ARTISTS AND TEACHERS OF MUSIC.
If any one should say that he has diligently studied the piano and
violin after the method used at present, and in course of time has
learned and taught it with the greatest success, without having found
it necessary to trouble himself about any other system, my reply is,
that music is one of the most beautiful, and with respect to muscular
work, the most difficult of arts, and that all the arts and sciences,
music not excepted, have made enormous strides in advance during the
present century. But exactly because music has become a universal boon
for all classes of the civilized world, one ought to be so much the
less disposed to shut out new ideas respecting it, from whatever side
they may come. The representatives of this art, professional musicians
and teachers of music, are generally the most active and often the most
educated men, who devote their lives to the art, and promote it in a
way which is hardly acknowledged sufficiently by the musical world. The
most highly honoured, however, are those who have made the greatest
progress in theory and in practice, or who have readily and generously
acknowledged such progress, from whatever direction it might come.
It is, therefore, the duty of all to assist teachers of music and
proficients, as much as possible, in promoting this beautiful
accomplishment; for this reason, encouraged by persons of the highest
distinction, and moved by the love of the art and of mankind, I venture
to make known my “_Gymnastics of the Fingers and Wrist_,” and to offer
to all who work with their fingers in general, and to musicians in
particular, a means which, based on physiological principles, leads
most surely to the attainment of artistic execution, and which is in
itself so simple, that any child may use it; a means, too, which will
effect a great saving of time and facilitate the work of both teachers
and students.
I have only to add that, as a matter of course, these exercises, in
order to have the desired effect, should be performed _gymnastically
and regularly_, according to _the directions_ given, and not otherwise;
whilst, on the other hand, they ought _not to be carried to excess, nor
are they intended to supersede the usual finger-exercises, scales, and
studies_.