Scan 28
The violin : solo playing, soloists and solos, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 12. See the scan on archive.org.
1greatest of these advantages is that it pre-occupies the mind. If carelessness gets first hold and first possession, it is awkward to eradicate it. It is absolutely necessary to give to music all the advantages we can by dint of education. Of course the mind and attention should be constantly fixed upon something beyond ordinary execution. Study every side of violin playing, and enter into everything relative to the subject; at the first, technique should be studied with more assiduity than solos, no matter how interesting or what pleasures the latter excite.
3But the question between technique and solos is not generally placed before the mind in a fair manner. What one aims at is solo-playing; what appeals to the majority of natures is invariably solo-playing. But scales, tone, and staccato bowing in its many intricate varieties are the chief things so absolutely necessary to become a good soloist. Strive against the temptation of performing solos until a solid foundation is laid. It is not inferred that solos should be excluded from your daily practice, or that beauty of tone should sink under it; on the other hand, every attention ought to be given to it. If we persist in only practising light studies and mere trifles, there would be a tendency to gradually imbibe a strong coldness and indifference to more diligent study. These things have a tendency unfavourable to serious thoughts. They will destroy the earnestness of anyone, and often prevent the formation of it.
5Many men of great natural capacity, for want of persevering fixedness of purpose, are utterly lost to the world. Unfortunately, however, for themselves, too many neglect wholesome training and supinely waste their time in indolence.
7The want of proper seriousness in music is almost sure to be the consequence of the absence or disuse of technical exercises. Some violinists have never studied any scales or technical things since first they commenced to handle an instrument; some, very few hours in their lives. With them it is the absence of
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