PIANO STUDENTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4604, 21 September 1923, Page 4

PIANO STUDENTS.

JUDGE’S ADVICE. Some advice was given to competitors generally by Hie judge (Mr Paget Gale), after hearing the second section of the contest for the Bristol Company’s scholarship at the competions festival on Thursday morning last (says the Dominion). “ I have been much struck,” he said. “ since the opening of the competitions. with It,he playing of the younger people especially. I think that from the point of actual playing the little mie.s can give points to the big ones. Among the children from 10 to 12 I do nort think that pne gave me more than half a dozen wrong notes in the whole piece, while of the senior competitors none have given me fewer than half a dozen wrong notes in a page. Most of the seniors have gone in for getting their effect in chords, and by using arm action instead of wrist action. Some played right from the shoulders instead of from the wrists. I should say that most of the students have done little practise at scales, and no one can play the piano properly without good scale work. I have practised scales and arpeggios for from four to six hours a day. Seme girls would no more practise scales for an hour a day than they would try to fly, but anyone training to. be a pianist must do it. “ Another thing that struck me was that few of the players seemed to have the necessary faculty of seeing with the ear, and hearing with the eye. Piano music as it is printed consists simply of eye signs, and these must be interpreted, as it were, bythe visual eye. One performer gave an illustration of what I mean.' On one page he gave a splendid interpretation of the music, as though he had seen something on that page more than the notes, and he played that part very well.”