Author: Unknown
•6:27 PM
By Ricardo Dominguez


Among American teachers Alexander Lambert takes high rank. For over twenty-five years he has held aloft the standard of sound musicianship in the art of teaching and playing. A quarter of a century of thorough, conscientious effort along these lines must have left its impress overall rising generation of students and teachers in this country, and made for the progress and advancement of American art.

This signifies a lot to have a native-born instructor of such high aims living and working between us; an instructor whom no support neither love of gain can influence nor render indifferent to the high aim ever in view. There is no getting out of the sound and comprehensive study course of study for those who come under Mr. Lambert's guidance. Scales must be, voluntarily or unwillingly, the everyday bread of the player; the hands must be put in good shape, the finger joints rendered firm, the arms and body supple, before pieces are thought of. Technical learn must carry on together the entire course, hand in hand with piece playing; method for its own benefit, outside the playing of compositions.

And why not? Is the approach of an art ever little completed? Can it ever be laid away on the shelf and considered complete? Must it not constantly be maintained in operating order? "Have you not noticed several changes within the aims of pupils, and also within the conditions of piano instructing in New York, in the course of the years you have taught here?" I asked Mr. Lambert, in the course of the latest discussion.

"Some changes, it is true, I have seen," he answered; "but I must also say that the conditions attending piano teaching in America are peculiar. We have some excellent teachers here, teachers who can hold their own anywhere, and are capable of producing finished artists. Yet let a pupil goes to the best teacher in this country, and also the chances are that he or she is still looking forward to 'finishing' with some European artist. They are not satisfied until they have secured the foreign stamp of approval. While this is true of the advanced pianist, it is even more in evidence in the mediocre player. He, too, is dreaming of the 'superior advantages,' as he calls Then, of European study. He may have no foundation to build on may not even be able to play a scale correctly, but still thinks he must go abroad!

"An individual question if I believe pupils may acquire just as great training here as in Europe? That is a little hard to response off-hand. I completely think all of us possess a few instructors within America as capable as almost any on the additional part; within several methods they are better. With regard to one thing they are morally better I repeat, morally much better. With regard to another they tend to be a lot more comprehensive: these people consider much more attention in their students as well as will do more for them. Whenever such an instructor is discovered, he definitely justifies the heavy value and appreciation of the American pupil. However 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 overseas for lessons with this or that well-known 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 a few of the finest international experts, however who are full of problems of all types, problems that it requires me many years to correct. Some of them are provided with difficult touch, with tighten position and problem of arms and body, with defective pedaling, and with a shortage of understanding of several of the fundamental concepts of piano playing.




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