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Thank you very much Maddie!

Hi,

I've also been playing for a year now and wanted to share my experience as well, especially in the light of this
discussion of progressing step my step vs using more advanced repertoire in order to boost the technique.
I took the second path, trying to play pieces far more difficult than I can handle. I didn't do that on purpose, I just really liked them.
The results?

* VERY slow progress. Hardly noticeable over 1-3 weeks periods. The points in time where I can stop and look proudly at what I achieved are few. This is not a smooth sailing for me whatsoever.
* poor sense of timing. I have a good sense of rhythm, but the lack of metronome practice is showing in the unevenness of my playing. It is hard to play with a metronome when you cannot play the piece, even at a very slow tempo.
* dynamics are not as good as they could be because I'm struggling to actually play the notes themselves.
* I can't really sight read these pieces. Not even close. Only reading, and not in real time. My reading ability is quite poor.
* I practically have no repertoire. There are very few pieces I managed to complete.
* I encountered many techniques and situations and had to analyze hand motions to get them done and I can feel my hands can do a lot more than they could a year ago.
* I got to play pieces I really really like.

I wouldn't want to bash my method of learning, as other people may have better results with it. This is only MY experience. Perhaps at my age (mid 30's) I'm not the fast learner I used to be.
Looking back, I did try the easier pieces at the beginning, but they were extremely boring, plus my technique was a lot worse so I felt the need to focus on the motions and not on the written page.
I always record myself, so I'm aware of all the issues, and now that I know that even 'beginner' pieces can sound very musical, I'm going to try filling all the gaps.
Here's a video to illustrate what I just wrote (sorry for the poor quality). I cannot really play any piece to the level of recording, this reinforces my point.



Thanks Tim for sharing your experience. It is very inspiring.

I think you are doing very well after only one year. Your hand/wrist position looks good to me and your playing flows well with a good caressing touch - you don't prod, like a lot of beginners. I still find myself prodding sometimes! I can relate to what you say about early beginner pieces being boring and childish, over-simple. I too have done the over-reach thing, but it is different in my case because I was playing at about grade 3-4 level in my early twenties and am now trying to recover to that point at age 65. If you think learning in your thirties is slow compared with children and teens, you ain't seen nothin' yet! I can recover some of the pieces I played back then quite well because I learned them when young, but new repertoire is way behind that in time taken to assimilate. i have a quick mind but my short term memory is nothing like it was and my knuckles and wrists are becoming arthritic. I want to encourage you to keep those fingers moving. Don't be discouraged and give up now then regret it in your senior years and take it up again like me! There are quite a few of us seniors and retirees on this forum returning or just beginning and it is not easy. I would like to suggest some pieces I have just discovered in a new book I bought off Amazon and some older books I got at a 2nd hand sale. These are not so demanding yet very satisfying. I feel much better since I started these new books.
The new one is a collection of original pieces by a broad range of classical composers I think might suit you. The book is called:
"Classics Alive! Compiled and edited by Jane Magrath. Late elementary to Early Intermediate works by 12 important composers of Standard Teaching Literature."
From Amazon USA.

The older books may be out of print now but one is Haydn, 15 of his easiest piano pieces, an Alfred publication. These are interesting but playable.
The other books two are Australian similar in style to the Jane Magrath and one is German, Chopin for Young People, in other words his easier preludes, mazurkas and waltzes, something we both can aspire to in 6-12 months' time perhaps.

Maybe you could look for some books aimed at the late beginner early intermediate level, stick to slower pieces with simpler key signatures for now and develop technique and dynamics and move on from there, like I am trying to do. You sounded very discouraged, please don't be.

Best wishes. Stay positive.

First of all, thank you for your kind comments both here and on YouTube.

While I do think you play very well, I also like to think that "my" method of learning to play addresses the concerns that you have regarding your own ways of learning.

