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Among American tutors Alexander Lambert takes high rank. Regarding over 23 years he has held aloft the normal of sound musicianship in the art of teaching and playing. A quarter of a century of thorough, conscientious effort along these lines must have left its impress on the entire rising generation of students and lecturers in this country, and fabricated for the progress and advancement of American art.

It means a lot to have a native-born educator of such high aims living and working between us; an instructor whom no flattery or love of gain can influence nor render indifferent to the high aim ever in view. There is no avoiding a sound and comprehensive study course of study for those who come under Mr. Lambert's supervision. Scales must be, willingly or unwillingly, the daily bread of the player; the hands must be put in good shape, the finger joints rendered firm, the arms and body supple, before pieces are thought of. Technical learn must carry on along the whole course, hand in hand with piece playing; method for its own sake, outside the playing of compositions.

And why not? Is the method of an art ever completed? Can it ever be laid away on the shelf and considered complete? Must it not usually be maintained in working order? "Have you not observed many changes within the aims of pupils, as well as in the conditions of piano training in New York, through the many years you have taught here?" I asked Mr. Lambert, in our latest conversation.

"Several changes, it is correct, I have noticed," he answered; "however I should additionally say in which the problems going to piano instructing in America are unusual. All of us possess a few outstanding lecturers here, educators that could keep their own place, as well as are usually effective of generating finished performers. Nevertheless allow a student goes to the finest teacher in this country, as well as the chances are usually which he or she is actually still seeking forward to 'finishing' with some European artist. They are not necessarily happy right until they possess anchored the foreign stamp of acceptance. While this is accurate of the superior pianist, it is also much more in evidence within the average player. He, too, is fantasizing of the 'superior benefits,' since he calls Then, of European study. He may have no basis to build upon may not necessarily actually be able to play a scale correctly, yet however believes he need to go abroad!

"An individual question if I believe students may get just as good teaching here as in Europe? That is a little challenging to answer off-hand. I totally think we have some teachers within America as able as almost any on the other side; in some techniques they are better. For one thing they are morally better I repeat, morally better. For another they are usually a lot more comprehensive: they take more interest in their pupils as well as will do more for them. When such an instructor is discovered, he certainly justifies the strong value and gratitude of the American pupil. But alas, he rarely encounters the gratitude. After he has done anything for the pupil fashioned him into a well-equipped artist, the student is liable to say: 'Now I will go in another country for lessons with this or that well-known European master!' What is the result? He may never amount to anything may never be heard of afterward. On the other hand, I have individuals coming to me, who have already been years along with some of the greatest overseas experts, yet who are full of faults of all types, problems which it requires me many years to correct. Some of them are provided with tough touch, with tense position and condition of arms and body, with faulty pedaling, and with an absence of understanding of some of the fundamental principles of piano playing.