ession is a form of art; why not, then, make an artist of
each finger by cultivating its special aptitudes instead of adapting a
system of training deliberately calculated to destroy these individual
characteristics in bringing _all_ the fingers to a common level of
lifeless machines?

"These and similar reflections, I discovered, were carrying me
continually farther away from the ideals of most of the pianists,
students and teachers with whom I was in contact, and it was not long
before I definitely abandoned all hope of obtaining, by any of the means
I found in use, the results for which I was striving. Consequently,
from that time to the present my work has necessarily been more or less
independent and empirical in its nature, and, while I trust I am neither
prejudiced nor intolerant in my attitude towards pianoforte education in
its general aspect, I cannot help feeling that a great deal of natural
taste is stifled and a great deal of mediocrity created by the
persistent and unintelligent study of such things as an 'even scale' or
a 'good tone.'

"Lastly, it is quite incomprehensible to me why any one method of
technic should be superior to any other, considering that as far as I
was able to judge, no teacher or pupil ever claimed more for any
technical system than that it gave more technical ability than some
other technical system. I have never been able to convince myself, as a
matter of fact, that one system does give more ability than another; but
even if there were one infinitely superior to all the rest, it would
still fail to satisfy me unless its whole aim and object were to
facilitate musical expression.

"Naturally, studying in this way required my powers of concentration to
be trained to the very highest point. This matter of concentration is
far more important than most teachers imagine, and the perusal of some
standard work on psychology will reveal things which should help the
student greatly. Many pupils make the mistake of thinking that only a
certain kind of music demands concentration, whereas it is quite as
necessary to concentrate the mind upon the playing of a simple scale as
for the study of a Beethoven sonata.

THE RESISTANCE OF THE MEDIUM

"In every form of art the medium that is employed offers a certain
resistance to perfect freedom of expression, and the nature of this
resistance must be fully understood before it can be overcome. The poet,
the painter, the sculptor and the musici