Scan 37
Chats to violin students on how to study the violin, 1895
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 21. See the scan on archive.org.
1violin and bow (of which I have spoken at length in the preceding chapters), and any tricks in style or awkward movements, such as swaying about and fidgetting, are the first to be guarded against. There is no special code of rules to lay down or methods I can positively mention, as each individual student generally demands some different method of instruction, but whoever the student may be, he must have a large amount of perseverance and earnest work to fall back upon. Hours of patient devotion will often be required to overcome a very small fault. In mastering one difficulty others are constantly revealed which have not suggested themselves before, and personally, when I have time, nothing gives me more infinite delight than struggling with some such passage either of double harmonics or some other complicated combination which the study of the violin still holds for me. The interest with which I can thus pass my time is very great.
3Many professional pupils make up their minds to have a few lessons from some well-known man in order to be able to announce themselves to their pupils and the public as pupils of so and so, but this is not fair either to the master or the student, as no material benefit can possibly be gained in a few lessons, and it is no credit to the professor for his name to be used under such circumstances. I speak from actual experience.
5I feel anxious to assure my readers that the few articles I have written on "How to study the Violin" can only be very elementary and superficial (if I may
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