There is plenty of material that is very pleasant, even though it's aimed at beginners. Some books that come to mind:

Bartók Mikrokosmos, For Children. You've probably read enough about Mikrokosmos, but his For Children is great as well, and definitely not just for children, as the title suggests.
Kabalevsky Op. 39. Very fun album.
Dunhill 'First Year Pieces / Swinstead 'Work and Play' The ABRSM has published a bundle of these two books, and they're amazing, The music is simple, but very mature and beautiful. Definitely something with which you can work on your expression.
Gurlitt. His Op. 117 is great, but kind of boring. His Op. 101 and 140 are great, and not boring. Very charming character pieces, not unlike Burgmüller Op. 100 (which I also recommend).
Boyle's In Times Past is another book for beginners which I can recommend. The pieces are very nostalgic, there's lots of room for expression.
Grechaninov is another composer who wrote great material for beginners. Check out his Op. 98 and Op. 123.
Lastly, I really like Tansman. He's written some great material for beginners which is, again, not at all childish. Happy Time (3 books) and For Children (4 books) are just great.

Maddie - thank you for the kind words and the music references!
I'm not really discouraged, just very critical about my playing. Several months ago I wasn't even sure I'll be able to continue playing because I kept injuring my hands, but now I have more confidence as things got more stable and I learned how to correct motions that causes pain and catch mistakes before they become injuries.

Tim - this is exactly what I thought when I read your posts. It was like "here's all the things I haven't done and should have". Bottom line is I could take all your recordings and pile them into a playlist and just sit, listen and enjoy. It doesn't make much difference if they are considered 'easy', it's how you play them that make the difference. Already got myself a copy of Mikrokosmos, let's see how that goes :-)

The Quantity Trap

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in this thread. The main reason for this has been my recent bout of absolute demotivation. I’ve talked about this plenty already in this thread, so I will not elaborate too much on it, though there is one point which I do think is interesting.

During these periods of demotivation I can’t even force myself to sit behind the piano. The rare moment I can force myself to sit down, whatever I get out of my piano is just not good. I’m at peace with just accepting that practicing the wrong thing is more harmful than not practicing at all, which is why I ended up with 3 weeks of barely playing. Even normal piano stuff that I usually enjoy, like listening to performances or talking about it here or at other places, just can’t hold my interest.

Now, the thing I find interesting is the final few days of my hiatus. I still can’t get myself to sit down and play, but my mind does start wandering in the direction of my 88 keys. I start analysing how I practiced before, and how I think this should change. I’ve noticed this happening every time I lose motivation; whenever I restart my playing my practice routine is vastly different from before.

I have now been back to practicing since Saturday, and the main thing that has changed is my view at quantity vs quality. Back in October, Moo here on Pianoworld warned me about not getting too focused on just the quantity of what I learn. I thought I didn’t back then, but now I’m certain Moo had a very valid point here.

My thought process was good back then; have a large quantity of pieces to expose yourself to many different concepts. Diversify. To try and explain my thought process here, I’ll use an analogy a Reddit user (Yeargdribble) often uses to demonstrate the point of diversifying your practice.

He states that, if you practice just one or two pieces every day for an hour, you end up pouring water into an already filled cup. The time that you pour into practicing has little effect, for there’s only so much information you can retain overnight (there’s only so much water that the cup can hold). Where I went wrong is that I filled lots of cups, which all could be retained overnight, but I filled most cups not even halfway. In other words, I stopped practicing a piece for the day when there was still plenty of progress to be made.

This had a few results. The progress in terms of days practiced was slower than it needed to be. There was a big stack of books I had to plough through every day, which became very hard to do on a day where things weren’t going that well. Progress through the books was slow; something that’s very motivating to me is finishing a book. And lastly, I designated 10-15 minutes per piece, which limited me when a piece needed more time.

An important thought to keep in mind when learning to play this instrument is this. ‘It takes as long as it has to take.’ This is something that I didn’t keep in mind when learning my pieces.

What has changed?

The number of books that I practice daily has been more than halved. From 12-15 books to 6 books. I practice one book from every major time period (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th Century), and two additional books from which I (re)learn a repertoire piece.

Instead of aiming for 10 minutes per piece / per book, I’m now practicing one book per 30-minute-session, and I spend as much time as I need on that certain book. This pretty much comes down to two pieces of music per book. I’ve noticed that it’s easier to stay motivated when sitting down, as I don’t have to work through a stack of 3 books every time. I check how much time I’ve left less often; I just stop practicing when my concentration starts to crumble. As said previously, this method allows me to spend the amount of time every piece needs. Be it 5 minutes for a piece I’m nearly done with or 20 minutes for a piece I’ve just started on. This feels like a much healthier approach, both mentally and for improving at the piano.

