Today’s post heralds the start of a new series on my blog: Teaching Observations. These posts will include random teaching related topics which might be of interest to other teachers, students, or piano lovers.

I hear and work with a wide variety of piano students. They are both in the UK and abroad. Some are younger, others are older. There are those who play for fun. I also work with university music undergraduates and postgraduates, and talented students hoping to become professional musicians.

Over the past six months, I’ve observed and worked with more students than usual. Time for reflection is most important when teaching. I constantly mull over piano repertoire. How can I find absorbing music for my students? How can I select repertoire which suits them and their current requirements?

At a university (if majoring in music) and at a music conservatoire, students have yearly exams. At Junior Guildhall School of Music, ‘Performance Platforms’ for those on the Music Course last around ten minutes. The repertoire is free-choice. Performances are quite formal affairs taken in a recital hall. My one undergraduate Guildhall School student’s piano exams have more stringent regulations. For the first-year undergraduate degree course, we prepared two recitals. The exams are a 30-minute exam and a 40-minute exam. Both have specific criteria. These include two classical sonatas, two preludes and fugues, several concert studies, and a contemporary work. At Royal Holloway university, students have differing recital lengths depending on the degree: undergraduates usually perform for 15/20 minutes at the end of the year, whereas the Master’s degree performance programme is, as one might expect, more demanding requiring two examinations: a 30-minute and 50-minute programme. One criterion remains the same for all: students must not repeat repertoire.

Finding suitable repertoire, or piano works that harmoniously complement each other yet are also well within a student’s grasp, is a challenge. And on top of this, I have to ensure students enjoy all the pieces they study, which I believe is a prerequisite. Like many teachers, a fair amount of my time is spent scouring exam syllabuses, online libraries, and, occasionally, online forums, because I like to come up with unusual choices alongside the expected ‘classics’.

This brings me to a particular bête noire; photocopies. Piano students really do love to photocopy their music. Photocopied scores are cheap, they are useful for quickly examining music, and purchasing published music can be costly. I expect we all peruse excellent sites like the Petrucci Music Library (IMSLP) which offer a gargantuan selection of wonderful music and all at our fingertips. But these online scores, which are ripe for photocopying, can be littered with errors, poor fingering suggestions, and a whole host of other issues.

I want to highlight the misuse of photocopies because several pupils have recently encountered unexpected difficulties whilst playing from their photocopied music. Photocopies aren’t just a nuisance, they used to be illegal in certain circumstances such as use in various examinations, festivals, and competitions. Some establishments are loosening their rules here probably due to the rise and popularity of online performances, but irrespective of this, photocopied music presents problems for those using it. It’s also worth noting that where the composer has not yet been dead for 70 years (and sometimes longer) scores are still in copyright, therefore copying their music, in this case, is illegal.

During a recent book tour, most students turned up for their class with a neat file containing all their scores. Inside the file, each piece was photocopied and every page was generously housed in a clear plastic sleeve. This makes the score unusable when trying to write on it. You can take the music out, but it’s distracting. Far worse, when lights shine on these plastic sleeves at a particular angle during a performance, the music suddenly becomes unreadable. The lights can reflect off the sleeves, making it impossible to read the music at certain times. This problem also rears its head where I teach too. Not long ago, a couple of students experienced this issue during a concert. It caused a momentary breakdown and heightened their anxiety and nerves. Students carefully line up five or six pages of photocopied music on the music desk. This is perhaps even more upsetting. They don’t fasten them together. Each page unceremoniously falls off during a play-through. Even more irritating can be finding the copied pages are in the wrong order!

Photocopies are fine for limited use but I think that they are not suitable for long-term study. It’s up to teachers to guide students as to which score to obtain – we all have our favourites. A bone fide score will contain helpful fingerings. It will also include other musical markings. This is the case if the publisher is reputable and prints good-quality scores. Many editions, especially Urtext editions, offer interesting information about the piece. They provide its context in the composer’s output. These editions also suggest ornament realisations. Additionally, relevant composer reworkings of the original score are included.

Some like to use their tablet to read and store music instead of a traditional score. I tried this on a few occasions but I found out quickly that I prefer the physical score. It’s easier to read. Generally, tablets are nicely set up for score reading and most are reliable. However, I attended two concerts a few years ago and in both instances, the use of tablets seriously ‘let down’ the (renowned) pianists. They had to leave the stage mid-concert to retrieve their physical scores and find page-turners.

Here are a few basic suggestions for those unable to purchase music:

• Explore the library. Libraries don’t always offer a good selection but, as a student, I ‘lived’ in my local library. They had a great collection of all types of music providing a never-ending stream of sight-reading for me. It’s not a good idea to annotate library scores, but they can be beneficial.
• If you are a teacher, might you consider allowing a student to borrow scores? This way, they can at least enjoy the benefits of some editions and play from a book as opposed to using photocopies. I tend to loan out my scores quite frequently.
• Second-hand music can be a blessing. Copious online sites are offering second-hand scores which are usually much cheaper than new ones. If this is of interest, check out Preloved.co.uk, handcockandmonksmusic.co.uk, abeBooks.co.uk, and, eBay.
• Instigate a ‘score swap’. If students don’t need their scores anymore, they might consider swapping them. They can swap scores with fellow students if they don’t want to keep them.
• It’s worth watching out for score ‘sales’ at shops. They occur from time to time and sometimes stores offer up to 25% reductions. Take a look at online sites such as Musicroom and Presto Music – they both feature regular sales.
• If you can locate an antique bookshop, they can contain a treasure trove of unknown music and unknown composers. They are worth exploring for those who want to discover something different. These scores are invariably inexpensive but you are purchasing a piece of history.

In my opinion, scores are objects of beauty and they become even more attractive when adorned with personal annotations.

I have yet to mention another pressing issue. I feel passionately about this. Publishers, authors, and composers need our support. If music is obtained for free, many publishers will eventually suffer financially. They will find it increasingly difficult to print new or more music. Publishers must do this to continue building and expanding their libraries. Authors and composers will suffer a similar fate as a result of this trend, too.

Music study can be expensive and funding is a problem for many a student. Once you decide to study the piano, you should prioritise acquiring piano scores. This is crucial for those who take their playing seriously.