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Some players pick up the peculiarity of making
extraordinary faces during their performance of music.
This is a very absurd fault, but it too often becomes a
habit that is terribly hard to get rid of, because it is
done quite unconsciously as a rule, and is also
instigated by a desire to express the maximum of
emotion, and sometimes provoked by the physical
exertion necessary for the performance of a technical feat. The only remedy for " making faces "
is to have a mirror hung in front of the culprit whenever he is practicing. 

And how about the student who loves his right hand better than his left? He seems to follow
the Bible maxim of not letting his right hand know what his left hand is doing, chiefly because 

his left hand is not doing much at all! By this I mean that it is bad to neglect the left hand,
which is generally the weaker member, anyhow, and not to allow it to develop its fundamental
notes with just as much significance and sonority as the more obvious work of the right hand.
Of course, the left hand should never be permitted to drown the right hand, but it should
sustain and harmoniously support it. 

Young players also err very often by incorrect style in their performance of different kinds
of music. Bach cannot be played with the highly-colored romantic passion which should
pervade renderings of Schumann or Tchaikovsky, nor with the weird ethereal atmosphere
that surrounds the music of the modern French school. Music approached thus in a totally
false appreciation of its spirit becomes merely caricature. Yet I have had Chopin played to
me with all the dryness and precision of the most pedantic classical manner, and Bach
distorted with rubato and unnatural limelight effects. 

It is perhaps disheartening to think that there are so many pitfalls lurking for the pianist in
every direction, but there remains always this consoling reflection, that the man of real
genius, even when he suffers from every one of the faults mentioned here, will not thereby
be prevented from still being a great player. These deficiencies of detail are only grave
hindrances to the commonplace ability which has no divine fire to sustain it. And when all
is said and done, each individual possesses the right to hope that the spark of genius
which palliates so many evils may lie in him too, if only it can be discovered. 

I well remember Leschetitzky, the greatest of pianoforte teachers, finishing up his lessons
to his dejected pupils, after telling them in his most forceful manner of all their heinous
faults, with the following exhortation : " I would say nothing, gentlemen, of the manner in
which you play, if only the result was a satisfying one. You may play with your feet upon
 the keyboard if only it sounds well, but remember they must be talented feet."