This has also lead to me practicing material that’s more suited for me right now. When I had the big old stack, I often found myself practicing material that was probably slightly too hard. Since I’ve cut most of that material, it seems to me that my practice time is better spent, even if I practice 30 minutes to an hour less each day.

I’m now practicing the following material:

Baroque: Türk 60 Pieces for the Aspiring Pianist. Yes, that’s a book from the Classical era, but it seems to me like it’s a good preparation for Baroque music. I noticed that Baroque music tripped me up more than I’d like to admit, which is why I’ve decided to give myself a bit of extra time before trying to learn it again.

Classical: Lynes Analytical Sonatinas Op. 39. Sonatinas are just so great for improving. Very structured pieces, really teaches you a thing or two about accompaniment.

Romantic: Swinstead Work & Play. A book very much on the easy side for me right now, which isn’t an issue. Helps me train my reading and expression. Since I’m rapidly working my way through this book, I’ll soon complete it (which gives a motivation boost) and pick something new (which is quite motivational as well). The next book, I’ve already decided, will be Satie’s children’s albums. I’ve played them previously, but didn’t get from it what I could.

20th Century: Bartók Mikrokosmos Book 3. Can’t live without my Bartók. The third book is just perfect in terms of difficulty for me right now. My love for his music is getting into unhealthy territory anyway, so this was an easy pick.

The last two books are two repertoire pieces. ‘Sad Autumn’ by Rybicki and ‘Song of the Knife-Grinder’ by Boyle.

I’m very keen to find out how this new way of practicing will turn out. Will it be as beneficial as I now think it will be, or does it feel so good because it’s new? I’ll keep you up to date.

Hi Tim,

What you describe is not uncommon. I've seen this happen with professional musicians as well. In my opinion, this is not really demotivation. It is being fed up with the same 'stuff'. It's like eating something you really like for ten days in a row. I bet that after these ten days (if not much sooner) you wouldn't really crave that food.
In your case, it is the self immersion in piano music and classical music (I could be wrong but I concluded that based on the details you provided). You love music, and if you're like me, you like it to the point that listening is not enough and you want to experience it in a deeper, more intimate way by playing it yourself and creating it. You don't suddenly cease to like it. It's your brain telling you - "I've had enough of this stuff for while. let me do some other things.". Then you kinda forget about it for a while and let go, and naturally the appetite returns.

My suggestion is the following:
1. Always remind yourself why you like music, and that you can enjoy it even if you don't play. Your affinity to music comes naturally and you don't need to actively fuel it and motivate yourself.
2. Listen to other genres - Jazz, rock, pop, whatever. Every genre has its qualities that you can enjoy and get inspiration from. After listening to other genres, classical music will sound refreshing again.
3. listen to other instruments. It is very refreshing. I've been playing guitar for ~16 years and used to mostly listen to music containing some kind of guitar. I missed out a lot that way, even though it spanned many genres. And again, the piano will sound refreshing and different after that.
4. Don't listen to music all day long. I used to have music in my ears from the moment I woke up until I fell asleep. I now pick carefully my listening time. I'd only listen when I can put enough attention into the listening. Not as a background, and not while working. As a result, my ears are not as tired, and the listening is more focused and enjoyable.

I hope this helps

I think enthusiasm and motivation goes up and down in waves naturally. I expected that as u improved you have encountered this problem as pieces take longer to learn well so a change in your practice is sensible. Tbh I actually spend a very large proportion of my practice picking up random books and playing and I gave up with scales and arpeggios years ago. I’m not sure in depth analysis and ‘quality’ practice is necessarily better, for me it can ruin the enjoyment. Gl

Ido, that's very thoughtful advice and your explanation of why and how things happen in our heads makes a lot of sense. I especially like your advice to broaden my horizon a bit. I don't need to motivate myself at the moment (I'm back to practising every day!), but it's fun to listen to new music anyway,

Moo, I'm very much with you on the scales and arpeggios, those just take all the fun out for me. My teacher told me to be more mindful of my scales and use a slightly different technique. I have no problem with practising this now because there is a clear goal and reason. But just sitting down and practising scales for 30 minutes? That's not for me.

