34 Method for the Guitar A SUMMARY OF GENERAL MAXIMS. 1—Regard the effect of the music more than the praise as to skill as a performer. 2—Require more from skill than from strength. g-—Be sparing of the operations called barring and shifting. 4—Consider fingering as an art, having for its object: To find the notes required within reach of the fingers that are to produce them, without the continual necessity of making deviations for the purpose of seeking them. 3-—Never make any ostentation of difficulty in playing, for by doing so it renders difficult what is the least so. 6.—Never give work to the weakest fingers, while the strongest are doing nothing. 7—Do not hold a finger down longer than the duration of the note to be played When two or three notes are made consecutively, on the same string of the guitar, if their progression be ascending, the second damps the sound of the first, and the third that of the second. By letting fall the finger which makes the second, and by raising that which stopped the first, two actions are made, instead of one, and there is a risk of raising the finger too soon, which would decrease the putity of sound. If the notes are descending, press the string (the finger is already upon it) and only have the action of raising the finger which stopped the highest note. ‘This spares a motion 8.—Avoid a lateral motion: viz., leave the parallel direction between the line formed by the ends of the fingers and the line of the strings. Example: In the successive notes A (on the ast string), G F%, ED (on the second), on making A the Singers have a good direction; but when the little finger quits A it goes off the finger-boasd, G quits ie in turn; and when the first finger remains alone on Fé, the line of the end of the fingers makes an angle of 45 deg. with the string, or rather all the hand is removed behind the neck, because the wrist does that which, done by the fingers, would give facility to the second to make D on the 2nd string, without the wrist making 2 motion to replace the band before the neck, unless the D be produced by the flat finger, which requires more force, and would be impossible without pressing the ast string also on G, which right be required as an open string immediately, and would necessitate a motion to release it When the hand is in a position, and the passage does not form harmony, place the wrist so that a straight line drawn from the first finger to the fourth shall be parallel to the string. Hold the wrist motionless, and keep the fingers over the place where they are to act 9.—When it is a question of a great distance in the width of the finger-board, and the little finger holds one extremity, take the other extremity with the longest finger. 10.—When a difficulty of position occurs, consult the least inconvenient situation of the weakest finger, and lay the task on the stronger. 11—When it is necessary to give to the line of the ends of the fingers a direction parallel to the fret instead of the string, make this change depend rather on the position of the elbow than on the motion of the wrist 12—Hold reasoning for a great deal, and routine for nothing. FINIS.