Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What is important to maintain in your repertoire?

I recently found a classical piece that I knew I'd enjoy memorizing, but I knew that I wouldn't have the time to maintain it, and it would just join the other pieces that "I used to be able to play."

I have a checklist of jazz pieces. I go through the checklist, and play a few each day until I've gone through the entire list, then uncheck them all and start again. That's the theory, at least. In reality, I mostly practice the tunes that will be played at the next gig.

There is a very fine section on repertoire in Charles Cooke's 1941 classic piano self-help book, Playing the Piano for Pleasure . It is worth a look for maintaining your learned material.

I think Mazurkajoe was referring to his original post.

I agree.

I see no problem with(especially)a young person asking many questions or starting many threads. I only see a small problem if that same person replies in other threads as if he was suddenly a major expert.

Some posters may remember pianojerome who quite a few years ago asked and responded to many questions starting around when he was in 10th grade. Although he posts only infrequently now, he made so many posts back then that he is still very high on the list of most posts. I thought that even as a young person his posts were incredibly thoughtful and intelligent. He is presently studying for his doctorate in musicology at NYU and is already incredibly knowledgeable in many areas of music. A good example, in terms of the content and style of his posts, for many teens to follow, I think.

I don't pretend to be an expert. lol

If someone else is asking a question, I usually share what works for me.

I've got that book on hold on PaperBackSwap.com.

In the meantime, could you summarize what he says?

Page 104, et seq: " To retain pieces you have previously memorized, simply play them over once or twice during your practice period." not more than twice; slowly for each up-tempo; don't play the same piece on consecutive days - maybe once a week; don't be afraid to rely on the score for memory lapses. Organize these retained pieces into groups, like a collection and keep them going. As you memorize more, add to the group.

His description is lots better. He says your repertoire are like a diamond at a jewelry store. You never hear the jeweler say that he had that valuable diamond around here somewhere, but it got away from him.

I don't think most amateurs and even most professionals spend(or should spend) much time maintaining repertoire. Having a few pieces to play for others when asked is a oompletely different story. So is preparing some previously learned work(s) for a recital.

As has been stated a few times, once someone has been studying piano for more than a few years, maintaining all the pieces they've learned previously is virtually impossible and quite pointless, I think. I think the diamond analogy in Charles Cooke's book was quite silly. Probably he just wants people to avoid having nothing to play if they asked to "play something" which is far different from maintaining one's entire repertoire.

So, in your opinion Pianoloverus, about how many large-scale and smaller-scale works do you think would be good for a pianist to keep on hand at any specific time?

Cooke apparently was just a compulsive, sincerely dedicated amateur. That is a theme throughout the book.

If he really thinks one should maintain all the pieces one's learned, he's compulsive and highly impractical. Of course, his definition of maintain could be different from other people's definitions. Sounds basically impossible unless he's been learning one piece a year for the last 20 years.

If one only learned a miniscule 1/2 hour of new music a year, then after 20 years that would total 10 hours of music learned. To even play through that much music once a week requires 2 hours/day.

One can spend as much time as one wants but I'd recommend very little...only as many as would require less than 1/10th or less of your practice time each day.

Why on earth would an amateur or even a professional want to spend a significant amount of their time maintaining their repertoire? Do they expect to get a sudden invitation to play 10 recitals with 10 different programs on short notice?

My guess is that most professionals spend, other than pure technical practice, 95% of their time learning new pieces and/or reviewing specific previously learned works they are going to perform in the near future.

Yep.