It might be an idea to do the scale and arpeggio of the piece you are playing to try and link it in with the pieces. It helps to learn the keys and some technique, I just felt they were overdone. I had to learn all the scales as a child for a grade 6 exam and this was one reason I gave up - and the singing !

Moo, that's indeed what I've been trying. When I come across a key which is new to me, I'll work on getting its scale up to a reasonable tempo.

Reconsidering what to practise

“Well, gee, that sure didn’t take long”, I can almost hear you think. And no, it didn’t. I managed to practise the same material for a whopping nine days before I got bored of half of it. I don’t think I need to explain myself, but I still think it’s nice to have it written down. It’s something, after all, that I do struggle with quite a lot.

When I decided on picking one book from every major time-period, I think the thought process was pretty good. Cover all bases, make sure you don’t skip over any fundamentals, and slowly build from the ground up. Makes sense, right? Well, it does, but after giving it a bit more thought some significant downsides became clear.

Going through my material in such a structured way sets me up to work on every book start to finish, something which I always want to do. Finishing things, being able to close the last page and lay it aside, really speaks to me. This in itself presents oneself with some issues, though. Too much beautiful music has been written to make this a viable method of selecting material. Arguably, wanting to complete everything you start working on is just setting yourself up for failure. It’s something I know I have an unhealthy disposition for, so stepping away from it even provides me with a chance to work on myself.

It’s also quite unlikely that you find yourself liking everything a composer put into his or her book. Why spend weeks working on a piece of music that you don’t really like when there’s a multitude of pieces of the same level which do interest you? Both Swinstead and Lynes suffered from this problem. Swinstead wrote some good music, but after having played through Dunhill, well, it’s just not as good. And Lynes is boring beyond words. I’m not the biggest fan of Classical Sonatinas in the first place, so I’d rather pick some which I actually want to learn in the first place. Anything I don’t learn in 2018 will be sight-reading practice in 2020. Nothing will go to waste.

Lastly, and this was the real eye-opener, is the issue of Bartók’s Mikrokosmos. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Mikrokosmos and I’m happily practising it every day. But right now, it takes up my 20th-century slot in a rather permanent fashion. There’s so much 20th-century material that I want to play, which I wouldn’t be able to start on for probably the remainder of 2018, that I decided to change things a tiny bit.

Things will not change too much; I’ll still aim for a healthy balance in terms of concepts learned. I’ll still work through Türk for now, as it’s good fun and good practice for Baroque. I ditched Lynes in favour of Clementi Op. 36; the concepts in both books are similar, and Clementi’s Sonatinas are just loads better. I also ditched Swinstead, which wasn’t too bad, not too bad shouldn’t be valid criteria for selecting material. Instead, I’ve replaced it with Satie’s children’s albums for now. It’s something I’ve wanted to start working on for some time now. These three books make up the variable part of my practice routine. When I’ve learned the pieces which I wanted, I’ll not be afraid to lay the book aside and pick something I’d rather work on. This should result in having a more steady stream of material that really interests me.

As said, Mikrokosmos will be somewhat of a more permanent part of my practice routine. I’ll continually monitor the difficulty of this book, but since it takes about two weeks to get a piece up to snuff, it’s quite alright in terms of difficulty.

Lastly, I will continue to work on two pieces of repertoire at a time. I very much like this; it’s a lot less overwhelming than having to work on four or more pieces of repertoire some days. Especially considering it doesn’t really matter if you wait a few more weeks before picking up a piece of music again.

It’s been almost a month since my last update, so I thought it’d be a good time to reflect and look back on the past month and look more closely at what I do now.

Baroque

Baroque is tough. Or, more specifically, music from the Baroque is tough. I guess there was a reason Bartók recommended you first get to the fourth book of Mikrokosmos before you pick up the Anna Magdalena Notebook… I do love the music though, especially that by Bach and Scarlatti, though I’m sure there are many composers whom I haven’t discovered yet.

