"After all, the teacher can only supply the pupil with the violinistic
equipment. The pupil must use it. There is tone, for instance. The
teacher cannot _make_ tone for the pupil--he can only show him how tone
can be made. Sometimes a purely physiological reason makes it almost
impossible for the pupil to produce a good natural tone. If the
finger-tips are not adequately equipped with 'cushions,' and a pupil
wishes to use the _vibrato_ there is nothing with which he can vibrate.
There is real meaning, speaking of the violinist's tone, in the phrase
'he has it at his fingers' tips.' Then there is the matter of _slow_
practice. It rests with the pupil to carry out the teacher's injunctions
in this respect. The average pupil practices too fast, is too eager to
develop his Art as a money maker. And too many really gifted students
take up orchestra playing, which no one can do continuously and hope to
be a solo player. Four hours of study work may be nullified by a single
hour of orchestra playing. Musically it is broadening, of course, but I
am speaking from the standpoint of the student who hopes to become a
solo artist. An opera orchestra is especially bad in this way. In the
symphonic _ensemble_ more care is used; but in the opera orchestra they
employ the _right_ arm for tremolo! There is a good deal of _camouflage_
as regards string playing in an opera orchestra, and much of the
music--notably Wagner's--is quite impracticable.
"And lessons are often made all too short. A teacher in common honesty
cannot really give a pupil much in half-an-hour--it is not a real
lesson. There is a good deal to be said for class teaching as it is
practiced at the European conservatories, especially as regards
interpretation. In my student days I learned much from listening to
others play the concertos they had prepared, and from noting the
teacher's corrections. And this even in a purely technical way: I can
recall Kubelik playing Paganini as a wonderful display of the
_technical_ points of violin playing.