Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum How many pieces do you learn a year?

Aproximately, how many pieces do you learn a year? Maybe not to performance standard, but those who are assigned by your teacher and that you´ve learned from beginning to end, and can play them decently?

I assume it depends on what level one is, because at beginner level one might be learning a song or more per week, but not so at intermediate or early advanced. It would be good to know your current level or time learning as well, to have as reference.

Hmmm... every year I compile all the recordings I've done onto a CD to hand out to my hapless relatives. The last couple of years I've had around 12-14 pieces on each CD. There may have been another couple of pieces that I started but put aside because they proved too challenging, or that I didn't get up to a level I felt happy about recording.

I'd say I was at the early intermediate level, but I don't play classical music so it's hard to get an accurate gauge.

That's like asking "how big is a dog?" Totally depends on the length and level of the piece. Since February I've learned two medium lenght grade 8+ and one grade 7 piece. I guess that works out to about 4 "big" (for me) pices a year (plus older ones on life support or being polished). Right now I'm looking for my next "big" piece.

As many as I can.
Actually I learned a Ginastera piece last week...so I 'd say at least one a week.

rada

When I finished up playing clasically, I learned very few new pieces a year. I would have, maybe 3 on the go at a time, and each would take months to master. I relied heavily on muscle memory.

Now I'm trying to awaken my 'thinking' skills: improvising, sight reading, playing by ear. I have some longer-term projects, but apart from that, I devour music. I generally get through 2-3 pieces in a week. Do it, shelve it, move on.

.4-5 recital quality pieces..(within my abilities)

.10 or so original compositions which usually get consolodated into 2-3 full pieces.

.A bunch of melodic *sprouts* that I will retain and expand upon over time.

.Oh yeah, some real junk too!

You've been holding out on us, hunky. I want to hear these compositions of yours.

Hmm, at least 4 for the recital and maybe 3 more and I slowly forget about them.

Serge

I've only been playing for about 2 or 3 years so its difficult to say, but based on the last 12 months I tend to focus my efforts on 3 or 4 pieces that I know will be a bit of a challenge, but also learn maybe 5-10 other smaller pieces to keep things interesting.

I also like to attempt a piece that is a stupidly optimistic challenge requiring Gyro-esque levels of commitment to plough through. Daunting as it may seem, I find that if I can keep coming back to it every few weeks/months it is a good way of measuring progress and its also a great morale booster when you master a particularly difficult section.

I'm roughly intermediate level, playing mostly classical music. For reference, I am currently starting on the easier Chopin Preludes.

Currently, I'm working on a Kuhlau Sonatina - First and second movement, Bach Prelude (from Little Fugues), Bach Fugue (from Little Fugues), Chopin Prelude, an etude by Concone, and a prelude by Gillock.

Some pieces will only take a couple of weeks, most a month or two. The Sonatina will take longer for all three movements - probably close to 3 - 4 months. I almost always am working through 4 - 6 books like this.

So what does that come to? I'd be surprised if it was less than 40 pieces or sonatina movements a year.

I'm not keeping repertoire up, that would probably decrease the number of pieces I learn in a years time. Also, a lot of these pieces are not to performance level, especially many of the Concone and Gillock pieces.

Rich

Snow starts to fly in New Hampshire about this time of year. I'll be putting the motorcycles away and have picked 3 or 4 serious piano songs for the long winter's night. But I also mix in a half-dozen stupid songs as a "morale booster." For example, I'm working on a synthesizer arrangment of a song by the esteemed composer Lady Gaga, that I expect to master in a couple of hours (versus months and months for a "serious song"). After a week or so of annoying everyone with that, I go back to the real piano pieces.

I should add that I intend to relearn several half-learned (or forgotten) songs from last winter. This can be a morale builder as well because the pieces that defeated me last winter often are easier to master this year.

Not necessarily the counts, and I'm not sure I'll have anything for recitals, but the rest sounds remarkably like me. At least a couple times a week I just improv around with a few chords. Sometimes it's a waste of time and other times snippets pop up that get linked and expanded into a song.

Sometimes a whole song will spring forth from these meanderings. I had a sparse several years but it seems to be happening again now that I'm learning more new songs... ~ 15 in the past year.

It takes me a while to perfect a piece, mostly due to time limitations. I'll learn one or two big pieces per year, and a handful of smaller pieces as well. This year it's been one big piece and two or three smaller pieces. I was gung-ho at the beginning of the year and doing great, but I got pregnant and lost a lot of energy in the spring. Now I'm happy if I spend time at the piano (and am seriously considering counting practicing piano with my 5 year old as my own piano practicing time).

I'd say about five or six shorter pieces (2 to 3 or maybe 4 pages). But, I don't have a lot of time at the piano.

Learned from scratch:
Mendelssohn op. 19, nos. 2, 4, 6.
Schumann op. 15, nos. 4, 7, 8 (although 8 is still in the learning process)

Cleaning up from having known before:
Schumann op. 15, no. 1
Chopin op. 28, nos. 15, 20
Satie Quatre Preludes and Trois Gnossiennes

Worked on, but not satisfied:
Clementi Sonatina op. 36, no. 1 (first two movements were good, third was half-baked)
Schumann, op. 15, nos. 2, 6
Chopin, there were a couple of Mazurkas and a few Nocturnes (maybe next year)

It really depends. I mostly go with 2 - 3 big pieces with my teacher, usually at my technical limits, which I work on for quite a long time. Apart from them I work on some smaller ones by myself. If I have time, even around 10 smaller pieces, but this year it was like 3 or something.

I am curious what will happen next year - due to the competition I became pretty serious, beginning with playing my scales and arpeggios regularly, to doing more and more diligently. ;-)

M.