"There is nothing that I have ever written for a piano that I haven't been able to play. Give me a day or so (but sometimes a year or two too) of practice and I can always get the music back into my fingers. Not that I can play as well as I'd like to, but at least I can convince myself that it's playable.

"With one or two exceptions, there are no songs in my book of 114 Songs which I haven't sung and couldn't sing, especially when I was writing them.

"I will admit that, if I haven't seen them for some time, as is the case with many of them, it takes a little practice and effort to get them back in the ears and mind.

"But there are but few of the songs that I can't (after a few hours of renewing acquaintance) sing, although I don't want to infer here that I'm a singer.

"I have a rough voice, but I can make a noise on the right note at the right time and on the right interval -- and, in spite of the piano, get the song going somewhere.

"Any singer can do the same thing if he makes up his mind to it, unless he is a congenital musical defective, or with about the same musical mentality that is sometimes the possession of famous operatic stars."