THE TEACHING OF THE PIANO
It is impossible, within the limits of a chapter, to do more than dwell
on a few practical points connected with the teaching and organization
of this work in a school. As was said in the preceding chapter, the
ideal for all young children who are about to learn the piano is that
they should first go through a short course of ear-training. If this be
done, the progress in the first year's work will be about three times
what it would otherwise be. If the ear-training be done along the lines
suggested in earlier chapters, the child will have been taught to sing
easy melodies at sight, she will have approached the question of time by
means of the French time names, she will have learned to beat time with
the proper conductor's beat, to find notes on the piano, and, what is
more important, to know these notes by sound, in relation to fixed
notes.
In this way some of the processes which a child goes through in
beginning to learn the piano are taken one at a time, in company with
other children, and are therefore not hurried.
When the time has come to begin the piano, the child should join a
_class_ for this for one year. Such a class should not exceed six in
number. During this time she will add to her knowledge the first
principles of fingering, will play easy exercises for fingers, wrist,
&c., and will learn a few easy pieces and duets.
From the very first she will be taught to analyse a piece before she
begins to play it--she will find out the key, time, cadences, sequences,
passages of imitation, modulations, &c. If the melody be within the
range of the child's voice she will then sing it, beating time as she
does so. After these preliminaries it is only a question of technique to
learn to play it. The last stage will consist in learning the piece by
heart. The day has long gone by when it was considered a sign of
exceptional musical gift to be able to do this. All experienced teachers
know that, provided a child is having its ear trained by some such
method as that suggested above, it can learn a piece of music by heart
almost entirely away from the piano. That is to say, instead of the
wearisome repetitions which were formerly necessary before a piece could
be played by heart, it is possible, directly the technique is mastered,
and in many cases before this is done, to learn the piece away from the
piano. The benefit of this is obvious, and the nerves, both of the
player and of the unwilling listeners, are the gainers.
A little thought will show that it should be no more difficult for
average children to learn a piece of music by heart in this way, than
for them to learn a piece of prose or poetry by heart. The initial steps
are exactly the same--the language has to be known, and it is then a
question of memory, and memory alone. Who would think of learning poetry
by heart by the process of repeating it aloud a hundred or more times?
Yet this is what was formerly done in the case of music.
Sixty years ago no girl was considered educated who could not play the
piano a little. Since then a reaction has begun to set in. The standard
of playing has gone up to such a degree that parents are often heard to
say that their child is not musical enough for it to be worth while to
teach it an instrument. This is a pity. Music is used so much in our
daily life that we cannot do without our 'average performers'. The
soldier marches best to a tune, the sailor heaves his anchor to a song,
the ritual of all forms of religion needs the aid of music; we need it,
not only in the pageantry of our processions, but in the solemn crises
of life and death. For these purposes artists of the first rank are not
necessary.
Every child, however apparently unmusical, should be given its chance,
at any rate up to the age of twelve years. During this time, the stress
should be placed, for the unmusical child, not so much on perfection of
technique, but on the ability of playing easy pieces really well, and to
read at sight such things as duets, song accompaniments, &c.
If, in addition, the children have joined an ear-training class, they
will, at any rate, be intelligent listeners for the rest of their lives
to other people's playing.
For all children, sight reading should form part, not only of every
lesson, but of every day's practice. Many books for sight reading have
been published, well graded, some of them beginning with little pieces
in the treble clef only, and going on to advanced tests. The following
are a few, selected from many other excellent ones:
Schäfer (3 vols., published by Augener).
Hilliard (5 vols., published by Weekes).
Somervell (2 vols., published by Augener and Weekes respectively).
Taylor (1 vol., published by Bosworth).
As a child will need more than one such book in the course of her study,
and as she cannot play the same test twice, a plan has been made in some
schools for the music to be sold second-hand from one pupil to another,
through the medium of a mistress, in the same way in which ordinary
school books are sometimes passed on. This reduces the expense of
constantly having to buy new books for sight reading. Another plan is to
establish a lending library, each child to pay 2_d._ or 3_d._ a term.
In the teaching of 'pieces' music mistresses should bear in mind that
children must, from time to time, revise those which they have finished.
Nothing is more irritating to a parent than to be told by a child that
it has 'nothing to play' to a visitor. The mistress who is anxious to
get a pupil on as quickly as possible often overlooks this point, and an
entirely wrong impression is given of the child's progress to the
parent.
We now come to the vexed question of the interpretation of music by
children. An interesting point can be noted about the practice of the
early classical composers. They were accustomed to give the minimum
amount of indication as to tempo and general detail for the performance
of their works.
