"Five-finger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at home there would have been no piano practice on such a gala occasion as a tenth birthday. There would have been no time for it in the program of joyful happenings. But because time dragged, Georgina went to her scales and five-finger exercises as usual. With the hour- glass on the piano beside her, she practised not only her accustomed time, till the sand had run half through, but until all but a quarter of it had slipped down. Then she sauntered listlessly out into the dining- room and stood by one of the open windows, ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fair use of it in his Geisterschaff; and in the classes of the Conservatoire, in which the high art of the mad dog is duly taught, the existing elementary exercises of the piano methods, [Figure: Musical example; a five-finger exercise] which are of a sonorousness as disagreeable as they are incomplete, ought to be replaced by this one, which will thus form the unique basis of the method of harmony—all the other chords, in use or not, being unable to be employed except by the arbitrary curtailment ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... down to the piano. It was a mournful instrument, reduced to discordant wheeziness by five-finger exercises, but the touch of the Swiss could still evoke from it some kind of harmony. He sang a Volkslied, and in a way which showed that there was poetry in the man's nature, though his outward appearance gave so little ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... bewildering array of all sorts of bric-a-brac. In time the father asked one of the daughters to play, and she responded with rather unbecoming alacrity. What she played I shall never know, but it seemed to me to be a five-finger exercise. Whatever it was, it was not music. I lost interest at once and so had time to make a more critical inspection of the decorations. What I saw was a battle royal. There was the utmost lack of harmony. The rugs fought the carpets, and both were at the ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... to be seen. There were carpets, rugs, and curtains in great profusion, and a bewildering array of all sorts of bric-a-brac. In time the father asked one of the daughters to play, and she responded with rather unbecoming alacrity. What she played I shall never know, but it seemed to me to be a five-finger exercise. Whatever it was, it was not music. I lost interest at once and so had time to make a more critical inspection of the decorations. What I saw was a battle royal. There was the utmost lack of harmony. The rugs fought the carpets, and both ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson |
