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How many of you don't mind learning and playing unfamiliar pieces vs. those you would find familiar?

One of the things I am thinking of is those pieces found in lesson books in methods. If they are unfamiliar but have a catchy, nice sound, do you enjoy them or would you rather be playing pieces you know?

Also, in general, do you like to learn new pieces you haven't heard before or do you prefer learning those pieces you know and love?

Unfamiliar
There is more chalange and you are not influenced by milion of other recordings.
I never try to hear a piece pefore putting hands on.
After I master it I can look for its recording to compare.

Familiar pieces are more exciting to me, but I'm at the very beginning level, so it's nice to hear something that I know and recognize the way it unfolds. It makes playing the song easier.

And yes, there's a lot of influence from recordings, but once you understand the song, you can change it the way you like.

If it's unfamiliar, I like it when my teacher plays the piece once the way it should be. It could be intimidating, but it gives me a guide to follow.

But like I said, I'm a complete beginner, so maybe this'll change later on.

The process of a new piece is one of the most rewarding parts of music for me.

It starts with the signature, then getting the rhythm exactly right. Then phrasing, dynamics, expression. Etc, etc.

If I take all these pieces in their turn, very mindfully, the piece will start to present itself to me. It is the coolest thing!

Then I still have much work to do on it. But it's the journey more than the destination.

unfamiliar

I prefer learning familiar pieces, but learning an unfamiliar one is a whole lot more fun.

Both I would say.
The pieces I play are unfamiliar to non pianist but familiar to me since I heard them before on recordings. At the end I try giving my personal interpretation with my teacher's help versus copying the recording. I like also learning pieces whithout recordings if they have a nice melody but not too often because it makes me insecure. :p

double post. just realized it!

Almost all of the familiar pieces that I want to play are way above my head. So, I have no choice but to learn unfamiliar stuff. I am glad that it has worked out this way because I am expanding my horizons and realizing that beautiful music can be found at all levels.

As far as catchy tunes and so on, it has happened a few times that my teacher played a few pieces for me to pick which one to learn. Not really being drawn to any of them, I just chose some and later grew to LOVE them as I studied them. I don't know why exactly.

When I first started out, though, it was motivating to learn familiar tunes that were simplified arrangements. Things like Ode to Joy or Kumbaya.

In the method books I don't mind learning unfamiliar pieces. I know it for my own good and sometimes I end up really liking them.

Outside of the method books I prefer pieces that I'm familiar with or at least have heard once. I only want to invest my time it pieces that hit that sweet spot in the soul, if that makes any sense...

Mark

Put me firmly in the "familiar" camp. I don't think I've ever learned a piece that I was unfamiliar with. This is because (a) I already have too many FAMILIAR pieces that I am dying to learn but haven't gotten to yet, and (b) I find it much easier to learn a piece if I know what it's supposed to sound like.

The downside of my approach, of course, is that I am a lousy sight-reader. That's a glaring gap in my skill set I'm willing to live with for the time being.

Have you ever thought about trying one of the adult method series books to help your overall skill level ie "sight reading" as an adjunct. With your skills I bet you could fly through the whole series in just a few months (normally a couple of years) with minimal time invested compared to a beginner. You would then have those additional skills to add to what you are doing.

Mark

I have, Mark; it's really an issue of time. I don't have the time to play the stuff I really want to learn right now, so I'm not motivated to devote part of it to stuff I'm not as eager to learn, even though it would without a doubt be good for me.

When I fantasize about taking super-early retirement, and/or becoming a stay-at-home mom, taking formal lessons and filling in all those gaps is right up at the top of my list of what I'd do.

If you asked me 2 years ago I would go for familiar (that would be church music mostly) but since I learned some classical pieces (love those fast etudes and polonaises or even a slow sarabande!) I'm converted to playing unfamiliar. Yesterday a song I was playing for 3 weeks (it's a holiday season so the learning curve is a bit lower) now suddenly fell into place... I love that feeling. You get the rhythm and you hear a complete orchestra instead of your own playing that is a true motivator for me.

