Busoni's 12 Commandments

[Goldberg]

*sigh* ok I'm sure it's quite obvious that I am bored and typing this at school even though I shouldn't be...anyway, I have too much time on my hands...

I found this in a book, though, called The Art of the Piano by Dubal. Some of you probably already have this but I thought it was REALLY cool. Unfortunately, he has a semi-unflattering passage about Cziffra, but he makes up for it with his hilarious comments about Lang Lang (as hilarious as you could expect in a book like this, I guess).

Anyway, this part is super-cool, at least for me. He list's 12 "Commandments" set forth by Busoni (not called that in the book) for pianists:

1) Practice the passage with the most difficult fingering; when you have mastered that, pla it with the easiest.
2) If a passage offers some particular technical difficulty, go through all similar passages you can remember in other places; in this way you will bring system into the kind of playing in question.
3) Always join technical practice with the study of interpretation; the difficulty often does not lie in the notes, but in the dynamic shading prescribed.
4) Never be carried away by temperment, for that dissipates strength, and where it occurs there will always be a blemish, like a dirty spot which can never be washed out of a material.
5) Don't set your mind on overcoming the difficulties in pieces which have been unsuccessful because you have previously practiced them badly; it is generally a useless task. But if meanwhile you have quite changed your way of playing, then begin the study of the old piece from the beginning, as if you did not know it.
6) Study everything as if there were nothing more difficult; try to interpret studies for the young from the standpoint of the virtuoso; you will be astonished to find how difficult it is to play a Czerny or Cramer or a Clementi Etude.
7) Bach is the foundation of piano playing, Liszt is the summit. Beethoven makes the two possible.
8 ) Take it for granted from the beginning tha everything is possible on the piano, even when it seems impossible to you, or really is so.
9) Attend to your technical apparatus so that you are prepared and armed for every possible event; then, when you study a new piece, you can turn all your power to the intellectual content; you will not be held up by technical problems.
10) Never play carelessly, even when there is nobody listening, or the occassion seems unimportant.
11) Never leave a passage which has been unsuccessful without repeating it; if you cannot do it in the presence of others, then do it subsequently.
12) If possible, allow no day to pass without touching your piano.

I find 3, 5, 8, 9 and 10 most important to my own practicing right now (5 especially for the HR6, heh). I'll copy these by hand into my book of PE's and concert etudes...it's great advice, even if some of it is common sense.

[Fryderyk]

"Word" on 1-9, DEFINITELY WORD on 10-12

[Max]

Cool stuff. I want to get the book. For me 10-12 are most important.

[Helling]

Unfortunately, my many lectures and conferences in my ordinary career prevent me from doing no 12. And it is depressing to feel your technique going backwards.

[Fryderyk]

Unfortunately, my many lectures and conferences in my ordinary career prevent me from doing no 12. And it is depressing to feel your technique going backwards.

You should have brought a heavily weighted keyboard with you, just like papa Liszt

[pocorina]

Let me add another:

13) There is a speed at which no wrong notes can occur. Play it at this speed ALL THE TIME.

N/B this speed will obviously become faster and faster the more familiar you become with the piece, but make sure that no wrong notes occur at all

[Helling]

Unfortunately, my many lectures and conferences in my ordinary career prevent me from doing no 12. And it is depressing to feel your technique going backwards.

You should have brought a heavily weighted keyboard with you, just like papa Liszt

I actually thought about that but couldn't find one that I liked. I usually practice on tables and just with the sheet music.

[PianistSk8er]

Let me add another:

13) There is a speed at which no wrong notes can occur. Play it at this speed ALL THE TIME.

N/B this speed will obviously become faster and faster the more familiar you become with the piece, but make sure that no wrong notes occur at all

Some people (*cough*SDC) are really going to argue against this one.. but I agree that one should really learn a piece inside out before bringing it up to speed. But like James once brought up at the old CF, the mindset of a pianist is usually very impatient and this 13th rule often becomes neglected.

Nice find Goldberg!

