AVOID RESTRICTING RULES

"Because our ancestors were brought up to study the piano a certain way,
and we--some of us--have been trained along the same rigid lines, does
not mean there are no better, broader, less limited ways of reaching the
goal we seek. We do not want to limit ourselves or our powers. We do not
need to say: 'Now I have thought out the conception of this composition
to my present satisfaction; I shall always play it the same way.' How
can we feel thus? It binds us at once with iron shackles. How can I play
the piece twice exactly alike? I am a different man to-day from what I
was yesterday, and shall be different to-morrow from what I am to-day.
Each day is a new world, a new life. Don't you see how impossible it is
to give two performances of the piece which shall be identical in every
particular? It _is_ possible for a machine to make any number of
repetitions which are alike, but a human, with active thought and
emotion, has a broader outlook.

"The question as to whether the performer must have experienced every
emotion he interprets is as old as antiquity. You remember in the
Dialogues of Plato, Socrates was discussing with another sage the point
as to whether an actor must have felt every emotion he portrayed in
order to be a true artist. The discussion waxed warm on both sides.
Socrates' final argument was, If the true artist must have lived through
every experience in order to portray it faithfully, then, if he had to
act a death scene he would have to die first in order to picture it with
adequate fidelity!"


THE QUESTION OF VELOCITY