Mr. Bauer thought an instant.

“I am not sure that I do make it; in fact I do not believe in a single beautiful tone on the piano.  Tone on the piano can only be beautiful in the right place—­that is, in relation to other tones.  You or I, or the man in the street, who knows nothing about music, may each touch a piano key, and that key will sound the same, whoever moves it, from the nature of the instrument.  A beautiful tone may result when two or more notes are played successively, through their difference of intensity, which gives variety.  A straight, even tone is monotonous—­a dead tone.  Variety is life.  We see this fact exemplified even in the speaking voice; if one speaks or reads in an even tone it is deadly monotonous.

VARIETY OF TONE

“Now the singer or the violinist can make a single tone on his instrument beautiful through variety; for it is impossible for him to make even one tone which does not have shades of variation in it, however slight they may be, which render it expressive.  But you cannot do this on the piano:  you cannot color a single tone; but you can do this with a succession of tones, through their difference, through their relation to each other.  On the other hand you may say any tone is beautiful if in the right place, no matter how harsh it may be.  The singer’s voice may break from emotion, or simulated emotion, in an impassioned phrase.  The exact note on which it breaks may not be a beautiful one, it may even be very discordant, but we do not think of that, for we are moved by the meaning back of the tones.  So on the piano there may be one note in a phrase which, if heard alone, would sound harsh and unpleasant, but in its relation to other tones it sounds beautiful, for it gives the right meaning and effect.  Thus it is the relation of tones which results in a ‘beautiful tone’ on the piano.

“The frequent trouble is that piano teachers and players generally do not understand their instrument.  A singer understands his, a violinist, flutist or drummer knows his, but not a pianist.  As he only has keys to put down and they are right under his hand, he does not bother himself further.  To obviate this difficulty, for those who come to me, I have had this complete model of piano-key mechanism made.  You see I can touch the key in a variety of ways, and the results will be different each time.  It is necessary for the pianist to look into his instrument, learn its construction, and know what happens inside when he touches a key.

“As you say, there are a great many methods of teaching the piano, but to my mind they are apt to be long, laborious, and do not reach the vital points.  The pianist may arrive at these after long years of study and experimenting, but much of his time will be wasted in useless labor.