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I now come to Octave Technique for which every sort of studies have been and continue to be written. Now the real octave wrist, combining great strength with high nervous tension and suppleness, is a gift of nature, like the capacity for playing staccato bowing on the violin. But those who do not possess the power can develop it to a limited extent. There are several methods of playing octaves, one being with a loose wrist and the 5th finger slightly stiffened. This is a good way for octaves in a slow tempo, but when speed is required it can only be secured by nervous contraction of the arm, the wrist being kept stiff meanwhile. To accomplish this needs much muscular strength, as the advantage of the loose wrist has to be discarded, and whenever the rapidity of the tempo increases, the stiffening of the wrist must increase also.

As far as the practice of octaves go, I do not think merely playing them in scales is efficacious, and, as I have already said, there are so many studies devised on this most difficult branch of piano technique that it is best to work with them. Those of Kullak are, I find, especially excellent. It is very unwise ever to work at octave

playing for more than ten minutes at a time, as it is so fatiguing and may injure the arm if overdone. But there are ways of helping oneself to relieve exhaustion during long sequences of octaves. Some of these devices are useful for all, though generally each player finds out means for himself according to the structure of his own particular muscles.To illustrate what I mean by these helps against fatigue, I will give an example from the A flat Polonaise of Chopin. The great octave passage in the second part for the left hand lasts 34 bars, which is a tremendous length, as all pianists know, and the strain may become almost unbearable.

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