When approaching a new piece, or selecting music in the first place, you are probably basing your choices upon your personal preferences if you are self-teaching. With a teacher in the picture, you will probably be asked to do both.

Are you visual? Aural (ear)? Or, tactile? One needs and wants to use the printed music page and do everything in a structured way - the aural is very aware of recall and comparisons and less likely to be visual (so he/she has to put effort into music reading), and the tactile must process the music through the body to understand it.

For memorization, you are probably going to be most successful if you demand of yourself that you study the piece in all 3 ways, and the combinations of more than one way that we all have.

Personality and learning style have a lot to do with how we proceed at anything we undertake musically.

You will be getting a good preparation if your teacher is teaching to your strengths AND to your weaknesses. If you avoid doing the thing you do not like to do, you will probably not be totally as accomplished as you would be if you took up the challenge and acquired the skill set you are lacking. When just doing what comes easiest to you, you are resting on your natural talents.

Piano study is the most challenging work your brain will take on - and it provides much growth and development to your brain. That's why expanding your knowledge base will bring so many rewards to you.

There is a structure to learning and processing music, it works better to have concrete-sequential habits and random and abstract. Both can be put into place and both contribute to self-actualization at your instrument.

Well, perhaps it doesn't seem this way to others, but the above quote seems to me lean towards a judgment about the value of folks choosing what they want to learn in the way they want to learn it, which *I* find in several of your posts, tho many others do not. To me, and again it may be only me, it's the "tone" of this post that I find - hm. dogmatic The fact that *to you* people might be *only* resting on their natural talents and not as *totally accomplished* as they might be otherwise ignores entirely that individual's goals, choices, temperaments, life situations, maturity, and satisfaction. Someone once suggested that we all label our posts F or O, for fact or opinion, and it would be, I think (that makes this statement an "O") nice if you would qualify the statements that you make as opinions - I understand that you have strong opinions, but at least for me I could respect them more if they weren't stated as if they were fact - a personal preference of mine, admittedly. I actually don't even know that I agree that "piano study is the most challenging work your brain will take on" - altho the challenge is certainly part of the fun for me.

There is a structure to learning and processing music, it works better to have concrete-sequential habits and random and abstract. Both can be put into place and both contribute to self-actualization at your instrument. [/QUOTE]

You've also mentioned several times that sequential is important to you, and at least this time you mentioned "random" tho I'm not sure what you meant by that, but again it seems to me that learning *best* by sequential may not be a universal trait, so it would sound more factual to me say something like "for many people it works better" or "in my opinion" or "in my experience" or something similar.

Again, I understand that you have strong opinions. So do I And I don't mind agreeing to disagree. But it would, for me, allow for more discussion if opinions weren't asserted quite so much as if they were universal.

How did the music literacy seminar go this weekend? Hope it turned out to be fun for you -

Cathy

Thanks Cathy,

You really helped me with the just tuning comments last time! I learned a great deal by taking 3 classes over the weekend (each 3 hours long) and then my giving a one 3 hour class, too on "Music Reading Empowerment". It was part of "Harmony College North West" (30 years old) and draws attendees from WA, OR, ID, MT, AK, British Columbia, and Alberta. (A cappella singers - mostly barbershopers male and female).

My husband runs off soon for a week long "Harmony University" in barbershop chorus directing in Saint Joseph, Missouri. We had a great time and came home exhausted. He was the "Registrar" and I was one of 33 "Faculty Members.

About my "opinions" - I do realize I have habits of judgment, but I think it stems from my piano teaching which I call "Directive Education". And, over the 36 years of teaching, I have experienced a lot, and feel that my "opinions" are the result of what I have experienced about learning and teaching.

