
It infers considerably to have a native-born teacher of such high aims living and working among us; a professor whom no flattery or love of gain can influence nor render indifferent to the high aim ever in view. There is no escaping the sound and detailed study course of study for those who come under Mr. Lambert’s supervision. Scales must be, voluntarily or unwillingly, the everyday bread of the player; the hand must be put in good shape, the finger joints rendered firm, the arms and body supple, before pieces are thought of. Technical study must continue along the complete course, hand in hand with piece playing; method for its own sake, outside the playing of compositions.
And why not? Is the technique of an art ever quite finished? Can it ever be laid away on the shelf and considered complete? Must it not constantly be placed within working order? “Have you not noticed many changes in the aims of pupils, and also in the conditions of piano instructing in New York, while in the years you have taught here?” I asked Mr. Lambert, in the course of a latest discussion.
“Some modifications, it is correct, I have observed”, he clarified; “however We should also say in which the disorders attending piano training in America are peculiar. We possess a few excellent lecturers here, educators who could hold their own anywhere, as well as tend to be suitable of generating finished performers. However let a pupil goes to the ideal teacher in this nation, as well as the probabilities are usually that he or she will be still looking forward in order to ‘finishing’ with some European artist. These people are not really happy right until they possess secured the foreign stamp of acceptance. While this is accurate of the superior pianist, it is also much more in evidence within the actual mediocre player. He, too, is fantasizing of the ‘superior benefits’, because he calls Then, of European study. He may have no basis to develop upon may not even be able to perform a scale correctly, yet nonetheless believes he must move in another country!
“You ask if I consider pupils can acquire just as great teaching here as in Europe? That is a little difficult to respond to off-hand. I totally think all of us have several instructors in America as capable as any on the other side; within several techniques they are better. Regarding one thing they are morally better I repeat, morally much better. According to another they are usually a lot more detailed: these people take more attention in their pupils as well as will do more for them. When such a teacher is observed, he definitely justifies the strong value and appreciation of the American student.
But unfortunately, he rarely encounters the appreciation. After he has done anything for the pupil fashioned him into a well-equipped artist, the student is apt to say: ‘Now I will go abroad for lessons with this or that famous European master!’ What is the outcome? He may never amount to anything may never be heard of afterward. On the other hand, I have students coming to me, which have already been years along with some of the greatest foreign experts, however who are full of problems of all kinds, problems which it requires me many years to correct. Some of them are provided with difficult touch, with tighten position and condition of arms and body, with defective pedaling, and with a lack of knowledge of several of the fundamental rules of piano playing.
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