And to what conclusion does this lead us? Surely this--that these giants
in music recognized the necessity for every performer of their works to
express _themselves_ through the music, subject to the broad conditions
laid down by the composer. As Hegel said: 'Music is the most subjective
of all arts.' And is it not true that it is this constant necessity for
personal interpretation, so strongly felt by the majority of artists,
which gives the permanent interest to music?
We say, 'by the majority of artists', for now and then we meet an artist
who seems to have strayed from the path of beauty, and who is devoting
his energies to an ascetic determination to keep alive one particular
interpretation of a composer's work, or works; who dictates these
interpretations to his pupils, and who talks of other artists who feel
the bounden duty of self-expression through the said works as
'outsiders', and 'not in the cult'. Such musicians do not appear to see
that such an attitude is 'idolatry' pure and simple. They have not
pondered the well-known anecdote of Brahms, who, when asked by a singer
whether his interpretation of one of his songs was 'the right one',
answered: 'It is one of the many hundred possible interpretations.'
A word must now be said on the organization of instrumental work in the
school. It is important that this should be in the hands of one person,
who will not only keep a supervising eye on questions of method, choice
of music, lengths of lessons and practising, &c., but who will evolve
some means of testing the progress of the pupils every term, in the same
way in which their progress is tested in other subjects. The progress of
the individual pupil should not be a secret between herself and her
particular mistress!
It is a good plan to arrange a short recital every term in a school, at
which from twenty to twenty-five pupils should play at a time. Such
recitals should not exceed more than 1-1/4 hours in length. Nothing is
more wearisome to the outsider than to listen to amateur performances
which stretch out to two and sometimes to three hours' length. If the
above plan be adopted, no child will be able to play more than one short
piece. A mistress who is ambitious for the success of a few specially
gifted pupils will sometimes suggest that a recital shall consist of the
performance of two or three of these only, and that each pupil should
play more than once.
Such suggestions should be frowned at.
What we want, if we have an educational end in view, is not so much to
give the few musical children in a school the opportunity of gaining
experience in playing in public, and indirectly of showing their
progress to an admiring audience, but we want to give every music pupil
in turn the same opportunity.
All children need experience before they can play to others in such a
way that they not only do themselves justice, but give pleasure to
their listeners.
Pieces played at such recitals should invariably be by heart. The
nervous pupil may possibly break down at her first appearance, but she
will be quickly succeeded by a more confident player, the little victim
of 'nerves' will be soon forgotten, and the experience gained in this
way is invaluable.
Before a recital a rehearsal should be held in the same room in which
the recital is to take place. Few people seem to realize the immense
difference made to children by a change of environment at such a time.
The pupil who will play her piece on the piano without one mistake to
her mistress, and in the room to which she is used, will often be
troubled at playing it on another piano, and in another room.
A child was once known to break down in an evening recital, and when
asked the reason, said: 'I have never played that piece before with a
candle near me, and I didn't like the shadows on the piano.'
This sort of remark gives a real insight into the child mind.
Another small point may be mentioned. In the lessons just before a
recital the mistress should go to the end of the room in which the
lesson is given, while the child is playing her recital piece, in order
that her supporting presence near the child may not be missed at the
recital.
The recital will probably be followed by some form of reception by the
school authorities of the parents of the pupils. No teacher should miss
this opportunity of getting to know the parents of her pupils. A
friendly talk over the progress, or lack of progress of a child will
often result in sympathetic help being given at home, and, in any case,
the teacher will probably learn something about the character and home
environment of the child which will help her in her work.
Partly owing to lack of time, and partly because some pieces will not be
ready, a certain number of children will not be able to play at the
school recital. Such children should be gathered together at the end of
the term, and should play to the mistress who organizes the work. In
this way they too will gain experience, and a little focus will have
been made for their work.
We must add one final suggestion. Each music mistress should keep a
register, in which she notes not only the names of her pupils, the times
of their lessons, absences, late arrivals, &c., but an exact list of all
the work done by them, with dates. This is invaluable, not only for
gauging their progress, but as a means of quickly ascertaining their
work in musical literature. It is, alas! a day of examinations, and with
the many little books of studies and pieces which have to be got up for
outside examinations there is a serious fear of the systematic education
of a child in classical musical literature being interrupted, or, at any
rate, put on one side for a time. Such a book makes it possible for the
mistress to keep a definite scheme of work in view for each pupil, and
the busier the mistress, the more she will need some such aid to her
memory.
The pupil should also keep a register, in which she notes the exact
amount of time spent daily in practising, and the way in which she
divides it. This book should be brought to each music lesson, and should
also be shown to the supervising mistress at the end of each term.