Page 582 SEPTEMBER 1920 TIIE ETUDE How to Hold Your Audience By Philip Gordon Playing in the Right Octave SOME performers get the attention of their audience as soon as they step forward, and hold it until the end. Others either get attention and lose it in the course of their performance or else get no response from the audience at first, but develop interest in the course of the performance. Still others never interest their audi-ence at all. The purpose of this article is to give some hints, based on personal experience and observa-tion, which will help you grip the audience and hold it. Personality Counts In many cases reputations are made or not made simply by the general demeanor of the performers. The moment you step before your audience they decide, without conscious effort, whether or not they are going to like you. If you slouch along over the stage, or enter timidly, or frown and look pompous, you are going to sing or play to an audience unfavorably dis-posed at the start; and unless you sing or play like an angel you are not going to stir their interest deeply. On the other hand, decisive, businesslike, authoritative deportment, a cordial smile, will win your audience at once, and they will pardon much to which they might otherwise have taken exception. You must always remember that your position towTard your audience is that of a leader and a prophet, and that the people before whom you appear are willing—more than that, anxious—to have a great spirit lead them. And if the people are to rest their emotions with you and are to accept you as their leader you must inspire them with confidence the first moment they see you. It is true that when Abraham Lincoln arose to ad-dress the multitude assembled on the battlefield of Gettysburg many in the audience tittered; and it is true that when Abraham Lincoln sat down the cheeks of the multitude were wet with tears. But remember that there was only one Lincoln. Rhythm the Real Magnetic Force in Music Now, assuming that you have gained the confidence of the audience at the start, how are you to keep their interest? For it is easy to make a good impres-sion and then lose it by a performance that lacks virility and magnetic power. The expression of Hans von Bulow has become classic: "In the beginning there was rhythm." You may play with little or no feeling, you may make mis-takes galore, but if you are a master in rhythm you will hold your audience, not until the end, to be sure, for rhythm alone is not enough, but certainly for a long time. Now it so happens that rhythm is a term capable of several definitions. For practical purposes it is suf-ficient to distinguish between rhythm in the abstract and an individual rhythm. By an individual rhythm we mean simply a particular combination of time values. Everyone who has heard Beethoven's C minor ing theme An Injured Right Hand a Blessing By Benjamin E. Galpin TEACHERS of piano, have you ever heard anything like this?: "I am sorry, but it will be impossible for my daughter to come for her lesson to-day, as she has in-jured her right hand so that she has been unable to practice for the past two days. I regret this very much, for she has been so interested lately. Will call you on phone as soon as her hand is well enough to resume her practice." It is well for teachers to know how to handle a case like this, for you are bound to be confronted with just such situations. You will not only have your plans interrupted, but your pupil is apt to fall back to some extent. The telephone is a poor place to discuss personal mat-ters at any great length. So the young lady was re-quested to call at my studio and be provided with a book on the History of Music and Biographies of Great Masters that, while she was away* from her piano prac-tice, her ambitions might be inspired to greater work. Her hand zvas injured, and not her brain. * It would be just as sensible to stop a whole railroad from operating just because a single engine was wrecked. The pupil was delighted at the suggestion and, after some fascinating facts were told of certain old masters, she fairly danced in her hurry to go home and begin her new work. At the close of our pleasant, little talk, I told her, also, of an experience of my own, when I was just starting in the musical life. A coveted position had come to me, and was to be open in about six weeks. I was overjoyed and determined to make good. So I laid out a course of piano work for those six weeks that would advance my technic and make me confident of my ability to hold the position. And then, just as I had got down to. practice, my right hand was caught in a bicycle chain and so badly injured , that the doctor said it would be at least two weeks before I could use it. I was in despair. But after three unhappy days of idleness, a brilliant thought occurred to me. It was this: "Your left hand is far behind your right in tech-nical skill; why not take this time to bring it up to the mark?" So I got down to hard work and practiced scales, octaves, arpeggios and chords and all the left-hand studies I could get hold of. That injured right hand is now, as I look back, one of the greatest blessings that ever came my way. For when I got the invalid right hand back on the piano keys, I was delighted to note that the left hand no longer lagged behind, but took its part with skill and energy. It had caught up with its mate. And it has kept that winning stride ever since. The young lady saw the application of this experience to her own case and came faithfully for left-hand prac-tice as long as her right hand was in its sling. And to-day she, too, looks upon the accident as a real bles-sing in disguise. By Harold S. Clickner symphony remembers the striking rhythm of