I propose here to discuss briefly the higher or advanced technique of pianoforte playing as is to be found in the study of Thirds, Sixths and Octaves. Of course this is really a highly complicated subject about which innumerable books and treatises have been written without nearly exhausting all the material for discussion to which it gives rise. But the few remarks that I am going to make now are chiefly intended for the practical help of working students, and I shall confine myself more or less to explaining one or two of the methods which I personally find useful in mastering the difficulties that occur in these complex stages of virtuosity. For as modern pianoforte technique requires great development of double note playing and such-like independence of the fingers, so it must be the aim of every student to discover the easiest and shortest cuts which may bring him to proficiency in this branch of his art.
It is to this end essential in scale-playing that a certain pressure should be given on the keys with every finger as it falls. The importance of this pressure lies not actually in itself, but in the principle it contains. For the action of making the effort of pressure upon each note gives a mental stimulus. This idea of continually renewed pressure to “activate” work is also advocated by some of the professors of physical culture. Springs are made in dumbbells for the hands of victims to press upon. These trainers of the body have realized by experience that unless the minds of their patients can be concentrated on their work by having to press the spring of the dumbbell, their actions soon become purely automatic and cease to exercise their muscles properly.
So it is also on the pianoforte keyboard. The player’s mind is kept alert by having to press the fingers down upon the keys, and being thus forced to think about what he is doing. For if the fingers merely run over the keyboard without attention, that kind of practice can do no possible good whatever. The mind must always be present like a general, whilst the fingers are the soldiers who obey his behests.
No doubt every beginner should seek out a good teacher to show him how to set about conquering difficulties, but however wonderful the teacher, it is up to the pupil to concentrate and see that his mind works in conjunction with his fingers. Hard work for the mastery of detail and unlimited concentration of thought are necessary for arriving at any really fine performance on the pianoforte.
The bare word technique, when applied to pianoforte playing, seems often to give people an erroneous impression of its real significance. It seems to mean to them just the power of being able to play very rapidly, and also to perform very difficult passages, upon the keyboard, and often the word seems to carry with it a strange sort of odium to certain kinds of music-lovers. “A wonderful technician,” they cry, about some pianist, “but nothing more.”
How can this prejudice against great development of technique have arisen? I think that it is just because technique is sometimes considered as meaning only that one-sided capability of being able to move the fingers and hands with special agility “digital dexterity,” as the critics call it!
That particular capacity is no doubt a very important and necessary branch of technique on the piano, but it is only one small part of the whole immense subject; and the pianist who has given all his attention to that branch alone can certainly not be called in the best sense of the word a great technician, nor can he arrive at the highest results with only that development.
Technique in pianoforte playing, as in all other arts, signifies far more than agility and rapidity of finger action. Rather does its perfect attainment comprise within itself every means of expression that it is possible for the artist pianist to command. Thus technique represents to him in all its varying branches, endurance, tone or colour production, touch, intensity of feeling, phrasing, elegance of execution, symmetry of detail. And the man who has only studied and can merely produce agility, has but acquired one-fifth part of pianoforte technique; therefore how can he be the highest kind of artist, if, indeed, a real artist at all!
Now I believe that many people have the imagination and the emotions of the artistic temperament, but these qualities with them lack outlet for want of adequate means of expression. They cannot give a vent to their thoughts, because they do not possess the technical development sufficient to enable them to do so. Technique should therefore comprise the mastery of all means of self-expression in music, and on the piano especially can no player afford to neglect any manual facility that tends in the long run to help him arrive at the summit of interpretation. For it stands to reason that the more physical capacity the artist possesses for clothing his thoughts, the less hampered will he be in giving expression to the best that is in him.