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There certainly are occasional geniuses whose exceptional powers and facilities for the piano enable them to perform in public without having been through the workshop of the technical school. But these are few and far between, and upon inquiring closely about them it will generally be found that their labour and difficulty in mastering technical passages are immeasurably greater than those of other pianists with far less talent who have had the advantage of thorough schooling.

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They will most often complain bitterly themselves of the lack of that foundation of technique they never had the opportunity of acquiring, and the want of which continues to hamper them through life. In fact, one of the greatest living pianists, who was practically self-taught, once told me that he would have saved himself ten years of drudgery if he had been able to study one year with a great pianoforte teacher like Leschetitzky.

The hands and movements of such self-taught pianists, too, almost always look ungainly and distorted on the keyboard when playing awkward passages. And

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this is not only disturbing to the eye but very often also to the quality of the sound, which quickly becomes laboured and heavy under severe strain. The player who ” arrives ” with such disabilities must indeed have genius for the piano! But there are not many such highly-gifted people in the world, who succeed in spite of every obstacle. I believe the inhabitants of this globe number over fifteen hundred millions, but amongst them all there are not more than a dozen really great pianists!

Therefore, student, learn to play scales carefully, tunefully, exactly, rhythmically, smoothly, and eventually quickly, and arpeggi evenly, clearly, and elegantly before embarking upon the performanceof the great works of pianoforte literature. Many cast up their eyes to Heaven in an inspired way while playing, hoping, I suppose, thereby to make up for lack of practice on this earth ! But Heaven cannot help them if they have not learned to play scales and arpeggi properly.

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