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Much practising of octave exercises should ever be avoided, for as the action used in playing octaves is a good deal produced by the contraction of the muscles of the forearm, continuous work of this sort tends to strain them, and generates a sort of cramp which is very difficult to cure. Personally, I think that students should only study octaves when absolutely imperative for some piece they are learning, and then, if they used Kullak’s Octave Exercises, they will find them amongst the very best of their kind.

If I had to pronounce an opinion as to what I had found to be the most absolute essential of a physical kind for a pianist’s equipment, I think I should declare for a perfectly supple and loose wrist. How few students consider this acquirement enough, yet it is the secret of all softness and roundness of attack, all brilliancy and finish of passage playing, all grace of expression. He who forces the tone and gets harsh, unpleasant sounds from his instrument the unfortunate, who, after many hours of hard work finds himself hopelessly incapacitated by a sudden swelling in one of the tendons of his arm, or a stiffness in his hand both these are always victims of want of care given to the development of a supple wrist. Without perfect freedom of action, there is no i real power or elasticity, no proper play for the fingers, and the performer will generally fail at the critical moment in difficult rapid passages.

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There are many schools of piano playing, various of which advocate lifting the fingers as high as possible off the keyboard, with a view to acquiring greater power, but I cannot help thinking that the tone thus produced is of a hard, disagreeable nature, and the time lost by such high articulation detrimental to the smoothness and rapidity which are so necessary. Myself, I greatly advocate keeping the fingers close to the instrument and pressing the keys, thus giving the sound a warmer and more elastic quality and modifying the naturally more or less wooden tone which pianists have always to contend against to a certain extent even in the finest pianos, by reason of their constitution, as compared with stringed instruments.

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I do not find elaborate studies very efficacious for the purely mechanical development of technique, as the embellishments and harmonies which make the palatableness of such studies only distract the student’s mind away from the main point of advancing the technical power, and thus cause loss of time and effort. For the only really valuable study is that which concentrates its whole energy in pursuing the true object to be achieved in each particular branch of work. And it is far more profitable to practise for a short time with absolute concentration on the technical problem in order definitely to surmount it, than to pass several more or less wasteful hours dallying with the difficulties wrapped up as they are in elaborate studies with a pleasant gilding of harmonies and progressions.

Also, many of the studies which are given to students with a view to helping them technically are in themselves bad music as well as indifferent mechanical aids. Of course, these remarks with regard to studies in general are certainly not meant to include real concert studies, such as those of Chopin, Liszt, etc., but it is
scarcely necessary to say that these are not purely studies for technique, but are rather beautiful musical problems to be unravelled when a certain amount of facility has already been acquired by the student.

Advanced students should also endeavour in their practising to prepare themselves along certain lines of study, with a view to making a repertoire of pieces, which will be useful to them when the time comes for them to make up programmes for their concerts.

Now as regards how to start the study of a piece, it is as well first of all to look at it from the technical point of view alone. For until means have been mastered no proper musical expression or interpretation can be adequately conveyed. First of all, then, the pianist ought to dissect the piece from the mechanical side and find out where the most difficult passages occur. Technically speaking, of course, all pieces are merely collections of scales, thirds, passages, etc., harmonically treated in different ways and used as the vehicles to express the composer’s ideas.