I am just now considering to try the Notebook again anyway; it’s been 3 months since I’ve played it, and I can tell I’ve grown as a player since then. My practice has also improved since then in the sense that I’m less inclined to crank the metronome up before I’m ready for it. I’ve gotten better at realizing when I’m in control and when I’m not in control (not hard to tell; I start guessing, playing wrong notes, playing sloppy rhythms, am not in control of my dynamics), and acting accordingly. Only when I’m in control I now turn up the metronome by 5 (I used to cheat a lot, upping it when not yet in full control, while also turning the metronome up by 10 or 20). Just adding 5 isn’t a huge difference, which makes it easier to remain in control.

Classical

Time for a confession. I don’t like Sonatinas from the Classical period. I won’t go as far to say that I hate them, but there is at least a very strong disliking going on. I’ve stopped feeling bad about not practising material from that era, and I’m sure I’ll get back to it in due time. I’d like for the material to magically become easier to learn, which probably will end up happening by improving as a player from studying other pieces.

It’s not that I dislike all music from that era, not at all. I love the big 3 (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven), and I’m sure there are many yet undiscovered by me, but that’s not material that’s suited for me right now. The Sonatinas are a bit on the hard side still, which makes it take too long to learn, and I get bored before I finish the piece. The material by Türk that I’ve practised for some months is very charming, actually. Maybe take a look at that if I’m bored…

Romantic

A superior time period for beginner’s material, though not my favourite. I’ve recently started working on two of my favourite books from the Romantic period: Burgmüller Op. 100 (25 Études) and Tchaikovsky Op. 39 (Album for the Young). I’ve gotten the green light to work on pretty much every piece from the Burgmüller, though I must confess it’s not easy to play at the indicated tempi. Again, something which will (hopefully) come with time and experience. I’m currently working on the first two pieces, La Candeur and the charming Arabesque. From the Tchaikovsky, there are only two pieces for which I’m ready now: No. 6 The Sick Doll and No. 7 The Doll’s Funeral. I really like the dark mood of these pieces, and how effective they are when played slowly also helps. No. 7 is quite hard, but I’m starting to get it down, No. 6 was surprisingly easy. I’m looking to submit these two pieces to the Quarterly Recital in November (thinking ahead!).

Burgmüller will probably stay part of my practice for some time to come, probably swapping places with Gurlitt and Streabbog every now and then. Tchaikovsky will return to the shelf in after I’m done with 7, and in its place, I’ll start looking at some Baroque material.

20th Century

My favourite time-period. Especially the case for music written east of Germany.

Right now, I’m working on the first book of Happy Time by the Polish composer Alexandre Tansman. I’ve lately fallen in love with his music, much of it I won’t be able to learn for years. To fill the black void that this leaves within, I’ve settled for his excellent beginner’s music. I’m working on some of the later pieces in the book, all ones which are very effective at a slow to moderate tempo.

Bartók doesn’t have a spot in my practice for the first time in many months. Not because I’m bored of his music, but because the second D on my piano frequently gets stuck when I play it, and Bartók really liked his lower keys. To save frustrations and the like, I’ve decided to give Bartók some rest until the piano tuner comes (early May).

Repertoire

After hardly touching the piano in February, I had a lot of catching up to do in terms of repertoire. I’ve managed to work through twelve pieces which I’d eventually like to call repertoire someday, and am as of today only three pieces behind on schedule.

I’m excited about the six pieces which only need one more revision before I get to record them. The fact that it takes seven or eight months before a piece is ‘ready’, makes the present a proverbial calm before the storm; from next month onwards, there will be one or more repertoire pieces to complete, record, and keep committed to memory every month.

I’m not quite sure about how I’ll go about the ‘keep committed to memory’ part yet. My plan right now is to use a flashcard system and use these first few months to figure out how frequently I need to play the pieces for them to stick.

I'm glad you've returned to the piano . We all develop are own music tastes. These tastes do change and often do not make much sense. I had a phase of playing Joplin now I find the music style quite repetitive. I used to play baroque as a child but I cant stand baroque music on the piano and never play it, but it sounds quite nice on a harpsichord.

See, that just means you should play some Joseph Lamb instead.

More Playing, Working on Technique, and Repertoire Building Activities

I’ve been having a pretty excitable month of piano playing since my last update. I’m noticing substantial improvements on a weekly basis, mostly with regards to being comfortable playing at a higher tempo. This is something I struggled with for over a year, and these last few weeks it’s like I’ve, quite forcefully, smashed through that barrier. Exciting times, indeed.


More Playing

I’ve had a lot of fun these last three or so weeks just playing through the material that I’m learning at that moment. At this point I’m sitting down pretty much every other day to just play through it, no metronome required. It’s just too much fun, and it gives a whole new way to measure progress. It allows me to start listening for choices of musicality much earlier on in the learning process, which makes my metronome work that much more effective.

The biggest change in musicality has been one of the last few days: I’m now starting to pay attention to voicing chords. Mainly to lift out the upper notes of said chord. It’s pretty tough still, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound a lot better.


Catching Up On Technical Excersizes

This is a subject which I’ve voiced many different opinions on in this thread alone. At first, I was certain you could get by without specifically working on your scales. Then I got convinced that it is, in fact, pretty important, but I didn’t know how to structurally work this into my practice routine. Every other month, I’d have another go at it, and I’d always jump ship after just two or three days; I never found a way to structure technical work to my liking.

That is until two weeks ago. It’s quite simple: set a goal that can easily be reached on a short-term (2-3 weeks), and keep track of the work that you do every day. My biggest mistake was, in hindsight, wanting to play things too fast. I’d start working on scales and set the goal of playing all major scales at a tempo of quarter note = 100 (with every note being an eight note). My current method is quite a bit easier to obtain: again, all major scales around the circle of fifths, but the target tempo is quarter note = 40 (playing in 8th notes).

My initial goal here is to just get all scales in my head and fingers. By refraining from speeding up too quickly, it’s also much easier to maintain a healthy playing technique when playing the scales. A tempo of quarter note = 40 is plenty slow that most of my brain can focus on my playing technique, whereas once I pushed scales past 60, it turned more and more into an “every finger for himself” kind of scenario. That, I decided, beats the entire purpose of doing technical work in the first place.

Even though I’m playing my scales very slowly, I do also notice that my focus on proper playing technique here leaks over into the practice of pieces. I’m more aware of exactly how I strike the keys, which is resulting in more evenly played runs and a more consistent sound.


Repertoire Building Activities

I’ve started working on building a repertoire back in October, and what I started on back then is now starting to get at a point where I’m happy with it.

It’s quite an easy process. After learning a piece for the first time, relearn it after a month. Relearn it again two months after that. Relearn it again three months after that. Increasing the gap between every consecutive relearning process is done to both allow myself to grow as a player to be able to play with more ease, and to (hopefully) fire my brain into keeping it stored in long-term memory. The keeping it in memory part isn’t working quite as well as I’d hoped, but I do memorize it faster every time I relearn the piece.

Then, once I’ve got a piece at a point where I’m truly happy with it, I create a flashcard and, through the power of spaced repetition, keep it at the top of my head at all times. My current sample size of one finished piece is perhaps a bit on the small side to come to any valid conclusion at this moment in time, but this one piece I have kept completely memorized for a month, with minimal work in maintaining it. Definitely something that needs monitoring and tweaking, but it’s a promising start.


Material Being Learned

It will take another two weeks before I get to complete any material that I’d like to make an initial recording of, as I want to run something by my teacher at least once before I do so. Her being on holiday until the 17th means I need to have a bit more patience. That being said, my current routine of playing through material helps a lot; I keep the material which I’ve learned fresh, without having to spend more than 1 or 2 minutes on it a day.

Baroque. I mentioned in my last update that I’d look at the Notebook for Anna Magdalena, and I did. I am, for the first time in my short piano playing career, making good progress through it as well. Exciting times. I’ve learned the first Minuet (the classic Minuet in G), and while I’m not happy with it yet, I’m sure it will be ready in time for the Bach Themed Recital. The Minuet in G Minor is also progressing nicely. When I tried learning it back in January it completely crashed and burned, whereas now I notice daily progress leading to it almost being done. I’ve also been working on an easy Aria about smoking a pipe, which is a nice little piece.

Classical. After laying aside Tansman’s Happy Time Book 1, I found myself itching for some Classical Material. Who’d have thought that would happen… Not me, that’s for sure. I picked up Hässler’s Op. 38 and learned No. 6 and No. 7. No. 7 is as good as done, and No. 6 needs just a bit more metronome work. It is especially No. 6 which made me realize I’m starting to be able to play at higher tempi. My current tempo of 8th = 100, where the right hand plays constant 16th notes, sounds very much in control. I never could control dynamics, especially playing soft at this tempo, until now.

