as I have defined it, may bring
some little benefit, but this benefit is gained at an enormous
expenditure of time and physical and mental exertion. Oh! the endless
leagues that ambitious fingers have traveled over ivory keys! Only too
often they race like automobiles on a race-course--in a circle--and
after having gone innumerable miles, and spent a tremendous amount of
energy, they arrive at the same point from which they started, exhausted
and worn, with very little to show for their work, and no nearer their
real goal than when they started. The proportion in which mental and
physical activity is compounded, determines, to my mind, the distinction
between practicing and real study. One might also say that the
proportion in which real study enters into the daily work of the student
determines the success of the student.

THE STUDY OF DETAILS IMPERATIVE

Study demands that the student shall delve into the minute details of
his art, and master them before he attempts to advance. Only the most
superficial students fail to do this in these days. All of the better
trained teachers insist upon it, and it is hard for the pupil to skim
through on the thinnest possible theoretical ice, as they did in past
years. The separate study of embellishments, for instance, is decidedly
necessary, especially in connection with the embellishments introduced
by the writers of the early eighteenth century.

In the study of embellishments it is vitally important for the student
to remember one or two very important points in connection with his
investigation. One point is the understanding of the nature of the
instrument for which the composer wrote when he had the embellishment in
mind. The instruments of the early eighteenth century were characterized
by a tone so thin and of such short duration that the composers and
players (and it should be remembered that in those days practically all
of the great composers played, and most of the great performers were
composers) had to resort to all kind of subterfuges and tricks to
produce the deception of a prolonged tone. For instance, they had a
method of moving the finger to and fro (sideways) upon a key after it
was struck. Thus they produced a sort of vibrato, not unlike that of
which we have received an overdose in recent years from violinists and
'cellists. This vibrato (German, _Bebung_) was marked like our modern
"shake," thus,

[Illustration]

but if we interpret it as a "shake" w