking the piece, whicf
 at first he regarded merely as exercise
 A student unconsciously learns many
 points about musical form by memoriz
 ing pieces of different kinds.
 All playing and all music writing
 may be divided into about three cate
 gories-thematic, wherein the discus ) sion of theme is the question; lyric where the proper delivery of melody |
 the question, and brilliant, where 1t question of passages of one kind O another. There might well be still an , other class. which, for want of bette word, we might call effect. where ton
 coloring and keyboard command are tn
 essential clements. To specify, fugue the type of all pieces ill which n them is discussed. A Chopin or Schuman nocturne or a Beethoven cantabile , the type of all high grade melody play 3 ing. Liszt's concert pieces and those l Tahlberg are tho types of brilllar | pieces for the pianoforte. There al } some of these which turn upon what s called effect. Liszt's "Waldesrauchen is one of these. To teach music is pr marily to familiarize the pupil with tt great types of music mentioned and f exercise him over and over again
 each one of them until he becomes hin
 self musical in turn.