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“What is the value of your method, in the instruction of pupils who have for years played many pieces from notes, but have played them badly, and whom we are called upon to lead into a better way of playing?”

A reply to this frequent inquiry can be found in my first chapter.  Above all things, let the notes which have already been played be laid aside for a long time; for a mistaken style of playing these has become so confirmed that to improve them is hopeless, and the tottering edifice must fall to the ground.  First, improve the touch; help to acquire a better and more connected scale; teach the formation of different cadences on the dominant and sub-dominant; and the construction of various passages on the chord of the diminished seventh, to be played with correct, even, and quiet fingering, legato and staccato, piano, and forte; pay strict attention to the use of loose fingers and a loose wrist; and allow no inattentive playing.  You may soon take up, with these studies, some entirely unfamiliar piece of music, suited to the capacity of the pupil.  It is not possible or desirable to attempt to make a sudden and thorough change with such pupils, even if they should show the best intentions and docility.  You should select a light, easy piece of salon music, but of a nature well adapted to the piano, which shall not be wearisome to the pupil, and in the improved performance of which he will take pleasure.  But, if you still find that he falls into the old, faulty manner of playing, and that the recently acquired technique, which has not yet become habitual, is endangered by it, lay this too aside, and take instead some appropriate etude, or perhaps a little prelude by Bach.  If, in the place of these, you choose for instruction a ponderous sonata, in which the music would distract the attention of the pupil from the improved technique, you give up the most important aim of your instruction, and occupy yourself with secondary matters; you will censure and instruct in vain, and will never attain success.  You must consider, reflect, and give your mind to the peculiar needs of the pupil, and you must teach in accordance with the laws of psychology.  You will succeed after a while, but precipitation, compulsion, and disputes are useless.  The improvement of a soprano voice, ruined by over-screaming, requires prudence, patience, calmness, and modesty, and a character of a high type generally.  It is also a very thankless task, and success is rare; while on the piano a fair result may always be accomplished.

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I return once more to the subject so frequently discussed, that I may try to relieve the universal difficulty of our lady pianists.  I have heard much playing of late, in parties both small and large, on well-tuned and on ill-tuned pianos, on those with which the performer was familiar, and on those to which she was unaccustomed; from the timid and the self-possessed; from ladies of various ages, possessed of more or of less talent, and in various cities:  the result was always the same.