The most important thing is to cultivate the sense of hearing. Take pains early on to distinguish tones and keys by ear. The bell, the window-pane, the cukoo, ------seek to find what tones they each give out.
You must sedulously practise scales and other finger excersises. But there are many persons who imagine all will be accomplished if they keep spending many hours each day, till they grow old, in mere mechanical practice. It is about as if one should busy himself daily with repeating the A-B-C as fast as possible, and always faster and faster. Use your time better.
Play in time! The playing of many virtuoses is like the gait of a drunkard. Make not such your models.
Learn betimes the fundamental laws of Harmony.
Be not frightened by the words Theory, Harmony; Counterpoint, etc.; they will meet you amicably if you meet them so.
Never dilly-dally over a piece of music, but attack it briskly; and never play iy only half through!
Dragging and hurrying are equally great faults.
Strive to play easy pieces well and beautifully; it is better than to render difficult pieces only indifferently well.
Always insist on having your instrument perfectly tuned.
You must not be only be able to play your little pieces with the fingers; you must be able to hum them over without a piano. Sharpen your imagination so that you may fix in your mind not only the melody of a composition, but also the harmony belonging to it.
You must carry the development of mental hearing so far that you can understand a piece of music upon paper.
Accustom yourself, even though you have little voice, to sing at sight, without the aid of an instrument. The keenness of your hearing will continually improve by that means. But if you are the possessor of a rich voice, lose not a moment's time, but cultivate it, and consider it the fairest gift which Heaven has lent you.
When playing, never trouble yourself about who is listening.
Always play conscientiously, however, as if a master heard you.
If anyone lays a composition before you for the first time, for you to play, first read it over mentally.
Have you done your musical day's work, and do you feel exhausted? Then do not constrain yourself to further labor. Better rest than work without joy or freshness.
As you grow, play nothing which is merely fashionable. Time is precious. One must have a hundred lives if he would acquaint himself with all that is good.
Children cannot be brought up on sweetmeats and confectionary to be sound and healthy. As the physical, so must the mental food be simple and nourishing. The masters have provided amply for the latter; keep to that.
A player may be very glib with finger-passages; they all in time grow commonplace and must be changed. Only where such facility serves higher ends is it of any worth.
You must not countenance nor give currency to poor compositions; on the contrary, you must do all you can to suppress them.
You should neither play poor compositions nor even listen to them, if you are not obliged to.
Never try to acquire facility in what is called 'Bravura'. Try in a composition to bring out the impression which the composer had in mind; to attempt more than this would be caricature.
Consider it monstrous to leave out anything, or to introduce any new-fangled ornaments in pieces by a good composer. That is the greatest outrage you can offer Art.
'Dumb pianofortes,' so-called, or keyboards without sound, have been invented. Try them long enough to see that they are good for nothing. You cannot learn to speak from the dumb.
In the selection of pieces for study, ask advice of older players; it will save you much time.
You must gradually make aquaintance with all the more important works of the great masters.
Be not led astray by the dazzling popularity of the so-called great virtuosi. Think more the applause of artists than that of the multitude.
Every fashion grows unfashionable again; if you persist in it for years, you find yourself a ridiculous coxcomb in the eyes of everybody.
It is more injury than profit to play a great deal before company. Have regard for other people, but never play anything which, in your inmost soul, you are ashamed of.
Omit no oppurtunity, however, to play with others in dous, trios, etc. It makes your playing fluent, spirited, and easy. Accompany a singer when you can.
If all would play first violin, we could get no orchestra together. Respect each musician, therefore in his place.
Love your instrument, but do not have the vanity to think it the highest and only one. Consider that there are others quite as fine. Remember, too, that there are singers; that the highest manifestations in music are through chorus and orcheshtra combined.
As you progress, have more to do with scores than with virtuosi.
Practice industriously the fugues of good masters, above all those of John Sabastian Bach. Make the
Seek among your associates those who know more than you.
For recreation from your musical studies, read the poets frequently. Walk also in the open air!
Much may be learned from singers, men and women; but do not believe in them for everything.
Beyond the mountains there live people too. Be modest; as yet you have discovered and thought nothing which others have not thought and discovered before you. And even if you have done so, regard it as a gift from above, which you have to share with others.