Romantic. Burgmüller was harder than I would’ve liked, though I did anticipate this could happen. I’m optimistic about this book being within my abilities in two or three months, so while I’ve put it aside for now, I’m sure I’ll pick it up fairly soon. The Tchaikovsky went exceptionally well. Both pieces are to become repertoire, and I’ve started on relearning them for the first time yesterday.

The book from which I’m currently learning is Gurlitt’s Op. 205, Kleine Blumen. A very charming album of 12 character pieces, which reminds me in more than one way of some of the albums of Schumann (the Papillons, for example). I’m working on Nos. 1 and 2, though both need still one or two more weeks of metronome practice. Most later pieces in this book are beyond me for now, but there are a few more pieces that I’ve got my eye on.

20th Century. With all keys on my piano working properly once more, Bartók has found his place back into my practice. I’m working on the third book of Mikrokosmos, and have so far learned No. 73 (a study in sixths and triads) and No. 74 (Hungarian Matchmaking song, a study in melody and accompaniment with held notes). I’m now putting my time into No. 75, a study in triplets. I didn't have many issues with triplets in previously learned material, but in this piece triplets and 8th notes are mixed together. You don’t have to play both at the same time, but many measures have a triplet followed by two 8th notes. This makes for a very interesting sound and a very nice puzzle for the brain.

A long over-due update on summer holidays, cups of water, and an increasing amount of repertoire.

Oh boy, it has been some time since I’ve posted an update, almost 2.5 months! My lack of updates (thankfully) doesn’t come from a lack of playing, though I must admit some changes have been made. Changing things around is rather unavoidable at times; there are always things that could be done more efficiently, not to mention time may become a sparser resource in the future (as has happened to me).

The previous two months have been much of the same, really. Technique, repertoire building, and learning new pieces. Today marks the end of the first week of (my teacher’s) summer holidays, which has instigated some of the changes that I’d like to talk about today.

As I’ve mentioned, time has become a bit of an issue lately. There are too many things I must do in a day to justify me sitting behind the piano for 2.5 hours, so I’ve been forced to make amends and see if it’s possible to decrease practice time by 50% without also losing 50% progression rate. I’ll try to explain this using an analogy a user on Reddit (Yeargdribble) often makes. I’ve talked about this in my March-update as well, but I feel my understanding of it has increased since then, leading me to be able to apply it better.

Filling cups with water 2.0.

As I’ve talked about before, this analogy compares practising the piano with filling empty cups with water, where every piece that you practise represents filling a new cup. It discourages practising one piece for too long on a single day, as water poured into a full cup simply spills over; you’ll gain little to none out of that. Practising a piece for just a few minutes will likely not fill the cup, but you’ll still have new things to process when you sleep. When you sleep, the cups get emptied. It is this final stage that I’ve been thinking about lately.

Something I’ve personally noticed, and I’m sure many of you will also be familiar with this feeling, is that a piece that you practise every other day oftentimes feels better than a piece you practise every day. Meaning, when you start your practice, you feel you’ve better retained what you’ve learned during your last practice session if you let it rest for an additional day (or rather, you give it an additional night’s rest).

This translates to the cup-analogy in the following way. While you can easily fill a cup on a single day, emptying a full cup during a single night proves to be less likely. A little bit of water will be left over, how much exactly, I cannot say (20%-30% perhaps?). Immediately picking up the piece the next day may thus lead to a slight bit of inefficiency; after all, there was improvement to be had without you having to spend a single second behind your piano.

Which cups you can fully empty during a single night, and which cups have left-overs, I really can’t say. I might be able to say more on this in a few months’ time, but I suspect this remains highly personal in a variety of ways. The efficiency of practice, the relative difficulty of a piece, perhaps the number of cups that need emptying, and perhaps the quality of your night’s rest.

What I feel like I can conclude at this moment, however, is that practising a piece every other day is (often) more time-efficient than daily practice. Daily practice will be faster in terms of days to complete a piece (as long as you empty at least 50% of a cup’s content every night), but it will not be as efficient.

