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"The Pianist's Talent" by Harold Taylor

Harold Taylor - 'The Pianist's Talent'
In this slim volume Harold Taylor helped crystallise for me decades of thinking about how to improve musical performance. I still refer to this book almost daily.

From the foreward by John Ogdon :

"I think many performers have had the feeling... that the music is playing itself and that they are the agents through which the music passes. ... Harold Taylor has convincingly shown... that... this feeling is the result of being in a certain state of muscular co-ordination."





Chapter 1: Towards a Definition of Talent.

This chapter starts by discussing the phenomena of infant prodigies.

"Talent may be briefly defined as the ability to perform without training."

Mark Hambourg aged 9
Mark Hambourg aged 9

"The most untalented person can usually perform a 5 finger exercise without training; at the other end of the scale we find the 'super-talents' such as John Ogdon, whom I remember sight-reading the Brahms D minor Concerto at the age of nine."

"The integration of thought and action which the virtuoso takes for granted... is seldom achieved by lesser talents, even after long years of study and practice."

" There is no fixed quota of talent .. at the disposal of an individual... all aspects of existence contribute to the manifestation or inhibition of one's potentialities."

"The superiority of the virtuoso stems not from the possession of any extraordinary capacities, but solely from the way in which his capacities function." "Real mastery of the keyboard is delineated by the very absence of ... struggle. "

"To increases one's capacity for co-ordination, however slightly, is infinitely more rewarding than any amount of hard labour... which does not serve that purpose."

READ ON

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