Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Repertoire - to maintain or not??

A lot of ensemble playing like in Chamber music is done with the score - even by professionals. E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP1WFiNCCZU - Martha Argerich is sight-reading it though given who she is, I'm sure she is familiar with the work but doesn't have it memorized. I think you really need to be able to both memorize and sight-read depending on the circumstances. Personally, my "repertoire" is just the pieces I can play well - via memorization or sight-reading is immaterial - my friends and family don't complain when I play from sheet music and neither should anyone else!

She's not sight-reading it. That's what you do the first time you read a piece. She's reading it, having practiced it a lot (either with or without the score) since she sight-read it the first time of seeing it.

It would be very unusual for someone reading from the score in performance, to actually be sight-reading: i.e. seeing the piece for the first time.

Agreed - but she's not got it memorized either, that's what the point I was making. Not prima vista reading but she doesn't have it memorized as part of her concert repertoire like she does say the Rach 3.

I certainly didn't mean that there's something wrong with using sheet music! It all depends on the circumstances and what one wants to do. I have zero interest in playing with others, my teacher has tried to urge me, but I am simply not interested.

At this point it's less important for me which pieces I play actually (as long as I like them), it's all about getting the piano work for me instead of me working for the piano (that's how I feel now). So I want to have pieces that I can just play from memory concentrating on the finesse while practicing the other pieces to learn new techniques. Looking at my hands is part of controlling and analysing the movements, I simply don't have good enough kinetic sense to always know what I am doing without looking. I also feel that after so many years of neglect my brain needs all type of exercise, memorizing being one of them...

I just watched that video with the audio muted, and I must say it was hilarious!

I looked for the most obviously non-memorized one (it seems like an impossible to memorize piece!) ;-)

I agree that the point is that she doesn't have it memorized, but the incorrect use of the word "sight-reading" bugs me, because it makes for unclear communication.

In a recent recital, one performer said that they were sight-reading for their performance, and was congratulated on this. I'm still not sure if the performer meant s/he hadn't practiced and could play so well at first sight of the music, or simply that s/he hadn't memorized. Nor am I sure if the complimenters were complimenting on the basis of playing so well at first sight of the music, or complimenting the ability to play while reading rather than having to memorize to compensate for poor reading skills.

If people used the word sight-read accurately, this type of confusion wouldn't occur.

Even for those of use who mostly read music rather than memorizing, maintenance of repertoire (non-memorized) is an issue. There are many pieces where I think I've learned them, present them successfully at my lesson, and then go back a few months later to play them just for enjoyment, and discover that I hadn't really learned them as solidly as I thought.

I haven't yet figured out quite what to do about this. I suspect that the answer is "lots more slow and deliberate practice, with most time and effort spent on the difficult parts."

But just as for the memorizers, I find even for pieces (which I read) where my ability stays more constant over longer gaps of time, that they still benefit from periodic refreshing.

The pieces that I can play after a long hiatus with almost no deterioration, those are the ones that make me really happy that I can really play them.

As for what I like to keep: anything by Bach. All of the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook that I've learned (mostly minuets). All of the Schumann Album for the Young that I've learned (right now I think this is only two pieces). All of the Khachaturian I've learned (one piece so far ). Satie Gymnopedie I and Gnossienne I.

I don't actually have all of these up to par right now, but they're the pieces I like to come back to again and again and play for pure enjoyment.

Fur Elise will go on this list once I fully learn it, as will Chopin's Prelude in E minor Op. 28 No. 4. Also the rest of Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes.

Pieces I'm ambivalent about: the canonical dramatic pieces for my level, like Heller's Avalanche and Burgmuller's Ballade. The two Beethoven Sonatinas I've learned. I sort of feel like I ought to be able to play these at the drop of a hat, and they've deteriorated. But I don't actually turn to them when I'm wondering "what shall I play for pleasure."

I also enjoy reading through the Clementi Sonatinas, but I don't feel any burning desire to get them actually up to performance standard.

I don't know if this says something more about my musical taste, or about my pianistic abilities (or lack of same).

Also, sight-reading could mean either sight-playing, or sight-singing and doesn't have to imply "prima vista", at least that's what I understood it to mean. My teacher says "prima vista" when he specifically means that and he says that he almost never has to do that as even when he is brought in to accompany a vocalist, he is given a few minutes to study the piece, try out fingerings etc before he starts playing the piece. I was mostly complaining about the whole memorization+repertoire requirement implied by "maintaining repertoire". My teacher is very happy that I am working on my sight-reading such that I am always reading the piece and not looking at my fingers while playing (but then, I'm not doing octave jumps yet...). Keeping a piece "familiar" so one can play it while reading the score (sight-reading in my parlance ;-)) is "repertoire maintenance" for me!

No, I don't keep repertoire. As a beginner, my pieces are rather simple. And when I practise them until it sounds good, I hear them already too much and I get bored by the tune.

Also it is for me difficult to maintain, as pieces tend to sound worse gradually over time once learned until I relearn the piece for a bit again. Then I rather choose to learn something new then relearning.

However, some pieces are worth exploring a longer period, because they are complex and every time I play them I hear something new or I could express something different in the music.