the open-Music is full of such time combina-tions, repeated continually in the course of a piece. The notes of the melody may be different, but the rhythm will be preserved intact (though there is no prohibition against a variation which does not affect the rhythm fundamentally). If you want to hold your audience you must follow these rhythms about and give them life each time they occur. In this way your performance takes on character, and what was before a mere jumble of notes becomes a matter of vital interest and meaning. Take, for instance, the end of the second movement of Beethoven's piano sonata opus 10, number 3. At first you may think there is nothing important about the two notes with which the movement ends—two low D's in the following rhythm: ,N An examination of the last twelve measures will show the importance of that simple succession of a short and long syllable. If we number these meas- -ures from 1 to 12, then the last note of number 1 and the first note of number 2 give us this rhythm; the same is true of measures 2-3 and so on to 5-6, not to mention the occurrences in the middle of 4 and the middle of 5. The last four measures consist solely of iterations of this rhythm. Work Toward a Climax As for rhythm in the abstract, that is a matter which should be as much a part of your subconscious equipment as touch. Rhythm in the abstract is simply the regular occurrence of a point of weight, and you must always feel yourself going from a point of com-parative unimportance to a point of climax. The prog-ress is usually from the first measure to the second and from the third to the fourth, and so on. Or, if you should have to think in larger groups, from cne group of two measures to the next group of two meas-ures. There is a tendency among musicians to put all their attention in the first few notes of a phrase, and then let the interest die out; after awhile they decide to take fresh start, and repeat the same process. As a matter of fact, the exact contrary should be the case. If you want to hold your audience you must always lead them from a starting point to a climax. These remarks do not in any way exhaust the matter of holding your audience, but if you can train your-self to look the leader you wish to be, if you can learn to shed light on the dull page by careful attention to the groupings of time values, and if you can constantly progress from one point to another, building up the sig-nificance of the music as you go, you will have won at least half the battle. SOMETIMES young beginners have difficulty in locat-ing the right octave in which to play their studies, scales, pieces, etc. They find the right note according to its letter name, but in the wrong part of the key-board. In such cases, the mistake is usually due to a hazy idea of the Grand Staff, and the position of the two clefs. The following way of teaching staff nota-tion has been found successful. The Great Staff con-sists of eleven lines : Middle C The dotted line, between the two groups of five, is the eleventh line. Upon this is found Middle C. Middle C is also the middle of the keyboard—this is not pre-cisely true, of course, but it is near enough true for our purpose. Be sure to have the pupil get the exact loca-tion of Middle C, both on the keyboard and on the staff. Then follows the explanation of the clefs. In the upper staff we have the G, or Treble Clef. Point out that it curls round the second line, locating the G above Middle C definitely. In the lower staff we have the F, or Bass Clef. Point out that this also curves around the line, locating the F below Middle C. Middle C —G -Now show the pupil that each of these clefs is located five scale degrees from Middle C, the G clef five step*?, or a "fifth" above, and the F clef five steps, or a "fifth'1 below. Middle C is always the center. Drill the loca-tion of these two clefs until mastered. Suppose a pupil has a piece starting as follows: Have him find the first note of the left hand part on the keyboard. Upon observation he will tell you that it is the first G above the F clef. As he has already mastered the location of this clef from Middle C he will have no trouble in locating this particular note. Similarly he will be able to locate the D in the treble staff by the fact that it is a fifth above G. Now he is ready to play all his pieces in the right octaves. The teacher would do well to pick out different measures from the pupil's studies and pieces, drilling him in them until there is no doubt left in the pupil's mind. Later on it is advisable to teach him that each octave has its own special name—the Great Octave, Small Octave, one-lined, two-lined, three-lined octaves, etc., but this is not needed just at first. How to Make Your Practice Time Less Tedious By E. H. P. THE best way of all is to be actively interested in what you are doing. If you are trying to memorize some attractive piece which you hope to play at a re-cital, or if you are intent on attaining a certain metro-nome speed, or some other particular point of excel-lence on a particular exercise, the time will pass before you know it, but if you-are simply trying to kill time at the keyboard for the space of an hour, two hours, or whatever the case may be, it will always seem dull to you. However, even with the best intentions in the world, there are certain things about practice that will be unavoidable drudgery, and for these it is best to allot a certain definite part of the practice hour—ten minutes to this, fifteen minutes to that, etc. Madame de Stael, a clever French essayist of the last century, once remarked: "I see that time divided is never long, and that regularity abridges all things.",
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