to the senseless, brainless working up and down of the fingers at
the keyboard, and devoted to those studies such as harmony, musical
history, form, and in fact, any study which will tend to widen the
pupil's knowledge and increase his interest, will save much time in
later work.

WASTE IN TECHNICAL STUDY

Geometrically speaking, the shortest distance between two points is a
straight line. Teachers should make every possible effort to find the
straight line of technic which will carry the pupil from his first steps
to technical proficiency without wandering about through endless lanes
and avenues which lead to no particular end. I suppose that all American
teachers hear the same complaint that is heard by all European teachers
when any attempt is made to insist upon thorough practice and adequate
study from the _dilettante_. As soon as the teacher demands certain
indispensable technical studies, certain necessary investigations of the
harmonic, aesthetic or historical problems, which contribute so much to
the excellence of pianistic interpretations, he hears the following
complaint: "I don't want to be a composer" or "I don't want to be a
virtuoso--I only want to play just a little for my own amusement." The
teacher knows and appreciates the pupil's attitude exactly, and while he
realizes that his reasoning is altogether fatuous, it seems well-nigh
impossible to explain to the amateur that unless he does his work right
he will get very little real pleasure or amusement out of it.

The whole sum and substance of the matter is that a certain amount of
technical, theoretical and historical knowledge must be acquired to make
the musician, before we can make a player. There is the distinction.
Teachers should never fail to remember that their first consideration
should be to make a musician. All unmusical playing is insufferable. No
amount of technical study will make a musician, and all technical study
which simply aims to make the fingers go faster, or play complicated
rhythms, is wasted unless there is the foundation and culture of the
real musician behind it.

To the sincere student every piece presents technical problems peculiar
to itself. The main objection to all technical study is that unless the
pupil is vitally interested the work becomes monotonous. The student
should constantly strive to avoid monotony in practicing exercises. As
soon as the exercises become dull and uninteresting their value
immediately d