Playing the Piano for Pleasure: The Classic Guide to Improving Skills Through Practice and Discipline

141 Pages·2011·3.63 MB·English

by  Charles Cooke

PUBLISHER’S NOTE
From the 1960 edition
On the jacket of the original edition of Playing the Piano for Pleasure we wrote:
“The author of this book is one of the star reporters of The New Yorker. He is
also a novelist and the author of numerous short stories and innumerable
magazine and newspaper articles, many of them about music. Writing is his
profession. Playing the piano is his hobby—a serious adult hobby. The result is,
in effect, a book by an amateur addressed to other amateurs. It is written lightly,
persuasively, humorously, inspiringly. It is full of concrete suggestions and
instructions, based not only on the author's own experiences at the keyboard, but
also on research conducted by interviewing such master pianists as Horowitz,
Hofmann, Schnabel, Brailowsky, Arrau, and Rosenthal. These conversations
contribute much toward the generous potpourri of pianistic advice of the highest
caliber in this book. The wisdom of these giants is accompanied by gleanings
from the writings of Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Leschetitzky, Teresa Carreño,
Tobias Matthay, and Paderewski.”
In the years between the original publication of Playing the Piano for
Pleasure and preparation of the present edition, Charles Cooke led a life best
described, perhaps, as miscellaneous. In World War II, after twelve years on The
New Yorker staff, specializing in stories about concert music and musicians, the
opera, the theater, and the circus, he joined the Air Force. Assigned to
intelligence work, he rose from private to his present rank of lieutenant colonel
(retired), then became associate editor of, in turn, Esquire and Holiday, then
historian for the Far East Air Force in Tokyo, Korea, and Honolulu. He is now a
writer on nuclear radiation for the Radiological Health Division of the U. S.
Public Health Service.
James Thurber, in his book The Years with Ross, wrote:
“Ross was determined to make ‘The Talk of the Town’ the out-standing
department of the magazine, and it was a great help when God sent him Charles
Cooke, an efficient and tireless young reporter whose career on The New Yorker
was unique. Charles turned in more than twelve hundred stories; no other
reporter ever equaled his energy or came close to his output. Ross praised him as
‘a peerless reporter,’ but once remarked uneasily to me: ‘I'm surrounded by
piano players; why we haven't got a piano in this joint, I'll never know.’ Ross
was referring to E. B. White, William Shawn, John McNulty, Peter Arno, and
Charles Cooke.”
Today, Colonel Cooke lives in Washington, D. C. He gets in the daily hour of
systematized piano practice which he recommends for the startling results he all
but guarantees in this unique and widely popular book. He also does a daily hour
of duo-piano practice with his charming wife, Anne, an amateur pianist as
accomplished as himself. It wasn't always possible, he says, to practice
systematically while orbiting around the globe during and after World War II,
but he claims that a piano to practice on can almost always be found by an
amateur pianist if the hobbyist's gleam in his eye is sufficiently fierce. “The best
practicing I ever did,” says Charles Cooke, “took place in the little fishing
village of Keflavik, Iceland, and in the little farming village of Pyongtaek,
Korea.”

Copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Rogers
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is
available on file. ISBN: 978-1-61608-230-7
Printed in China
To the Memory of
Olga Samaroff Stokowski
and
William Kapell
CONTENTS
Preface to the Original Edition
Foreword by Michael Kimmelman
Part One
GOALS
1. The Place of Music in the Life of the Amateur
2. Climbing Higher on the Ladder of Piano Literature
3. Final Objectives
Part Two
MEANS
1. Materials
2. The Pleasant Necessity of Practicing
3. Repertoire
A. SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUR REPERTOIRE
B. TRANSFORMING WEAKEST PASSAGES INTO STRONGEST
C. MEMORIZING
D. AFTER MEMORIZING—RETENTIONG
E. PLAYING FOR OTHERS
F. “WHAT SHALL I LEARN NEXT?”
4. Technique
A. SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS
B. SPECIAL EXERCISES
5. Sight Reading
6. A Discussion of Certain Fine Compositions
7. How to Solve Problems in Polyrhythm