The dark side is that I don't have repertoire to play, maybe one or two pieces, until I am good enough to play pieces that are worth exploring a lifetime.

My teacher says I'm different at this point than most other people. Most people just want to play piano, heh. And therefore they want to have a bigger repertoire.

So far I've kept almost nothing in repertoire. For me it doesn't seem worth it to trade valuable practice hours to keep beginner and intermediate repertoire alive. I always think that if I use that time for improving my abilities at the bench, it will be that much sooner that I can graduate to more complex and interesting music.

I do understand that my attitude sounds a bit like chasing after a moving target, and I guess it is to some extent. When I've talked to my teacher about it she has always said "well, if you still want to play it a year from now, you will be that much more skilled and can pick it back up that much quicker... but you can't pick up something you haven't started working on or don't have the skills for yet."

I do play a handful of jazz standards just because I enjoy playing them when I come home in the evening. But I don't consider them part of my training, except as an exercise in daily reading, and I don't keep any one of them going for very long.

Lots of room for different ways to handle this for every individual IMO.

mom3gram, I would like to impress you, but please be reminded, that the tunes/exercises are on average are 8 measures long in Book one of Fletcher piano Book 1 - so very, very tiny exercises/tunes.



Someone commented that playing tunes/exercises that you know (review) doesn't move you forward as opposed to learning something new - challenge you.

I totally agree with that statment.

As a beginner, it is challenging to always be learning new tunes.

It is awesome to sit down day or night and just place my fingers on the piano keys and play page by page what I have learned/struggled through for the last 6 months learning Book 1.

There is a benefit in playing in this fashion because I try to play without mistakes, play it musically as if I was playing a mini concert - the pressure to try to do my best - not fooling around.

I never seem to tire playing stuff I have learned because I am always trying to play pp which is difficult for me to do -
playing very softly and evenly on an acoustical piano.

Additionally, I am working my way slowly through Book 2 a bit every day and I have at least 6 or 7 books to work my way through so lot of piano playing ahead of my - note by note.

Last summer I picked 5 pieces to "bring back from the dead". I came up with a schedule that involved concentrating on two at a time. All of the pieces where things I had "learned" before. The object was to go to a summer music camp with a bunch of pieces I could get help on. I followed the schedule for about three months.

Surprisingly, it worked. I did not memorize them, at least not all of them. There are passages in each that I have to memorize in order to play them, but I play from the music, which is a big plus at my age. Playing from memory is very frustrating for me, and what's the point in being frustrated about something that is supposed to be fun or relaxing or cathartic (fill in your favorite reason for playing).

When I started lessons again in August I stopped playing the 5 pieces, instead concentrating on new things. But this past weekend I got out two of the pieces and played through them. I made mistakes, of course, but I surprised myself again with how much I remembered.

So I think it is a long-term goal. Each time you relearn a piece it is a little easier. After a few iterations of bringing something back to playable condition I bet you could pick it up at any time and play it with little difficulty.

So I plan to pick the best and most enjoyable pieces that I have studied and bring them back from the dead occasionally. It is a lot of fun to just be able to sit down and play some old pieces that you enjoy.

Just to be complete, here are the 5 pieces from last summer:
Bach Prelude and Fugue X from WTC#1
Clementi Sonata Opus 7 #3 - first movement
Mendelssohn Song Without Words opus 53 #5
Schubert Impromptu Opus 140 #2
Khachaturian Toccata

I'll probably try to keep all these except the Clementi alive...

Sam

I like the 20% time slice suggestion, offered in the book The Musician's Way.

20% on old material
40% on new material
20% on technique
20% on sightreading, theory, musicianship

Whatever old pieces a person can maintain in that 20% is what is worth keeping. When using those slices, each individual practice session may vary greatly. For example, when a performance date is coming up, there isn't much time for starting anything new because the focus is polishing the performance pieces.

Like most things in music, it is just an idea. Others may have other ideas and suggestions. There is rarely a right or wrong answer. Each person can look at the suggestions, experiment, and find what works best for them.

I keep my repertoire manageable by limiting it to my favorites. The rest of the stuff I tend to forget but in a way, that's even better. This is because if I want to re-learn a tune, I will, but now I'll do it with newly updated melodies in my head and hopefully better playing skills and abilities.

It can be fun to re-discover a piece and update it from time to time. Even the pieces that I do keep in my repertoire get tweaked here and there on an ongoing basis so for me at least, not maintaining a huge playlist is no big deal.

I can lose a piece fairly quickly if I don't 'maintain' it but like I said, it can be more fun taking a new path each time. This way you don't create a trail!

I'm still working out what my repertoire is. But my pop/rock material isn't so hard to keep in mind. I have about 60 odd songs in my folder of lyrics with chords. I select songs that I think I can master and which might help me learn something new.

I work backwards and forwards through the book and start in the middle etc as the mood takes me. Things I struggle with I leave for a while and come back to waiting for when I've improved enough to play it. I've tossed out about a dozen or so that I decide against persevering with.

I've been blessed since childhood with an excellent memory for melody so don't have trouble remembering the 'tunes' and as pop songs they are pretty well known anyway.