It infers considerably to have a native-born teacher of such high aims living and working among us; a professor whom no flattery or love of gain can influence nor render indifferent to the high aim ever in view. There is no escaping the sound and detailed study course of study for those who come under Mr. Lambert's supervision. Scales must be, voluntarily or unwillingly, the everyday bread of the player; the hand must be put in good shape, the finger joints rendered firm, the arms and body supple, before pieces are thought of. Technical study must continue along the complete course, hand in hand with piece playing; method for its own sake, outside the playing of compositions.
And why not? Is the technique of an art ever quite completed? Can it ever be laid away on the shelf and considered complete? Must it not always be kept in operating order? "Have you not observed many changes in the aims of pupils, and in the conditions of piano training in New York, in the course of the years you have taught here?" I asked Mr. Lambert, in the program of a recent conversation.
"Some modifications, it is correct, I have observed", he clarified; "however We should also say in which the disorders attending piano training in America are peculiar. We possess a few excellent lecturers here, educators who could hold their own anywhere, as well as tend to be suitable of generating finished performers. However let a pupil goes to the ideal teacher in this nation, as well as the probabilities are usually that he or she will be still looking forward in order to 'finishing' with some European artist. These people are not really happy right until they possess secured the foreign stamp of acceptance. While this is accurate of the superior pianist, it is also much more in evidence within the actual mediocre player. He, too, is fantasizing of the 'superior benefits', because he calls Then, of European study. He may have no basis to develop upon may not even be able to perform a scale correctly, yet nonetheless believes he must move in another country!
"An individual ask if I consider pupils may obtain just as great teaching here as in Europe? That is a little hard to response off-hand. I fully believe all of us possess several instructors in America as capable as any upon the additional side; within some ways they are better. Regarding one thing they are morally better I repeat, morally much better. Regarding another they are usually a lot more comprehensive: these people take much more interest in their students as well as will do more for them. When such a teacher is observed, he definitely deserves the deep value and gratitude of the American student. But unfortunately, he rarely experiences the appreciation.
After he has done everything for the pupil fashioned him into a well-equipped artist, the student is apt to say: 'Now I will go abroad for lessons with this or that famous European master!' What is the result? He may never amount to anything may never be heard of afterward. On the other hand, I have individuals coming to me, who have already been years with some of the finest overseas masters, yet who are full of problems of all types, faults which it takes me many years to correct. Some of them are provided with tough touch, with tense position and problem of arms and body, with defective pedaling, and with a shortage of knowledge of several of the fundamental concepts of piano playing.
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"The first thing to be done for a pupil is to see that the hand is in correct position. Without this knowledge, my words about the use of the pedals are as so much Greek to him. ON PIANO INTERPRETATION"Interpretation! learn piano lessons