[citrine_peridot]

I actually thought about that but couldn't find one that I liked. I usually practice on tables and just with the sheet music.

i was doing that once during class, when i put up my head and pretended to listen to the teacher,there was a guy stareing at me as if i've killed his whole family. (o_O) i have no idea what i did wrong.

well, my school library doesn't have any interesting music-related books, when i have nothing to do, i just flip through those shallow ones and pick mistakes, once i found some, i left notes such as "man! tristesse is 10n3, 10n12 is the rev!!!" or " c'mom! op22 is a polonaise!". But the libraries in Toronto are so cool, they have a lot good recordings and sheet music. (and you can find a bunch of Glenn Gould biographies)

[Goldberg]

Let me add another:

13) There is a speed at which no wrong notes can occur. Play it at this speed ALL THE TIME.

N/B this speed will obviously become faster and faster the more familiar you become with the piece, but make sure that no wrong notes occur at all

Some people (*cough*SDC) are really going to argue against this one.. but I agree that one should really learn a piece inside out before bringing it up to speed. But like James once brought up at the old CF, the mindset of a pianist is usually very impatient and this 13th rule often becomes neglected.

Nice find Goldberg!

Thanks! I was excited too. I'm really quite interested in learning more about Busoni, especially as a pianist (his compositions are wonderful but not top-notch; Erik made a good point when he said they are more intellectual than emotional). He had some extraordinary ideas about pedalling, and was world-famous for his frequent, yet masterful, use of two or even THREE pedals at a time for the best effect. Apparently he even used a technique in which he rapidly moved the sustain pedal up and down to create a sort of vibrato!! I tried it, but nearly killed my right foot straightaway...heh, what does that tell you about my pedal technique?

Anyway, I quoted that because it struck me as rather interesting. Personally, I always try and push ahead in speed no matter what it means for missed notes (though I slow it way down if I can't hit 95% of them). A bad example of that technique's effectiveness is my HR6, so don't start criticising me on that point. I really think that if utilised correctly, however, an aggressive rather than cautious approach to speed will yield better results overall, technically and musically. In my experiences, playing a piece at "careful" speeds too much results in a slow and heavy performance---La Campanella is a bad good example of this, for me.

If you REALLY want to know how I approach my playing (I've said it elsewhere before), it's through implementation of that stuff above with Busoni's 9th "Commandment". Even though he might not have had technical exercises in mind, I personally practice Liszt's exercise book quite a lot these days. My thoughts on doing so are that I should attend to technique almost entirely separately from music (that is to say, I don't practice the exercises with complete disregard for the musical aspects like good tone, dynamics, etc., but they also aren't music...you know what I'm talking about), so I can concentrate on one--technique--or the other--music--but rarely both at the same time. This way, it's possible for me to learn and play pieces fast(er) than if I had to learn the technique along with the piece itself. I like being able to look at a piece--in fact, take my PE2 as an example--and play the 3rds and 4ths scales with more confidence than usual, because I practice those in the Exercise book, and I have a relatively solid fingering and "feel" for the configurations.

Exercises might be regarded as some as being a waste of time, but for me, they end up making up for it all when it comes to learning the pieces.

So, perhaps it's not entirely in correlation with Busoni's dictum, but it's mostly there.

[Brewtality]

At least Dubal mentioned Cziffra. Harold Schonberg neglects to do this in his "Great Pianists" book. He makes reference to hungarian pianism and cites Tamas Vasary and Kocsis as examples but does not mention ziff. Outrageous!

[Goldberg]

Ah, yeah, I noticed that at a bookstore once while reading through the book. That aside, he has some great stories about Liszt and some of the Romantic-era salon pianists.

Still, no Cziffra?? SNOB!

[pocorina]

14) the slower the practise, the better the performance

to back this one up, i will tell a small story about franz liszt, whom we all know and love. once, just before a concert was due to start, a young boy sneaked backstage and listening to listz's practise. he returned a few moments later, saying "this is terrible, he cannot play his pieces, for he is practising them extremely slowly" or words to that effect. And the Liszt strutted onto the stage, played his pieces superbly from start to finish (very fast) took his bow, and left.

a lesson we can all learn

suck on that, SDC

[PianistSk8er]

Another (actually, I saw this posted on a wall at a piano teacher's house)...

Fast practice = slow progress
Slow practice = fast progress
No practice = no progress

I think it's cute and supports your point.

[Max]

My teacher drilled slow practise into me, and I am very grateful - because now I can learn the notes of a piece in 3-4 playthroughs which probably takes about an hour, compared to months of learning it passage by passage!