Piano Playing Part 19

[Sidenote: _Playing from Memory Is Indispensable_]

Is memorization absolutely essential to a good player?

Playing from memory is indispensable to the freedom of rendition. You have to bear in your mind and memory the whole piece in order to attend properly to its details. Some renowned players who take the printed sheets before them on the stage play, nevertheless, from memory. They take the music with them only to heighten their feeling of security and to counteract a lack of confidence in their memory--a species of nervousness.

[Sidenote: _The Easiest Way to Memorize_]

Will you please tell me which is the easiest way to memorize a piano piece?

Begin by playing it a few times very carefully and slowly until you can play it with a fair degree of exact.i.tude (you need not mind an occasional stopping). Then go over such places as appeared to you especially complex until you understand their construction. Now let the piece rest for a whole day and try to trace in your mind the train of thoughts in the piece. Should you come to a dead stop be satisfied with what you have achieved. Your mind will keep on working, subconsciously, as over a puzzle, always trying to find the continuation. If you find that the memory is a blank take the music in hand, look at the particular place--but only at this--and, since you have now found the connection, continue the work of mental tracing. At the next stop repeat this procedure until you have reached the end, not in every detail, but in large outlines. Of course, this does not mean that you can now _play_ it from memory. You have only arrived at the point of transition from the imagined to the real, and now begins a new kind of study: to transfer to the instrument what you have mentally absorbed. Try to do this piece by piece, and look into the printed sheets (which should not be on the music-rack but away from it) only when your memory absolutely refuses to go on. The real work with the printed music should be reserved to the last, and you should regard it in the light of a proof-reading of your mental impressions. The whole process of absorbing a piece of music mentally resembles that of photographing. The development of the acoustic picture (the tone-picture) is like the bath.

The tentative playing is like the process of "fixing" against sensitiveness to lights; and the final work with the printed music is the retouching.

[Sidenote: _In Order to Memorize Easily_]

I find it very hard to memorize my music. Can you suggest any method that would make it easier?

To retain in one's memory what does not interest one is difficult to everybody, while that which does interest us comes easy. In your case the first requirement seems to be that your interest in the pieces you are to play be awakened. This interest usually comes with a deeper understanding of music; hence, it may be said that nothing will a.s.sist a naturally reluctant memory so much as a general musical education.

Special studies for the memory have not come to my knowledge because I never had any need of them. After all, the best way to memorize is--to memorize. One phrase to-day, another to-morrow, and so on, until the memory grows by its own force through being exercised.

[Sidenote: _Memorizing Quickly and Forgetting as Readily_]

I memorize very easily, so that I can often play my pieces from memory before I have fully mastered their technical difficulties, as my teacher says. But I forget them just as quickly, so that in a few weeks I cannot remember enough of them to play them clear through. What would you advise, to make my memory more retentive?

There are two fundamental types of memory: One is very mobile--it acquires quickly and loses just as quickly; the other is more c.u.mbrous in its action--it acquires slowly, but retains forever. A combination of the two is very rare, indeed; I never heard of such a case. A remedy against forgetting you will find in refreshing your memory in regular periods, playing your memorized pieces over (carefully) every four or five days. Other remedies I know not and I see no necessity for them.

[Sidenote: _To Keep Errors from Creeping in_]

I can always memorize a piece before I can play it fast. Do you advise practising with notes when I already know it by heart?

The occasional playing of a memorized piece from the notes will keep errors from creeping in, provided you read the music correctly and carefully.

SIGHT READING

[Sidenote: _The Best Way to Improve Sight-Reading_]

Is there any practical method that will a.s.sist one to greater rapidity in sight-reading?

The best way to become a quick reader is to read as much as possible.

The rapidity of your progress depends upon the state of your general musical education, for the more complete this is the better you will be able to surmise the logical sequel of a phrase once started. A large part of sight-reading consists of surmising, as you will find upon a.n.a.lyzing your book-reading.

[Sidenote: _To Gain Facility in Sight-Reading_]

What is a good plan to pursue to improve the facility in sight-reading?

Much reading and playing at sight and as fast as possible, even though at first some slight inaccuracies may creep in. By quick reading you develop that faculty of the eye which is meant by "grasp," and this, in turn, facilitates your reading of details.

ACCOMPANYING

[Sidenote: _Learning To Accompany at Sight_]

How can one learn to accompany at sight?

Develop your sight-reading by playing many accompaniments, and endeavour--while playing your part--also to read and inwardly hear the solo part.

