I've been reading a collection of old papers in a book called "Great Pianists on Piano Playing", and have stumbled across some interesting advice. Some of it is rather silly, like practicing nerve control by balancing a bottle of mercury on your fingertips.

But there is also some real wisdom.
It seemed like it might be a neat idea to start our own little collection of wisdom... something both the seasoned players and the amateurs like me could benefit from.
So, I will start. If anyone else would like to chime in that would be excellent. Or perhaps this thread will suffer a morbid death, destined to suffocate deep in the folds of Piano Street archives, alone and dusty.

S.V. Rachmaninoff ends his paper entitled "Essentials of Artistic Playing" with the following:
Fine playing requires much deep thought away from the keyboard. The student should not feel that when the notes have been played his task is done. It is, in fact, only begun. He must make the piece a part of himself. Every note must awaken in him a kind of musical consciousness of his real artistic mission.
Sergei Rachmaninoff