Page:Letters to a Young Lady (Czerny).djvu/16

 so high that the elbows, when hanging down freely, may be a very little less elevated than the upper surface of the keys; and if your feet should not reach the ground, have a dwarf stool or ottoman made, of a proper height, to place them upon. You must always seat yourself exactly facing the middle of the key-board, and at such a distance from it that the tips of the elbows may be a little nearer to the keys than the shoulders.

Equally important is a graceful position and carriage of the head and upper part of the chest; it must neither be stiff nor bent. Some of my former little pupils, whom I used to teaze with the reproach of making a cat’s back—that is, sitting with their backs bent and oblique—have, in later days, thanked me for the strictness which I shewed in this particular.

It is not merely that an awkward position is disagreeable and ridiculous, but it also impedes, if not prevents, the development of a free and elegant style of playing.

The fore part of the arm (from the elbow to the fingers) should form a perfectly straight horizontal line, for the hand must neither rise upwards like a ball, nor be bent so as to slope downwards.

The fingers are to be so bent that the tips of them, together with that of the thumb, when extended outwards, may form one right