[Sidenote: _The Art of Accompanying a Soloist_]

How should one manage the accompaniment for a soloist inclined to play rubato?

Since you cannot make a contract of artistically binding force with a soloist you must take refuge in "following." But do not take this word in its literal meaning; rather endeavour to divine the intentions of your soloist from moment to moment, for this divining is the soul of accompanying. To be, in this sense, a good accompanist, one must have what is called in musical slang a good "nose"--that is, one must musically "scent" whither the soloist is going. But, then, the nose is one of the things we are born with. We may develop it, as to its sensitiveness, but we cannot acquire a nose by learning. Experience will do much in these premises, but not everything.

[Sidenote: _Learning the Art of Accompanying_]

Wishing to become an accompanist I antic.i.p.ate completing my studies in Berlin. What salary might I expect and what would be the best "course"

to pursue?

An experienced and very clever accompanist may possibly earn as much as fifty dollars a week if a.s.sociated with a vocal, violin, or 'cello artist of great renown. Usually, however, accompanists are expected to be able to play solos. There are no special schools for accompanists, though there may be possibly some special courses in which experience may be fostered. If you come to Berlin you will find it easy to find what you seem to be seeking.

TRANSPOSING

[Sidenote: _The Problem of Transposing at Sight_]

What, please, is the quickest and safest way of transposing from one key to another? I have trouble, for instance, in playing for singing if the piece is in A major and the singer wants it in F major.

The question of transposing hinges on the process of hearing through the eye. I mean by this that you must study the piece until you learn to conceive the printed music as sounds and sound groups, not as key pictures. Then transfer the sound picture to another tonality in your mind, very much as if when moving from one floor to another with all your household goods you were to place them on the new floor as they were placed on the old. Practice will, of course, facilitate this process very much. Transposition at sight is based on somewhat different principles. Here you have to get mentally settled in the new tonality, and then follow the course of intervals. If you find transposition difficult you may derive consolation from the thought that it is difficult for everybody, and that transposing at sight is, of course, still more difficult than to transpose after studying the piece beforehand.

PLAYING FOR PEOPLE

[Sidenote: _When to "Play For People"_]

During the period of serious study may I play for people (friends or strangers) or should I keep entirely away from the outside world?

From time to time you may play for people the pieces you have mastered, but take good care to go over them afterward--the difficult places slowly--in order to eliminate any slight errors or unevenness that may have crept in. To play for people is not only a good incentive for further aspirations; it also furnishes you with a fairly exact estimate of your abilities and shortcomings, and indicates thereby the road to improvement. To retire from the outside world during the period of study is an outlived, obsolete idea which probably originated in the endeavour to curb the vanity of such students as would neglect their studies in hunting, prematurely, for applause. I recommend playing for people moderately and on the condition that for every such "performance" of a piece you play it afterward twice, slowly and carefully, at home. This will keep the piece intact and bring you many other unexpected advantages.

[Sidenote: "_Afraid to Play Before People_"]

I can never do myself justice when playing for people, because of my nervousness. How can I overcome it?

If you are absolutely certain that your trouble is due to "nervousness"

you should improve the condition of your nerves by proper exercise in the open air and by consulting your physician. But are you quite sure that your "nervousness" is not merely another name for self-consciousness, or, worse yet, for a "bad conscience" on the score of technical security? In the latter case you ought to perfect your technique, while in the former you must learn to discard all thought of your dear self, as well as of your hearers in relation to you, and concentrate your thinking upon the work you are to do. This you can well achieve by will-power and persistent self-training.

[Sidenote: _Effect of Playing the Same Piece Often_]

I have heard artists play the same piece year after year, and each time as expressively as before. After a piece has been played several hundred times it can hardly produce on the player the same emotional effect that it originally did. Is it possible for a player by his art and technical resources so to colour his tones that he can stimulate and produce in his audience an emotional condition which he himself does not at the time feel?

In music emotion can be conveyed only through the means and modes of expression that are peculiar to music, such as dynamic changes, vacillations of tempo, differences of touch and kindred devices. When a piece is played in public very often on consecutive occasions--which artists avoid as much as they can--these expressions gradually a.s.sume a distinct form which is quite capable of preservation. Though it will in time lose its life-breath, it can still produce a deception just as (to draw a drastic parallel) a dead person may look as if he were only asleep. In this parallel the artist has, however, one great advantage.