I get the most results from the way I see teaching can be done, and I would say, that as a teacher, the adult student is the more difficult to teach, because of the "conflict" between making progress quickly (my goal) and the AB's goals to enjoy it over everything else, to play mostly familiar music of their choosing.

I want to meet some of those desires, at certain times, but I also want to teach to their learning styles and get them where they want to be by directing the education to their needs and providing sensible and very musical choices for music study.

This is the part about "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink". (Did you see the Chuck Norris comment in the threads? Loved it!)

Just like school, I have a "curriculum, and a "lesson plan" in place. We have to both be getting what we need from and into the lesson.

Participants in the class I taught came up to me over the weekend and said "Thank You, I had break throughs and aha! moments in your class", or they said about my participation in other teacher's classes, that I asked some relevant questions that helped the teacher respond to what the "students" were not getting. I knew from my class what the level of some of the participants were, and that the class was over their head unless they had background information. And, I just kept asking questions of the teachers who very willingly gave that information and created the broader base that some of the people needed.

And, this to me, is some of what I believe in, about "Directive Education". I just really feel confident that I know and recognize the next step that will help someone stay on the path and continue to make progress, sometimes by leaps and bounds. (Now, I'm expecting the comments to come in about bragging.) (I'm sounding like Wanda Landowska in another thread!) (Better quit while I'm ahead!)

Please just take anything I say/write as an opinion. And, I appreciate knowing other viewpoints. I have said recently that I am learning a lot about AB's preferences and needs by reading and being a participant here.

Have you noticed that the teacher's forum has been lacking for posts lately, but the AB's forum is thriving? You guys are very lively and extremely interested in each other, too.

Thanks again, Cathy!

Before I started having lessons I stuck to familiar - essentially Chopin. My teacher introduced me to Scriabin (he thought I'd like it based on what I'd told him and he was right) and at first it was like reading a foreign language - but eventually I learned to get the notes off the page as naturally as Chopin. We did the same with other composers whose piano works were not so familiar to me and I can only see it as (it certainly 'feels like' ) a good thing. I loved the music too! "rounded" is a word he uses a lot... Which is why we also do Bach and Mozart - some of which I like but don't 'love' - but I realise it's doing me good - Bach/Mozart is 'exposed' music - there is nowhere to hide...

Given the quantity/qualtity of music out there, there is probably no need to sacrifice a little bit of the present for the future; but in principle I have no problem with that approach; as with learning any other skill...

Luckily I have a piano teacher who skillfully points me at pieces I like while also working on my weaknesses. In fact he was looking though my CD collection the other day and said "I'm surprised to see that in there" - I smiled - "an unplayed present"...

Good teachers are worth their weight in gold.

You do seem to be a very prepared teacher, and that's good. And you are most likely the right teacher for your students. I just think it's important to realize that some of us, me for instance, have a pretty good idea of our learning styles, love the way we learn, and accomplish plenty, and would likely *not* accomplish what we wanted to accomplish if we tried to do it your way -

Maybe that horse had just drunk plenty of water from a different stream

Sounds like it was a great weekend.

Cathy

Betty wrote of While I do play mostly music of my own choosing, very little of it is familiar. For almost a year I taught myself because I couldn't find a good teacher who was available during the limited window I have available for lessons, and during that time I played very little music that I'd heard before. Instead I explored composers like Martha Mier, Elizabeth Greenleaf, Margaret Goldston, William Gillock, Judith Strickland, etc, who write pieces for people at my level that are designed to help you acquire the skill set you'll need for the familiar but difficult stuff. I tried method book pieces but didn't enjoy them - I really don't like dumbed-down versions of familiar music.

I don't want to give the impression that I played unfamiliar music just to help me build my skills though - I love the challenge of having to figure out how something I've never heard should sound. And I love that moment of discovery when I realize I've picked up something I'm really going to enjoy. And of course, another reason for playing unfamiliar music is to try some of the pieces people mention on the forum. I would never have found David Nevue without Monica's recommendation/

Donna