I’ve been musing on the topic of students learning and preparing a small amount of repertoire thoroughly as opposed to studying a much larger number of pieces in a perhaps more ‘laid-back’ fashion.
This is a perennial subject, especially amongst adult returners, and is often quite a controversial issue. A common question in my Facebook Group, which is set up solely for adult pianists, is: ‘how many pieces is too many to learn at once’. There are various schools of thought here, as you might imagine, with numerous teachers and students espousing the benefits of learning a larger collection of pieces over, say, a year’s period. It’s better for sight-reading, they say, it helps students become more stylistically aware, and it’s more fun. I can see the attraction: some students are easily bored and feel the need to keep changing their repertoire, discover new composers, explore new technical and musical challenges and so on. There is no right or wrong approach. Whatever you feel suits your level of playing and level of involvement will probably dictate on which side of the fence your preferences lie.
In the end, it all depends on what you want to achieve from your piano playing. Those who are happy to plod along at the same level, improving a little, but still keeping themselves engaged in their playing, enjoying the journey, constantly discovering new composers, styles and genres, will probably be happy to learn in a more relaxed manner. It does, after all, emphasise the concept of enjoyment and learning for fun.
But then there are others who come for lessons with the sole purpose of real improvement and nothing else will do. For them, the idea of learning a large pile of music quickly simply won’t be helpful or engaging at all. Why not? Because the lack of thorough study and break down of any piano piece generally leads to ‘surface’ playing at best, and, as many know, this type of playing is what tends to come ‘a cropper’ in a stressful performance situation.
Students learning a broader cohort of works generally display tendencies to race through them at break-neck speed, constantly moving on, and possibly not ‘nailing’ a piece of music as well as they might. If they took more time, slowed down and studied a few pieces in detail, providing they also work with a good teacher, then their careful practice should eventually reap rewards. Is it more fun? Maybe not. Will they see a difference in their playing after consistent work? Yes, they definitely should. Learning to play the piano is a hard graft for most of us and the ‘fun’ really begins when we can play our pieces competently. What does that mean? For me as a teacher, it’s when a student is able to play a work from the beginning to the end at the correct speed with few errors and no hesitations. But for many, that, in itself, is a real challenge.
This brings us to the subject of piano exams, where students must be able to perform three or four pieces satisfactorily to achieve a pass. Teachers, parents and students bemoan that the security needed to ‘perform’ these pieces, for whatever grade, and irrespective of whether for online or face-to-face exams, demands that most students study and practice them for a long period of time, often a year or more. This can create apparent boredom for both the student and the teacher.
What if we look at this another way? If students are encouraged to look into their three or four chosen exam pieces in much greater detail, they are coached effectively regarding notes and rhythmic grasp and given a proper weekly practice plan, and this was accompanied by engaging information about the composer and their musical style, as well as plenty of listening to their music, stories about their life and, eventually shown why a highly focused approach makes all the difference during preparation, then we might find a changed outcome.
When a pupil suddenly realises that they can now ‘play’ that once tricky piece with confidence and, when they can play a piece ‘easily’, understand what they have learned from the process and subsequently know how they can apply these skills when learning other repertoire, they may view the ‘dull’ and protracted practice and preparation as a necessary evil because they love the outcome. Incidentally, I have a student who has just taken his Grade 7 ABRSM piano exam, and he had been learning the pieces for over 2 years! This might be considered a less than ideal use of lesson time, but for him, passing was a real achievement, and he was delighted with the result. He was also pleased to be able to play four pieces confidently all the way through without many errors.
In this case, the examination ‘process’ which many tout as not a good way to learn because it’s simply not expansive enough, could be redefined and, with concentrated work, viewed as a method used to provide a more comprehensive grounding for technical piano study. After all, surely it’s better to be able to enjoy playing three or four pieces securely and pretty accurately as opposed to ‘hacking’ or stumbling hesitantly through a large number?
If I had a pound for every time that I’ve heard adult players especially say with great sadness that they have never been shown how to practice properly and therefore can’t play one piece without errors, I’d be rich! As with all my ‘Teaching Observations’ posts, there are many subjects on which to muse when teaching the piano, but this is definitely one of the most ubiquitous.
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Top image: a selection of pedagogical piano music written by various Hungarian composers which I recently acquired in Budapest.