The study of the history of music, supported by the actual hearing of master compositions of different epochs, is the shortest way to cure you of self-esteem and vanity.
A fine book on music is Thibaut
If you pass a church and hear the organ playing, go in and listen. If it happens that you have to occupy the organist's seat yourself, try your little fingers, and be amazed before the omnipotence of Music.
Improve every oppurtunity of practising upon the organ; there is no instrument which takes such speedy revenge on the impure and the slovenly in composition, or in playing, as the organ.
Sing frequently in choruses, especially on the middle parts. This makes you musical.
What is it to be musical? You are not so, if, with eyes fastened anxiously upon the notes, you play a piece through painfully to the end. You are not so, if, when some one turns over two pages at once, you stick and cannot go on. But you are musical, if, in a new piece, you anticipate pretty nearly what is coming, and in an old piece, know it by heart; in a word, if you have Music, not your fingers only, but in your head and heart.
But how does one become musical? Dear child, the main thing, a sharp ear and quick power of comprehension, comes, as in all things, from above. But the talent may be improved and elevated. You will become so, not by shutting yourself up all day like a hermit, practising mechanical studies, but by a living, many-sided musical intercourse, and especially by constant familiarity with orchestra and chorus work.
Aquire in season a clear notion of the compass of the human voice in it's four principle classes; listen to iy particularly in the chorus; ascertain in what interval it's highest power lies, and in what other intervals it is best adapted to the expression of what is soft and tender.
Listen attentively to all songs of the people; they are a mine of the most beautiful melodies, and open for you glimpses into the character of different nations.
Exercise yourself early in reading music in the old clefs. Otherwise many treasures of the past will remain locked against you.
Reflect early on the tone and charachter of different instruments; try to impress the peculiar coloring of each upon your ear.
Do not neglect to hear good operas.
Revere the old, but meet the new also with a warm heart. Cherish no predjudice against names unknown to you.
Do not judge a composition on a first hearing; what pleases you in the first moment is not always the best. Masters should be studied. Much will become clear to you for the first time, in your old age.
In judging of compositions, distinguish whether they belong to the artistic catagory, or only aim at dilettantish entertainment. Stand up for those of the first sort, but do not worry yourself about the others.
'Melody' is the watchword of the dilettanti, and certainly there is no music without melody. But understand well what they mean by it; nothing passes for a melody with them but one that is easily comprehended or rhythmically pleasing. But there are other melodies of a different stamp; open up a volume of Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven, and you see them in a thousand various styles. It is to be hoped that you will soon be weary of the poverty and monotony of the modern Italian opera melodies.
If you can find out little melodies for yourself, on the piano, it is all very well. But if they come of themselves, when you are not at the piano, than you have still greater reason to rejoice, for then the inner sense of music is astir in you. The fingers must make what the head wills, not vice versa.
If you begin to compose, plan it all in your head. When you have got a piece all ready, then try it out on your instrument. If your music came from your inmost soul, if you have felt it, then it will take effect on others.
If Heaven has bestowed on you a lively imagination, you will often sit in solitary hours spellbound to your piano, seeking expression for your inmost soul in harmonies; and all the more mysteriously will you feel drawn into magic circles as it were, the more misty the realm of harmony as yet may be to you. The happiest hours of youth are these. Beware, however, of abandoning yourself to often to a talent which may tempt you to waste power and time on phantoms. Mastery of form, the power of clearly molding your productions, you will only gain through the sure token of writing. Write, then, more than you improvise.
Acquire an early knowledge of directing; watch good directors closely, and form a habit of directing with them silently and to yourself. This will clarify your perception.
Look about you well in life, as also in the arts and sciences, other than music.
The moral laws are also those of Art.
By industry and perseverance you will never fail to carry your Art higher.
From a pound of iron, bought for a few pence, many thousand watch-springs may be made, whereby the value is increased a hundred-thousand fold. The pound which God gave you, improve it faithfully.
Without enthusiasm nothing real comes of Art.
Art is not for the end of getting riches. Only become a greater and greater artist, the rest will come of itself.
Only when the form is entirely clear to you, will the spirit become clear.
Perhaps only genius understands genius fully.
Some one maintained that a perfect musician must be able, on the first hearing of a complicated orchestral work, to see it as in bodily score before him. That is the highest that can be concieved of.
