Page:Letters to a Young Lady (Czerny).djvu/32

 the keys appears tiresome and inconvenient; or, on the contrary, sometimes because the fingers are too unapt and sluggish to quit the key at the right moment.

Those who hold down the keys too long, accustom themselves to a lingering, adhesive, indistinct, and often discordant manner of playing. He who quits the keys too soon, falls into an unconnected, broken style of playing, which is without melody, and which at last degenerates into mere hacking and thumping the keys. That both modes will conduct us into the wrong path, I need not further explain to you.

The art of subdividing the notes consists in introducing the quicker notes, exactly at the right moment, among the longer ones.

But, as there occasionally occurs groups of notes which must be played very quick; if we are to observe the exact movement and the length of the bar, you will see, Miss, how necessary it is that the fingers should early be accustomed to play with readiness and rapidity. For without this, even with the best knowledge of the subdivision of the notes, we are at every moment in danger, either of lagging behind in the time, or of scrambling over these quicker notes in any way we best can.

You perceive here, again, that the diligent practice of the finger-exercises and scales if of the last importance; for the quick perception