This is what I meant by reducing my practice time by 50% without losing an equal amount of progression rate. I haven’t reduced the amount of material I practice, I merely spread it out over two days instead of doing it all in one day. It will take longer in absolute terms of days to learn a piece, but not twice as long as you might expect, as the time spent behind the piano will likely be less.

This is also in accordance with what Reddit user Yeargdribble often states; if at all possible, don’t practise the same material every day.

While typing this, the question if taking even longer before practising some material arises. This is not something I can answer today, but I will keep it in the back of my head to remain aware of it.

Surviving the summer holidays.

What a terrible time these summer holidays are. How we are supposed to remain sane during all these weeks devoid of piano lessons, I do not know, but we will just have to soldier on. I’m at least happy that this year’s plan is a lot better than last year’s, something-something learning from past mistakes.

The biggest change to my practice routine specifically to bridge the summer holidays, is that I removed all material that contains technical challenges. If I see something that I’m not sure how to execute, I’ll just not start on it in the first place. This will likely prevent frustration and bad technique from developing. It’s also a plan with which my piano teacher agreed wholeheartedly, which is always a good sign.

What material does this leave? Mainly the type of material I learned by this time last year. Not particularly challenging technically, but great reading practice.

- Streabbog Op. 63. I learned 6 pieces from this book last year, and after practising two pieces for just two days, both are already beyond the tempo that I managed back then.
- Turk 60 Pieces for Aspiring Players (both books). Very charming, short pieces. Normally, I can’t be bothered to learn from these books when there’s so much more exciting material to choose from, which makes it all the more perfect that I now get to progress through this book. Especially great books because of how much there is to be learned from Classical material for the beginner.
- Attwood & Lynes Sonatinas. Also Classical material, Attwood I’ve learned before.
- Dunhill ‘First Year Pieces’. I adore this book, so relearning all these pieces shouldn’t be much of a punishment.

Sadly, no technical challenges means no new Bartok or really any 20th Century music, nor anything from the Baroque. I’ll have to make do.

Lastly, a lot of repertoire practice is due the coming weeks. More on that below.

Repertoire.

The pieces which I enjoy the must, I add to my list of repertoire practice. One slight issue: I like a lot of music, so even after making some cuts back in June, I still added 12 new pieces… The first repetition comes after a month, which leaves me with a lot of repertoire material to relearn for the first time. The first repetition also takes the longest, as that’s the point at which I first memorize a piece.

Below you can see the repertoire spreadsheet in its current form. The dark-green rows indicate that I keep the piece at the tip of my fingertips through spaced repetition and that I’ve recorded it and published it to YouTube. The light-green cells indicate that I’m either working on it now (if there’s no date in the right adjacent cell), or that I’ve completed that specific revision. The first revision is done a month after first learning this piece (PP column, which stands for Piano Progress), the second revision two months after completing the first, and the third three months after completing the second. Further revisions can be added if necessary (like for the Shostakovich). Every revision after the third will be due after 6 months. The non-coloured cells simply indicate when that piece is due. As you can see, I’ve got a bit of catching up to do still.

The idea behind the increased amount of time between revisions is to both allow me to grow as a player before trying again and to stimulate long-term memory storage. I’ve recently found that beyond the first revision the piece comes back exceedingly quickly; it’ll oftentimes be at the point at which I left off after 1 or 2 practice sessions (of 10 minutes).



The practice of this repertoire material is a perfect way to spend time during the holidays. It’s all stuff I’ve learned before, so the technical challenges should be minimal at best. I’ll need to run all this material by my teacher at some point, but if I’ve got another revision in the pipeline I can move on and leave it for later. At the very least, I want my teacher’s feedback before making a definitive recording of the piece.

Finally, below you'll find the three pieces of repertoire that I recorded some weeks back.







That’s it for today, and hopefully, my next update will not take as long…

Sounds like you're very organized and doing a great job - it will advance quickly and before you know it you will have a nice solid foundation. Keep it up!

Thank you, cmb! I find the videos I made a year ago very motivational in that regard, it really shows how far I've already come. To then realize that the same will be true in another year's time, well, it makes it very easy to sit down (nearly) every day.

Your dedication and as cmb13 pointed out, organization, is really impressive. Great job Tim.

Thank you, monkeeys!