What the Teacher Should Memorize

By Adam Thompson

Of course it is the teacher's privilege to memorize as much of the literature of the instrument as he possibly can, but there are certain things that he should memorize as a matter of convenience. There is nothing so annoying to the pupil as the feeling that the teacher is peering over his shoulder like a giraffe. It not only lessens the pupil's confidence in his teacher, but it also adds greatly to his nervousness.

Any music page that demands close inspection by the teacher should be memorized thoroughly so that faults may be detected away from the keyboard. In fact the writer went to the trouble of memorizing all of the later studies in a Graded Course he was using. This was an immense help, since it was then possible for him to sit at a distance from the piano and determine certain artistic points that might have been ignored if he had hovered over the keyboard.