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Jackson's Gymnastics for the Fingers and Wrist / being a system of gymnastics, based on anatomical principles, for developing and strengthening the muscles of the hand for musical, mechanical and medical purposes: with thirty-seven diagrams cover

Jackson's Gymnastics for the Fingers and Wrist / being a system of gymnastics, based on anatomical principles, for developing and strengthening the muscles of the hand for musical, mechanical and medical purposes: with thirty-seven diagrams

Chapter 16: CHAPTER VIII. ARTISTS AND TEACHERS OF MUSIC.
By Edwin Ward Jackson
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About This Book

The author sets out a system of exercises grounded in anatomy and physiology to develop and strengthen the muscles, ligaments, and joints of the fingers, hand, and wrist. After describing experimental origins and critiques of standard instrumental training, the work presents practical routines, explanatory diagrams, and apparatus recommendations for musicians, artisans, and those with hand ailments. It explains principles, methods of instruction, and staged exercises for free movement and use of portable and fixed implements, and outlines therapeutic applications such as treatment for rheumatism and contortions, concluding with guidance on instruction, testing, and adoption of these techniques in gymnastic and medical practice.

CHAPTER VIII.
ARTISTS AND TEACHERS OF MUSIC.

If any one should say that he has diligently studied the piano and violin after the method used at present, and in course of time has learned and taught it with the greatest success, without having found it necessary to trouble himself about any other system, my reply is, that music is one of the most beautiful, and with respect to muscular work, the most difficult of arts, and that all the arts and sciences, music not excepted, have made enormous strides in advance during the present century. But exactly because music has become a universal boon for all classes of the civilized world, one ought to be so much the less disposed to shut out new ideas respecting it, from whatever side they may come. The representatives of this art, professional musicians and teachers of music, are generally the most active and often the most educated men, who devote their lives to the art, and promote it in a way which is hardly acknowledged sufficiently by the musical world. The most highly honoured, however, are those who have made the greatest progress in theory and in practice, or who have readily and generously acknowledged such progress, from whatever direction it might come.

It is, therefore, the duty of all to assist teachers of music and proficients, as much as possible, in promoting this beautiful accomplishment; for this reason, encouraged by persons of the highest distinction, and moved by the love of the art and of mankind, I venture to make known my “Gymnastics of the Fingers and Wrist,” and to offer to all who work with their fingers in general, and to musicians in particular, a means which, based on physiological principles, leads most surely to the attainment of artistic execution, and which is in itself so simple, that any child may use it; a means, too, which will effect a great saving of time and facilitate the work of both teachers and students.

I have only to add that, as a matter of course, these exercises, in order to have the desired effect, should be performed gymnastically and regularly, according to the directions given, and not otherwise; whilst, on the other hand, they ought not to be carried to excess, nor are they intended to supersede the usual finger-exercises, scales, and studies.