Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Your feelings on learning more than one piece at a time?

Oh Ragnhild, I love you for saying that! And thanks Piano Dad, you calmed my guilty conscience. Usually, I have 4-5 pieces on my plate, all at different stages of progress, and every once in a while I shuffle the stack. Only that now with Christmas approaching I plunged into last year's songs that I wasn't able to play back then - what a feeling now! And my duet partner & friend insisted that I eventually practice our Schubert march (...) and some Petersburg sleigh ride (total fun!).... Burried under sheet music...

Patty

I love being overwhelmed with too much sheet music. I always want more and enjoy sight reading material to determine my interest level. When I take something seriously I will focus on it heavily to get it up to par. Otherwise, I am shuffling close to 50 selections at a time of things I like to play around with. I really enjoy the variety and exposure to many new musical experiences.

3 or 4 at at time

6 or 7 "repertoire" pieces trying to keep fresh.
2 or 3 newly learned - polishing pieces
1 or 2 brand new teacher assigned pieces
1 or 2 brand new self assigned pieces
so.....about 10 or I guess... but in different stages of completion.
then there's those little studies...... and chord, arpeggios, etc...
and the many "above my level" pieces that I fool around with .... so much music.....

I usually have any number of pieces I am working on at any given time (usually not more than six). I keep notes on memorized pieces on index cards that I keep in a filebox. Once I memorize a piece I don't like to go back to the music. I would rather jot down notes on a card and then put the card on the music desk if I have to.

Since I have a teacher (january 2006), I work on 3 to 4 pieces at a time. Before I would work on something and really never ended the work. It was frustrating, I sight read very fast, but to polish the piece you have to work on it, for me it takes approximately 2 to 3 month just to play it smoothly. I play intermediate pieces. I'm more satisfied today and I can play the "old" pieces and realize, how much have I improved with my new teacher. I'm 39 and I just love to play the piano.

If you don't win with this Mr S-H, I'm sure you'll make Brickman's day with it.
I say bravo for sticking at it for so long AND then changing it totally with the advice you recieved! This is a great one to have in the repertoire.

I think we've come one step closer to understanding your method, just a thought on that, maybe you could write the chords you're playing in the bass on your cheat sheet so you can start memorising their location etc, I plan to start learning these sometime..I'd love to be able to accompany a singer or a band by just banging out some chords without thinking too much.

SuperHunky, Wow! That Lake Eerie song was a real treat to listen to. Thanks for posting it!

I currently dont' have a teacher, so I'm just working on one piece at a time. I feel that I make better progress this way since my focus is just on that one piece as oppose to several pieces at once. I also end up leanring a piece quicker.