I gave these talks at the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy, October, 1994. Richard Chronister, the director, didn't like long speeches, so he invited me to give six short speeches scattered through the four days of the conference. Since I am not a pianist, I came prepared to talk about music, using ideas from my article Resuscitating Art Music.

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The theme of the Conference was preparation, and there were six plenary teaching sessions, each with three teachers and one student observed by maybe a thousand piano teachers. Each student had videotaped practice sessions, and the teachers showed us clips to illustrate points about practice.

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After my first talk I scrapped the rest of my prepared speeches to address issues that came up in the teaching demonstrations and in hallway conversations. This written version of the talks tries to retain their conversational tone and improvisatory character. I am indebted to the many piano teachers who helped to elicit these thoughts during the conference, and I dedicate the texts, with gratitude, to the memory of Richard Chronister. The first talk followed his generous introduction...