It should be the younger student’s aim and desire to get done with technic as soon as possible. There is no short cut. One cannot go around or under the mountain. One must climb straight over it. Therefore in the earlier lessons more attention must be given to technic than in the later lessons when a really masterly technic has been developed. The trouble is that most students seem to look upon it the other way.
Everybody knows that technic is only a means to an end; but without this means one does not reach the end.
—Josef Lhévinne
A pianist must be an epicure—that is just the expression for it. He must taste,
taste; not eat all the time. Out of four hours’ study, one who goes about his work
properly will play perhaps only one-half of that time. The rest
goes for pauses
to think about what has gone before,
and to construct mentally the following passage.
—Theodor Leschetizky