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The fault of most players who come to me is that their preparation before attempting to attack a great work has not been sufficient. And for this the teacher must sometimes be held responsible to a certain degree, because, naturally desiring the pupil to make quick progress, he gives him Liszt’s Rhapsodies and Beethoven’s greatest Sonatas to play, after only a few months of  perfunctory study.

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The students also have a natural desire to astonish their parents and gratify their patrons, and often to justify the spending of a good deal of money on their musical education.  Most of them rely on so-called musical feeling, charming touch, and other elusive qualities, which have possibly been ” enthused ” over by their supporters ! Thus they fritter away valuable time in chase of shadows, instead of settling down under a severe and accomplished master to genuine hard study of scales and other exercises.

I am constantly seeing advertisements by teachers of “how to play the piano in five minutes by correspondence!” But I know by my own experience that after thirty years of continuous study there are still many problems in piano-playing that I cannot solve.