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. 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.