Chapter 10: Broken Chords, their use

BROKEN CHORDS, THEIR USE

After having gone through the entire range of scales, many difficulties will be smoothed out by the practical experience acquired; the movement of the hand will be easier, the stroke of the tongue quicker and more rapid; but the scales will have presented to the pupil, all more or less, the same pattern of regularity and exercise, in that, whether ascending or descending, they proceed by a series of steps, and offer no distance to be crossed. The student will therefore have to practise on less uniform studies, and in such a way as to accustom him to move from a low tone to a high one, and vice versa.

It is with this aim in mind, and in order to satisfy new requirements, that I have placed here, following the scales, a series of broken chords, which will facilitate the student's ability to develop the necessary aptitude for traversing the different intervals, and will also contribute greatly to improving his performance, and to giving strength and lightness to his tongue, by correcting, as far as possible, the flaw in its organisation, which so often causes it to become sluggish.

The performer is at liberty to vary the articulation of the first sixteen sections as he pleases; but only when he has worked them out in accordance with the written articulation, i.e. by striking each note at the same time with strength and lightness, and after he has succeeded in executing them in a fairly rapid movement.

By Julius Pranevičius