He
was playing without notes, and Falbe got up from his chair where he had
the book open, and put it on the piano.
"Do you find difficulty in memorising?" he asked.
This was discouraging; Michael believed that he remembered easily; he
also believed that he had long known this by heart.
"No; I thought I knew it," he said.
"Try again."
This time Falbe stood by him, and suddenly put his finger down into the
middle of Michael's hands, striking a note.
"You left out that F sharp," he said. "Go on. . . . Now you are leaving
out that E natural. Try to get it better by Thursday, and remember this,
that playing, and all that differentiates playing from strumming, only
begins when you can play all the notes that are put down for you to
play without fail. You're beginning at the wrong end; you have admirable
feeling about that prelude, but you needn't think about feeling till
you've got all the notes at your fingers' ends. Then and not till then,
you may begin to remember that you want to be a pianist. Now, what's the
next thing?"
Michael felt somewhat squashed and discouraged. He had thought he had
really worked successfully at the thing he knew so well by sight. His
heavy eyebrows drew together.
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