board.
However, the phenomena may be explained from the psychological
standpoint, it is nevertheless true that the feeling of longing,
yearning, hope or soulful anticipation, for instance, induces a totally
different kind of touch from that of anger, resentment or hate.

"The artist who is incapable of communicating his emotions to the
keyboard or who must depend upon artifice to stimulate emotions rarely
electrifies his audiences. Every concert is a test of the artist's
sincerity, not merely an exhibition of his prowess, or his acrobatic
accomplishments on the keyboard. He must have some vital message to
convey to his audience or else his entire performance will prove
meaningless, soulless, worthless.

"That which is of great importance to him is to have the least possible
barrier between his artistic conception of the work he would interpret
and the sounds that are conveyed to the ears of his audience. If we
obliterate the emotional side and depend upon artifice or what might be
called in vulgar parlance "tricks of the trade," pianism will inevitably
descend to a vastly lower level. By cultivating a sensibility in touch
and employing the technical means which will bring the interpreter's
message to the world with the least possible obstruction, we reach the
highest in the art. Those who would strain at gnats might contend that
with the machinery of the instrument itself, intervening between the
touch at the keyboard and the sounding wires, would make the influence
of the emotions though the tactile sense (sense of touch) is wholly
negligible. To this I can only reply that the experience of the artist
and the teacher is always more reliable, more susceptible to finer
appreciations of artistic values than that of the pure theorist, who
views his problems through material rather than spiritual eyes. Every
observing pianist is familiar with the remarkable influence upon the
nerves of the voice-making apparatus that any emotion makes. Is it not
reasonable to suppose that the finger tips possess a similar sensibility
and that the interpretations of any highly trained artist are duly
affected through them?

INDIVIDUALITY, CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT

"Indeed, Individuality, Character and Temperament are becoming more and
more significant in the highly organized art of pianoforte playing.
Remove these and the playing of the artist again becomes little better
than that of a piano-playing machine. No machine can ever achiev